{"id":13987,"date":"2013-04-25T10:58:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T15:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=13987"},"modified":"2013-04-25T10:59:49","modified_gmt":"2013-04-25T15:59:49","slug":"normans-economic-plan-giveaway-for-businesses-or-step-in-the-right-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/04\/25\/normans-economic-plan-giveaway-for-businesses-or-step-in-the-right-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"Norman’s Economic Plan: Giveaway for Businesses, or Step in the Right Direction?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pro-Zak \/ Flickr<\/p>\n

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The Norman City Council on Tuesday approved a new economic incentive plan meant to attract businesses and jobs in an 8-1 vote.<\/p>

It creates a seven member volunteer board that will make recommendations to the city’s economic development trust authority.<\/p>

The authority can then offer “something as simple as streamlining the permit process all the way to helping businesses attain favorable loan structuring,” Assistant City Attorney Kathryn Walker told\u00a0The Oklahoman’s<\/em> Jane Glenn Cannon<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Companies wanting to take advantage of the incentives would have to submit proposals, and each proposal would be evaluated on its individual merits, she said.<\/p>

A performance agreement would be required, with specific performance goals outlined. Penalties would be written into the agreement if performance goals are not met.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Councilman Chad Williams told the paper the vote sends a signal that Norman is ready to compete, and sees great potential for new jobs and a larger tax base. Councilman Tom Kovach calls it a “step in the right direction:”<\/p>\n

Up until this point, the city has not had any mechanism for making economic decisions. This is a way to get good information and make sound decisions.\u201d<\/p>

In the past, he said, \u201cwe’ve had somebody coming to town and telling us this is going to be great, and we didn’t know. We just had to trust them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>

But despite the 8-1 vote, the plan has its detractors, including\u00a0Councilman Greg Jungman, who voted ‘no.’<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are literally hanging out a welcome sign for firms to come to our community and say, \u2018Well, you’re going to have to write me a check or you’re going to have to give me a break on my taxes or you’re going to have to give me something,’\u201d Jungman said.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Mayor Cindy Rosenthal doesn’t seem overly excited about the idea, telling the paper<\/a> she doesn’t expect to see many businesses asking for incentives, and when they do, the requests\u00a0\u201cshould be approached with a great deal of skepticism.\u201d<\/p>

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Norman City Council on Tuesday approved a new economic incentive plan meant to attract businesses and jobs in an 8-1 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":14006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[492],"tags":[155,33],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}