Letters to the editor

On public subsidies and development When I was growing up in Findlay in the 1960s, its economy was supported mainly by its two dominant corporations: Marathon Oil and Cooper Tire. Then, in the years 1981-82, Mobil sent shockwaves through the community with its attempted hostile takeover of Marathon and its imputed intent to move the headquarters to New York. Findlay's leaders took action. They sought the formation of public-private entities, such as The Alliance and Community Development Foundation (present-day Findlay-Hancock County Economic Development), that could work with industry to diversify and strengthen Findlay's economy and reduce its over-reliance on these two corporations. I was a vice president at the Ohio Bank in the 1980s and worked alongside, though not usually directly with, Frank Guglielmi, who was its first vice president and its de facto ambassador to Japan. Frank, too, was a co-founder of the Tall Timbers Industrial Park, which furnished a place for these new businesses to operate. With the development of that park came the integration of CRAs and TIFs into the economic structure and strategy that Findlay adopted as its response to that present-day challenge to its economic viability. Back then, CRAs and TIFs were purposed to attract new businesses and jobs for fear that we weren't diversified enough to withstand the departure of either Marathon Oil or Cooper Tire. The purpose was diversification, job growth, resilience, and stability. But today, using, as example, the present-day proposal to develop a residential community on the Shady Grove acreage, we can see a sharp contrast in the proposed purpose of the subsidy. This is a private development for private gain, the beneficiaries of which are the current property owner and the developer, Vision Companies. They leverage their argument for public subsidy by citing the housing shortage in Findlay. And this is where the waters muddy. This housing development produces no new jobs, it brings no new industry to Findlay. It does not, in that sense, grow the taxpayer base and repay the CRA subsidy. While, empirically, it may or may not be true that the 1980s logic of job creation and growth repaid those subsidies, neither is this argument without merit. To the point, this was the logic of the 1980s — to support diversification, job growth, resilience, and stability. That, it did do, and wildly so. Today, Findlay is much stronger and is a nationally recognized "micropolitan." Today's argument is framed with the logic of a labor bottleneck, not, perhaps, shortage, but a constraint on expansion. The most effective means of amelioration being to build more residential housing. City hall is being asked to solve this problem with the economic tool of the 1980s, the CRA. But the burden of this CRA would fall to the taxpayer at-large, whereas by this reasoning, the corporation (along with the current property owner and the developer) would benefit. The average taxpayer would pay the bill. The original purpose of the 1980s economic strategy was to foster a spirit of cooperation such that the city and its inhabitants' welfare would not be bandied about by corporate caprice. That was the threat that the attempted hostile takeover of Marathon Oil by Mobil presented. And entities such as the Findlay-Hancock County Economic Development came into being for this purpose. But it looks today like that purpose has been subverted to catering to what it was intended to avoid: the city's loss from a corporate vagary devoted to the bottom line. Please, let's inform the debate on subsidies with an understanding of its history and remain true to its purpose of a cooperative engagement of both the stability of this city's industry and the welfare of its people. Mike Brewer Findlay