How has the project worked out? Did the promises of redevelopment of this part of the city and a great return on the public tax investment pan out? Or did the warnings and concerns of people like Institute analyst Audrey Spalding prove correct?

Of course, Northside has been a total failure, and Audrey and others were correct.

The latest update on almost 20 years of policy failure is that a batch of McKee’s properties (which taxpayers bought for him) is being seized by the city via eminent domain. More of his properties may face the same fate soon. In this particular case, the properties are needed for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) project, so the eminent domain seizures are for legitimate public use. The city tried to buy these properties from McKee, but no agreement could be reached on price, so the city is taking them. The final price paid for them will almost certainly be determined by a court.

Everything you need to know about why economic development using subsidies is a road to failure is wrapped up in this story. The entire project began not based on market forces, but on the forces of lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians. It was sold as a way to save parts of north St. Louis from decades of poverty and blight—conditions that were created in part by government policy in the first place. The entire Northside redevelopment project has been a colossal failure from the start, and the city and state should never have authorized tax subsidies for it. In the state’s case, it created a brand new law just for McKee to do this.

I would hope the city and state would learn a lesson from the failures of tax incentives and subsidies from this project. I doubt very much that they will. As Orwell said, to see the things in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle—a struggle that politicians rarely have any incentive to engage in.

The post Live By the Sword, Die By the Sword appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The proposed route received some tweaks earlier this month, and now is set to run from Natural Bridge Road at Grand Boulevard in north city down Jefferson Avenue past the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) headquarters and the site of the new MLS stadium. This new plan has an estimated price tag of between $600 and $800 million and would be financed primarily through federal funds. However, like the ill-advised KC Streetcar expansion, expanding MetroLink would be a waste.

The first and most obvious problem with the proposal is ridership. The project is touting the ability to connect impoverished areas of North Saint Louis with centers of commerce in places such as downtown and the Central West End. However, project leaders have yet to put out research supporting this claim. Considering that fewer and fewer people are commuting downtown for work, there are reasons to be skeptical of this assertion.

As a longtime Saint Louis sports fan, I understand that MetroLink can be a convenient way to get downtown and avoid the stress and costs of parking. However, building an additional stop and line to service the new MLS stadium is completely unnecessary, considering its proximity to Union Station­­­–it is only 0.2 miles away, or a five-minute walk. Instead of changing lines to access the dedicated stadium stop, soccer fans taking the train downtown would be better off exiting at Union Station and making the short walk over.

As with the KC Streetcar expansion I wrote about in a recent blog post, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a questionable MetroLink expansion comes at the expense of bus systems.  Saint Louis Metro has been forced to cut lines amid staffing shortages, an issue which is predicted to persist into next year. Metro Bus is the primary means of transportation for roughly 22,000 St. Louis commuters, compared to only 4,000 commuters who primarily use MetroLink.

If St. Louis wishes to use federal money to improve public transit, it should improve the bus system and invest in more efficient types of public transportation, like Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Unfortunately, policymakers’ tendency to chase shiny objects will likely leave Saint Louis with a defunct trolley, an oversized light rail system, and thousands of unhappy bus riders.

The post Even with an Updated Route, MetroLink Expansion is a Waste appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But who knows what city taxpayers will end up getting for their “investment?”

Taxpayers likely won’t get the 17-mile route they were presented last year. After more than a year of study, it was recently announced that the first phase of expansion will run some 9 miles, roughly from Chippewa St. to the NGA site north of downtown, and will cost $700 million. The project is also totally dependent on federal funding, which is a big if at this point, and will begin operations, best case scenario, in a decade.

It’s also unclear whether the expansion will get St. Louisans out of their cars. While consultants project the line will carry some 9,200 riders a day, my colleague Joe Miller has pointed out that it runs through neighborhoods with relatively low population density—density about a quarter of what’s needed for light-rail to be successful. Also, overall MetroLink ridership is trending downward; not only has it lost 3.9 million annual rides since 2014, but the rail system carries fewer passengers than it did prior to the 2006 Shrewsbury expansion. And crime on and around MetroLink trains has, according to Metro, contributed to an 11% decline in ridership since last year. While I don’t doubt that an expanded system will (at least initially) carry more passengers, experience—and more than 15 years’ worth of data—suggest we shouldn’t get our hopes up.

