City Council needs to get some members who understand Economic Development

Please read this article:
<http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071024/LOCAL/710240314/1002/LOCAL>

This article discussed the tax abatement that our City Council just unanimously passed for a McDonalds on the south side of Fort Wayne. Our City Council has decided to transfer $250,000 worth of taxes from the new McDonalds to the rest of the property tax payers in Fort Wayne.

As many of you know I am against tax abatements in general. All tax abatements do is transfer taxes from one group of people to another.

The City of Fort Wayne grants a lot of tax abatements to middle and large sized businesses in Fort Wayne. The City does give some to small businesses as well; however, by my last calculation over 98% of all money in tax abatements is given to mid and large sized businesses even though 70% of all new jobs come from small businesses. The City has criteria that require them to grant tax abatements based on the company creating new jobs that will be 150% of the minimum wage.

McDonalds does not satisfy that criteria, so guess what, City Council decided to ignore that requirement.

I have heard one City Council member state that the City Council is just helping a small business. I am not sure how many McDonalds the franchisee owns. If they own several (which is common) then they in no way could ever be considered a small business.

Please realize the following:

The average McDonalds franchise costs almost $1,000,000 ($655,750-$1,225,000 per their website, <http://www.thefranchisemall.com/franchises/details/10357-0-McDonalds.htm>) for a franchisee to open. Most small businesses do not spend a million dollars to get started. In fact; my wife and I have over 100 small business clients in the Fort Wayne area and all of them are smaller then a McDonalds...

Furthermore per the JG article the McDonalds will employ 55 full-time and 25 part-time people.

If the person owning the franchise just owns this one McDonalds then they will qualify as a small business per the SBA, believe it or not.

The City Council has just "lowered the bar" for tax abatements in Fort Wayne and this will have repercussions.

I expect many new restaurants will come forward and ask for tax abatements.

There is only room in Fort Wayne for a certain number of restaurants. The McDonalds that just got a tax abatement will have an unfair advantage over its competitors due to a quarter of a million dollar tax abatement.

Please stop telling me there is a difference between local Republicans and Democrats in general. They march in lock-step and consistently increase the size of government.

Vote Libertarian...

Mike Sylvester