Steve,
Tax incentives, both real estate and income, are common tools used by
both city and state governments to entice businesses to relocate or
stay in the area. Of course, they also pitch available work force,
transportation access, quality of life and any other assets deemed
attractive. That's how many of the foreign automobile companies were
enticed to locate new assembly plants in the southeast. Often, the
incentives extend for 10 years or more. Cities and counties often
provide other infrastructure incentives such as road relocation or
extension or other utility installations at no cost to the target
company. Railroads often provide siding installation and service
guarantees at no cost to entice businesses to locate line side. BNSF
is just rebuilding a branch line to a power plant in the St. Louis
area to bid on a coal contract. The state of Missouri, last year,
created an unsolicited tax incentive package for Ford Motor Co. to
entice them to maintain production levels at the Claycomo plant near
KC. After some delay, Ford has announced that they will replace a
production line that was being relocated to Tennessee.
As for BN's headquarter relocation to Ft. Worth, while there probably
were tax incentives, it also helped that the chairman at the time,
Walter Drexel, had a ranch in Texas. When selecting the location for
relocating the headquarters, Drexel is quoted as including in the
directives to the search committee to "Pick a place where a lot of
the executives won't want to move." It was his method for getting a
lot of Minnesota entrenched executives from earlier days to retire or
resign. There is a book by Lawrence Kaufman, published about 2005,
called "Leaders Count" about the BNSF and it's predecessors. It
includes the Drexel quote. The book is available from Amazon.com for
$17.35.
Bill Barber
Gravois Mills, MO
On Feb 10, 2011, at 2:39 AM, CBQ@yahoogroups.com wrote:
> Re: montgomery industries
> Posted by: "STEVEN HOLDING" sholding@sbcglobal.net copivd
> Wed Feb 9, 2011 6:01 am (PST)
>
>
>
> Thanks Leo
> And just like the present Austin-Western/Western Wheeled Scraper
> works the
> property has went to a multi-industrial property. How both WW and
> the stove
> works got to town is the way a lot of towns try and coerces
> industry to locate
> in the towns by giving tax breaks and other rebates. And bribes are
> looked down
> on in government activities and rebates are the same as bribes and
> not allowed
> by the Federal Government in Railroad activities but that is how
> Ft. Worth got
> BN to move all the offices there.
> Fled Texas at the first opportunity
> Steve in SC
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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