Source: National Transit Database, Federal Transit Administration

But perhaps the biggest if is the economic renaissance promised by MetroLink officials and proponents. Transit advocates claim that rail spurs economic development, that, once you put the rails in, the traffic generated by riders will induce all sorts of business growth. Unfortunately, this claim just doesn’t hold up. Many MetroLink stations are surrounded by land that’s either (a) already developed (and likely heavily subsidized), or (b) relatively empty. In fact, transit-oriented and adjacent development is so scarce in St. Louis that rail advocates have to cast an incredibly wide net for any evidence of it. For instance, Citizens for Modern Transit, the region’s major transit advocacy group, includes investments on Interstates 64 and 70 and parking garages as development “spurred” by MetroLink. And Metro, which operates MetroLink, seems to think any investment within a half-mile of a rail station is causally linked to the presence of their trains. (Or, all they present is data on development within a half-mile of their stations.) Perhaps this is why consultants are now saying that MetroLink could “spur possibly millions of dollars in economic development….” (my emphasis).

At this point, it’s unclear what, if anything, taxpayers will get in return for hiking up their sales taxes. Although rail proponents may have inexhaustible faith, history and facts suggest taxpayers won’t get much for their investment.

The post What Will the City’s New MetroLink Tax Get Us? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• Mandatory union membership for some public employees
• Saint Louis City and the battle for the NGA
• Mizzou looks ahead
• Big spending plans in Saint Louis after the Rams’ departure
• Surplus revenue in Springfield
• Transparency for tax increment financing
• Kansas City leaders’ newfound concern for the East Side

Click on the link below to read it all.

The post Show-Me Institute’s April 2016 Newsletter appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As with any action from the Saint Louis city government, there are winners and losers. The obvious winner here is the land developer behind the NorthSide Regeneration project, which will get what amounts to a bailout with this deal. The city as a whole? Saint Louis will pay for the land it will turn over (at no charge) to the NGA. Because the NGA was already located in Saint Louis, the effect on the city economy will be minimal. The NGA may add more jobs, but nothing that one could expect to reverse Saint Louis’s long decline.

The families who will be forced out of their homes are the ones losing out. They face an uncertain future, and if the NGA’s decision is finalized, they’ll need to navigate the eminent domain process and find new places to live.

In Saint Louis, political officials seem to prefer looking for shortcuts to development and lack enthusiasm for pursuing the hard but boring path to civic success: low taxes, a level economic playing field, and quality essential services. Meanwhile, those without political connections or wealth are swept aside.

Will things ever change for this city?

The post Who Really Wins or Loses with NGA Deal? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

McKee is asking the city for handouts to complete this new project: at least $5 million in new market tax credits. To date, the city has authorized McKee to take almost $400 million dollars in TIF handouts. McKee’s promises for the north side go back at least to 2009 and include plans to build a hospital, office buildings, retail stores, and homes.

Rather than start any of these projects, McKee’s regeneration project has stalled and held out for more and more tax incentives. In the past two years the regeneration project has been delinquent paying taxes and has had financial problems resulting in foreclosures.

Shelia Rendon, a homeowner who lives in the community Paul McKee has made so many promises to, questions why the city continues to work with Paul McKee. “The community lost faith in him a long time ago,” she told me. Sheila would like to see development in her neighborhood, but not at the expense of the people who already live there.

Unfortunately, the only north side development project associated with McKee that seems to have made any progress, relocating National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) to north St. Louis, would come at the expense of the existing community. Relocating the NGA to the north side would require using eminent domain to kick St. Louis residents like Sheila out of their homes. This is something members of the community strongly oppose.

The fact that the city government keeps awarding tax incentives to these development projects leaves residents like Sheila shaking their heads, “The city does not need to keep pouring money into projects for Paul McKee. It needs to invest in the existing community.”

