RDA Incentives

Tonight I was the lone dissenting vote on a Redevelopment Agency measure that awarded backcountry.com $130,000 in lease incentive money. I figured that this blog would be a good forum for further explanation of this issue.

First of all, I am a big fan of this particular West Valley City company and am glad that they want to continue to operate within our City, but I have a small yet significant disagreement in principle to giving them public dollars just for resigning a lease. The proper role of government is not to incentivize business, nor give bail outs, or sweetheart deals. The free market is what dictates the incentives and the laws of supply and demand reward those who innovate and produce superior products. Throughout all of this the proper role of government is to help facilitate commerce. We do this by providing the necessary infrastructure to conduct business. This infrastructure comes in many forms such as roads for shipping, police for protection of property, and courts to uphold contracts.

This is the sole principle in voting no on this incentive deal, the fact that it was an incentive to continue to locate here instead of finding new ways to help facilitate their business with infrastructure. Any deal should be an investment in our community as a whole and not singled out to assist one company at one time. By contrast a better end is accomplished by investing in infrastructure to help facilitate their business. I would have been in favoring of assisting backcountry with such improvements as better access by roads, adding another loading dock, improved utilities etc. These investments help facilitate commerce, increases property values, and serves the entire community for years to come. This way also does not just put cash in a company's pocket that will be forgotten when the next lease is up.

This difference in incentivize business vs facilitating commerce is similar to the old adage of, "You give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime." We gave away a $130,000 fish that will keep them happy for today, but if instead we invested in the infrastructure of their business the company and the community would have benefited for a much longer time. I hope that any future deals that come through the redevelopment agency will seek to be long term investments in the community and not short term payoffs to keep a company content for the moment. Let us stick to the proper functions of government and look for ways to foster and facilitate business without just throwing money at it. Let us invest in the infrastructure of West Valley City and encourage businesses and residents to do the same.