15 comments

  1. Best tidbit: despite his departure, Trump’s Opportunity Zone policies/laws have another nine-year lifespan. Much of Bridgeport is owned by newly-formed orgs designed to benefit from these cannot-be-changed laws. Let’s hope for the best.
    It’s legacy time for former Presidents but it’s revival time for Bridgeport today.

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        1. Ron- instead of going with your usual slanderous comments I have a suggestion for you. Lynn Haig who is one of the “master planners” associated with OPED could answer any questions you might have about those “opportunity”zones. So when you have an opportunity, you can make an appointment with her and find out who knows what instead of saying that someone posting comments here doesn’t know what they are talking about.
          Cheers!!!!!

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  2. “The Surprisingly Limited Success of Trump’s Signature Anti-Poverty Program”
    By Erick Trickey is a writer in Boston.
    09/29/2020 04:30 AM EDT

    Donald Trump has spent months on the campaign trail touting his signature anti-poverty program as a way to attract support from Black voters. Opportunity zones, he has said, have drawn “$100 billion of new investment … into 9,000 of our most distressed neighborhoods” and created “countless jobs.”

    We’ll undoubtedly hear more about opportunity zones from Trump at the first presidential debate in Cleveland on Tuesday night, when the topics will include the economy and “the Trump and Biden records.” Opportunity zones were created in 2017 to allow wealthy investors to avoid the federal capital gains tax by reinvesting their profits in funds that invest in designated census tracts that are high poverty or low income, or next door to a tract that meets those standards. Indeed, the debate, hosted by Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic, will actually take place in one of Cleveland’s opportunity zones.

    Not surprisingly, Trump’s eye-popping numbers, which were touted repeatedly by surrogates at the Republican National Convention last month, have already been debunked. The White House Council of Economic Advisers released a report claiming the program has attracted an estimated $75 billion in private investment since its creation in December 2017. But that estimate is based on incomplete samples and questionable assumptions—and it’s probably 2½ to seven times too high. Independent estimates of investments in the zones so far range from $10 billion to $30 billion. But no one knows for sure. That’s because no reporting rules track opportunity zone projects, so there’s no central place to look up which projects the tax break has helped fund.

    So far, opportunity zones have mostly benefited neighborhoods already on the upswing and middle-class renters. The opportunity zone program has no job guarantees and no mechanism that requires projects to benefit the poor. Nationwide criticism of the program has focused on the tax incentive funding luxury apartments, hotels and office towers. And a recent study suggests the zones have actually attracted slightly fewer new jobs than areas that were eligible for the zone program, but not selected for it.

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    1. Once again, read this:
      “So far, opportunity zones have mostly benefited neighborhoods already on the upswing and middle-class renters. The opportunity zone program has no job guarantees and no mechanism that requires projects to benefit the poor. Nationwide criticism of the program has focused on the tax incentive funding luxury apartments, hotels and office towers. And a recent study suggests the zones have actually attracted slightly fewer new jobs than areas that were eligible for the zone program, but not selected for it.”

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  3. Ron Mackey is mostly right.
    However, Opportunity Zones have and will have a mixed record but their impact will continue for a specific and legislated time.

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      1. Here is one person who fits in for the program, Danny Pizarro has been buying up some downtown Bridgeport properties and owns around 30 mostly multi-family homes in the city with a total appraised value of $5.78 million. This is the same Danny Pizarro who celebrated his 48th birthday the night before with a 300-plus bash at his Huntington Turnpike home. Maybe someone needs to check the recortd to see if Pizarro did get money from this program.

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        1. That’s right Ron. And how do you think he amassed those properties and who do you think are his partners? You are right and you may know the back story as well. That’s exactly how “they” make their money. It happens in every large depressed city. Just like that part in the Sopranos when they finagle the deal with HUD in Newark. Remember Sharp James??!!! Same thing with the window scams of the 80’s and 90’s when all the subsidized housing projects received “upgrades”. The underserved stay that way because of corrupt politicians working with corrupt contractor companies. Look at the problems in the NYCHA.
          As far as the zones go, it lays at the feet of the cities as well. That’s why I mentioned OPED and Lynn Haig (who just does what she’s told). It’s up to them to work with the federal government. That’s where the money comes from and the corrupt ones know exactly how to take advantage of the “opportunity” zones!!!! They are involved to help themselves not those who need help. (Maybe not all but many).
          Cheers!!!

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  4. Real estate is only one of three major asset classes.
    Some people think that multi-family homes is upscale real estate jargon for slumlord,
    where risk is avoided due to the certainty of government payments. This is especially true if the property is within an opportunity zone zip code, whose laws have years to go.

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  5. *** If anything positive comes from Sleepy Joe being the #46 president of the U.S.A is that he knows D/C politics, in Congress & the W/H . He knows foreign policy & has talked & walked the walk in federal type issues. That’s why he will hit the W/H floor, “running” to get important things done! He’s knows what is presidential business & what is Congress business & how to reach across both aisle’s to get things moving that will benefit both parties constituents. A very far cry from the real-estate narcissistic “con-man” that always claimed to have done the 1st best in history on any & everything he talked about or claimed to do! Yes america, El presidente of me, me, me, I, I, I, best in history, will probably end up in about 4yrs. on C-spans “presidents in history” list, as the all time “worst U.S. president of all time”! ***

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