Baltimore City Council committee nixes tax breaks for urban farmers
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
‘If a developer came to you, you’d give out the tax breaks,’ Clarke says
By Luke Broadwater,
The Baltimore Sun
November 22, 2011
Excerpt:
A City Council committee on Tuesday killed a bill to grant tax breaks to nonprofit urban farmers after the mayor’s office said it would set a bad precedent.
The opposition by the administration of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake outraged Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, a sponsor of the measure.
“I know we give tax breaks to well-to-do developers,” Clarke said, her voice rising, after learning that the city’s finance department had urged her colleagues to vote against the bill. Urban farmers, she said, “aren’t wealthy. They’re not well-heeled. They don’t hang out and sit with their suits at tables and talk about how they’ll help the city. They just do it.”
1 comment
Reading the linked story made me glad Seattle has gotten as far as it has with respect to urban farming, but it was also a harsh reminder that we can’t honestly think these local politicians will do any different than politicians at the national level. It’s about the flow of money to their re-election fund and non-controversial decisions. Urban Farming – let alone the creation of green space within the city will not generate the kind of money and personal job security ‘law makers’ require to move beyond their comfort zones.
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