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A lot of posters give you what you want, bfmx gives you what you need.
Ha thanks, you're gonna get us both keyboard killed on here. Just expressing my opinion. The hate level would be MUCH less and more civil if we were having these conversations on a back porch with a beer where we could understand each other a bit more.
bfmx1 strokes this one 500'. Ken Griffey Jr. would be proud. Some small edits below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bfmx1
*Unpopular opinion alert * This regional effort crap is a facade for incompetence.
Incompetence of the City of Birmingham, specifically.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bfmx1
Regional cooperation IS needed and important but it doesn't come from an agreement. It occurs organically as an area grows and matures.
Agreed, and many point to Nashville and/or Louisville for examples. Those areas (the cities and the counties they merged governments with) were on the same page LONG before that merger agreement went into effect. The agreement was simply to save money by consolidating services. Birmingham has a long way to go before that happens.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bfmx1
3 Could NOT poaching actually hurt the region? Let's say there's a company in DT BHM that wants to move to the burbs... But the region has made it darn near impossible to poach or move inner-regionally, guess what they might do? Move out of state.
What's the expression? Boom goes the dynamite?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bfmx1
I bring you back to PLENTY of other metros with very segmented metros that have thrived. So CLEARLY this is NOT the area the regions needs to be focusing on as it's issue/problem.
I'm not going to spend (waste) the time to respond to all the different replies when I think they are disingenuous at best. When people are responding with things like "What's the expression? Boom goes the dynamite?" to refer to something that isn't an accurate representation of what is going on, an internet forum is not the best place to communicate.
Mayor Brocato said this about the agreement:
“In the past, our cities tended to compete rather than cooperate,” said Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato. “Today, economic development favors metro areas that work together better as a region. While businesses can still chose to relocate in our county, this group of mayors has committed that we won’t try to initiate those moves, and we will focus on more a comprehensive strategy for growth.”
If you can't agree that that is a move in the right direction, then I can't help you. Every city will be stronger when the whole region is stronger.
I'm not going to spend (waste) the time to respond to all the different replies when I think they are disingenuous at best. When people are responding with things like "What's the expression? Boom goes the dynamite?" to refer to something that isn't an accurate representation of what is going on, an internet forum is not the best place to communicate.
Oh relax. I only said that because regional governance has been a subject on this board for years. It was a joke. What is accurate is a matter of opinion. We can disagree, but don't say I'm inaccurate and try to insult. That is an attempt to discredit the messenger rather than dispute the point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by buildbirmingham
Mayor Brocato said this about the agreement:
“In the past, our cities tended to compete rather than cooperate,” said Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato. “Today, economic development favors metro areas that work together better as a region. While businesses can still chose to relocate in our county, this group of mayors has committed that we won’t try to initiate those moves, and we will focus on more a comprehensive strategy for growth.”
If you can't agree that that is a move in the right direction, then I can't help you. Every city will be stronger when the whole region is stronger.
Of course it's a move in the right direction, albeit more of a public display than anything. The cities themselves don't often initiate anything, the businesses do, because a city does something like raise taxes or whatever. I think the overall point is that none of this means very much.
I'm not going to spend (waste) the time to respond to all the different replies when I think they are disingenuous at best. When people are responding with things like "What's the expression? Boom goes the dynamite?" to refer to something that isn't an accurate representation of what is going on, an internet forum is not the best place to communicate.
Mayor Brocato said this about the agreement:
“In the past, our cities tended to compete rather than cooperate,” said Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato. “Today, economic development favors metro areas that work together better as a region. While businesses can still chose to relocate in our county, this group of mayors has committed that we won’t try to initiate those moves, and we will focus on more a comprehensive strategy for growth.”
If you can't agree that that is a move in the right direction, then I can't help you. Every city will be stronger when the whole region is stronger.
Well said. I think the pledge is a great step forward for the area.
I'm not going to spend (waste) the time to respond to all the different replies when I think they are disingenuous at best. When people are responding with things like "What's the expression? Boom goes the dynamite?" to refer to something that isn't an accurate representation of what is going on, an internet forum is not the best place to communicate.
Mayor Brocato said this about the agreement:
“In the past, our cities tended to compete rather than cooperate,” said Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato. “Today, economic development favors metro areas that work together better as a region. While businesses can still chose to relocate in our county, this group of mayors has committed that we won’t try to initiate those moves, and we will focus on more a comprehensive strategy for growth.”
If you can't agree that that is a move in the right direction, then I can't help you. Every city will be stronger when the whole region is stronger.
It might be a move in the right direction if the "pledge" had any oomph behind it. Does it? I havent actually read the article so I may just not know about the penalties for violating this.
If it doesn't, then no... this is a lot more hot air than it is move in the right direction.
But as bfmx alluded to earlier... we can only hope it is a lame duck pledge... because if company X wants to relocate from downtown to Alabaster due to surging office rents, and our mayors collectively are actually dumb enough to make this hard to do, will "every city be stronger" when company X decides Franklin, TN, or Peachtree City, GA make more sense for them?
