An additional comment I didn’t have room for in the editorial: When we put city leaders on the hook for economic development, that encourages them to stretch and abuse their authority in order to bring in projects. It’s not just more revenue for the city, it’s also votes to stay in office.

This means that when municipal governments misuse eminent domain in order to provide land to private developers or take money away from fire and school districts with redevelopment agencies, part of the reason is that these leaders are on the spot to bring economic projects to town or else face problems at the polls.

Post from: The Editor's Desk