The sound of burning tax dollars
PFF.
I wish I had friends like Don Mazziotti and Matt Hennessee. Then I could get $1 million of taxpayer dollars "loaned" to me to start my business. And if I couldn't pay because I couldn't make my business work? The PDC would just let me repay the money whenever I could get around to it.
And I could blame my business problems on the City Club.
It must be nice.
UPDATE, 9/14, 1:47 p.m.: First link changed, to reflect my original intent. Tough day yesterday...
| Posted at 11:38 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (14)
My favorite line is "People dispute credit-card charges all the time," Mazziotti says.
Yeah maybe a dollar here a dollar there, but $100,000 - give me a break. These guys are shameless.
Posted by Jack Danger | September 14, 2005 12:04 AM
Aren't these jokers gone yet? I thought Potter sent them packing.
Posted by portland publius | September 14, 2005 1:09 AM
Um, that WW story is almost two years old...
Posted by Kari Chisholm | September 14, 2005 2:09 AM
I have a Keystone Cops style skit.
Let's give 250 million dollars worth of diamonds to a professional fence. Then we can try to catch him for selling the hot items. Surely we can get some of them back, but certainly not more than 250 million dollars worth.
That is a close approximation of giving Economic Development money to anyone and then trying to constrain illicit use for favored folks. The incentive is to engage in graft like a hog and hope that you don't get caught. Making such schemes BIGGER just increases the gifts and . . . would reduce the odds of getting caught for each circumstance of funny business. I say the whole thing is funny business.
Capitalism is an accountability thing, or should be.
Should Shelley Lorenzen be credited with sticking her neck out? We need some real public interest lawyers to follow suit all over the Portland landscape.
Posted by Ron Ledbury | September 14, 2005 4:36 AM
The fast and loose ways at the PDC will meet their demise.
It would be sooner rather than later if everyone would create an harmonic tremor demanding an immediate halt to the bulk of their acitvity along with a full and complete audit.
Complete as in how much have they truly spent, are spending and what has and is the public truly getting in return.
Tracking down where every dime went and compiling the true public subsidy of the many projects and programs will make the demise permanent.
Posted by steve schopp | September 14, 2005 8:15 AM
Wow, I may have to work overtime today to help pay for this nonsense! My tax dollars hard at work.
Posted by Karen | September 14, 2005 8:24 AM
As best I can see, the PDC exists to score sweet loans for companies to build in areas that would have been built in anyway.
Or am I missing something?
Posted by Dave J. | September 14, 2005 9:41 AM
I second Kari. The story is almost two years old.
Is this an update of an old story? What the?
Posted by Mark Maxcy | September 14, 2005 9:47 AM
How about a story 1 day old
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/112660920957800.xml?oregonian?lcg&coll=7
PDC says it won't try for more tax credits
After struggling to use all the federal credits granted in 2004, the agency won't meet deadlines to apply for more
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
RYAN FRANK
",,second consecutive round, the firm and the commission won't meet federal deadlines to bring more tax credits to town"
",, the city projected it would close seven deals in 2004. But the first two projects -,,,- didn't close until July."
"The firm,,, still owes the commission $793,355 for its start-up costs and $180,000 for a working capital loan,,"
"Don Mazziotti,, wrote in an e-mail to his staff,,, "Unless transactions are closed, PFF will go out of business."
"But Lozano said the firm was never in danger of closing"
Posted by steve schopp | September 14, 2005 10:10 AM
Yeah, read that yesterday. Actually, i think it's a good idea if they just shut the hell up for a while and get their house in order. I actually think the idea of PDC is a good one, but one that's gotten way, way off track.
Posted by Mark | September 14, 2005 10:35 AM
PDC was set up as an autonomous agency back in the days when the mayor and city council were on the take from the pinball joints, backroom gambling dens and houses of prostitution all over town. The citizens were smart enough to know they couldn't put all that development money in the hands of the council. Looks like things have gone 180 degrees. Power may corrupt, but free, public money corrupts absolutely.
Posted by Dave Lister | September 14, 2005 10:56 AM
Now they're on the take from favored developers. This seems to be the redevelopment game. As a previous poster said, we need to build a movement to force focus on facts and figures.
Posted by Cynthia | September 14, 2005 1:09 PM
Oops! Yes, in that first "paragraph," I was trying to link to this. (And I now have.)
Posted at 11:38 p.m. -- too early for me to really get warmed up... 8c)
Thanks, Kari, for the correction. I trust your office-warming went well?
Posted by Jack Bog | September 14, 2005 1:45 PM
When I read the reference to blaming it on City Club I just assumed it was the recent article you were referring to. The sad plaint "City Club scared our investors away" did somewhat leap out from the page at me...
Sad. Very Sad. Bad City Club. Mean City Club.
Posted by Anne Dufay | September 14, 2005 8:03 PM