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Register Star, April 5, 2008
To the editor:
Having won its public relations campaign less than a year ago, the Widewater Monster Mall folks are returning to local authorities, hat in hand, singing a very different tune. Is anyone surprised? Those of us who opposed the original effort to saddle our community with an unsupportable development project are not. Those who bought the arguments of the developers last year must be at least deeply disappointed, perhaps dismayed.
The Greenport planners did everything they could to facilitate the Widewater project, in the belief that the return to the community would far outweigh the cost to the community, if the Widewater folks were allowed to proceed. What we have seen since the planners approved the project is a steady whittling away of commitments to populate the mall with commercial tenants.
Either Widewater exaggerated, perhaps fabricated, those commitments, or the prospective tenants had a great deal more savvy than the developers concerning the ability of the local economy to support such a Colossus. Faced now with a vanishing roster of tenants and a generally weak economy, Widewater now seeks an infamous pact with local authorities called PILOT, an acronym for Payments In Lieu Of Taxes. They want to reach a deal with the authorities. If the community wants them to continue their project, it will have to agree not to tax them at the full rate, but to give them a concession up front.
So where does that leave our local communities? The chief benefit of the development is evidently evaporating just as the prospective tenants are. What we need now is a firm stand by our local leaders against the concession the developers seek. It is a breech of faith to come back to us with such a request, and no public good can be served by agreeing to it. It would amount to our local governments actually subsidizing the destruction of our local economy. It would be a grossly irresponsible concession to make. Let's hope our local leaders have more sense and better judgment this year than they showed us last year.
Charles Hallenbeck
Greenport
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