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Iredell County
rejects the Charlotte rail line.
Here is my letter congratulating the Iredell County Commissioners for their 5-0
vote against this latest "all-cost-no-benefit" rail project.
Dear Iredell
County Commissioners:
I noticed with
great pleasure your courageous 5-0 vote against paying to extent Charlotte's
red line north to Iredell County. You are exactly correct. The transit planners
and consultants always overestimate the ridership and underestimate the costs. This
fact is shown by the 2002 statistical study by Danish professors Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette Skamris Holm, and Soren
Buhl. Their conclusion is below and I have linked their entire study.
I also wish to point out two John Locke Foundation transit studies linked here:
"City and County Issue Guide 2011: Public Transit"
http://johnlocke.org/site-docs/research/2011issueguide/11publictransit.html
"Public Transit in North Carolina"
http://johnlocke.org/research/show/spotlights/250
Again, thank you for your action and if we can be of further assistance, please
contact me.
Michael Sanera
Director of Research and Local Government Studies
John Locke Foundation
"Underestimating Costs in
Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?"
This article presents
results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in
transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation
infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project
types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with
overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide
whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading.Underestimation cannot be explained by
error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying.
The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors,
media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers
should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project
promoters and their analysts. (Emphasis added.)
-- American Planning Association Journal, Summer
2002, Vol. 68, No. 3, p. 2
Here is the Charlotte Observer's report
on the vote.
Tax-increment
financing fiasco
An op-ed by Scott Mooneyham takes the Republican legislative majority to
task for not
undoing the harm by so-called tax-increment financing (TIF):
The folks in Roanoke Rapids
understand the harm [caused by TIFs].
For the next 10 or 20 years, they
will be paying off $12 million on a boondoggle theater that they soon won't
even own. To pay off the debt, their property taxes will invariably be higher,
their government services less robust.
It could have been worse. The town's City Council -- whose members are mostly
new after the old ones were booted for the poor decision -- reached an
agreement to sell the theater to a private investor for $7 million. The theater
was originally financed for $22 million, but in a buyer's market, you take what
you can get. ...
What legislators should do is try to prevent future harm to other local
taxpayers the next time a snake oil salesman comes peddling a tax increment
financing project to some other town desperate for jobs and economic
development.
Of course, Carolina Journal broke this story back in 2005
and has documented all of the sordid details since. Here is CJ's full list of
the stories.
For a national perspective on TIFs, Cato's Randal O'Toole provides the report "Crony Capitalism and
Social Engineering: The Case against Tax-Increment Financing."
Cary loses school
impact-fee case
As reported in The News & Observer, the state Supreme Court ruled that
the town of Cary
illegally required developers to pay school impact fees as a condition for
rezoning. After about 10 years of litigation at a cost of about $750,000 to
Cary taxpayers, the town of Cary will return $800,000 of the $4 million it
collected to the developers. Two additional suits are still pending.
It is unfortunate that the court did not take the next step and rule that using
rezoning to extract funds from private citizens is tantamount to extortion.
See these Locke Foundation reports on impact fees and adequate public facility
ordinances (APFOs):
Raleigh risks
taxpayer money by making risky loans
If you have a new or existing business in downtown Raleigh and you cannot
get a loan from a bank because you are a bad credit risk, you can get $50,000
from Raleigh taxpayers. According to WRAL,
downtown businesses can get low-interest loans if they "demonstrate
management ability and experience" and "are unable to secure
financing from financial institutions."
I guess I am confused. If city bureaucrats are qualified to be judges of
management ability and experience, perhaps they should be working for banks. Additionally,
if the business is turned down by a bank, isn't that the number one reason why
taxpayers shouldn't be made to loan it their hard-earned money -- because it's
a credit-unworthy business?
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