Why should taxpayers be forced to make the profit margin of wealthy investors fatter? For over 4 hours on Thursday, July 26, I sat through a Louisiana State Bond Commission meeting in Senate Room A in Baton Rouge. Covington Mayor Candice Watkins and Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price defended the interests of their communities as did many local residents and myself, as candidate for the U.S. House, Louisiana District 1.
Nor Du Lac is a privately owned development planned for the intersection of I-12 and Highway 21 near Covington, Louisiana. The developers had applied to fund infrastructure of their retail shopping complex with Tax Increment Financing bonds (TIF). TIF bonds use tax revenue from sales tax or property tax to develop blighted, depressed areas. This would have required a ¾ cent additional local sales tax plus 1-cent out of the state's 4-cent state sales tax netting the developers $24 million to pay for infrastructure.
There are very few instances which justify or legitimize the use of TIF bonds---and Nor Du Lac is NOT one of them. Pray tell me why the entire St. Tammany Parish Council unanimously approved the deal? And then did not show up at the bond hearing? At one point, there was a heated exchange between the Nor Du Lac developers and State Treasurer John Kennedy.
The Louisiana State Bond Commission voted not to interfere with the portion okayed by elected local officials, but denied, temporarily, the portion which would have been charged to the state. Developers will have to seek financing at higher interest rates than what the TIF bonds charge. Poor little darlings! They will just have to go to banks like anyone else would. The disgruntled, angry investor team mumbled as they exited the room, like someone had taken what was rightfully theirs. Greed knows no bounds.
I am all for business and growth, but not at the expense of our hard-working people. If $24 million is needed that badly, then why does the investor not lop off part of the hotel portion of the gigantic plan? When I hear the men who have the most to profit, herald the good they are doing for the community by bringing in 2800 jobs, I cringe. The majority of these jobs are in the service sector at minimum wage--jobs for high schoolers. This is good but certainly not worth public revenue investment. The proselytizing of rich men about their ultimate contribution to the community is hard to stomach when nearby cities dependent on sales tax for their operating budgets, like Covington and Mandeville, face massive store vacancies. No one is telling the developers not to pad their wallets. I am just telling them that they are not going to do it with low interest TIF bonds.