The post More Corporate Welfare for St. Louis Land Developer? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Eminent Domain and Uncertainty in North Saint Louis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We’ve talked before about how Saint Louis City’s attitudes toward non-city alternatives for the NGA expose local leadership’s fair-weather regionalism. After all, no matter what happens, NGA jobs are staying in the region and the area’s economy should remain unaffected. But in a bid to “redevelop” a part of North Saint Louis and keep the earnings tax revenue the NGA currently generates, Saint Louis City is preparing to pull out all the stops.

Saint Clair County is offering a low-cost, green field option on the north end of Scott Air Force base to the NGA, with the state of Illinois preparing to throw in $116 million in infrastructure improvements for the site. Saint Louis City’s original offer was a North City site at a cost $14 million, with $120 million in assistance from the state of Missouri. Now, Saint Louis will waive the $14-million cost, which was supposed to recoup the city’s expenses for preparing the site. Such costs will have to be pushed onto Missouri residents. Additionally, not to be outdone by Illinois’s infrastructure improvements, Saint Louis is throwing a MetroLink expansion into the deal as well. Strangely, Saint Louis has not put forward a solid plan for how it would fund a new billion-dollar-plus light rail line.

While city hall’s financial/infrastructure incentives may seem a little half-baked, they’re nothing compared to its rhetoric. Apparently, according to Saint Louis’s leadership, the city should get the NGA because millennials like to live and work downtown, among other lazy generalizations about an entire generation of Americans. One official stated that, “The days when talented young people wanted to commute 25, 35, 45 miles are over.” An interesting statement, because, since millennials have entered the workforce, the percentage of workers commuting longer than 25 minutes has regularly increased while the share of workers commuting less than 15 minutes has decreased:

This is just another example of how the generation dubbed “millennials” is, largely, much like the generations that preceded them in terms of living, working, and commuting. And city hall’s statements appear to be typical of local government officials using generational stereotypes to justify the types of policies they (not millennials themselves) have pursued for decades.

What’s more, even if millennials are everything that Saint Louis City leaders hope they are (and want to live downtown and take public transportation to work), the existing MetroLink already goes to Scott Airforce Base, where the NGA could be. Millennials could, if the Illinois site were chosen, live on Washington Avenue and ride the train to work. That certainly sounds easier than flattening a large section of North Saint Louis and spending billions to expand the MetroLink. Given the fact the city’s plan would turn dozens of families out of their homes, wouldn’t that be a fairer solution as well?

The post City’s “NGA for Millennials” Pitch Rings Hollow appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As reported earlier, St. Louis officials are considering using eminent domain to clear out a neighborhood on the north side. They’ve begun eminent domain proceedings, but are waiting on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the federal agency they’re clearing the land for, to decide whether it even wants to relocate to North St. Louis. Is it worth it putting property owners in limbo like this for a development project that might not even happen?

Alderwoman Sharon Tyus doesn’t think so. Tyus is not opposed to the use of eminent domain, but when it comes to using eminent domain on homeowner occupied land, she says “you’ve got to really step lightly.”

In this case, the need for eminent domain is in question because there are three other tracts of land in the region where NGA might choose to relocate instead of Gustavo’s neighborhood. Tyus believes one tract, right by Scott Airforce Base, makes the most sense. “It’s got everything. I think it’s a no-brainer.”

“I’m not trying to lose business for the city.” Tyus told me. “I just don’t think you need to decimate a neighborhood.”

Homeowners like Gustavo and Joyce Cooks don’t think you need to destroy a neighborhood either. “They say they’re trying to revitalize the community,” Gustavo tells me, commenting on the irony of the situation. “They’re killing the community.”

The post Why Is Saint Louis Using Eminent Domain “On Spec”? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, currently in South City, is considering moving to a new location in the region. In order to keep the NGA within St. Louis City, city officials are considering using eminent domain to clear out a neighborhood on the north side. It goes without saying that the people who would lose their homes in the deal are unhappy about it.

Joyce lives in a three-story brick Victorian house built in 1893. Her mother bought the house in the 1960s and she grew up in the neighborhood. “I love my home,” she tells me. If the city uses eminent domain, that home would be bulldozed.

One would hope that city leaders would resort to eminent domain—the power of government to remove a person from their land—only when there’s a very clear public benefit and no clear alternatives.

