Disincentive
Matt's computer is sick, but he's still hard at work. As if you needed proof, here's Mr. Williams' latest offering:
Over the past few weeks, a good hundred or so members of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce have emailed the city council in support of economic incentives for Dell Computer's manufacturing plant. Although Dell decided to pick Winston-Salem instead, the council said they have gotten the message that incentives are no longer a dirty word.
But earlier this month, one business owner bucked the trend and sent a message to council members saying he'd rather have lower taxes than more incentives:
12/15/04
Dear Mayor Holiday and City Council Members,
Please accept this letter as an official request for financial assistance to help keep Carolina Camera Center competitive in the retail digital camera market. We have to compete with large mass merchants such as Best Buy, Comp USA, Circuit City, Target, Sears, the internet and now, Dell Computer. Because of these companies tremendous buying power, small retail operations like ours find it extremely difficult to compete in an open market. For the City to give extra incentives to Dell or other competitors makes the playing field even more lopsided.
It seems grossly unfair and inherently wrong for the City of Greensboro to support multi billion dollars businesses that gross millions of dollars in profits at the expense of the local small businesses and the general public whose taxes fund these incentives. Carolina Camera Centers, Inc., considers the awards of incentives to Dell and others, while ignoring our request for equal consideration, a violation of the Sherman anti trust laws.
My request is that of two options:
1) Revoke all incentives, or
2) Be fair in the offer of incentives so that one competitor doesn't
gainfinancial advantage over another.
We plan to have major layoffs in January of 2005 unless we can increase our profit potential. The advantages that Dell has is it's buying power and now, reduced City tax liability. If the City can lower our tax liability, we might be able to maintain our current employment levels. Since the purchase and reselling of digital cameras is our chief source of revenue, we need these incentives to remain competitive. Again, I must emphasize my feelings that it is inherently wrong for our tax dollars to be used to fund one of competitor’s business ventures.
Most respectfully yours,
Lowell J. Rauch, president
Comments (3)
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Matt (via Mark),
The City Council responses to Mr. Rauch would be very interesting and illuminative. Do you have any?
Posted on December 27, 2004 5:34 PM
David,
If there were any responses from the council, I did not get them. Either there was no reply, or they were not included in the batch of emails that are forwarded to me every other week.
I'll put them up if I get one later.
Posted on December 28, 2004 10:52 AM
Whine, whine, whine! Join the 21st century, Mr. Rauch!
Posted on June 1, 2005 12:24 PM