Mr. Boyd,
I attended the County Commission meeting Wednesday morning and wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your presentation on the ChooChoo PILOT. You were "dead on" in your assessment of the situation and I applaud you for spending (what had to have been) countless hours preparing your argument.
You helped to restore my faith in our elected officials if only because you proved that you are actually intelligent and that, at least a few of you are not in the back pockets of the multi-million dollar developers.
I'm guessing that Mr. Kinsey will not be on the list of donors to your next campaign.
I own commercial property in the Soddy Daisy Industrial Park. I am a "small fish" therefore I do not qualify for any type of tax break. I paid $20K last year to the county in property tax and it galls me to see people like ex-mayor Kinsey walk away with a half million dollar break while I am left holding the bag. I guess when Mr. Graham said, "We did not give anything away," he had forgotten that he "gave" my tax dollars to the police and firefighters who will have to protect Mr. Kinsey's new tenants. He "gave" my tax dollars to maintain the infrastructure that supports the ChooChoo, ie sewers, streetlights, roads, etc. Did he ever stop to consider that without all of these PILOTs the additional income from these properties might have actually lowered my taxes?
Unfortunately, I do not live in your district. In fact, I have never contacted a county commissioner in the 30 years I have lived here, but I was so moved by your effort that I felt I had to offer my thanks even though the other commissioners seemed to have suffered temporary deafness while you were speaking. After listening to your arguments anyone who voted "yes" to that PILOT was either not bright enough to understand the situation or was in the pockets of the developers. Either way they failed us.
Thank you again for the tremendous effort this morning. Anyone who has put together a presentation like that citing references knows exactly what went into that. I am sorry that the backroom political deals prevailed. Please don't let it stop you from doing the right thing again next time. We are paying attention.
Lynn Ashton
Chattanooga