How can we save Baywalk from itself?

First Amendment at stake

Baywalk is demanding cash and a public sidewalk from the city. Or else! They tell us they will not make the investment needed to bring new life to their retail complex, so the new owners are holding their own profits hostage until the city caves. And seven members of council are only too ready to cave, as the city had done for decades with Bay Plaza and other costly projects.

The city needs a creative approach, something beyond pouring in more taxpayer money and curtailing free speech. The recession has hit all of downtown as well as Baywalk. Could it be that there is just not enough business downtown for Baywalk, the Pier, the Rays and the many smaller attractions like Shuffleboard, art galleries and museums?

I believe that is the problem and not demonstrations on the sidewalk.

My proposal:

1 Give Baywalk the sidewalk, but only for one year. Then see if this action brings any improvement. This postpones debate over free speech until later when I hope business is much better. Using demonstrators as a scapegoat helps politicians get through this election but its not likely to turn around business. Council has the votes for a permanent giveaway so I see this compromise as the best option for advocates of maintaining the public space.
2 Close the businesses inside the Pier and use the public subsidy to help merchants move to empty space in Baywalk. This consolidates two weak destinations into one stronger one. The Pier can remain a fishing, pedestrian and biking spot at a lower cost while plans are made to demolish or rebuild. Why pour money into the Pier when the deterioration of the structure makes closing it inevitable? Then take an honest and realistic look at the Pier and the rest of downtown. Could it be better to use the budgeted $50 million to rebuild the Pier on the Trop parking lot and consolidate activity closer to the interstate and transit? The waterfront needs no subsidy to get people there, yet the city continues to pour money into unprofitable ventures. Let the market find out what people will pay for and keep free public access open for all.
3 Eliminate parking meters and expand mass transit to make downtown more inviting to visitors from the suburbs and move toward being a truly urban downtown. Our strength is being an actual downtown, not a Disney version. At some point we need to give up on the idea of having a parking spot right in front of everywhere we go and then driving a few blocks to the next stop. For now we need to cater to Pinellas residents who expect convenient parking.
4 Provide free employee parking at off site park and ride lots and subsidized car pooling and bus service. Downtown workers now consume parking needed by visitors. They want their employers to succeed so they will grudgingly go along with this.
5 Take the $700,000 subsidy for Baywalk off the table and use that money to help business on 4th and MLK Streets South. These two streets are gateways to downtown yet have languished for decades. Revitalizing those streets will help the residential neighborhoods thrive, help fill empty condos and indirectly help Baywalk and all downtown business. The area between Central and 22nd Avenue south is a wasteland with a few well kept homes and businesses surrounded by acres of parking lots, weedy lots and run down or empty buildings. This asset has not been managed well, if its been managed at all. The Bartlett Park neighborhood plan of the early 90's was designed to revitalize half of this space but needs an update.




Mark Kamleiter addresses city council on the rights of St. Petersburg residents to use their sidewalk. While focused on the sidewalk city council may not see the bigger picture.

Wasting Money on Job Bidding Wars and Corporate Subsidies

Some States Wasting Money on Job Bidding Wars and Corporate Subsidies

Overall, federal recovery spending is working as intended, helping states provide needed services and avoid layoffs that would be worsening unemployment rates. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that these funds are providing states with 40 percent of what is needed to help their budgets in balance over the next few fiscal years. The recovery plan has provided states with flexibility in addressing key programs and priorities.

Unfortunately, a number of states have wasted budget funds on trying to steal jobs from one another, as highlighted by Good Jobs First. A few of the worst examples:

• A multi-state bidding war for a battery production consortium ended up with Kentucky offering $200 million to subsidize a 2,000-worker facility at a cost of $100,000 per job.
• Georgia paid $100 million to NCR to move its 1250-person headquarters from Dayton, Ohio - its home for 125 years - down to an Atlanta suburb.
• New Jersey has approved a radical new Tax Increment Financing (TIF) law that gives developers a whole range of subsidies.

As Good Jobs First writes, this is part of a long-term trend where "footloose corporations...play states and cities like a fiddle so that small businesses and working families get stuck with higher taxes and lousier public services."

But in a time of economic crisis when state budgets are devastated, wasting money on zero-sum bidding wars is destructive to the overall economy, since it diverts money from investments in people and infrastructure that will actually build long-term economic competitiveness for our country.

More Resources

Housing Crisis Forum

Event Location: Seminole Library at St. Petersburg College
Seminole, 9200-113th St. N, Room C

Event Description:
Forum on the housing crisis, offering possible solutions to those in need. Panelists include Mayor Pat Gerard of Largo, Victor Adamo of the Board of Realtors and Kip Corriveau of the Salvation Army among other experts in the field.
Co-sponsored by Organizing for America (Largo area) and the Largo/Mid-Pinellas Democratic Club.

Thomas Sowell on the housing collapse

The Housing Boom and Bust

by Thomas Sowell

Publisher Comments:

This is a plain-English explanation of how we got into the current economic disaster that developed out of the economics and politics of the housing boom and bust. The creative financing of home mortgages and the even more creative marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, are part of the story of how a financial house of cards was built up--and then suddenly collapsed.

The politics behind all this is another story full of strange twists. No punches are pulled when discussing politicians of either party, the financial dangers they created, or the distractions they created later to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the financial house of cards in the financial markets collapsed.

