[Vision2020] [Bulk] water sale bill

[Bill London]

Paul-
regarding the aquifer issue: I believe Moscow's agreement to supply water 
(and sewage, remember that) facilitated the development...Hawkins faced some 
very serious legal issues about obtaining water rights that Moscow's gift of 
water made irrelevant.
regarding the econ dev issue: The dream that the Hawkins supermall will 
encourage retail in Moscow is a fallacy.  Moscow retail will suffer, stores 
will close taking property and sales taxes away from Idaho.

BL


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Rumelhart" <godshatter at yahoo.com>
To: "roger hayes" <rhayes at turbonet.com>
Cc: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 10:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] [Bulk] water sale bill


>I would agree with you 100% if it weren't for the "milkshake" problem
> (see the movie There Will Be Blood for the reference).  The aquifer
> knows nothing about State borders.  If we don't sell the water to them,
> they'll just suck it up out of the same reservoir that we currently use,
> which  means we'll be out of both the water and the money.  They will
> still build, which will rob us of tax dollars.  I'm not convinced that
> we wouldn't benefit overall from more traffic coming to our local area,
> even if we lose some sales to the mega-mall.  Not to mention that the
> construction sector of our economy is hurting, so I'm glad to see
> anything going up.
>
> If you're going to build a grocery store, where do you build it?  Do you
> build it next to other grocery stores, or do you stake out land that's
> farther away in an area that doesn't have coverage?  You would think
> that building in the area that doesn't have a grocery store would be
> better, but if you do it will more than likely go under because people
> are used to going to where the grocery stores currently are for their
> shopping needs.  So it's better to build it near the other grocery
> stores.  You'll get a percentage of the traffic coming into that area,
> which is likely higher in absolute numbers than what you would bring in
> in the other area.  So it's possible that this mega-mall will actually
> help out the Palouse Empire Mall and the businesses along the highway
> there.  It depends upon whether or not the added traffic will compensate
> for the lost percentages.
>
> Paul
>
> roger hayes wrote:
>> This issue is very divisive to our community. I come down on the side
>> which does not wish to encourage development outside of our ability to
>> tax  that development. Idaho water, and in particular Latah county
>> water is a very precious commodity. Why in heaven's name do we want to
>> sell it to out of state interests? Particularly during the difficult
>> times we should be looking to enhance our revenues, not ship them out
>> of state.
>>
>> Now, we already have lost James Toyota from the state, county and city
>> revenue stream. Can you imagine what a mega-mall just across the border
>> will do to our tax base if we encourage them to build there by handing
>> them water and other infrastructure?
>>
>> I tire of the argument "they are going to build it anyway, so we may as
>> well just sell them the water."
>> This legislation smacks of "special interest" gifting, and I do hope a
>> large percentage of Latah county residents will begin to turn their
>> attention toward the supporters of this initiative.
>>
>> Thanks for listening,
>> Roger Hayes
>> Moscow
>>
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>>
>
>
> =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
>
>