The
announcement last week that Cingular Wireless has selected Davenport
for a 510-job call center was great news, but with a big asterisk.
There's
no denying that the jobs (which will pay an average of just over
$21,000 a year) are welcome. They probably won't attract new people
to the Quad Cities, but they will provide a substantial number of
people with higher incomes.
And
a $3.4-million loan from the City of Davenport - to be repaid
through taxes from increased property values at the call-center site
- seems a fair incentive, given the magnitude of the project and
the fact that the jobs will actually be new.
But
the location of the call center combined with the size of the
incentive gives me pause. These jobs might merit millions of dollars
in assistance, but that money should be used to encourage development
where it wouldn't happen otherwise. In other words, this is a
project that deserved tax-increment financing downtown, but not at
the northern-Davenport site Cingular is considering.