But in the case of the NGA, there are alternatives. In fact, there are three of them. One in particular, a parcel of land in St. Clair County, would have the advantage of being adjacent to an existing Department of Defense campus at Scott Air Force Base. Of the four proposals the NGA is considering, only the one in St. Louis City requires the use of eminent domain to raze an entire neighborhood.

When I asked Joyce what she’ll do if the city is successful in forcing her to move, she was despondent. “That’s my biggest fear,” she admitted. Joyce still has no idea where she’ll go if it comes to that. “What will I do?”

I have my own questions: Why is the city serving as an agent of the federal government and using eminent domain to clear a tract for a federal agency that may not even locate within the city of St. Louis? Is keeping the NGA within the city worth keeping property owners in limbo while the NGA decides where to relocate? And if the city does use eminent domain to clear out this neighborhood on the north side, where will its residents go?

The post Eminent Domain Puts St. Louis Homeowners in Jeopardy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The NGA is vital to our City’s economic health, and its relocation to North St. Louis will reinvigorate a significant urban area of our community. Conversely, losing the NGA would be a devastating blow to our City’s economy. The many benefits to the future of both St. Louis and NGA are immeasurable, promising and exciting.

With the NGA as the new centerpiece of the Northside Redevelopment Project (which has failed to achieve anything thus far), the city hopes to turn around a significant section of North Saint Louis City. The loss of the facility would, supposedly, be devastating.

You might be forgiven for thinking that the NGA is choosing between sites in Saint Louis and far away cities in Texas or Maryland. But that’s not the case. The NGA is choosing between sites inside the Saint Louis region, including sites in Saint Louis County and near Scott Air Force Base. If the NGA moves from its current location in South City to either location outside the city, it will change commuting patterns for current employees. However, the effects on the regional economy and regional jobs should be nil. The NGA’s move out of the city will not be a devastating blow to the city’s economy (which is ensconced in a larger region), but rather a blow to the city’s tax rolls, which depend on earnings taxes (more than $2 million a year) that the facility provides.

The city’s apocalyptic attitude towards losing tax revenue underscores Saint Louis City’s love-hate relationship with regionalism. When it comes to funding improvements in—and for the benefit of—Saint Louis City (and usually downtown), city leaders call for everyone to chip in for the Arch grounds and convention centers and stadiums and the light rail. Any refusal by outlying areas to throw in their money is treated as myopic, and a deep regional problem. But now that an important source of revenue might move out of the confines of the city, leadership is treating other parts of the region like they’re the surface of the moon.

The message city leadership sends when they speak this way is that regionalism means coming together to build up the city, not the outlying communities. That is hardly going to inspire residents who do not live or work in Saint Louis City (read: most metro residents).

Finally, just as an aside, would anyone have approved the massive tax subsidies to Paul McKee’s Northside Redevelopment project if they had known its success hinged on relocating a large Department of Defense instillation to the Northside? Wasn’t that project supposed to draw new jobs and residents to the city?

The post Regionalism for Thee, But Not for Me appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“anchor investments” to leverage future development, combat crime and wipe out concentrated poverty.

Creating development and wiping out concentrated poverty are lofty goals, but are city’s plans to create “anchor investments” likely to be successful?

History says no. Saint Louis is no stranger to urban regeneration projects, or “anchor investments” for that matter. From 1992 to 2002, the region “invested” almost $1.5 billion (in present dollars) in the original MetroLink and a football stadium (the Edward Jones Dome). Neither of these projects created much ancillary development, and from the 90s to the present day Saint Louis City has continued to lag behind the rest of the nation in population growth and economic vitality. Nor should anyone have expected them to. Economists agree that football stadiums do not boost urban regeneration, and that rail transit provides (at best) incremental improvements in transportation and station-adjacent property values, not civic renaissance.

Saint Louis officials may have learned that they are not one massive redevelopment project from jump-starting an economic revival. Unfortunately, the conclusion they appear to have come away with is that they are many massive development projects away from success. After all,

• The MetroLink did not go far enough.
• The Edward Jones Dome has no brew pubs or bike paths.
• The Arch grounds aren’t pretty enough.
• There are “gaps” between redevelopment (i.e., tax break) districts. 

Just a few billion dollars more, and the city will finally be business and millennial friendly. All this while city’s business code remains an antiquated mess and the taxicab commission files an injunction to shut down Uber. 

