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South Bend Redevelopment Commission <br />Rescheduled Regular Meeting -June 25, 2008 <br />6. NEW BUSINESS (CONT.) <br />A. Public Hearing <br />(1) continued... <br />Blackthorn, that would be a good gauge for <br />you guys to take a look at. It's been around, <br />what, say twenty years? I see it as pretty <br />much of a failure. Myself, personally, and a <br />lot of taxpayers do also. It has created some <br />jobs, but the majority of the jobs I see that <br />have been created are from relocations from <br />the inner city area out to the fringe and the <br />Blackthorn area. You've got Tire Rack, <br />Schaffer Gear, PEI Genesis. They've <br />abandoned buildings in the inner city where <br />people can work these jobs and moved them <br />out to where they don't affect urban sprawl, <br />on the edge of the county where they can't <br />even get to these jobs. We've taken these <br />companies that have been in the inner city of <br />South Bend, subsidized them with another <br />tax abatement, put them out into the <br />Blackthorn area or Portage Prairie, and it's <br />just causing the taxpayers more money. <br />We're not getting any more new jobs from <br />out of state or around the country, that's <br />something new, that's going to pay good <br />wages to this community. So, I'm very <br />concerned as to what happens with <br />Blackthorn. I don't see it as a very good <br />investment. I wish you guys could dig into <br />figures and see what it costs us to acquire all <br />the property at Blackthorn, what it costs the <br />taxpayers to subsidize it, to put in the <br />infrastructure, and what we're getting out of <br />it today. I know those tax dollars are not <br />going to the general public to pay for all the <br />services that we need: police, fire, schools, <br />libraries. That money's still being held there, <br />I don't know what it's generating, I don't <br />19 <br />