RED Development Responds to Blog Post and Letter to the Editor

Patriots,

Below is an email response from the Vice-President of Marketing for RED Development to the blog posting dated April 1st. Also this posting appeared as a Letter to the Editor in the April 7th edition of the Tribune & Georgian.

In the interest of presenting all the information out there, I have decided to post RED's rebuttal to the information I found on the internet that was the basis of my letter. Here are the links that I referenced in my letter: (1)http://www.nobailout4red.com/index.html and (2) http://www.examiner.net/business/x1409370357/RED-Development-to-ask-Blue-Springs-for-more-help.

Here are other links of interest: (3) http://www.bluespringsjournal.com/2010/03/30/29814/red-bonds-squeeze-by-council-with.html and (4) http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2010/01/18/daily27.html
(5) http://www.citizens4eagle.com/articles.htm

Italic text is the email response. See below:

Mr. Spencer, thanks for allowing us to respond. I have attached a Word document containing our response as well as pasting it into the body of this email.

Dear Mr. Spencer:
I read your editorial, posted April 1st, that discussed our company and two centers we have developed in the Kansas City area, and appreciate you giving me the opportunity to post my response on your site. Though the underlying financial issues involved are somewhat complex, there is a simple fact that is quite easy to understand: There was no bailout for RED. We did not ask any city for additional money to complete a project and both projects mentioned are successful and are already adding revenue to the city’s coffers.

Both projects were built in partnership with their respective cities using Tax Increment Financing. This tool has utilized “net new” revenue to allow the construction of projects where they were otherwise economically not feasible. As a result of this and a similar project we built earlier, the finances for Lee’s Summit, Missouri are thriving at a time when not many other municipalities could say that. In fact, the mayor has said that the two centers RED has built in Lee’s Summit, “have made the city not only solvent, but thriving—at a time when many other municipalities across the country are struggling with dramatically decreased revenues forcing draconian cuts to their services.”

The fact is that these projects were built without any funding that was in excess of the original TIF agreement, in spite of what you might be able to find on the Internet. Much of this deliberately false information has been dispensed by a union that is unhappy that we used contractors who gave bids approximately 50% lower than theirs. They want to blackmail RED into using their labor. We want to spend our, and the local municipalities’ money prudently in building these economic generators in partnership with local government.

One can find many things out on the Internet. Not all of them are true. Thanks again for allowing my letter to be printed on your site.


Dave Claflin, VP Marketing
RED Development, LLC
4717 Central
Kansas City, MO 64112