Attracting business to your rural community!!!

I was on a local board thats purpose was to attract new businesses to town. We had the usual tax abatements to try to attract businesses. I don't really like that approach but it is what it takes to even be considered.

We where in talks and meetings with a smaller company to move to the town. It would have been 20-30 new jobs that where paying 30-35k. That would have been a pretty good local job. This company was owned by one man. He was really interested in our location. He had told us we where one of two final picks. We received a letter about 60 days after the last meeting stating we where no longer in the running. Plus we would not be considered for any future locations.

What had happened???? Local idiot mayor and town council is what happened. They put a red light camera in at the ONE stop light in town. The business owner had came to a stop and then made a right turn to get to the business park where we had the last meeting. That tripped the camera. They ticketed him $125 dollars for running a red light. We raised enough cain that town police showed us the actual tape. The perspective owner HAD came to a complete stop and then made a legal right hand turn. The local IDIOT mayor and town cop would not do anything about the fine. They said that they had no control over the tickets. What???? That is BS. Just a way to milk an out of state car/person. That is all these things are. The ticket has no driving points just money!!!!

I called and talked to the guy personally. He told me that he really like the location better than where he ended up building. The problem to him was if the town was so desperate for money to fleece him on a bogus stop light ticket then they would raise the cost of services after he had built his plant. The sad thing is he was exactly right. The one company we did get to come has complained that the sewer and water bill has tripled in the last five years. The town raised the rate business pays but left the residential rate the same.

I am not longer on that board and will not be on any other. Any thing that deals with a politician is not in my future. They all are crooks even at the local level. NOT one of them can even think about spending LESS. So they just milk the people for more. The saddest part is most people don't even think that there is anything wrong.

Mind telling what town this is ? so I can aoid it ! lol j/k

We have the same problem in the town I live in. The old money in town does not want things to change.We have only one good place in town to eat and that is the local BBQ joint. Down town is dead. Always talk about change but nothing ever happens. Every town in this county is growing except us. Won't be long before the only thing left. Will be the courthouse and the Sheriffs office.

do we live in the same town

(quoted from post at 07:35:27 09/25/11) We have the same problem in the town I live in. The old money in town does not want things to change.We have only one good place in town to eat and that is the local BBQ joint. Down town is dead. Always talk about change but nothing ever happens. Every town in this county is growing except us. Won't be long before the only thing left. Will be the courthouse and the Sheriffs office.

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If it wasn't for the BBQ place I'd say you were talking about a town near me!

JD when did you move to MN :shock: :lol: :lol:

Rick

You should run for mayor. Depending on the size and kind of of your council, get together and run. You migfht even run a recall election.

I worked for a company in a small town. Our accountant paid all the local utility bills without question. One day a mamager from another local comapny called and asked if I had seen the new water bill. I hadn't. He suggested I take a look...our water bill for the quarter had increased 800% with no increase in usage. Turned out the town was hunting revenue and figured "industry could pay" as they certainly couldn't raise the water rates for the elterly, fixed income citizens. The attitude was that we could merely raise our prices to cover their ineptitude.

As most of our consumption was for cooling in our manufacturing process and we had merely been cooling and dumping the cooling water, we added chillers and holding tanks and began recycling our water AND reporting our conservation efforts monthly to the town council UNTIL one day they came to us and said they were dependent on our paying the egregious water bills, stop conserving. I was delighted to tell them "TS", they raised the rates with no prior notification and told us at the council meeting where we made our initial protest that they wanted us to conserve. It delighted me to report our conservation efforts and to be totally unsympathetic to their delima.

Our one concesson was to continue using the townwater rather than going to the expense of drilling a well.

Sounds a lot like the small town I'm from. All the old people (by that I mean the people who have been involved in town politics and business) don't care to listen to new voices, so they drive people with ideas away. This has caused the town to virtually stay the same for 50 years.

I am lucky that I don't live in the town's corporation limits. So no mayor run for me. The Rural development board was a county wide thing. I had been asked to serve after another member resigned. I once thought about running for the local school board after they wasted a bundle on new schools. My first wife talked me out of it as she was sure I would have been in jail after the first meeting. LOL

"The local IDIOT mayor and town cop would not do anything about the fine. They said that they had no control over the tickets. What???? That is BS."

Sorry but I disagree with you and instead agree with the mayor and policeman.

Once the ticket has been filed it is out of the hands of the police officer and it would be up to the prosecutor or judge to dismiss the case. The mayor should never have any part in police work other than the overseeing the work of the officer.

greenbeanman ever head of Mayor's court. Most town traffic tickets here go through Mayor's court not the county court. The Mayor could have dismissed the case/ticket.

