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The Missouri Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the city of Clayton can’t seize and hand over several parcels of land in downtown Clayton to private developers who are too cheap to pay market value for land to expand Centene Corporation’s headquarters. According to the article, Centene may look elsewhere instead, but unless they’re willing to go somewhere that’s genuinely blighted—say, about 70% of the city of St. Louis—they’re probably bluffing.
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Signifying Nothing formerly featured the stylings of Brock Sides, a left-leaning philosopher turned network administrator currently residing in Memphis, Tennessee who now blogs at Battlepanda, and Robert Prather, a libertarian-leaning conservative economist and occasional contributor at OTB.
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4 comments:
Three words: City Earnings Tax. That’s a handy .5% surcharge to employers for the privilege of relocating to the lunar landscape that is the city.
Aw, who am I kidding? The city would hand out big tax breaks/credits to a major business while continuing to stick it to the small businesses that are the lifeblood of other cities.
Don’t forget the 1% city payroll tax too.
My guess is that either Centene pays fair market value or they go to Creve Coeur/Chesterfield/St. Charles/somewhere else that’s on an Interstate.
Have you been following the Nifong hearings? I think you should. Scary sh*t.
Centene in’t going anywhere…They already acquired and own the land, parking garages and buildings for their proposed twin towers/new corporate headquarters!
They (Centene) were urged, begged and bowed to, by city officials who wanted a retail component (tax generators), with possibly new offices or condos above, on the site of these existing 5 buildings as a “redevelopment plan”...only reason they didn’t try to take the entire block and removed from the original plan the corner where the Fatted Calf and Cafe Napoli sit is because 1.) they currently generate sales tax (office buildings don’t) and 2.) they discovered that there used to be a gas station on that corner and tanks are still buried there – way big bucks to remove and satisfy the Federal Government Clean up standards.
For the City of Clayton to grant eminent domain and right of condemnation before any of the 5 property owners had even been consulted or offers tendered for their properties was obsurd and WRONG! It was true big brotherism/adult bullying and equated to use of a billy-club to beat these property owners into submission by trying to force them in to accepting some newly declared blighted, low-ball offers for their properties!
WAY TO GO MO SUPREME COURT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!