The post Saint Louis to Try, Once Again, to Spend its Way to Prosperity appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So where would the $180 million go? The short answer is that about two-thirds of the money would go to public safety departments (mostly fire), city-owned buildings and vehicles, and city streets. Most of the rest would go to preparing a site for the NGA, building demolition, and a “ward capital improvement fund.”

Beyond the broad categories, it is difficult to know exactly how the money would be spent. However, the city did outline a large capital improvement wish-list in 2014, much of which would likely be funded through this property tax increase.

      With such a diverse set of projects, residents might want to ask a few questions to gauge this tax proposal’s appropriateness:

1. The city already spends a significant amount on public safety, about $365 million in 2014 alone. That’s more than a thousand dollars per resident per year. And spending has not been falling; the city’s public safety spending increased more than 22% from 2008 to 2014. Do these departments really have a revenue problem, or are they not making good use of the money they have?
2. Approximately $15 million would go to preparing an NGA site (listed creatively as “Economic Development”  in most ballot rundowns). How much, if any, of that money will be spent buying back land that developer Paul McKee bought from the city and private owners (using state subsides) just a few years ago?
3. What is the purpose of the ward improvement fund, especially when the city already has a ½ cent sales tax devoted to the same purpose? Who will decide how those funds are spent?

Perhaps there are satisfactory answers to all of these questions and the city truly needs higher tax levels to fund basic city services. However, given the city’s current level of spending and its push to spend tens of millions on yet another downtown stadium, the real problem may be where the money is already going.

The post Proposition 1 Raises Property Tax for Questionable Purposes appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When we discussed the buyback plans last week, we asked whether the city would be able to buy back the land at the price they sold it for, or whether McKee would profit. Now, shockingly, we are learning that McKee indeed intends to profit. The developer expects to receive $17 million for land that he bought for $3 million. That’s a gain of more than 400 percent.

There’s nothing wrong with a developer buying land from the city and selling it back for a profit if the city decides it needs the property back. But in this case, Northside did not just buy land at a fair price; the city sold it a large number of properties at fire sale prices, and the state reimbursed most of the cost of the private land McKee bought. Northside then failed to pay property taxes on nearly all that land. All this special treatment and public support was supposed to come in exchange for new property and business developments, none of which have happened. Far from a property owner getting lucky from a change in government policy, McKee is expecting to profit from a city policy he helped create and for whose failure he is responsible.

The city has not yet decided whether it will pay the price McKee is asking. If it does, I think state taxpayers should be asking if they get back the $3.5 million in state tax credits McKee received to buy those properties. As for the city, I’d sarcastically ask where eminent domain is when you need it. 

The post McKee Wants to Flip Northside Properties at Taxpayers’ Expense appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

My colleague Joe Miller had a great run-down on what’s going on with the NGA, and I encourage you give it a read. I want to focus on the minimum wage. I’ve already laid out how increasing the minimum wage can cost jobs, hurt economic opportunity, and fail to alleviate poverty. However, it also can raise prices.

This is what is happening in San Francisco, which has raised its minimum wage (H/T Moe Lane). According to one report, Chipotle is seeing prices rise 10-14 percent in San Francisco versus 4 percent in other markets. The report says that the size of this increase is directly attributable to the increase in the city’s minimum wage.

When you artificially raise prices, businesses have to respond. Some (though not all) businesses can absorb the costs. Some will just shed workers or substitute workers with automation. However, others will just pass that cost on to consumers. It seems this is what Chipotle is doing.

As the Board of Aldermen once again debates whether to raise the city’s minimum wage, it should really consider whether the benefits outweigh the costs, not only to businesses and workers but to consumers as well. 

The post Something to Ponder While Debating the Minimum Wage appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Six years have passed without even the initial parts of the plan coming to fruition. With Paul McKee encountering legal issues it was doubtful whether it ever would. And now, finally, it seems that the city is giving up on McKee. Unfortunately, they’re not giving up by withdrawing the promise of further tax incentives, but by buying many of Northside’s properties to give to a federal agency.

