Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Cheap water

Should the city keep giving Creekstone a break on water rates?

Methinksso.

They use a lot of it and are the major employer in town. This makes much more sense than a full property tax exemption for an oil pipeline that will not produce any after-construction jobs.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Creekstone has already rec'd tremendous tax breaks just to locate here. The rates for water are already discounted, per Lane Massey, based on the more you use the lower they are. As this huge volume of water is pumped daily to them, it puts an extra strain on the main pumps and existing water lines that are of considerable age.

Your comment'for an oil pipeline that will not produce and afer-construction jobs' What kind of 'during' construction jobs do you think the pipeline will create? It seems people have no clue; the hospital and school construction probably has only resulted in 2 or 3 local people being hired, and those will dissappear when job is complete! These projects DO NOT bring jobs into town, they only bring in some taxes on lunches bought and MAYBE some on rooms. It is possible that a few rentals are occuppied by the out of town workers for the temporary period, but they result in nothing permanent, nothing except higher taxes to pay for the additional payroll of city/school employees overtime to service the larger systems.

Anonymous said...

Yes, we need jobs.

Anonymous said...

It's not like Creekstone will up an move if we take away their discount. How about cuting the discount to 20%, and then in 3 years cutting it to 10%, then to 0% after 3 more years? Better yet, how about we take away their discount, and give all the rest of us a 30% break on our already astronomically overpriced water?

As far as jobs go? How many people from here actually got jobs at Creekstone? Seems the majority of their employees come from out of town. WAY out of town.

Anonymous said...

Where does a majority of the 700 people who work at Creekstone live and spend their hard earned paychecks? Right here in Ark City. Take a $15,000,000 to $16,000,000 annual payroll out of this Community and see what happens to the local economy.

Anonymous said...

That's a good question, where does the majority of the workers live? How many children have they enrolled in our school system, better yet, HOW MANY OF THEM ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS?? The only local economy that would be hurt in my opinion is city hall and the tax revenues they collect! It is inevitable that we will soon see what would happen to the local economy as the rate of government spending, coupled with the big 'tax incentive giveaways' is unsustainable by the AMERICAN taxpayers!

Anonymous said...

The economy, and the crime rate, was fine before it got here, and it would be fine if it left. The majority of that money goes South anyway.

Anonymous said...

As of tonight 63% of those responding to your online poll DO NOT think the water discount should have been applied, SIXTY-PERCENT!! Luckily we have the super elite commissioners who know what is best for us, and ignore what the constituents want, as we are uncapable of making decisions concerning such complicated issues

Anonymous said...

I thought the tax breaks were for Future Beef and that Creekstone was allowed to continue when they paid for and completely rebuilt the Future Beef plant? Maybe we don't want industry here. We seem to take every opportunity to say we don't want you to new things, and even to industry that is already here! No we won't help, we don't need your jobs!