Sounds like a gift to me.
The city, of course, is further pinning its economic future on increasing car sales. By doing so, obviously we stand to benefit from tax revenue, revenue that supposedly will exceed the half million
Of course, the best way the city council can incentivize Elk Grovians to buy cars is to forcefeed extreme auto dependency into every goddamn planning approval. Make sure that if a resident wants to buy a pack of gum she'll be forced into a 6-mile round trip to the consumption depot. Ensure streets are built to discourage pedestrianism, that they only provide for the efficient delivery of vehicular traffic. Ensure that if anyone moves to Elk Grove there are no options made available to provide for basic services or for doing anything else unless sheltered under the carapace of a new 2011 Ford Escape from the Automall.
All the while Elk Grovians don't ever question this arrangement. No, a car is...just...necessary. Gotta have one. Actually, we gotta have multiple cars per housal unit. As I look at each housal unit on my street, my own unit has three. Next to me -- three. Next to them -- three. Next to them -- two. Across the street -- three. Next to them -- four, if you include the two motorcycles. Next to them -- foreclosed...but they drove away from that unit in their two cars.
Nothing like a little collusion between big developers and their deep pockets keeping the same city council incumbents in office, along with big automall financiers and their deep pockets keeping the same city council incumbents in office, along with the guaranteed expectation that every so often a half million dollars in borrowed monies flows to "stimulate" their endeavors.
What I really like about this incentive is how, early next year when the Ford dealership returns (which vacated two years ago), they will use a portion of this incentive money to blow on a grand re-opening ceremony complete with "NASCAR teams and monster trucks." Just what this city needs -- two autocentric spectator sports promoting the purchasing of vehicles that our residents will try to emulate when they race each other up Franklin Blvd. at 1AM or try to beat the lights at the intersections they know don't yet have cameras.
And we accept this. You know, some French farmers actually claim that their geese "look forward" to the mechanical contraption used to force feed them to fatten their livers. When their only source of food is such a device, well, I suppose they'd really have no choice but to look forward to it. We don't realize we're getting force fed continued auto dependent horseshit, and yet we cheerfully look forward to our darling children in the Franklin High School marching band at the opening ceremony, we cheerfully throw a fucking parade for a dealer that failed once and that may fail a second (or third) time, we cheerfully accept blowing a half million dollars into developing a few dozen jobs selling shit, and we cheerfully accept even further dependency on retail sales to provide our [only viable source of] tax revenues.
This incentives announcement comes not two weeks after an election where we chose the same developer/automall funded councilmemebers. No surprise there, eh?
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