Strip Mall, U.S.A.

With the recent appointments of some new and assuredly TIF-friendly faces to the Industrial Development Board, Knox County is now well on its way to becoming the strip mall capital of the U.S. You can thank Commissioner William Daniels for nominating the block of four, two of whom, Carl Tindell and Clem Renfro, had been pushed by Commissioner Scott Moore a month earlier.

I am not anti-developer. I am anti-government handout for paving over a few hundred more acres so that Wal-Mart and its ilk can continue to fill their coffers by importing and selling cheap foreign products. 

Those who say, like Commissioner Greg Lambert and others, that a TIF is "free" haven't a clue. In the long run, taxpayer bank rolling of retail projects is myopic and fiscally suicidal. It's high time for the "leadership" (and I use the term advisedly) of this county to recognize and return to the historic justifications for a TIF: blight removal and the creation of jobs that produce real wealth. Enough already with the retail TIFs, and enough already of commissioners whose home away from home is a developer's back pocket.