Urban renewal funded on taxpayers' nickel

During any and all 'public' workshops to define the shape of the table for the urban renewel districts, note that they still dismiss the contention there should even be such an entity whose board all live out of town. Ask the mayor and the other supporters about the experience of Post Falls and their URD with the extreme taxes it has brought.

So much for Mayor Miller's statement defying anyone to show an example where URDs were detrimental to the general taxpayers.

Hope you read Bob Gunter's story in the Oct. 29, 2005, issue. More than $140 million in 10 years? Imminent domain for the benefit of private corporations, a board stacked with developers, and business people or those connected with them, issuing bonds with no vote of the taxpayers. And what do we get? High-end condo s and restaurants along Sand Creek and Fifth Avenue with vague ifs, ands or maybes about state help with a tiny portion of the bills. NO benefit to those paying the tax bills.

Sounds like a corporate dictatorship to me. Your tax bill, if you haven't noticed, is a third higher this year than last. Want it to double?

LAWRENCE FURY

Sandpoint