WHERE'S THE COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS?
A PUBLIC FUNDED HELIPAD instead of solving Boston's Grid Lock? or improving PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION?
Now the Bobble Heads need to figure out how to SELL a HELIPAD to the public!
Have you noticed how the Corporate Media PROPAGANDA MACHINES have jumped on board to promote the PROPAGANDA?
Emails reveal Boston official 'choking' on generous incentives to GE
GE expected to complete move to Boston in 2018
Published 7:40 PM EDT Apr 06, 2016
5 Investigates and Northeastern University School of Journalism have obtained hundreds of emails from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh's office that shed light on the behind-the-scenes movements to bring General Electric to Boston.
The deal inked in January provides GE with property tax relief of up to $25 million from the city and up to $120 million in incentives from the state.
The emails started last June with the city of Boston "targeting the big companies ... most impacted by a Connecticut tax law change..."
No. 1 on the city's list -- General Electric.
By last September, GE executives were on their way to Boston, meeting Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker, but the meeting was top secret.
For the next few months, General Electric would only be referred to as "Project Plum" in the emails.
The September visit included a detailed tour for the GE executives, complete with a police escort, in which they were shown possible sites in the city.
The next day, the emails indicate the tour was hailed as a "big success."
The emails reveal city and state officials working for months, putting together the best possible deal for GE.
There were discussions about how much property tax relief to provide, which began at between $8 million and $12 million worth and grew to $20 million.
The increased incentives raised concerns in Walsh's inner circle.
"It's the number I'm choking on." wrote city assessor Ronald Rakow, concerned about the "disproportionately high" benefit given to GE in exchange for bringing 600 jobs to Boston.
The final deal provided even more property tax relief, up to $25 million.
Walsh's office now says the city assessor was reacting to an earlier version of the deal and that GE is now bringing 800 jobs and occupying more square footage in Boston.
However, in another email Rakow joked about the benefits being offered to GE: "I wish I had a multi-national corporation to relocate to Boston."
There were also concerns from the governor's office about gushing about the sweet deal being offered to the company.
The governor's chief of staff succeeded in removing a line in the proposal from Gov. Baker and Mayor Walsh to GE that called the deal "...the most substantial package of supports offered for a single business development in Boston."
"It is something that you might say," wrote chief of staff Steven Kadish in an email. "But not put in the proposal!?!"
GE is expected to complete its move to Boston in 2018.
This investigation was reported on for a seminar in investigative reporting taught by 5 Investigates' Mike Beaudet, who is also a journalism professor at Northeastern University. The following students contributed to the report: Stephen Daly, Adam Glanzman, Matthew Ingersoll, Kelly Kasulis, Catherine Lindsay, Alexandra Malloy, Daniel McLoone, Diana Novakovic, Owen Pence, Alejandro Serrano, Shondiin Silversmith, Miharu Sugie and Emily Turner.
VIDEO ON LINKhttp://www.wcvb.com/news/emails-reveal-boston-official-choking-on-generous-incentives-to-ge/38901864
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2016/04/gov-baker-logan-airport-is-a-big-reason-ge-chose.html
Gov. Baker: Logan Airport is a big reason GE chose Fort Point HQ
Apr 6, 2016
Access to transportation is one of the key reasons that General Electric Co. set its sights on Boston's Fort Point neighborhood for its new headquarters, said Gov. Charlie Baker at a business luncheon in Waltham on Wednesday.
Not necessarily public transportation, he said, but air transportation.
El Al will begin flying into Logan Airport in summer 2015.
Logan International Airport, mere minutes away from where GE (NYSE: GE) plans to locate its headquarters in the Seaport, was likely one of the main drivers in GE's decision.
"The airport has dramatically expanded its domestic nonstop capacity and international nonstop capacity with all kinds of plans to continue to grow its international nonstop capacity over the course of the next decade," he said at the Massachusetts High Technology Council's annual meeting at Bentley University in Waltham on Wednesday. "That starts to look really special and that's not necessarily something we think about when we think about why GE put Boston and Massachusetts on the map."
It underscores the importance of investments in "a different kind of transportation," and how those investments could play a big part in attracting global companies, Baker said.
GE officials have said ease of travel was one of many criteria used to find a headquarters location.
GE announced last month that it will spend as much as $100 million to build out its new world headquarters that will be based at 5 and 6 Necco Way in Fort Point, representing roughly 2.5 acres.
It remains to be seen how much GE would use Logan, as talks about a proposed "public helipad" are currently in the works.
City economic development chief John Barros told reporters earlier this week at GE's press conference that the helipad proposed in government officials’ pitch book to GE would be a "public helipad" and thus not be located on either the Necco buildings or the newly built GE headquarters building.
The city has considered multiple sites within both downtown and Fort Point that could be utilized by both hospitals and private corporations, Barros said. “We’ve got to find a location with true public access,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure this thing feels like a public helipad.” What’s more, Barros said, a public helipad would likely be funded with public dollars.
It's become evident that new flights to international cities are often considered a boon for Boston's tech sector. When El Al began offering service from Logan International Airport to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport last year, for example, Boston's tech and startup sector was grateful.
The flights were hugely beneficial to companies including CyberArk Software (Nasdaq: CYBR), Cybereason, and dozens of Massachusetts companies that have offices or major research and development teams in Israel.
Robby Bitting, spokesman for Boston-based startup accelerator program MassChallenge, said the flights were well received.
"We've found the direct flights to Israel have been great for us (many of my Boston-based colleagues have visited our Jerusalem office and vice versa) and so any time Boston is connected to other major cities that's a good thing," Bitting said in a previous interview.
Flights from Boston to Cuba could also be on the horizon.
JetBlue (Nasdaq: JBLU) recently submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Transportation to start daily service between Cuba and Boston.
JetBlue proposed 15 daily roundtrip flights connecting four Cuban cities with six U.S. cities, including the airline’s focus cities in South Florida, New York and Boston. Service from Boston to Havana would be one flight per day, while the airline said it would pursue four flights per day between Ft. Lauderdale and Havana.
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