This is an old revision of the document!
December, the 3rd
agenda_12.3.2024_.pdf
agenda_12.3.2024_.rtf
agenda_12.3.2024_.docx
During Citizens Comments on Agenda Items:
In the Audio file above, find comments regarding the RIFA proposal at 08:15.
svp_regional_commerce_park_report_final_with_attachments_and_summary.pdf
Some may ask what is a Regional Industrial Facility Authority (RIFA)? A better understanding can be had by reading this →article. However, don't get caught up in the “fluff” in this piece, with “the jobs” and the additional “tax revenue”. Most of the benefits being touted are “in theory”.
After attempting to examine the Roanoke RIFA project, there was nothing substantive to be found. There were no hard facts or financial figures available. What is a hard fact is that active participation in Augusta County's RIFA would require Highland County Supervisors to hand over their authority to a third party (“The Authority”) and that would include making Highland County taxpayers liable for unforeseen costs and unanticipated financial liabilities. The Authority can take grants and loans for projects, create bond issues, and it can make grants and loans to businesses, etc., which can create a financial mess, with taxpayers being responsible for the costs of the clean up. The crisis created by the Federal Government's management of GSE's “(Government Sponsored Enterprises)” Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, come to mind. Taxpayers, not government, were on the hook for GSE bailouts which were estimated in the hundreds of billions →article.
Government can get their citizens into financial liabilities, but it's taxpayer wallets that bails government out. Let's not let that happen here, in Highland County.