Of Course-construction jobs,while the buildings are being constructed.factory jobs,to keep the ball rolling
clerical,maintenance.Great Idea.

What happened to Developing the buildings on Harvester..Mancuso got money to tear down some buildings and that was going to create jobs for Batavia....Ag-Park is
in the town...What about the city..Where is the development to grow the city's tax base....What's GCEDC doing for the city..

The GCEDC doesn't bother doing anything within the city. As a matter of fact, their Med-Tech project is taking services OUT of the city. Rose Mary Christian and I did our best to make a big deal out of this during the campaign season but the issue itself is so complicated that people's eyes start to glaze over as soon as you mention it.

Part of the problem is that the CIty doesn't have any representation on the GCEDC board. Legislator Upson serves on the board but he made his loyalties perfectly clear during the WBTA/Batavian forum.

Industry isn't coming to Batavia or New York State until something is done about the tax situation at the local and state level. New York State is anti-business.

Mark, the Harvester project is a go. I’m not sure about the time table for construction to start.

The Med-Tech Park will help city residents find jobs as well. It doesn’t really matter what side of the town-line the park will sit.

Charlie ..The only reason i brought that up was to call attention to the fact that the GCEDC does nothing to help the city but give out tax breaks that cost the city of batavia residents tax revenue..For ex.St.John on east main..,Falcone electric...Today i read that they gave out some kind of mortgage tax break to the Toyota dealership..I beleive all these project would of happened even if they didn't hand out these tax give aways..Seems like GCEDC has more taxing power than any government body in this area,City or County..Chris made a good point..the city has no one on there board to represent our interest..Most of the stuff they do is move jobs around the county..Med-Tech park at the college is one of them..They are going to take a service that was done in the city..Summit Physical and move it out to the college..Thats just one example...They gave a tax break to reface the Holiday inn..They gave a tax break to split the Days Inn in half...

That is why i have no faith in there job creation skills..

Those jobs as well as the buildings that house them already exist here in the city. Here's what's going up at the $6m+ med tech park:

Physical therapy: Exist in town and is being moved outside the City limits.

Occupational Therapy: See Above

School of Nursing: Arguably the only useful thing to go in at Med-Tech and something that most likely could have been done at the Jerome Center or elsewhere in the City.

Shiny new office for the GCEDC: Just a shiny new office for the GCEDC.

Maybe the School for Nursing will create a few new jobs and that's great, but it all could have been done inside the City limits with eisting buildings. There was no need to commission and bond a six million dollar structure, the planning and designing of which was done at taxpayer expense.

Any other companies going in to Med-Tech are currently in the pipe dream stages so what we're dealing with here is basically that shiny new office for the GCEDC.

Mark, you're absolutely correct. The scramble for tax abatements is in full swing and each one of those abatements costs average taxpayers omney.

I don't want to sound like I'm against the idea of enticing business with tax incentives because I am not. I only want to say that we must be a little pickier about who we give them to and how we hold those businesses accountable.

I've spoken with a lot of people about 'blowback provisions' being written into the tax incentive package. Typically, a company applying for a tax incentive will say they are going to create x-amount of jobs at an average y-salary. They will tell the municipality that whatever tax abatement they are willing to give out will be paid back due to this job creation. A blowback provision holds these companies to their promises by forcing that company to pay back a certain amount of the abatement if they do not create those jobs or pay at those salaries.

In the not-so-distant past, a company called Pioneer Credit who received tax abatements packed up and left town without doing any of the things for Batavia that they said they would. A blowback provision in this case would have forced them to give back a portion of the free money we threw at them...not a bad idea, but try telling that to the Republican run Legislature and GCEDC.