Navistar to leave Fort Wayne
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 9/8/10 @ 11:21 pm - Filed Under Featured, Local Politics
Navistar has made it official; they are going to northern Illinois and will pull out of Fort Wayne. They are going to move away from Fort Wayne even though it will cost them 31 million dollars MORE per year to operate in Illinois.
I have heard a few people say that Mayor Henry and his Administration have not done enough to keep Navistar in Fort Wayne. I am not a fan of the Henry Administration; however, I do not see how it is possible that anything could have kept Navistar in Fort Wayne. It seems obvious that the upper level management of the company decided to move the operation even though it will significantly increase their annual operating costs.
I will be sorry to see Navistar go; however, Illinois is giving them 65 million dollars of subsidies and that is very hard to compete with.
Navistar employs some great people and I am sure some of them will stay in the Fort Wayne area.
Losing Navistar will hurt Fort Wayne; however, it is not as crippling a blow as I have heard some people claim.
Specifically losing Navistar hurts us as follows:
1. Local Government will lose a significant amount of tax revenue and they should have already started planning for that.
2. The higher end housing market in Fort Wayne is going to take another hit. I imagine that this move will put several hundred high end homes on an already saturated market.
3. I imagine unemployment in this area will increase.
Mike Sylvester
Comments
5 Responses to “Navistar to leave Fort Wayne”
Leave a Reply
There should be a federal law against interstate job poaching.
What I see happening is mayors like Henry think they have a responsibility to payoff a company that wants to leave in order to keep it from leaving. In simple terms, this type of payments is nothing different than the mafia seeking payments to be left alone.
If a company cannot make a go of it in Fort Wayne, then it should leave. We the taxpayers should not be supporting it with tax abatements, incentives, land,etc just so a company stays here. The result is a dilution of the tax base that is used to support Fort Wayne’s infrastructure.
Illinois is in bad shape. It is borrowing money it does not have to pay Navistar $65 Million to stay? Think about what this actually means. IL state income tax was flat 3% in 1990. I am not sure what it is today. Property Taxes are very high, nearly twice what they are here. The cost of living in the area where they are moving to is far higher than here. The company made an economic decision to leave. That is there choice. We were lucky that they are moving. Think what would have happened had Henry paid $65 million to keep them here? He like previous mayors would have spent money we could not afford to spend.
For Fort Wayne to succeed, it needs to return to its roots where its cost of living was below 90% compared to the rest of the country. The reason why it prospered was taxes were low, cost of living was low and companies could make money. The problem has been for nearly 30 years that Fort Wayne has been attempting to do what other cities have done, interstate poaching; GM was first.
Cities should not be allowed to use taxpayers money to entice jobs to an area. Why should I pay more so that someone from outside the city can come and work here at my expense? With nearly zero population growth cities should not look for growth in terms of population, but Fort Wayne has to because it has built too much infrastructure, annexed too much area and spent too much on frivolous amenities to pay for it based on current population; it needs to grow in order to pay for what it could not afford to spend in the past.
After moving here from the east coast to go to school i can see why Navistar left this town. There is nothing here. This town has nothing to offer big name companies. The airport is a ghost town, the only draw in this town is the Johnny Appleseed festival when I graduate iam going the Navistar way far far away.
gene delaney, why did you move here to go to school? Did not the east coast have any colleges that met your criteria? Oh, wait maybe it was the low cost of living that captured your eye. Since you wanted a college education, you shopped around, Fort Wayne was low price, you come here, get your degree and leave. Maybe we need to charge more for those who come from out of state more than we already do. Hey, it is a commodity that apparently under priced. Like any company maybe we need to market our “colleges more” and price them accordingly.
How do the taxes and cost of living compare: Fort Wayne and east coast? Nothing to do? I hear that a lot, but when it comes to doing things, what are people talking about? I have lived in large city’s and they offer a lot, but do I take advantage of them every day, week or even once a month? I tend to have the philosophy that if I want to see, visit new places. This means I need a low cost hub from which to do this (Fort Wayne) and then travel to the high cost “destination” stay my short period of time and LEAVE without paying for the “perceived luxury” of having it on hand.
Nothing to do, oh really:
In one week, I have been able to enjoy:
1. The Dash-In;
2. International Festival;
3. Church Festival;
4. Breath of Africa Festival;
5. University of Saint Francis Football Game;
6. Art Tour;
7. African Film Festival;
8. Tour Your Town day;
9. Johnny Appleseed Festival
10. Tons of time at various parks;
11. Entrepreneur Drinks;
Hum…..maybe you need to venture outside your dorm room. I know several people in NYC - their complaint is there is nothing to do but bars. Let’s be honest, if you don’t have money, you can’t go to every play and cocktail party in NYC.