Incentive Watch Monday, August 13, 2007 Here are some articles on incentives from the last week. San Antonio came up with a package to keep fast growing, home-grown company Rackspace in the city (with new boundaries, no less). The state threw in $22 million. Here's an editorial. A commentaror sees this investment as important to providing a new message for San Antoion. Read more. Kansas City is still in the middle of its incentive review, and the mayor (a former auditor) has made his point: old incentive policy did not work. This situation will be interesting to watch. Read more. Here's another article. A company in the Quad Cities is "negotiating" on incentive package with one of the oldest ploys in the book. Give us the incentive or we'll move. The newspaper does a good job dissecting the details. Read more. In the face of state efforts to restrict local incentives for developers in Arizona, local governments are turning to deals in which the government owns the land and leases it back to developers. Here's a good review of what has been going on. Read more. Finney County, Kansas takes its incentive policy seriously, and it has drafted a policy to tie incentives to jobs. Read more. The policy is on-line here. I was particularly interested in the no piracy clause (Section 11). Missouri Governor Blunt has been in the middle of an incentives controversy with the state legislature, and he has announced that he will be calling them back into session on August 20 to work matters out. Read more. Here's another article. Here's another example of TIF Creep: Tax Increment Financing is an effective tool to draw development to blighted properties. Now some jurisdictions are using the tool to help established companies in prosperous communities. The use of a TIF in Maryland is drawing criticism of a county commissioner. Read more. Here's a perspective on incentives from economic developers in the Triad region of North Carolina. Read more. New Rok is trying to tighten up administration of its Empire Zone program. Read more. posted by Ed Morrison |		This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. links Some Background on EDPro Weblog The purpose of this weblog is to help economic development professionals -- EDPros -- keep up with the changes sweeping our profession. Strap on your goggles. It's a whole new game. There are no experts any more. The only place to learn about economic development is from other EDPros who are doing it. One other point: the prevaling approach (paradigm, if you like) in economic development is shifting from competition to collaboration. There are a lot of reaasons underlying this shift, but here's the important insight: You, your community, and your region will do better by collaborating and sharing information. So, spread the word...Share the knowledge. Tell a friend about EDPro Weblog. If you are using a news reader, here is the link to syndicate this site: Here's the link if you are a bloglines subscriber: Speaking and workshops on Open Source Economic Development As the idea of Open Source Economic Development starts spreading, more people are asking about it. Visit the I-Open web site to learn more. My colleagues and I are happy to explain the basic concepts in a talk or a workshop. E-mail Susan Alshuler if you'd like to learn more about workshops and speaking. Background on Ed Morrison Download some background information on me here.

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