Crony Extortion Rackets

Unjustifiable Tax Abatements

Corporations are threatening to move out or not move in if cities refuse to offer them tax abatements.  This is a discount of up to 90% of the property taxes they are assessed to pay for police, fire, roads and other city services. They want a free ride and are acting like monopolies we can’t do without.

Clark Howard reported that in some states, Lowes, Home Depot and Target are threatening closure of their stores in these states if these property tax breaks are not given. The thinking is that the city would be left with large empty stores signaling a decline in portions of their cities. Weak-minded City Councils could succumb to these tactics. 

State Farm Insurance moved its regional customer service offices to the Dunwoody Perimeter area and is building a new office building across from the Dunwoody MARTA station.  The City of Dunwoody gave them a 15 year property tax holiday totaling $83 million and now they want another tax abatement of $48 million over the next 17 years. In exchange for this tax holiday, they will bring another 2200 jobs to PCID. Dunwoody’s Development Authority authorized $650 million in Bond Sales for this project

Now Transwestern wants tax abatements to build a speculative 17 story office building with no current committed renters on top of the MARTA parking lot across from the State Farm building. Transwestern would get a $14 million tax holiday over 12 years in exchange for another 2500 jobs. Dunwoody’s Development Authority authorized $130 million in Bond Sales for the project.

The Perimeter PCID already houses over 100,000 jobs and the roads and the highway at the top of I-285 are already overcrowded with commuter traffic. The DeKalb sanitary sewer problem prompted the County Commission to send a “stop building” letter to Dunwoody and other DeKalb cities. Dunwoody is ignoring the letter and moving ahead on the State Farm and Transwestern office buildings.

DeKalb County is playing catch-up with their sanitary sewer line replacement and EPA has arrived to “help” them. The DeKalb sanitary sewers are old, with 300 breaks and needs to be changed out from 16” to 24” or larger in some areas.  These sewer pipes cost a fortune to replace because they are buried under the streets. DeKalb has had their problems, but this problem runs in the $billions, so they need to stop spending on everything else until the sewer problem is solved.

Other Threats

The State of Georgia was threatened with a Super Bowl ban on Atlanta if they passed the Pastor Protection act to keep Pastors from being subject to lawsuits for failing to hire gay staff.  Coke and others piled on and the Governor refused to sign the Bill. Georgia voters are not amused and they have and will stop buying Cokes and boycotting companies who think they can dictate State law.

Churches are lending their name to the Refugee Resettlement Program to spur the US Muslim invasion. These operations are paid $billions of printed and borrowed federal funds to place these refugees in our cities to receive welfare and ruin our schools. The 62% of US citizens who oppose Muslim resettlement have and will start cutting their collection plate contributions to these churches in protest.

Cobb County Commission Chair Mike Lee just lost reelection because he arranged to move the Braves from the City of Atlanta to the I-285 & Hwy 41 intersection, making traffic worse in the already crowded I-285 & I-75 area and put a $400 million Bond on the taxpayers’ credit card without allowing them to vote to assume this debt. 

Metro Atlanta needs to stick to the basics, fix their highways, roads and sewers, and they should stop bribing companies to move here or stay here. Atlanta is listed in UN Agenda 21 as a future “megacity”, but our poor economy is stalling this suicidal plan.

I would support Tax Abatements given by rural counties and cities to attract a manufacturing plant if their voters approved, but that’s about it.  

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader