Council gives 70K to a Downtown Law Firm for Moving Expenses

[jay]

As I understand it, it's fairly common these days for businesses to threaten to leave an area, with the expectation that the city is so desperate to keep them, the city will put together an incentive package to stay.

Would the administration also be willing to offer incentives for people to stay in the city?

We have two Forum members who would probably also like moving expenses for relocating from the south side and west side to the north side.

[Towntalk]

westsider, we're talking about a gaggle of mouthpieces, and mouthpieces are a dime a dozen. How many time in the course of a lifetime do you need the services of a mouthpiece? Now if it were a store, or some other business that we use frequently, that's one thing, but a stuff shirt mouthpiece is quite another.

[northside lurker]

As I understand it, it's fairly common these days for businesses to threaten to leave an area, with the expectation that the city is so desperate to keep them, the city will put together an incentive package to stay.

[jay]

Another point of view, via Phil Kidd: "The city is spending $70K for 'relocation and site improvement' fees for a downtown law firm that is threatening to leave for Austintown but will stay and bring their Austintown office to Youngstown if those conditions are met."

Blackmail??

[Towntalk]

Were I the Mayor, I'd tell Mr. Haines ... "Don't let the door hit you and your staff in the backsides as you exit the city bub."

[northside lurker]

Another point of view, via Phil Kidd: "The city is spending $70K for 'relocation and site improvement' fees for a downtown law firm that is threatening to leave for Austintown but will stay and bring their Austintown office to Youngstown if those conditions are met."

[Towntalk]

How many people work in the Austintown office?

Could it be called a "bribe" on the part of the city?

Who made the decision to make the move in the first place?

[cc4]

 

These attorneys could well afford to pay their own way.  It sounds like another example of corporate welfare to me.

[Rick Rowlands]

You didn't but the law firm is moving offices from Austintown to downtown.  So basically Youngstown council is spending 70K to harm Austintown.

[northside lurker]

Is cannibalizing our own suburbs for jobs now a goal of the City of Youngstown? On one hand they talk regionalization, then on the other hand try to harm other communities within the region.

I don't think so...  I was just expressing my own opinion, and didn't say anything about neighboring suburbs, anyway.

[Rick Rowlands]

Is cannibalizing our own suburbs for jobs now a goal of the City of Youngstown? On one hand they talk regionalization, then on the other hand try to harm other communities within the region.

[northside lurker]

I don't agree with what the city is doing, either.  Those funds should be used to lure companies from elsewhere, (which, sadly, is how business development works everywhere, these days; Kasich was ready to give Sears $400 million to relocate to Ohio, for example) or to those that really could use the help.

I doubt they could use that money for paving more streets, though.  That's a different department.

[Rick Rowlands]

http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/jun/21/council-approves-legislation/


"Give $70,000 to the law firm of Green Haines Sgambati Co., which is consolidating its offices at Westchester Square in Austintown and the former PNC Bank Building in downtown Youngstown to City Centre One at 100 E. Federal St. downtown.
The money would pay most of the $115,000 cost the firm says is needed for the consolidation and relocation."
The city just recently said that they won't be able to pave as many streets this summer due to rising prices, but they still have so much extra cash laying around that they can engage in crony capitalism and give it away to a private concern? 

"The city is having 58 streets, largely in residential areas, paved at a cost of $1,305,219. The streets are equivalent to 23 lane miles, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city's public- works department. A lane mile is one mile long and 12 feet wide.  In comparison, the city spent $1,425,842 in 2011 to pave 71 streets, equivalent to 26 lane miles, and $1,454,408 in 2010 to pave 80 streets; equivalent to 29.2 lane miles."
So if that 70K were directed to the street paving, which is a PUBLIC GOOD, they would only be short about $79,000 short of last year's paving budget.  Then if another one of these cozy "give public money to for profit concerns" deals were rescinded we could make up that remaining shortfall.
Its not a question of council not having the money to run the city, they just want to spend it on things outside of what we elected them to do.