Dear Editor:
I read with great happiness that some people in Gilroy are awake
and paying attention to what is going on in their community.
Dear Editor:
I read with great happiness that some people in Gilroy are awake and paying attention to what is going on in their community. I am speaking of the proposed $5.4 million corporate charity donation that is earmarked for the Tenth Street and U.S. 101 project.
Why is it that city councils and city staffs think that it is such a good call to bring corporate opportunists into their community and then give them millions of dollars in credits just to suck profits out of the town and replace them with meager returns from sales tax dollars? Trading sales tax from one in-town business to an out-of-town business just doesn’t make sense.
Don’t cities realize that locally owned businesses return three times as many dollars to their community as corporations from other states do? Some thriving communities like Austin, Tex. have done the math and realize now that spending that money on nurturing their homegrown businesses gives them a lot more “bang for their buck”. (E-mail me at br**@*********rt.com and I’ll send you the study).
Think what a great benefit keeping Nob Hill Foods corporate offices in Gilroy would have been or if the city hadn’t given up on the downtown when they did, what a difference that could make.
I suggest that next time you need a gift certificate for a scout or church fund raiser that you go ask Max Club (oops) Wal-Mart if they’ll whip one up for you. Think about who really supports you and your community. Then when the city offers up a gift to some mega-corporation that certainly has the money to do what it wants on it’s own, tell them to take a hike.
It is great to know that some folks have already figured out what is going on with this “incentive.” Believe when I tell you this is not just an organized labor issue but an issue that goes much deeper. Please save yourselves and fight for what’s right!
Brad Jones, Morgan Hill
Submitted Wednesday, April 23 to ed****@****ic.com