This buyback is part of the city’s efforts to retain the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which is considering leaving Saint Louis City. To keep the agency, the city plans to gift it a new site in North Saint Louis City, an area where Northside LLC was supposed to bring new development. According to St. Louis Public Radio, the proposed NGA site contains 360 Northside-owned properties. Northside LLC purchased 260 of those properties from the city for a total of $600,000 between 2009 and 2011. The rest were bought from private owners, but Northside LLC received reimbursement from the state to the tune of $3.5 million.

To assemble the land for the NGA site, the city plans to mortgage existing city property to purchase the aforementioned Northside properties for $20 million. Perhaps relieving Paul McKee and Northside LLC of a large chunk of the city will be good for the region in the long run, but all these actions leave a number of important questions unanswered:

1. With much of the property originally slated for the Northside Redevelopment Plan now being bought back, what is the status of the remaining properties and tax subsidies?
2. Will the city be able to buy back the land at the price they sold it, or will McKee (or his creditors) profit from the transaction?
3. Will Northside LLC be forced to return the state tax subsidies it received to buy private land?

More on this to come. 

The post McKee’s Northside Plans Fail, City to Buy Land for NGA appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When entrepreneurs are asked what Saint Louis can do to make itself more competitive, they often point out that navigating city regulations and obtaining business licenses is time consuming and expensive. Too often, start-ups with little capital don’t know what they need to do to start a business and ultimately face regulatory “surprises.” Making regulations understandable and affordable for entrepreneurs can make Saint Louis a place where more businesses set up and survive.

How outdated is Saint Louis’ existing code? As an example, let’s look at the city’s public petition requirements for new business licenses. In Saint Louis, attempting to set up certain types of stores, regardless of zoning, requires the majority consent of local property owners. These “petition requirements” exist to protect neighborhoods from businesses that might be nuisances. These types of businesses include: arcades, billiards and pool rooms, tattoo parlors, bed and breakfasts, pawnshops, museums, junk shops, auction places, shows, theaters, dance halls, exhibitions, used goods stores, retail liquor stores, and (my personal favorite) intelligence offices.

The first thing to point out is that this list of nuisance-creating establishments looks like it was written by the Music Man. Pool halls, arcades, and used goods stores do not seem like businesses that should require majority community approval. As for intelligence offices, that’s not referring to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency; it’s actually an antiquated way of referring to head hunting offices or temp agencies. It’s not good for business when the city’s code is so outdated that it not only solves problems that no longer exist, but is simply difficult to understand.

Aside from being written for a different time, the very principle of petition requirements harms business formation. City zoning and nuisance ordinances already make it difficult to keep a truly community-damaging operation open. But instead of taking a hands-off approach and solving problems when they crop up, city regulations are attempts to preemptively control start-ups. In doing so, they make the city a less attractive place to set up shop.

Some city leaders finally appear ready to take a more market-friendly regulatory approach. That’s good news for Saint Louis.

The post Saint Louis City Hall Getting Serious About Reducing Regulation appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If you are a Saint Louis City alderman who wants to keep the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) from moving to Fenton or Mehlville or even possibly Scott Air Force Base, there is a good chance that you’d say yes. That’s why plans to use eminent domain to seize property as part of the plan to keep the NGA in Saint Louis are moving forward. Yet despite this “progress,” that doesn’t mean the aldermen are correct. For the people of North Saint Louis, the abuse of eminent domain is imminent.

Eminent domain has a legitimate purpose. Sometimes it is necessary to seize property to use for the public good, such as highways or sewers. Yet, there is no reason in this case to think that using eminent domain would serve as a public good. Unlike highways, which must go more-or-less in a straight line, the new NGA headquarters is flexible in how it is laid out and where it can locate. Even if the NGA moves to the county or to Scott Air Force Base, NGA employees living in the city are unlikely to move. Why violate somebody’s private property rights when it is not necessary?

The truth is that the city stands to lose millions in earnings taxes if the NGA moves out. It’s understandable, especially when budgets are tight, that the city would want to try anything to avoid losing even more revenue. However, people’s homes matter more than extra tax revenue. Being hard up for money doesn’t give the city a valid reason to take people’s homes.

The post An Imminent Eminent Domain Case appeared first on Show-Me Institute.