Letters to the editor, 05/06/06
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Finally, a discussion on incentives for smaller projects
Finally. Some public debate on a very public issue -- tax incentives for real estate projects ("Downtown Housing in Need of Boost, But How?" April 26). In proposing a full 10-year property tax abatement program, Councilman Bill Peduto has taken on a difficult issue that needs to be addressed. The city has a system in place that favors assisting some development projects over others.
Property tax abatement programs help to solve an economic problem that we cannot currently resolve in Pittsburgh. We are faced with construction costs equivalent to Chicago, and rental or sale prices far lower than that city's. The math doesn't add up.
Over the last two years, with rapidly rising construction costs due to China's building boom and the continued need to send construction materials to New Orleans, the numbers look even worse. Removing property taxes from the operating burden of new projects in their early years gives them a chance at financial feasibility ... and it puts projects on the tax rolls that will eventually produce much-needed income for the city.
Programs currently in place are woefully biased toward very large projects, which can apply for tax increment financing. TIFs are difficult to implement and require political will, an impossibility for the small projects that companies like mine build.
With the implementation of Councilman Peduto's proposal, projects that we have looked at and discarded over the past two years would be viable. His program would allow developers like us to start building again, with gusto.
EVE PICKER
no wall productions inc.
we do property management inc.
Downtown
Bush blunders
Consumers are pointing their fingers at the wrong people when they blame oil companies for the high gasoline prices. I have no sympathy for executives of oil companies who are giving themselves obscene compensation, but they had little to do with their companies' current windfall profits.
The oil companies are merely benefiting from the huge increase in worldwide crude oil prices. Prior to the Iraq war, crude oil was selling for about $25 per barrel. Earlier this week it was almost $75. When the cost of crude oil triples, oil companies' profits obviously triple also even when profit margins remain the same. The increased demand from the booming economies of China and India have pushed up the price of crude oil somewhat, but the major cause for the huge increase in prices has been disruption of supply caused by the war in Iraq.
And as we have seen recently the major cause of the run-up to $75 per barrel and the resulting $3-plus per gallon gasoline prices has been fear and speculation in international markets that the Bush administration is contemplating another war and possibly a nuclear strike against Iran, the second-largest oil-producing country in the Middle East.
The greedy oil company executives are convenient targets for consumers' ire, but people should look to Washington, D.C., and the Bush administration's foreign policy blunders to discover the real cause of escalating gasoline prices.
GERALD SCHILLER
Penn Hills
Corporate chess
In my daily travels to the gym, I am suddenly experiencing the immigration situation firsthand. A year ago, all cleaning and maintenance jobs at my gym were being held by American citizens. Today, everyone is Mexican.
Did the American citizens suddenly have a disdain for their jobs and hand them over to the Mexicans? Of course not. Even if that's what a lot of politicians wanted you to believe, the American citizens were forced out by cheap labor.
Do I blame the Mexicans for this? Absolutely not. They're just trying to make a living. Corporate America is to blame. It uses the plight of these poor people to feed the fire for corporate gains.
If corporate America were forced to pay the Mexican poor a decent living wage, it would level the playing field for everyone. The middle class is being strangled, and corporate America has our politicians from both sides of the aisle in the hip pockets.
This corporate chess game using the middle class and poor Mexicans needs to stop, but it can only stop when the big business-leaning government is voted out of office.
PHILIP GEISLER
Upper St. Clair
Send them home
Now is the time for every red-blooded American to exercise his or her rights and demand to government officials that illegal immigrants be sent back to the country of their birth, where they can protest all they like.
That's where the demanding needs to take place -- there, not here.
CRAWFORD WILSON JR.
Monroeville
Women objectified
It is a sad comment on the state of our society that young men from a highly rated school district find nothing wrong in objectifying young women, humiliating them and possibly betraying their trust ("Explicit Ranking of Girls Sparks Outrage," April 26; "Mt. Lebanon Suspends Student for Role in List," May 5).
Does it really matter whether the list was compiled on school property? Obviously the school district and the parents of these young men fell down on the job when it came to instilling respect and good values in these young men.
And one has to wonder if the list had been a ranking of male students, teachers, administrators and/or police officers based on parts of their anatomies, whether the uproar and response would have been swifter, with more concern for the victims.
CELIA SHAPIRO
Squirrel Hill
Pittance to charity
Let me see if I have this right. Our wannabe governor, Lynn Swann, and his wife made more than $1 million last year ("Swann Releases Income Data," May 4). They gave less than 1 percent of that income ($6,600) to charity.
Does that strike anyone as perhaps a little less than generous? And this is the guy some tout to run our great state, lacking in experience (and, apparently, in generosity) as he may be.
Perhaps he thinks it will be easier to address the problems of our aged, infirm, uninsured and youth with other people's money, i.e., we the taxpayers'.
PAUL KRUPER
Upper St. Clair
First Published May 6, 2006 12:00 am