You missed the point the ticket should never have been written. The camera feed shows he came to a stop and then made a legal right hand turn.

The town cop that wrote the ticket was arrested several years later for issuing a false ticket to a man that was not even in the state the day the cop wrote him a ticket. He was writing tickets to out of state cars as they would be less likely to come back and argue the ticket. Many here thought the mayor and the town cop where getting a kick back some how but it was never proven.

The mayor was trying to get the man to call him. The mayor sold real estate and wanted to try to sell him some ground that was not in the industrial park that he owned.

I would be a poor one to be on any board or committee to attract new business because I don't agree with that ambition. Rather, keep the business you got. New business means new jobs. New jobs mean more people. More people mean more houses. More houses mean more streets. More streets mean more taxes. More people mean more schools. More schools mean more taxes. More schools and houses mean more infrastructure. More infrastructure means more taxes. And on and on and on. The bigger the town, the higher the cast of living. More crime, more cops, more taxes to pay the cops. More parks for the more kids. More community centers and civic centers. More taxes to pay for that. You see where I'm going. If the town puts all the resources it is spending on trying to attract new business and channels that toward keeping the business it has as older workers retire the young will take their place and no new people are needed. Only taxes required are to maintain what you have. No need to tax for building new things. I don't know if my thinking is right or not but it sure makes you wonder.

Your way of thinking is why this town and many like it are dieing.The young don't want to wait for someone to retire. They leave town. Which leads to empty houses,bad streets,bad water systems that are old and falling apart. Which is because the town does not bring in enough money to pay for every thing it needs.

Your town is destined to become a bedroom community, as our nearby town has.

My opinion - get rid of the stoplights and stop signs. Way too much government intervention, if you ask me. . .

Our community has given a lot of tax money to attract small manufacturing plants. I really think it is a waste of resources. These companies only pay minimum wage or a little better. And when the tax incentives expire, they will move if they are not renewed. Basically, most manufacturing jobs are now "trailer park" jobs. And in Michigan, trailer parks pay next to nothing in property taxes.

I didn't miss the point that the ticket should never have been written without viewing the tape properly in the first place. I'm not in favor at all of the cameras being used.

As to----greenbeanman ever head of Mayor's court. Most town traffic tickets here go through Mayor's court not the county court. The Mayor could have dismissed the case/ticket.

Actually no, I've not heard of Mayor's Court. We have municipal courts that use municipal judges.
Code for municipal courts.

Another issue our local towns have, is the town concil members often OWN a business, and do not want any competition.

JD Seller, I asume you live near Dubuque. So did you ever think why so many folks built out of town, like Peosta, Farley, etc? To get out of the towns towering power, and out to small town living, taxes, and water bills.

The problem then comes with small towns making more demands than the small town started with.

A news story said those type of lights were by some contractor and the cities got the smaller percentage.
That mayor is probably getting more than the town.

Your story sounds a lot like one that happened near here. There was a Chrysler factory in our town that had 300 to 400 employees years ago. One day a caravan of several cars of corporate bigshots came to visit the plant. On the way they were all stopped and ticketed for speeding. Whether that had anything to do with it we'll never know, but soon the corporation no longer wanted to be in our "cowtown" and closed the factory! In both your case and this one, it would have been a good INVESTMENT TO BOOST MORALE to pay the fine for those who were offended!

In western Ks one of the biggest wastes of money is economic developement, they spend thousands of dollars and end up with nothing, what they spemd on running the economic office for a year could start a small business.

First thing you have to do is get people to buy locally.Our town is full of new people who never spend a cent in town.They moved here to avoid city and large town taxes.Population is static now.

(quoted from post at 12:08:15 09/25/11) I would be a poor one to be on any board or committee to attract new business because I don't agree with that ambition. Rather, keep the business you got. New business means new jobs. New jobs mean more people. More people mean more houses. More houses mean more streets. More streets mean more taxes. More people mean more schools. More schools mean more taxes. More schools and houses mean more infrastructure. More infrastructure means more taxes. And on and on and on. The bigger the town, the higher the cast of living. More crime, more cops, more taxes to pay the cops. More parks for the more kids. More community centers and civic centers. More taxes to pay for that. You see where I'm going. If the town puts all the resources it is spending on trying to attract new business and channels that toward keeping the business it has as older workers retire the young will take their place and no new people are needed. Only taxes required are to maintain what you have. No need to tax for building new things. I don't know if my thinking is right or not but it sure makes you wonder.

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lying belgian you got it right! In NH the only towns of any size that have low taxes are one with a seaport one with a nuke and one with a big ski area with a lot of vacation homes. All the other bigger towns have higher taxes than the small towns. Keep the gates up and the taxes down!