How Do Film "Incentives" Affect NC?

An interesting article about whether or not NC's film incentives actually work. American Spectator:

The state offers one of the nation’s most enticing tax-incentive programs to production companies. Last year, Tar Heel taxpayers forked over $5,071,322 in tax credits to Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. In its three-season run, the HBO series Eastbound and Down has siphoned $3,740,884 from North Carolina. The CW Network’s One Tree Hill has drained a whopping $27 million from the state’s coffers over the last five years.

Even Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment body-slammed the state for $135,401. That was its reward for shooting Raw and Smackdown at arenas in Charlotte and Raleigh in 2010.

WWE? WTF?

Hollywood welfare, like actual welfare, overflows with abuse. Last month, a Massachusetts court found filmmaker Daniel Adams guilty of defrauding the Bay State out of more than $4 million in tax credits by inflating his costs on The Lightkeepers and The Golden Boys. The offenses included a claim by Adams that he had paid Richard Dreyfuss six times his actual salary of $400,000. If you haven’t seen, let alone heard of, The Golden Boys or The Lightkeepers, you’re not alone. They appear to have been made as much for tax subsidies as for box-office receipts.

“In fiscal year 2010, the forty-three states that offer film subsidies spent $1.5 billion of your tax dollars subsidizing film and TV production,” Jason Mattera writes in Hollywood Hypocrites. “Let’s put that in real terms. Hollywood’s 2009 welfare payments would have been enough to pay the salaries of 23,500 middle school teachers, 26,600 firefighters, and 22,800 police patrol officers.”

How Do Regulations Affect Wilmington?

A few months ago or so, the Wilmington City Council hired a consultant, yet again. This time it was to tell them how to improve the "development process", meaning they paid someone $23k to tell them just how much the planning and zoning department is a tyrannical bureaucracy.

Of course, it would have benefited members of City Council to actually look into this themselves, but instead someone looked into it for them, and now we have this report.

What does it say? 

Recommendation #1: Hire a new person. Not fire anyone. Not give deadlines where if no action is taken on something it's automatically approved. Hire a new person.

They say this is necessary to essentially "change the culture" within the department.

The department already has a head. Should this kind of responsibility not go to the department head?

Additionally, from what I've heard, the city planning and code enforcement staff are real ballbusters, especially downtown.  Of course, the people who create this kind of atmosphere are never addressed.  The "solution" is to simply add another layer of bureaucracy that could be just as hostile as what's already there.

What about how quickly the city approves projects?

"There is certainly an issue with timeliness and timeliness is a two way street," Michelle Ferguson, associate of The Novak Consulting Group, said during a presentation of the findings to council at an agenda briefing Monday. Some of the lag has to do with insufficient submittal of site plans, the study found. 

Mayor Bill Saffo said several projects are taking six to eight months to get through the review process.

Ahhh, you have to love the understatement of Bill Saffo, especially when it benefits him.  Does it really take just six to eight months?

Let's take a look at part of an article that describes how long it took for The View to get approval downtown. For those of you who don't know, The View would have been where we now have our "wall of keys", the city's most appalling eyesore.

A lot has changed since 2006 when architects started drawing plans for The View. Terry Espy, managing partner and project developer, said it took three years to get the needed permits. The land, which has all the needed permits and has been released for construction from the city, now sits vacant as the economic tornado hit that project too.

Three years, folks. That's a lot more than six months, which is still too much. With some projects, like the Gateway project, they simply stifle it for years until the developers go bankrupt.

Additionally, what Saffo is saying is that he knows about this but he's doing nothing.  He's presenting himself as if he's helpless, when in reality he could actually be the most important figure in city government (no offense, Sterling.)

Finally, at the end of the story, we get actual figures about how terrible our city is in terms of facilitating development:

In the study, which included a survey of more than 57 stakeholders, 67 percent of those in the community who responded said the process doesn't result in higher quality development, 62 percent say it doesn't compare favorably with other communities and 85 percent said the current regulations hinder development.

Upset you don't have a job? Your kid or your friend doesn't have a job? Upset you don't have a nice place to shop or relax?  Talk to the Wilmington planning and development department.

Of course, don't talk to the Wilmington City Council, because we all know it's not them who's actually in charge of the city government.

Government Lobbying Government?

Yes, folks, that is the next great "economic development" idea out of our brilliant Mayor Bill Saffo.

In other news to come out of the agenda brief, Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo said he'd like council to consider hiring a lobbyist for both Raleigh and Washington, D.C. Saffo says the need has increased in recent years.

Yes, folks, government lobbying government. Does merely reading it not make you feel disgusting? What ever happened to lean, efficient government? Now it's pigs feeding at the troph. Never forget that all federal and state dollars still come ultimately from the taxpayers.

But what's the truly amazing thing about this?

Wilmington already has a lobbyist. It is Ms. Lawless Bean, whose real first name apparently is Mary. I don't know why she goes by "Lawless." Maybe because she's employed by the Wilmington government.

I've also heard that we're the only city of our size to have a lobbyist up in Raleigh. And now Bill Saffo wants to send another one to D.C.? You've got to be kidding.

$1.1M for Recycling Bins That Tell on You?

Were you aware that Wilmington authorized $1.1M for new recycling bins? If you're a close reader of the local news, chances are you were.

