Copyright 2000 Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.
THE ARIZONA
REPUBLIC
February 10, 2000 Thursday, Final
SECTION: CHANDLER COMMUNITY; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 581 words
HEADLINE:
SALES TAX HOLDS MESA HOSTAGE TO BIG RETAILERS
BYLINE:
ART THOMASON, The Arizona Republic
BODY:
I would be
thrilled to report that Mesa's approval of plans for a fifth Wal-Mart was
nothing more than a city selling its soul to a huge retailer.
Sadly, the
real Wal-Mart story in Mesa is hidden beneath the veneer of just another
superstore beauty contest won by an average-looking behemoth that's built like a
brick warehouse.
It's a story about a city held hostage by huge
retailers. It's a tale that could involve any retail empire, not just Wal-Mart.
The city has a big gun pointed at its head, a weapon also known as sales
tax revenue. And that weapon looks very intimidating because municipal revenue
in Mesa comes almost exclusively from one source - the sales tax.
So
when one of the biggest retailers in America applied to build a big-box store on
a corner that was supposed to be preserved for light industry, the sales tax gun
looked like a cannon to Mayor Wayne Brown and City Council members Keno Hawker,
John Giles and Pat Pomeroy.
The four prevailed over Bill Jaffa, Dennis
Kavanaugh and Jim Davidson - three council members who are not afraid of big
retail guns.
"Our reliance on sales tax is the primary reason that our
city councils have systematically cannibalized our industrial property for
commercial development," Jaffa said.
Jaffa has been systematically
invalidating many of the claims by City Hall in recent years that the inability
to attract industry is inexplicable.
During a hearing on Wal-Mart's
proposal, Jaffa read a letter from one of Mesa's leading corporate employers who
doesn't believe that the city's industrial development problem is beyond
explanation either.
Martin H. Stieglitz, vice president of The Boeing
Co.'s Apache Helicopter operations, wrote that a Wal-Mart retail center at
Greenfield and McKellips roads "is not compatible with surrounding industrial
properties and may adversely affect the industrial development of the Falcon
Field industrial area."
"The establishment of a retail center will
inhibit further expansion and development of high technology and aerospace
industry and will not provide the high-paying jobs associated with industrial
development," he added.
The Stieglitz letter was addressed to Dick
Mulligan, director of MEGACORP, Mesa's industrial-recruiting arm.
The
admonishment fell on deaf ears.
It must come as no shock to industrial
execs such as Stieglitz when high-tech Intel prepares to build another plant in
Chandler while neighboring Mesa woos another Wal-Mart, puts it on an industrial
tract and City Hall snubs its nose at Boeing.
Believe me, this is no
rallying cry for a new tax. But economic peril is not far off
if sales tax revenue, as expected, is lost to the
Internet and a series of tax-cutting
initiatives are approved by voters next month.
And what happens if the
economy goes sour?
Until Mesa creates another major and stable source of
revenue, city fathers will find it more and more difficult to resist tempting
offers by developers representing retail, no matter where they want to build.
It has long been considered political suicide for any elected official
to support an additional revenue source such as a city property tax.
But
identifying another source of city revenue is long overdue. Brown and Giles,
both lame ducks, have nothing to lose by opening the discussion.
At the
same time, maybe they could explain how the city would deal with a $27 million
loss of revenue if voters approve tax cuts.
Maybe City Hall will go
after a few more Wal-Marts.
LOAD-DATE: March 9,
2000 
