OCR Text |
Show v Jack-Straws By Jack Wallis V. J Pressure is being placed on Vernal and Uintah County to endorse is-vJ)ce is-vJ)ce of industrial development bonds for local construction ing. IDR bonds are popular now .-cause of the high rate of interest re-W re-W 'or financing by other means. type of financing can save as much ""percent in interest charges. W three requests were made IDR bonds from Uintah County. The Drs of the new Uintah Basin State Cant IDR bonds to build their new building. Machan, Hampshire, 'nlCo.,MHP made a request jV maximum of $5 million in IDR its Vernal Shopping Center from Western Living, Inc. on ,2fw,y 40 where K Mart Corp- Wte bjnesses are Planning to I 1 Glbson aIso asked for IDR w wild a motel on west Highway ! cZfu "e made to Uintah ' U&v day are for Project in Ver-iy- The city council has refused ClH' , IDR nancing, "'as franchise structure being lie most recent. ierT''ihas aPProved IDR bonds ijWl, 011 service companies, who fcoersti m' and als0 t0 Deseret Mution and ansmission for the "IjiTtro1 U'Pment on the En7 r Plant and 10 ASP"311 ergy Corp. a week ago. 'is'to"1 reasons for IDR ''"ike h 1Ve lndustry incentive i unitj eapiU1 investments in ! ! W ,nvestments may i do Possible. Since the I "ri! I?, Public entity ! fortu Tey are also not respon- ! "as hi ' this tvPe of financ" I Hves fhTT6 PPular because it tnff! eloPer a substantial ! ncingmonev- : jeady e.1 1? tion comes from ! H small g businesses that are ith thnT 8nd in direct competi-'"tage competi-'"tage 0( peeking the added ad- v!ve this kinn fnd fmancing. Is it fair g into an lncentive to those 10 n area to compete with already existing businesses? A good example would have been Smith's Food King store. The Vernal store did not receive IDR bond financ- ' ing, but other areas have issued them to Smith's. Smith's has made an impact in the business of Vernal by bringing in a new super store with additional services. ser-vices. Most of the public has been pleased pleas-ed because they say prices are not only lower at Smith's but other stores have also lowered their prices and this saves mor.ey. Shopping center promoters have been going from community to community seeking IDR bond funding for their proposed pro-posed centers. These bonds can be approved ap-proved either by the city or county government. Uintah County has wisely turned the decision for those within the city back to the city. Now Vernal City will again have to wrestle with the IDR bond decision as more requests will inevitably be made. Another complaint toward IDR bonds is they are usually issued to larger companies com-panies with many stores or groups of stores. The smaller businessman hasn't usually used this type of financing. The small operator may say it is not fair, but the larger operator says why not, it is there, and it is not costing the public entity anything. It would appear the State and Federal governments need to make some changes in their bonding requirements. Municipal bonds have always had a tax advantage so municipalities could raise money for needed projects within a community for special needs. But when the same kind of a tax advantage is given to some private businesses and not to others we can see problems. IDR bonding decisions should either be accepted and made available as a method of financing for every business that wants to use them or they should not be made available to anyone. To force a public entity into a pick and choose situation and to play one entity against the other is an unfortunate situation that can only cause more problems pro-blems in our public sector, and ngn now that is just what the area doesn t need. |