My Letter to the Editor of the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report...

Martin. you're entirely correct. Let the market dictate what stores come and go.

Speaking of paying businesses to locate in Louisiana, whatever happened to the Boeing facility in Lake Charles?

 

Seriously? Too long. Most editors like concise and succinct letters.

Anyway, a big reason why Livingston Parish is not a bastion of industry is it's reputation as the most liberal civil judicial district in the state. At least, that's the way it was when I was handling claims in Baton Rouge.

It's hard to get a fair shake when judges and plaintiff lawyers belong to the same hunting club.

 

The same owners who are three parishes over who bought ads in areas they don't even get customers from who are so scared...Store owner/competitors who manipulated the public through media advertising and print advertising by saying that "Denham Springs" doesn't want Bass Pro...

Where your scorn for them is, I don't know...Better yet...Have you ever shopped at Wal-Mart? Have you ever purchased a single item from them?

I'm sure you're a Wal-Mart free individual...right?

 

holy mackeral, you do not understand the difference between using the government to get your way and trying to sway public opinion through advertising and other legitmate private means?

it saddens me that i have to explain this to a graduate of the same school (and department) i attended.

there is a difference between the government and the private sector. the difference is that one can forcibly coerce you to do things, and the other cannot. the government can charge you taxes, effectively forcing you to pay for their programs. the private sector cannot.

when you want your local government to fool with the free market, you force taxpayers to make the playing field uneven and favor one business over another. this is the opposite of free market-capitalism. wal-mart using the media to state their case is completely different. nobody is forcing me to pay wal-mart. but your lobbying for the government to support bass pro shops is effectively attempting to force people to give money to them.

don't see the relevance, but i do like wal-mart and it sucks that there are none in my area.

 

You infer that I don't understand because I didn't address that...I see some merit, martin...and the TIF was something that even I had reservations about...

But, my main problem is that the "powers that be" in Baton Rouge used TIF's to do their own bidding (Numerous condo developments downtown on the riverfront are utilizing TIF's that didn't get rejected and won't be affected, like the Business Report's Editor's Business buddies)...Dardenne of Baton Rouge also championed the TIF usage to help get big box retailers into neighborhood areas in downtown New Orleans...he led the fight on the floor of the legislature.

He also talked about its Constitutional legitimacy on the Floor of the Legislature, while then turning around and talking out of the other side of its mouth in leading a fight against it...

I just can't stand hypocritical politicians, martin...and being from out of town, you didn't see most of the posturing and back room handshakes that were struck when Bass Pro "was" going to land in Gonzales (which Baton Rougeans have had their hands in for a long time) at the Tanger Outlet...

Then when Bass Pro says the Denham Springs site is more attractive, all of the sudden, the SAME method that Baton Rouge capital area lawmakers were okay with in Gonzales is not okay anymore for Denham Springs...

It's them trying to keep Livingston Parish down, and to try to attempt to keep the siphon going...We lay our heads down here, but we have to work and spend all our $ there...The first sniff of economic development that might spur ancillary growth in Denham and Livingston, and they start marking their territory and getting huffy about how it's not okay anymore after they initially said it's okay.

Whether you believe in the legitimacy of the theory or not, a Wal-Mart Marketplace was recently opened, and Dardenne championed the charge for it using financing devised through a TIF that he envisioned, from what I remember...

Also, good or bad, Denham will get to use the TIF...and the future precedent will be set...it'll be left up to area voters...There's a city/parishwide election scheduled for April, and we'll put it on the ballot then, get it passed, and Baton Rouge will get the proverbial finger for the hypocrisy...

 

so you oppose these tif projects in principle, until they favor your community, at which point you clamor to get your piece of the pie?

 

I'm with you guys, Matin and Rex. The same thing is happening in Shreveport where the local government here is trying to build a huge hotel and put the bill with taxpayers in a TIF and bond holders. It's ludicrous. The worst part about it is that the city is going to own it/run it...

There is a reason for private investment...It's the basis of our capital, democratic market..

If you allow goverments to use TIF's, you are opening a whole big, bad can of works...

I don't know that much about the Bass Pro shops situation. But I do know a good deal about this hotel bull **** going on in Shreveport. If you can't get private investment, there is a probably a reason for it...(i.e. no one wants to invest in it, its a bad investment)...

 

Well, wouldn't you know... I went to Concord Mills today and walked through the Bass Pro Shop...

Prices? No better than anywhere else...
Selection? Excellent selection, of course, but not anything that 5 smaller stores feeding 5 families couldn't do....

But here's what really bugs me... in the main entrance lobby was a giant stuffed moose.

Seriously, who could shoot such a magnificent creature, and who could pay to attract a business that glorifies such carnage?

 

Maybe the moose died of natural causes. And that moose would feed those 5 families you speak of.

 

i dont hunt, or know anything about it, but i do approve of carnage of creatures, regardless of their magnificence.

bigger businesses profits dont ever feed anyone, because they are evil i suppose?