Subsidies Unfair to Business Owners

* John Chandler’s story “Local Businesses Call Subsidy Unfair” (Oct. 11) succinctly expressed the feelings of both the business owners and taxpayers of Lancaster. The city has no business subsidizing one retail business over another with tax dollars.

The Lancaster City Council never seems to learn the hard lessons of its magnificent mistakes of the very recent past. The Petsmart controversy should have shown the council members that their political careers were on the line. A very bad mistake was made when they began to subsidize large, out-of-state retail entities such as Petsmart against small, local, established businesses that sell essentially the same product.

Now the council has done the exact same thing with Cardlock Fuel Systems. The incentives appear to work against our local oil companies--Little Oil Co., Butler Oil Co. and several others--companies that would be competitors of Cardlock if the playing field were level.

What arrogance. Is the City Council motto to become “Let the Peasants Eat Cake”?

The incentives that most citizens of Lancaster envisioned were for new industries, not new retail sales competitors. When I first learned of the plan to issue incentives, I thought it was a great idea. Absolutely brilliant. The incentives would bring light and medium manufacturing, with their attendant jobs, to the Antelope Valley. Those payrolls would certainly brighten our economy. An economy that today needs brightening.

Those same incentives, at first, did exactly as intended. They brought Galaxy Group to Fox Field and the Rexall R. V. Co. from Santa Clarita to Lancaster. A perfect partnership between city government and the target industries. It proves incentives work as they are supposed to. Now those same incentives are being misused.

RONALD M. THOMASON

Lancaster