In his Feb. 2 column, “Augusta city politics are changing,” Don Roberts worried that Councilor Linda Conti will be a “fox in the henhouse” of the council’s powerful TIF Committee.

He should relax. She’s not a fox in the henhouse. She’s a chaperone at the prom.

TIFs — tax-increment financing — are tax breaks to corporations that promise different types of public benefits, such as street improvements or needed services.

When a homeowner builds a new garage, the tax assessor adds its value to the owner’s tax assessment. TIF agreements shrink taxes on businesses that build improvements. To get a TIF tax break, the business must show that the improvements are in the community’s interest.

It often works, but TIFs are complicated, and companies that get them don’t always deliver any public benefit. When we let that happen, it amounts to a handout. Sometimes it’s called corporate welfare. Sometimes it’s called corruption.

Roberts wants Conti to prove she’s not anti-business. Some teenagers think that prom chaperones are anti-teen. They’re wrong. Prom chaperones are pro-teen, which means they’re anti-drunkenness, anti-violence and anti-accidental pregnancy.

Nothing wrong with that, as long as the proposed improvements really can help Augusta and really do happen.

So who decides which businesses get those tax breaks? In Augusta, it’s the council’s TIF Committee. It makes sense, then, that the committee’s members have track records of concern for taxpayers and the community.

Conti’s record should speak for itself. As assistant attorney general, she fought hard and capably to defend the community’s right to hold businesses to high standards. Businesses with high standards will have no problem with that.

So we need to give her a chance. Conti could be exactly the kind of chaperone our prom needs.

Charlie Bernstein

Augusta

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