The Wilkinson Mill, one of the beautiful old factory buildings in Pawtucket.
From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com:
There’s something very desperate and sad about Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien’s idea that the Rhode Island General Assembly should consider letting the old mill town finance the entire public part of a Pawtucket Red Sox (aka PawSox) new-stadium financing deal. The bonds to be sold would supposedly be paid off by letting the city use all the state sales and income tax revenue to be generated by the ballpark for that purpose.
Thus the city would glued to the fortunes of one company, whose revenues in coming decades are impossible to predict with any precision. (Will Minor League baseball be popular in 10 years?) Of course, whatever such a financing agreement says, if the tax revenue doesn’t meet expectations and so Pawtucket can’t cover the debt, the state would have to come in to try to save the city.
I wish that Pawtucket officials would spend more time trying to find ways to leverage for economic development the coming Pawtucket/Central Falls train station, which will link the old mill city more closely with booming Greater Boston, and less time obsessing about the PawSox as if it’s the only game (so to speak) in town. Better to lure and/or keep dozens of small companies than rely upon one bigger one with very rich out-of-state owners who can easily move their operations.
