You need to read the lease and Massachusetts Laws, Chapter 59 and 121B, to understand this statement, the PILOT provision in the lease is an escape valve in the event that someone calls into question that the tax exemption the City gave to the WOOSOX is not valid.
Not only did the City erroneously grant an "exemption" from taxes they did it inconsistently. If you read 121B Sec. 16 the exemption that the City erroneously projects to the WooSox "thru" the Redevelopment Authority applies to both the real estate and tangible personal property taxes, yet where the personal property is subject to taxation in Section 10.1 of the lease, the real estate taxes are only subject to a 'PILOT Agreement" by Section 10.3 of the lease. This construct is illogical.
Finally, the ball park is no longer under the control of the Worcester Redevelopment Authority,and the the lease of the ballpark from the City to WooSox would be subject to taxation consistent with Chapter 59 AND Chapter 121B. It looks to me that the lease was structured to find a way to exempt the WooSox from paying real estate taxes "legally imposed assessed or levied".
Someone calculated these taxes to be in the amount of $5,334,000.00. If I was the WooSox I would negotiate not to pay these taxes. If I was the City I would negotiate for the WooSox to pay these valid taxes because it would go a long way to making the project pay for itself.
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“If I were the city”. Unfortunately it wasn’t you in charge of the city. Those driving the city bus had ballpark deal fever or have some backened deal with the WooSox owners. I have zero evidence of any type of fraud or other criminal or ethical violation.
I just find it hard to believe that the city would stand on its head to refuse $5.3 million in taxes while raising taxes on residents and more than doubling them on businesses every year. And make no mistake, taxes will be going up every single year. Obviously elections don’t deter the city council. The new members can’t wait to to raise costs on city residents and ban businesses (no more gas stations!? Just one example).
Maybe the deal fever arrested the city brains in charge to think that any expense was justified to develop those two eyesore parcels. I wish they would be honest about it and we could have an actual cost-benefit analysis.
Maybe that analysis would expose negligence or big mistakes or just a bad decision? Maybe it would show that fixing those eyesores is completely justified in the long run?
How many more actual taxpaying businesses will be chased out of the city’s borders because of the undue tax burden that they have to shoulder, with no end to the burden in sight? I’d like to see those numbers. Taxpayers deserve the whole story.
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If the city has to negotiate a pilot deal with the WooSpx, I would not expect the city to suddenly become adept at it.
The WooSox have ALL of the leverage and the city council has been giving the potentially catastrophic budget hole from the deal a good leaving alone. The city manager already has a foot out of the door, soon to be both feet. Why should the WooSox bend at all?
They bent the city over the negotiating table once. Already and the city has no cards to play
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