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Urge House to Vote No on TIDDs

Please don’t “give away the store.”  TIDDs like these can bankrupt municipalities and lead to sprawl.  I urge you to defeat the TIDD bills in the House.  It’s disgusting that SunCal, a company with multiple bankruptcies in California, is enabled via an army of lobbyists, substantial campaign contributions and costly ad campaigns to convince the Senate to subsidize their development.

Thank you.

Charlotte Lipson
Las Cruces

Excerpted from today’s Albuquerque Journal:   http://www.abqjournal.com/paperboy/text//news/xgr/27853576833newsxgr02-27-09.htm

The Senate on Thursday gave the go-ahead for a new development on the West Side of Albuquerque and the redevelopment of a mall within the city over fierce objections from lawmakers who said the state is giving away too much to developers.

The Legislature’s approval is required for the issuance of $408 million in bonds for SunCal’s largely industrial development on Albuquerque’s West Side, and $164 million in bonds to redevelop the Winrock Mall area into retail, residential and office space.

And:

Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, called it “cannibalism.”  “It’s terrible policy. … Why are we giving this money away?” Griego said. He said developers historically have underwritten the cost of the on-site infrastructure for their projects. Griego said SunCal — whose Westland DevCo is the developer — had a “sketchy track record” in other states that included multiple bankruptcies.

Opponents also said financial projections for the projects were overly optimistic. “What we are doing here is giving away our future gross receipts tax revenues,” said Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque.  If the SunCal and Winrock TIDDs and other similar, pending proposals are passed, lawmakers will have promised $1.5 billion in future taxes, he said.

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