Gov. Jan Brewer, the state’s economic leaders and Mesa’s elected officials worked long and hard to bring Apple to Arizona. Now, they find all their work hanging on the vote of a single Gilbert school board member.
On Monday night, board President Staci Burk, after paralyzing the decision last week, will decide whether the project goes forward or is whisked away to another state, another community, another school district.
By the end of this week, she said she was a yes. It shouldn’t have been so difficult. But this is Gilbert, where the “tea party” is strong. Indeed, it is the tea party’s preference for purity over pragmatism that has brought us to this precipice.
Apple intends to buy an empty manufacturing plant near Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport for use by one of its suppliers. Among the incentives offered to land the plant was the extension of the airport’s foreign-trade zone to include the property, which would lower Apple’s taxes.
Extending the zone requires approval from all eight governmental entities that levy taxes on the property. The first seven rushed to give their OK. The math was obvious.
It should be obvious for the Gilbert Public Schools as well. After Apple pours $1billion into the plant, the district would get $2.5million a year. That is considerably more than the district collects on an empty building.
But such pragmatic considerations were lost on school board members Daryl Colvin and Julie Smith. When the matter came before the board earlier this week, they were vehement in their objections.
“I do not believe it’s appropriate for government to pick winners and losers, providing deals to some mega companies when we have all these entrepreneurs,” Smith said. “Based on my principles, I do not support this for that reason.”
As tax breaks go, though, this is simple. It merely extends a zone that already exists, for the purpose of bringing a high-profile company to the Valley.
A “no” vote creates more losers than a yes vote would. The only winner would be the community that got the Apple plant instead. The losers? The 700 people who won’t work in the plant, the 1,300 construction workers looking for other jobs, the businesses that would support all those workers. And the students in the Gilbert schools, who would not get the additional resources $2.5million would bring.
Two other board members, Lily Tram and Jill Humpherys, firmly supported the deal.
That left Burk as the swing vote. She waffled, and asked for more time. The vote is scheduled for Monday night.
Burk’s tea-party friends will emphasize principle. Economic-development leaders will talk about what’s good for the Valley as a whole.
But her primary consideration should be what she was elected to do: Promote the best interests of the Gilbert school district and its 38,000 students. If she sticks to the “yes” vote she now promises, she will do her job.
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