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I
will not be so bold as to try to tell all of you how to think about
such an endeavor, but I will make an attempt at explaining the
realities that I have been able to determine as factual regarding
such a park. I will then leave to you the thought process of
supporting or rejecting such a plan.
Legend
1 — The price of the proposed park is too expensive
After
the Courier mistakenly stated acreage at $18,000 per acre and placed
the retraction on a subsequent day in the middle of the paper, many
still do not realize the price is $10,700 per acre. Some of course,
state that the price is too high for $3,000-per-acre farmland, but
they are not basing that idea on the reality of what location does
to a price. Location creates price. The more appealing a location,
the higher the price. Place the same house in the most appealing
location in Lincoln and then the poorest, and tell me there isn’t
a remarkable difference in price.
Acreage
adjacent to any city commands a higher price tag. The cost of
running a sewer line, an electrical service and expanding roads a
thousand feet rather than several miles makes the land more
valuable. In this case purchasing land farther away from the city
for $3,000 per acre actually could cost millions more than buying
adjacent land at $10,700 per acre.
Legend
2 — Why don’t we just promote the west end
The
west end is continuing to grow. In the event you visited Lincoln 20
years ago and just stopped by this Easter weekend, you would find
the change remarkable. Hotels, eateries, retailers dot the road
toward the highway. This property, depending on when it was sold,
cost these businesses between $15,000 and $25,000 per acre, by the
way. The acreage also has been used commercially, not industrially,
for a very simple reason. Industry does not want to build in a
commercial-residential area. NIMBY attitude is prevalent throughout
the United States, but it is as strong as anywhere in Lincoln. Do
the residents of Westville subdivision want homes or a factory
across the road from them? Do Zion and West Lincoln-Broadwell
support a widget factory leaving work the same time their schools
are let out?
Has
anyone even asked them these questions? The reality is the last nine
businesses in the manufacturing sector to visit Lincoln were not
interested in the west side. They want to locate in an exclusive
industrial complex where the protest of "not next to me"
won’t rear its ugly head as they try to build. Perhaps they have
read the papers regarding CILAs and apartment complexes enough to
know that Lincoln has a track record of wanting growth just so long
as it is not in their neighborhood.
I
would hope the west end receives all the support and assistance from
the county and city to continue to expand and grow, but the facts
are the west end is commercial and has no interest to the nation’s
industrial base. At least not yet, that is. It always does take just
one heavy hitter who’s interested to make all the rules go away.
[to top of second column in this
commentary]
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Legend
3 — Property taxes will explode if an industrial park is created
I
have talked to more than half the city and county officials, and not
one of them has even suggested this cost be borne with higher
property taxes. A development could be created through bonds, loans
and many other possibilities. A program to assist the west end
developers could also be included so that expansion could be a
twofold project. New factories could induce new retailers as well as
homes. After decades of nothing, why not jump into all of this with
both economic feet?
Legend
4 — Now is the not the time to gamble on an industrial park
Spending
money is never easy when the future is uncertain. How many of us
when younger purchased a home? Did we say, let’s wait until we can
write a check or did we have enough faith in ourselves to say:
"Now is the time to buy this house. The future payments will be
borne on the promise of tomorrow." Many of us years later are
glad we took that gamble. We have something now that is of a daily
benefit to our lives because we took the shot when things weren’t
guaranteed. I also have to ask how well off we would be right now if
two decades ago, when the same set of circumstances was made
available to this community, we had gone ahead with such a project
rather than just write it off as "not now with the way things
are."
I
hope all of you think about the industrial park proposal. I hope you
will ask yourselves if it is not in our best interests to include a
program for the west end as well, plus undertake a sincere effort at
expanding tourism into the mix. The economics of Logan County are
not very good. A principal reason is because we have never had
enough faith in ourselves to gamble on growing. Instead we have
retracted to the point that we are the same size as we were in the
1890 census. In the event that is what you want — a small town
stumbling to remain status quo — you have that. In the event you
believe we need to shift the tax burden from a few to many, we need
to act.
Yeah,
I know. I wasn’t very objective in my opinions. My facts, however,
are the truth. We either need to have enough faith in ourselves to
give this thing a fair shot or we need to just let things spiral
into an economic quagmire. I can live with the latter if that’s
what you want. I don’t have that many years left, and my child
will seek opportunities in other cities. Since most of you can say
the same thing, what does that tell all of us?
[Mike
Fak]
Reply to
Fak
(not for publication):
mikefak@msn.com
Response
to Fak’s commentary:
ldneditor@lincolndailynews.com
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