ITHACAHOUR at aol.com
01-08-1995, 09:01 PM
The Ithaca HOUR is indeed stimulating import replacement (by bootstrapping
new local-serving businesses), and this aim is explicit within each issue of
our newspaper Ithaca Money. Here follows, for example, a large article from
Ithaca Money introducing many reasons why we oppose a proposed Wal-Mart in
Ithaca. --Paul Glover
WAL-MART
Wants Ithaca
Does Ithaca Need Wal-Mart?
by Paul Glover
We've got another big decision to make. Wal-Mart is asking the people of
Ithaca for permission to build the largest store in Tompkins County within
our city. Our choice, conveyed through the Planning Board, should be
considered carefully, because it will dramatically affect this community's
jobs and wages, traffic, taxes, consumer prices, hospital access, flood
control, tourism, air quality, and wildlife.
Some of Ithaca's leaders have reassured us that Ithaca would be a better
place to live if Wal-Mart opens here. Ithaca's mayor, Ithaca's daily paper,
Ithaca's Planning Department, Ithaca's Board of Zoning Appeals, and numerous
enthusiastic shoppers have opened our doors to them. They believe that the
city would gain jobs (or lose fewer), that the city and school district would
gain revenue (or lose less), that local businesses would survive Wal-Mart by
adapting, that consumers would have lower prices and more choices.
The Wal-Mart sponsored Impact Statements, however, (by RKG Associates and
Sear-Brown Group), and the experiences and studies of cities elsewhere, give
us very different information.
TAX REVENUE
We're told that City Hall would gain $405,000 to $490,000 sales and property
tax yearly (less than 2% of the City's 1994 income) if Wal-Mart locates in
Ithaca. But the RKG consultants recommend that downtown parking would need
to be free to allow the Commons to survive Wal-Mart competition (p.17). Free
parking downtown means a loss to the City of at least $865,000 per year
($725,000 downtown parking fees/year lost + $140,000/year cost for downtown
parking garage maintenance, staff, and bond payments: 1994 Ithaca City
Budget, pp. 50, 58-59, 61).
On this account alone the City would suffer a net loss of at least $375,000-
$460,000. Even if just half the downtown parking revenues were lost because
of Wal-Mart, to free parking days or shift of shopper parking, the City would
lose about $50,000 net, plus the millions already invested in the garages.
At the same time, the study Fiscal Impacts of Mall Development (Armstrong,
1989) indicates that each new major shopping mall typically requires a city
to hire two more police officers. These officers would cost Ithaca a total
of approximately $60,000.
There are plenty of other costs not calculated by the DEIS. The City itself
is already accepting a $250,000 bond burden to fix the Meadow Street/Elmira
Road intersection that the Wal-Mart study says would need widening to handle
Wal-Mart traffic (1994 Ithaca City Budget p.63) Additional related upgrades
would be expected as traffic rises.
Nor would Wal-Mart property taxes necessarily benefit the Ithaca City School
District. About half of the district's state aid is calculated as a ratio of
students to equalized property value. Thus, adding a multi-million dollar
shopping mall to tax rolls "could have a net negative impact" on District
income, according to Gary Lindenbaum, Assistant Supervisor for Business
Services of the Ithaca City School District. Yet no one has asked that
office for an assessment.
LOCAL BUSINESSES
There is an even more serious loss to the city that the study did not
calculate, from sales tax not collected because of loss of multiplier sales
provided by locally-owned businesses. That is, the more each dollar bounces
around town before leaving, the more job creation, sales, and sales tax it
generates.
Every dollar spent with a locally-owned business gets spent here an estimated
2.3 more times than when spent with a company which takes its profits out of
town (ILSR Study, 1980). By this formula, if 25% of the sales diverted
directly and indirectly by Wal-Mart are from locally-owned stores, then the
sales tax loss would total $182,000 more than RKG estimated (p. 14). This
multiplier benefit is lost when Wal-Mart replaces smaller local businesses.
