Triangle Tax - TA(N)X for NUTTIN’

This week Fort Dodge Animal Health announced its plan to postpone “indefinitely” its corporate headquarters move to the Kansas Bioscience Park in Olathe.

Did you miss that little tidbit in the mainstream media?

Kelly Goss, a Fort Dodge spokeswoman, said Monday in an e-mail that the economic environment had changed “dramatically” since the company announced the project more than a year ago, which contributed to the delay. Goss said the company had not yet determined a future timeline for the $40 million project.

Fort Dodge, a division of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, announced it would move its Overland Park headquarters to Olathe in November 2007. The project included constructing a 150,000 square-foot facility, staffed by 200 employees on 30 acres donated by the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

Another company, XenoTech, LLC, backed away from a deal to locate at the park about six months after saying it would. The in-vitro research firm had said it would invest nearly $10 million to build a 54,000 square-foot facility that would triple the size of its existing Lenexa location. But the deal was put on the back burner when it engaged in talks to be acquired by another company.

Did you miss that little tidbit in the mainstream media?

When it was first announced, officials said they expected the park to generate $150 million in public and private investment and create 3,000 jobs during the next 20 to 30 years. Prior to the fall election, Kansas City Business Journal reporter, Michael Braude, penned the following:

“Area residents will reap huge benefits from “The Triangle.” These include new jobs, new businesses in animal health and pharmaceuticals, and a marked improvement in the quality of life in the region. It is estimated that The Triangle will mean more than a billion dollars in economic impact during the next two decades. The biggest benefit will be that a safer, smarter, healthier metropolitan area will evolve.”

Politicians in Johnson County hailed the tax passage as the greatest single event in Johnson County business history and that a wealth of businesses will flock to our county to reap the bounty. Conservatives, like me, who were against the tax, were hissed and booed like Dudley Doright nemesis, Snidely Whiplash, as he tied up Neil Fenwick at the railroad tracks. But the tax passed and Johnson County self-appointed leaders, like Sun Publisher, Steve Rose, looked down upon us and grinned from his perch like the Grinch awaiting the plunder to be in Whoville.

The reality is that tax-funded financing of business projects results in the business having no vested interest or commitment to the project. Why is this? Because they have not invested their own money into the equation! Now that the economy is bad we can really see the fruits of our miss-labor.

Tax-funded projects across the Kansas City area and in Johnson County in particular, are seeing this lack of commitment. Will the businesses come back? I hope so someday. I don’t revel in the waste of taxpayers hard earned money. The old adage holds true however. If it is a good business investment then the business and business investors will fund the project.

But then again why should businesses buy the milk when you can get it for free? Or at least at the taxpayer’s expense, which is the same as free to “Tax and Spend” politicians.

In the meantime, I will be patiently waiting for my Triangle Tax refund, but I’m not sure whom to contact to ask about it. It is the County Commissioners who passed the buck and have no authority? Or, do I contact the unelected Bio-Science Commission that doesn’t have to listen to my complaints?