Downtown Lease Agreement With Berlinetta Brewing Company On City Council Agenda

Jeff to your post/reply on The Argument For Revitalizing Downtown’s Majestic Theaters thread.
In case it got lost in the shuffle. 🙂

Robert — I’m not being negative; I’m just being realistic.

Selling off our assets and risking taxpayer money on poorly considered ventures isn’t not how a city is rebuilt — it is how a city is deconstructed. We presently have city leadership that is conducting a “fire sale “of city assets, in the context of a taxpayer-money giveaway, in city deconstruction program — all with a hand-washing/tacit blessing of the Governor’s Office… It is sickening and distressing, and we can only hope that the process (and maybe even the players) is somehow arrested before we are truly beyond the point of no-return…

I agree to some degree, but the reality is the airport, according to JML was never in the asset column on Port’s books. It has been in the liability column, that benefited others in one form or another. It could have been and should have been leased out with a return. But you can’t call something that for decades cost the city tax base $500, 000 a year an asset.

That being said. government be it state or local, is and never has been in the business of making money privately. Its business model is based on the taxation of private/earned money. Most public-private spending is just some of that taxpayers’ money going back into private ventures for profit, in which they can generate some taxes in various ways, along with jobs that repeat the taxation process, like any other private business and employee/employer who pays taxes. Not much different than spending money on so-called non-profits or businesses that provide services to/for government operations and functionality.

Bridgeport/state couldn’t have rebuilt its manufacturing assets because the government doesn’t manufacture anything, other than taxation, that is their thing. 🙂

If anything the government can invest/asses in private manufacturing in the same way they would invest/asses in private the entertainment industry. It is the flip side of the same coin in that regard.

In fact, some entertainment businesses can have a greater reward because the city can get a cut of the action. But as I said they tend to get low /minimum returns for that investment. You will never see a city get a percentage of something manufactured as it gets per ticket sold at the Amp.

It would seem the issue you have is more about the type of rebuilding for the Port than the governmental investments/taxpayer funding. What needs to be understood is teh Port has been in deconstruction mode for some time, decades, with its manufacturing base. The Port rebuilding needs to be anchored on entertainment/hospitality, not manufacturing, those days are gone and it shouldn’t be a competing thought with entertainment/hospitality rebuilding. So when you hear about a so-called (manufacturing base) junkyard/storage for a project that benefits other states on the Port’s limited waterfront you need to be realistic about who, how, and what is deconstructing or debasing the rebuilding of this once manufacturing city. JS

Think about it. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgBIaIRRXKM