The two following documents were sent to me by Ginny, who was a very vocal critic of the Medley PILOT deal from the very beginning.
The first document is the amended PILOT. You can view the "original" PILOT deal with Congel at this link.
No public meetings were announced by any of the three entities for the public to attend to view or comment on the changes.
COMIDA's public meetings are open to the public, but I have reviewed meeting minutes and do not see any discussion on these changes to the PILOT - I believe this was done during executive sessions, where the public isn't allowed.
You can see that the "milestone dates" have been changed - originally the first milestone was 24 months after the entitlement date (which was April 7th, 2009) - so the first milestone was April 7th, 2011 - it has now changed to December 31st 2013.
The second document is from the Certified Public Accountants that Congel hired to list all of the things that add up to the $90 million he was supposed to have achieved last year......they include things he hasn't even paid yet (labor costs etc.) - and the one thing that he is claiming is the $500,000 payment he was supposed to make to the town and never did....his lawyers said he didn't have to pay that yet because construction has not commenced. He hasn't paid it yet, but he is claiming it as part of the costs 'incurred' by him.
He also claims he paid $25,000,000 for the mall - it's assessed at that amount, but I'm pretty sure Bersin originally purchased the mall for just under $6 million, and then he "flipped it" to Congel when Congel took over Bersin Properties LLC.
PILOT Amended 2011
Medley First Milestone
I'm sure you are all aware of Syracuse's Destiny Mall - the original proposal by Congel Sr. isn't going to happen - yet he still keeps the tax breaks and will not pay any property taxes on the mall property for 30 years.
Read about it at Syracuse.com, and many other articles on Destiny, at this link.
Rachel Barnhart also reported this story on Destiny at her blog, and you can read that at this link.
Promises of huge "too good to be true" projects translate into tax breaks and incentives and subsidies and grants and millions and millions for the developer - and the dreams and promises never materialize - yet the taxpayer has to subsidize these projects for DECADES.
We allow it to happen by electing the very politicians who push these deals through.
When is enough enough?
3 comments:
FOILS - the fact this article has no comments for this long tellms me people no longer are surprised or outraged by these kinds of occurrences. That is a sad state to be sure.
I think folks have given up caring and feel they have nobody looking out for their interests anymore.
The major party cross endorsement has fueled this feeling of ambivalence towards what is right and wrong.
Very sad indeed.
Yes, I'm afraid I have to agree with Anonymous. This may be a good life lesson for me. A fight not worth the time or aggravation.
I'm curious as to how the "Greece Mall" situation will pan out.
GCSD voted against a 25 year PILOT for the mall - COMIDA will probably approve the PILOT anyways.
Ultimately, they make the final decision. So, what's the point of having the other two entities involved in the process?
I give loads of credit to the SD for saying "no".
Too bad it probably doesn't matter.
IDA's won't go away anytime soon - and sometimes they do support good projects that truly help keep jobs in the area....but the PILOT deals are out of control because each developer gets to negotiate their own terms and contract etc., and that leads to abuse.
If the powers that be could just agree to have uniform standards for ALL PILOT deals - it may cut down on some of the abuse we see all too often.
I don't see too many (um, not any, really) politicians calling for reforms to IDA's though - or for uniform standards for PILOT deals.
It might mean less campaign cash if they did that.
Post a Comment