Let’s learn from Hammer before we incentivize Barb

Remember “Project Hammer,” the big food manufacturing and warehousing project that ended up unmasked as Ferrara Candy? We offered them a lot of incentives to come here. The incentives are flowing because that was the only way Ferrara would choose DeKalb for its new facilities over a city in Wisconsin, city leaders told us. From…

Hey, We Got a Bouquet Today

The Daily Chronicle, in its editorial-page “Barbs & Bouquets” list, today presented a bouquet to the folks who questioned the Rockefeller/Keating business-park project this time last year: Bouquet – Bravo to the DeKalb City Council and the DeKalb Township residents whose questions about a proposed south-side industrial park led to the developer’s bitter withdrawal of…

We are Cannibals

Our property taxes are becoming too burdensome to bear. Yet we can’t pay for our schools. We’ve invented impact fees to pay for our schools but that increases the cost of our homes, which leads to higher property taxes once again. We homeowners get stuck coming and going. In effect, we’re cannibalizing ourselves to make…

Welcome, Allentown, New Jersey!

[Updated 6/11.] Rockefeller Group, inconvenienced enough in DeKalb to shake the Midwest topsoil off its shoes and head back toward the coasts, wants to develop some 320 acres for logistics enterprises along the New Jersey Turnpike in the vicinity of Allentown, NJ, a plan comparable to their failed warehouse mega-project on 343 acres on the…

Warehousing, dissecting the arguments for making it DeKalb’s premier industry

I find this whole argument over warehousing quite interesting. From the one side you have those who believe DeKalb can do better than this for its industrial base. For reference, I lean towards this side. There are others who believe that warehousing is the only industry we should seek out. There have been several arguments…

Rockefeller picks up ball, goes home

We knew something was up at last week’s City Council meeting because one of Mr. Keating’s people got dissed by the Rockefeller lawyer. That’s right, Mr. Keating’s realtor told the Council that legally re-routing traffic around the downtown area–even though it’s a state route going through, therefore by law a truck route–would be no problem-o…

Thank You, Northern Star

I would be remiss if I didn’t express my appreciation about an edited version of the “Open Letter to Kris Povlsen” appearing yesterday in the Perspective section of the Star. That same letter plus three previous LTTEs critical of the Business Center project were ignored by the Daily Chronicle. After this frustrating and disillusioning shutout,…

Letter #3 of the “Blacklist Collection”

One of the reasons I began blogging here is that the Chronicle suddenly began suppressing my letters-to-the-editor and I was looking for other outlets for my views. Any criticism of the DCEDC and its executive director, Roger Hopkins, seems to be off-limits. However, I cannot omit my opinions on his involvement in warehouse mania because…