The RKG study does not analyse this.
This post transferred from the cdb-l mailing list
new local-serving businesses), and this aim is explicit within each issue of
our newspaper Ithaca Money. Here follows, for example, a large article from
Ithaca Money introducing many reasons why we oppose a proposed Wal-Mart in
Ithaca. --Paul Glover
WAL-MART
Wants Ithaca
Does Ithaca Need Wal-Mart?
by Paul Glover
We've got another big decision to make. Wal-Mart is asking the people of
Ithaca for permission to build the largest store in Tompkins County within
our city. Our choice, conveyed through the Planning Board, should be
considered carefully, because it will dramatically affect this community's
jobs and wages, traffic, taxes, consumer prices, hospital access, flood
control, tourism, air quality, and wildlife.
Some of Ithaca's leaders have reassured us that Ithaca would be a better
place to live if Wal-Mart opens here. Ithaca's mayor, Ithaca's daily paper,
Ithaca's Planning Department, Ithaca's Board of Zoning Appeals, and numerous
enthusiastic shoppers have opened our doors to them. They believe that the
city would gain jobs (or lose fewer), that the city and school district would
gain revenue (or lose less), that local businesses would survive Wal-Mart by
adapting, that consumers would have lower prices and more choices.
The Wal-Mart sponsored Impact Statements, however, (by RKG Associates and
Sear-Brown Group), and the experiences and studies of cities elsewhere, give
us very different information.
TAX REVENUE
We're told that City Hall would gain $405,000 to $490,000 sales and property
tax yearly (less than 2% of the City's 1994 income) if Wal-Mart locates in
Ithaca. But the RKG consultants recommend that downtown parking would need
to be free to allow the Commons to survive Wal-Mart competition (p.17). Free
parking downtown means a loss to the City of at least $865,000 per year
($725,000 downtown parking fees/year lost + $140,000/year cost for downtown
parking garage maintenance, staff, and bond payments: 1994 Ithaca City
Budget, pp. 50, 58-59, 61).
On this account alone the City would suffer a net loss of at least $375,000-
$460,000. Even if just half the downtown parking revenues were lost because
of Wal-Mart, to free parking days or shift of shopper parking, the City would
lose about $50,000 net, plus the millions already invested in the garages.
At the same time, the study Fiscal Impacts of Mall Development (Armstrong,
1989) indicates that each new major shopping mall typically requires a city
to hire two more police officers. These officers would cost Ithaca a total
of approximately $60,000.
There are plenty of other costs not calculated by the DEIS. The City itself
is already accepting a $250,000 bond burden to fix the Meadow Street/Elmira
Road intersection that the Wal-Mart study says would need widening to handle
Wal-Mart traffic (1994 Ithaca City Budget p.63) Additional related upgrades
would be expected as traffic rises.
Nor would Wal-Mart property taxes necessarily benefit the Ithaca City School
District. About half of the district's state aid is calculated as a ratio of
students to equalized property value. Thus, adding a multi-million dollar
shopping mall to tax rolls "could have a net negative impact" on District
income, according to Gary Lindenbaum, Assistant Supervisor for Business
Services of the Ithaca City School District. Yet no one has asked that
office for an assessment.
LOCAL BUSINESSES
There is an even more serious loss to the city that the study did not
calculate, from sales tax not collected because of loss of multiplier sales
provided by locally-owned businesses. That is, the more each dollar bounces
around town before leaving, the more job creation, sales, and sales tax it
generates.
Every dollar spent with a locally-owned business gets spent here an estimated
2.3 more times than when spent with a company which takes its profits out of
town (ILSR Study, 1980). By this formula, if 25% of the sales diverted
directly and indirectly by Wal-Mart are from locally-owned stores, then the
sales tax loss would total $182,000 more than RKG estimated (p. 14). This
multiplier benefit is lost when Wal-Mart replaces smaller local businesses.
The RKG study does not analyse this.
This post transferred from the cdb-l mailing list