Editorial: Should City Hall be trying to use federal money intended to help low and middle income Carson City residents to pump up a still questionable downtown Nugget Project?
City Hall’s Office of Business Development is asking the Board of Supervisors to re-direct federal funds that largely go to the poor, the elderly, the handicapped, and for general public improvements, to the increasingly controversial downtown Nugget Project, a project and a plan that doesn’t even formally exist yet – not even on paper.
City Hall’s Office of Business Development Manager Joe McCarthy wants the supervisors to approve an application for federal funds to help fund the Nugget Project’s so-called “economic incubator” to the tune of $115,000 a year for twenty years.
Although federal Community Development Block Grant funds (CDBG) might possibly be considered for such an end, in this case it would crowd out other Carson City applicants like the Ron Wood Family Center, FISH, RSVP, Partnership Carson City, CASA or city public works which is under federal scrutiny to make our town’s sidewalks and public buildings more accessible to handicapped persons. If you look at Carson City’s history with CDBG funds, those funds have been used as they have been in other cities across the country…aimed primarily at low to moderate income neighborhoods.
The city’s Office of Business Development’s application on behalf of the “economic incubator” is troublesome because the Nugget Project hasn’t even been approved yet. It’s like “cart before the horse, money before the project.” Secondly, awarding $115,000 a year for twenty years begs the question…do economic incubators directly…DIRECTLY help low to middle income people? The application claims that low and middle income people will be “encouraged” to apply for jobs within the incubator, and that sixty jobs on average would be running incubator operations. However, what are those sixty jobs? Aren’t incubators filled with high tech, high skilled entrepreneurs and professional staff who are perfecting leading-edge products and services? Don’t they deal with high finance and investment firms, all seeking to launch the next iPad, computer network system or similar products and services? Those kind of jobs don’t sound like they are held by low to middle income people. And why is it that if the economic incubator is such a high-powered success machine, why would it seek to take money away, for twenty years, from low income family assistance to children, CASA volunteers, fixing FISH’s roof, helping to keep the elderly in their homes, or making our Community Center more accessible to the handicapped?
Again, this community has yet to see any final downtown Nugget Project plan that clearly outlines who builds what and at what cost. How much private vs. public money? Likelihood of success. Economic incubators are usually a partnership of federal and state economic development funds coupled with venture and “angel” capital…not money from programs that are designed to aid primarily low to moderate income neighborhoods. Although components of CDBG spending can be applied to “economic development” projects, they are usually more of a round-about benefit…streets, sidewalks, eliminating blight, etc. Not higher end investment schemes more properly funded by other means.
Whether it’s the downtown Nugget Project or some component like the incubator, issues keep surfacing that create more questions. Other voices besides our own are increasingly calling on our city leaders to slow down this runaway train called the Nugget Project that now seeks federal funding for an as yet unapproved project. Carson City taxpayers deserve answers. Not just vague references to “saving the town from extinction” or “trust us.”
When the Supervisors sit down this Thursday to consider the list of CDBG applications, they will see that their CDBG Citizens Advisory Committee, that reviewed all the applications, recommended that groups and agencies devoted to low and middle income projects listed above get funded.
The committee specifically stated that the downtown Nugget Project economic incubator should NOT get any CDBG funding. We also believe that the Supervisors ought to support the other applicants who support children, the poor, the frail and elderly, the homeless, the hungry, and the handicapped with federal funds and not continue to say that while they haven’t even seen a Nugget Project in any final form, they’re still willing to throw $115,000 a year at it for twenty years. Twenty years.
This issue is in sore need of adult supervision.
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