Bill Hocker | Feb 20, 2015

Calistogan: City may purchase vacant lot on Washington

I can't imagine a clearer example of Volker Eisele's dictum that "Development doesn't pay for itself. It doesn't." The mayor just assumes that the tax payers of the city and the state must now subsidize the developer by providing housing for the underpaid workers at the resorts. And schools and water and sewers and emergency services. Governments are always seeking more development to generate revenues to pay for the last developments they approved. And more taxes.

Why doesn't it occur to anyone that the resorts, who are in the housing business after all, should provide all of the housing needed for their workforce, in an effort to relieve, though not completely eliminate, the burden that they place on taxpayers to deal with the impacts they create.

Does anyone think that by turning Calistoga into Napa or San Francisco that revenue problems will be solved? The only people that don't lose money through development are the developers.

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