I'm just glad I'm not the only person that read this and did not think this was some game changer. Story of the month? Geez. I hope not. "Kind of huge"? I think it is a lot closer to "complete non story".
• Cities will not actively pursue a business to move from its current location in Jefferson County to their municipality. ‘Actively pursue’ means to initiate contact with the business directly, with the intent of luring the business through cold calls, visits, mail solicitations, or marketing directed specifically at that business. This does not preclude a municipality from generally marketing itself as a good place to do business or generally advising its residents about the benefits of locating a business there.
• If a business is seeking to move from one municipality in Jefferson County to another: Cities will advise the business that they will not offer financial incentives (sales and property tax abatements, construction sales tax abatements, or any other revenue enhancements through tax relief), free or discounted land, or a lease below market value. This includes abatements and incentives sought through the Industrial Development Board and Downtown Redevelopment Authority where applicable.
in other words, businesses are still free to move about if they want to. obviously nobody can stop that from happening. it's just that the city of hoover, for example, is agreeing not to directly contact encompass and lure them to move to the galleria with incentives.
I'm not going to spend (waste) the time to respond to all the different replies when I think they are disingenuous at best. When people are responding with things like "What's the expression? Boom goes the dynamite?" to refer to something that isn't an accurate representation of what is going on, an internet forum is not the best place to communicate.
Mayor Brocato said this about the agreement:
“In the past, our cities tended to compete rather than cooperate,” said Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato. “Today, economic development favors metro areas that work together better as a region. While businesses can still chose to relocate in our county, this group of mayors has committed that we won’t try to initiate those moves, and we will focus on more a comprehensive strategy for growth.”
If you can't agree that that is a move in the right direction, then I can't help you. Every city will be stronger when the whole region is stronger.
I like to # my points. Not being a smart A. Do i think RC is important? Yeah sure. But is it a driving force or a product of? My thoughts below:
1. I don't care what Mayors say. Most of the time they use "regional cooperation" as an easy scapegoat. They have to point their finger at something other than poor job performance. OR the opposite can be true, when a city has done very well, they like to point to "regional cooperation" as the reason because it looks like a huge win for them and they're the ones who orchestrated this grand regional love affair where we all work together.
2. Could it be, that successful cities gain regional cooperation automatically because they're successful? Are they successful BECAUSE or regional cooperation/governance? OR did regional cooperation organically form BECAUSE the one big city was successful and all the burbs wanted part of that? Kinda like befriending the big bully in class.
I can guarantee you that when BHM proper starts to hit more and more home runs (like they've been doing), regional cooperation will come easily and swiftly.
3. As mentioned by others, this "agreement" is nothing more than a "yeah cool we'll try to play nice." But do you really think that Homewood would call up Randy Woodfin and ask his permission to poach Sirote? Shipt? Bradley Arrant? No way.
This is smoke & mirrors. Birmingham proper needs to stop wasting resources on this and balls up and be the best downtown it can be, just like it's doing. New airlines with direct routes? Yes! Stadium? Yep. New interstates? Welllllll,,, nah idk. Woodfin has some big ideas but it will take time to really see the fruits.
Think about this. Name one thing Woodfin or Bham has NOT done because Hoover, Homewood, VH, MB have held them back? I'm not sure, maybe you can list several but none come to my mind.
• Cities will not actively pursue a business to move from its current location in Jefferson County to their municipality. ‘Actively pursue’ means to initiate contact with the business directly, with the intent of luring the business through cold calls, visits, mail solicitations, or marketing directed specifically at that business. This does not preclude a municipality from generally marketing itself as a good place to do business or generally advising its residents about the benefits of locating a business there.
• If a business is seeking to move from one municipality in Jefferson County to another: Cities will advise the business that they will not offer financial incentives (sales and property tax abatements, construction sales tax abatements, or any other revenue enhancements through tax relief), free or discounted land, or a lease below market value. This includes abatements and incentives sought through the Industrial Development Board and Downtown Redevelopment Authority where applicable.
in other words, businesses are still free to move about if they want to. obviously nobody can stop that from happening. it's just that the city of hoover, for example, is agreeing not to directly contact encompass and lure them to move to the galleria with incentives.
Referring to the 2nd bullet... So this actually is as dumb as we thought. Cannot offer incentives? But Peachtree City, GA can? Murphreesboro, TN can?
The goal of the region should be to keep and nourish businesses. Not give them another reason to leave.
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
2,580 posts, read 2,485,733 times
Reputation: 1614
This is how and why those that say "whooped doo" about this are silly (and idiotic). For the record, I'm in not the mood to respond to ignorance from anyone. Moderator cut: Noted. Imperative continuation of said response deleted. (Please avoid using "you should..." in frustration or anger. That becomes inflammatory and attacking.) those who care about the regional growth and prosperity can continue to discuss this topic intelligently.
Last edited by harry chickpea; 04-05-2019 at 06:54 AM..
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