Editorial against wind PILOT illogical

Only on the editorial pages of the Watertown Daily Times could you find a more convoluted thought process that interprets a $40 million influx of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes revenues to our community as a bad deal.

Ignoring for a moment that wind developers operate on a global scale and can invest their $500 million in any number of countries around the world, this developer has chosen Galloo Island. The project is estimated to bring 250 temporary construction jobs lasting about two years and 25 or so full-time positions thereafter. You may want to ask some out-of-work construction workers if this is something they might welcome, temporary or not.

To posit that Jefferson County and the town of Hounsfield are poised to lose $10.5 million on mortgage and sales taxes is logic more suited for the comics pages than the editorial page. On one hand, you would lament the loss of jobs and resulting tax revenues to industries that have fled Northern New York for more competitive tax-friendly states, and then when a group of well-financed investors expresses an interest in creating jobs and the resulting tax influx from one of the largest projects this area has ever seen, you cry bad deal.

Good luck promoting Northern New York to potential outside investors with that reverse thinking. Like it or not, we compete every day with other states, and now countries, to bring jobs and prosperity to our community.

Whether you favor wind power or not, let's try to keep the arguments logical and fact-based. If you think losing $10.5 million is significant, please consider for a moment the loss of the nearly 300 jobs and $40 million of PILOT revenue that would really be lost should we make the project financially unworkable for the developers.

Don DiMonda

Sackets Harbor