What to do, now that we are in the midst of an economic disaster, is yet another story--one whose ending we do not yet know, but one whose outlines and implications are explored to reveal some surprising and sobering lessons.

Human Events

It's a story of venal and short-sighted politicians (on both sides of the aisle), rapacious financial tycoons, and victimized American citizens. Sowell, who has taught economics at Cornell and UCLA, and whose book Basic Economics has been translated into six languages, traces a series of very questionable decisions made by many people in many places, over a period of years. Each of these decisions helped build up the pressures that finally led to a sudden collapse of the housing market -- and of financial institutions that began to fall like dominoes as a result of investing in securities based on housing prices. Sowell explains how "creative" financing of home mortgages, and the even more "creative" marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, built up a financial house of cards that was inevitably destined to fall.

Sowell also deftly navigates the bewildering twists and turns of the politics behind this disaster, pulling no punches about how politicians of both parties pursued their narrow self-interests, oblivious to the financial dangers they were creating. Sowell then shines much-needed light on how these same politicians later threw up smokescreens and distractions in order to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the whole shaky financial edifice they had built finally came tumbling down.

Synopsis:

The financial tsunami has been followed by a political flood of rhetoric, accompanied by finger-pointing in all directions. Who was really responsible? What set this off?

Order a copy.

More books by Sowell.

LET VOTERS DECIDE ON PUBLIC FUNDING FOR FLORIDA MARLINS STADIUM REPRESENTATIVE STEINBERG OFFERS PLAN FOR MIAMI-DADE VOTERS

TALLAHASSEE, FL --- State Representative Richard L. Steinberg (D-Miami Beach) is offering a legislative proposal to give Miami-Dade County voters the right to approve whether public funds are spent on a Florida Marlins stadium.



“The voters in Miami-Dade County should be given the right to decide whether to commit over a billion dollars of public money for a baseball stadium,” said Representative Steinberg. “If the local elected officials will not allow the people to vote, the Florida Legislature should require them to hold a referendum.”



Representative Steinberg filed an amendment to House Bill 253, a measure concerning public funding of professional sports team.



The bill, as originally filed, limits a voter referendum only to obligations “created before July 1, 2009.” The amendment offered by Representative Steinberg would give voters the right to vote on any obligation created after today, including the proposed stadium for the Florida Marlins.



Representative Steinberg serves on the House Transportation & Economic Development Appropriations Committee, and three other House committees.

Can we afford not to have curbside recycling in St. Pete?

Evergreen Solar Finds Profit In The Sun

MARLBORO, Mass. - Four million manufacturing jobs have vanished from the American economy since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or almost 25 percent of the entire manufacturing workforce. Layoffs at major companies are nearly daily news

But it’s important to remember that it is still too early to sound the sector’s death knell. While some industries are indeed still laying off hundreds if not thousands of workers, others are ramping up to take them in.

Read the story »

Green-Collar Job Training after Katrina

NEW ORLEANS - The shape of a national clean energy, good jobs training program for young people is gaining real definition here, where 800 young people are beginning full-time service as part of the Conservation Corps of Greater New Orleans, earning real money, educational stipends and preparing for careers in the new green economy while helping rebuild their hurricane and flood-damaged city from the ground up.
Read the story »

Stabenow Outlines Clean Energy Path to 1 Million New Jobs

WASHINGTON – As the nation’s concern over job losses and a faltering economy reached new depths this week, the Apollo Alliance and a group of prominent public interest organizations joined today in applauding Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow’s introduction of a landmark clean energy economic recovery bill to rebuild the American manufacturing sector.

Read the story »

Boston Green Justice Coalition Joins Apollo Alliance

BOSTON, Dec. 7 - The Boston Green Justice Coalition this weekend became the newest member of the Apollo Alliance, a national network of clean energy, good jobs organizations working to build a cleaner, more efficient, and more prosperous economy.
Read the story »

Data Points: Economic Outcomes of The Apollo Economic Recovery Act

The Apollo Economic Recovery Act is a comprehensive quick start economic stimulus strategy to accelerate development of wind, solar, biofuels, and other clean sources of energy, create or retain nearly 2 million new jobs, and restore America’s economic strength. Enacting this proposal would produce significant economic results for the nation.

Read the story »

Clean Energy, Green Jobs

Evergreen Solar Finds Profit In The Sun

MARLBORO, Mass. - Four million manufacturing jobs have vanished from the American economy since 2000,...

Green-Collar Job Training after Katrina

NEW ORLEANS - The shape of a national clean energy, good jobs training program for young people is gaining...

Kudos To Ohio Apollo Alliance

We received a nice gift yesterday afternoon. John Nichols of The Nation posted his list of Most Valuable...

Investment

Fast Track For National Rail Transit

MINNEAPOLIS - Technically speaking “light rail transit” encompasses an urban rail line capable...

Data Points: Investments In Clean Energy Soar

Governments, banks, and private investors around the world are furiously pumping capital into renewable...

Newark’s Green Future Summit

In the two years since Mayor Cory A. Booker took office, various measures of the city’s well-being...

Apollo Feedback

Apollo Feedback: Detroit Bailout Raises Support, Ire Last week we let you know that in partnership with our members the Apollo Alliance supported government...