In effect, the idea is that if you dare to want to invest in building something in Chico that you must pay a tax, say 1% of the building costs, to support whatever the Arts Commission decides that you should support.
Keep in mind that all of this is in addition to the City’s existing robust building and design guidelines, as well as an approval process that frequently adds additional attributes to projects. Many of which are good, positive attributes. But it is also vitally important to recognize that those sometimes also add significant costs to projects.
In the case of commercial property, those costs reverberate through the financing arrangements and become long-term costs that can be measurable additions to the resulting overhead structure and therefore become additions to rental fees, lease fees, common area fees, etc, etc, etc.
But we will hear “It’s only 1%”. Gee, isn’t it always “only” some amount when someone wants to take money from one person’s wallet to support their interests?
And before we get side tracked, this is where some people jump to the conclusion that this kind of blasphemous anti-tax talk is an argument in favor of no building standards, no design standards, no aesthetic standards and/or for no art components in projects, when it is not any of those things.
As for standards, yes we need to have good, solid, reasonable development standards. Those standards need to be clearly articulated so that anyone wishing to build can easily interpret the standards. And so that the approval process avoids any sort of an arbitrary and capricious decision making process.
The memo talks about a $1 million minimum project size, fee cap at $50 million, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But the 1% tax rate and any limitations are merely placeholders to be changed at your peril at a later date.
Here’s one classic example of changing tax rates and tax rate brackets:
http://www.norcalblogs.com/bored/2010/04/tax-day.php
On a related note:
Welcome to California: America without Republicans
http://washingtonexaminer.com/welcome-to-california-america-without-republicans/article/2502102
With the disastrous financial situation that Chico is in we should abolish the City of Chico Art Department. The money paid to operate this department (salaries, benefits, etc) could and should be used to help keep our citizens safe – police, fireman and roads. T would like to know how much we, the tax payers, spend on this departments salaries and benefits and the number of employees we support in the Art Department. I attended the meeting when this “department” was established. It was to be 1 part-time employee with a desk in the corner of an office.
To Editor: Can you supply this info for your readers?