Were you aware that these recycling bins will be outfitted with rfid chips? Chances are you weren't. Only the StarNews mentioned it and they mentioned it very briefly.

However, it's true and clearly stated in the supplemental documents for the last City Council meeting:

Each of the roll-out carts will have a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip which will allow us to collect and maintain data regarding the carts’ use, location, and to target outreach efforts in specific sections of the City.

Additionally, City dump trucks are going to be outfitted with readers for these rfid chips. The cost will be about $81k.

What are these going to be used for? Well, if you're familiar with the City of Wilmington you're aware that the answer is probably: "no good".

Let's take a look at how they've been used in other places.

Cleveland Plain Dealer:

It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders' trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling -- and fine them $100 if they don't. The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes.

The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn't been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.

Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens. Recyclables include glass, metal cans, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard.

Another:

[S]ome cities are using RFID tags to penalize those who don’t recycle. Earlier this summer, Laurel, Md. began using RFID bins to enforce $25-100 fines for houses not using their bins. All bins are linked to an address, and the city requires recycling participation.

It's my guess that this is exactly the kind of thing that Wilmington has in mind.

Is this a good idea? Is recycling even "environmental friendly"? Of course not. Take a closer look at the facts:

"Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America." (Originally NY Times)





It's another scam. And it's going to wind up costing you more and more.

Dreaming of Electric Sheeple

The resistance is in full swing. Download petitions and get updates at www.notaxpayerstadium.blogspot.com and www.facebook.com/nostadium.

So, Wilmington is "going green", again. And yet again it's in a totally minor and mostly symbolic way. Yet even so, it's still going to cost you.

City Council may allow Progress Energy to install and maintain two electric vehicle charging stations in the Market St. parking deck. Progress Energy will cover installation and maintenance costs for two years, at which time responsibility could, and probably would, switch over to Wilmington.

Wilmington will only supposedly pay for the electricity for people to charge their cars, an estimated $10 a year. This, of course, could be totally off the mark, and subsidizing this type of thing, which is already heavily subsidized, is not the role of government. Additionally, Wilmington will have to take out liability insurance with a cap of about $4M.

But that's not the real kicker. The kicker is that the money for installation and maintenance isn't really coming from Progress Energy. They apparently have gotten a Federal grant for this.

From the contract:

With respect to any marketing efforts including but not limited to logos, stickers, decals or signage made a part of equipment purchased or infrastructure established; or any printed materials or other marketing and/or outreach materials, activities, or web sites created under this Agreement, Host agrees: i) to consider erecting qualifying signage identifying the EVSE as “being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act;”

You're paying coming and going. Don't you love the new definition of "capitalism"?

Orwilmington

Up is down, left is right, and now a government handout is "entrepreneurship."

And the saddest part? Local officials seem to have no problem with it.

StarNews:

A spin off of the University of North Carolina Wilmington's entrepreneurship center could cost taxpayers some money.

The center's director, Jonathan Rowe, approached the city council Monday with the idea of the city helping to fund the start of the new center. He is seeking about $100,000 for the first year to rent a building, pay for water and electricity and some grant money for start-up businesses.

City council members were open to the idea but said Rowe needed to also ask the New Hanover County Commissioners to chip in. The center, which was created in 2010, helps connect start-up companies and small businesses to sources of expertise and funding. The center, now located on campus, has reorganized as UNCW Entrepreneurship Center LLC and will also seek private donations.

Rowe said Monday he can get businesses to donate computers, Internet and phone service but he needs help getting the center up and running. He added, the goal would be to make the center self-sufficient in two years by leasing part of the space to existing businesses.

Mayor Bill Saffo said if the city does donate money to the center, he would want to establish benchmarks.

The biggest question, in a time when the city faces a nearly $13 million budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year, was where the money would come from.

"We're looking at budget shortfalls. We've got to county every penny," Councilwoman Margaret Haynes said. "The concept, I'm OK with. It's just the money. How are we going to pay for it?"

Rowe has been in talks with City Manager Sterling Cheatham who suggested locating the center downtown. Cheatham said this could be the city's way of investing in small business incentives, a priority the mayor laid out in his state of the city speech earlier this year.

[...]Councilman Neil Anderson suggested the city reevaluate the money it gives to existing economic development organizations to see if the resources are being spread out as they should. (Which is not the same, far from it, from questioning in principle.)

Councilman Charlie Rivenbark said the city spends less on economic development than other cities its size or smaller.

"It's pitiful what we spent on it," he said. (Aww, boohoo, Charlie)

Wilmington Taxes Man $400k Because They Don't Like His Business

Yup. It's true. Don't you love that you live in the day where government thinks they can do whatever they want to you?

WECT:

The manager of a sweepstakes parlor plans to sue the city of Wilmington over his tax bill.

Leo Daniels, of 777 Sweepstakes, says he received a letter from the city earlier this week saying that he owes more than $400,000 taxes.

A city spokesman says an ordinance says parlors are taxed every six months per machine.

Daniels says this is his first tax bill, which amounts to more in taxes than he makes in a year.

The city spokesman says six sweepstakes parlors received the same letter this week regarding their back taxes owed to the city.

Also, this guy Leo Daniels isn't some sort of bum. He's involved in other businesses and owns the agency that is doing the extra casting for Iron Man 3.