Let's grant that economic development (jobs?) is an appropriate concern for national, state and local governments. But let's also recognize that the location and startup of private unsubsidized business is a huge and complicated challenge for even the most experienced of business practitioners.

What limitations should be placed on elected officials to prevent them from otherwise well-intentioned squandering of the resource of taxpayers' funds?

Note recently the federal loss of
$535 million on Solyndra, a solar-panel maker underwritten by President Barack Obama and his friends. Or what about the approximately $260 million invested by ex-Gov. Bill Richardson in many movies that reportedly have yet to earn our state its first dime? And there is also the $20 million-plus in state and county taxpayer money that the same ex-Gov. Richardson supplied to his boyhood chums from Mexico for the Santa Fe Studios project. Isn't this exactly the kind of political handout from which the anti-donation clause in the New Mexico Constitution is supposed to protect taxpayers?

This writer, along with two other old business hands, challenged whether the clause was ignored and/or abused in permitting this egregious use of public funds for as sophisticated an effort as the building of these single-purpose studios to serve ephemeral customers. (A judge ruled earlier this month the deal did not violate state law). Building the studio was a classic wishful decision to "build it and they will come." (We can only hope so, or the county will own a huge, white elephant crouched on the hills to the south of town.)

Many questions were raised and few were answered. The Local Economic Development Act under which this project was evaluated is not allowed for real-estate development other than urban renewal, which this wasn't. All income planned and projected for the LEDA "qualifying entity" was from rentals. The promoters have no product, no markets and few employees. They are landlords to an industry that goes where they can get the best deal. And why did they form two companies, La Luz and Santa Fe Studios, to fulfill what one could do unless they were trying get around the definitions in the law?

Were there any members of the county decision-makers who were skilled (or even partially skilled) in the field of business and financial venture management to analyze the representations of the promoters? Was there a reason why there didn't appear to be any private investors in the project? Was there a reason why the bank loan they sought and obtained was secured, believe it or not, by a lock box account of county (our) cash in exactly a like amount? Was this a way, thinly disguised, to get around just handing the money to organizers, which would be so clearly a violation of the anti-donation clause?

It would be interesting to know what the State Finance Board thinks about the ultimate sale of the 65 acres of land to an entity other than the one that they had approved along with exceptional financial terms. It was stated by the county in the trial that the qualifying entity, which wasn't the land buyer, had already created the work hours that would trigger the first payment of $524,000 to the county. Has that happened? If so when? If not, why not?

The original deal purported to donate 25 acre-feet of water to the project. Now the county says all it is going to do is hook the project up for free and charge it for water used. Where did those water rights go, who has paid for them, and what is the recovery to the county for its commitment of these valuable assets to the project?

In the final analysis, we can only hope that this project is a success because if it works, it will mean jobs in Santa Fe. But the underlying purpose of the anti-donation clause was subverted. The expenditure of taxpayer funds for private economic development should be professional, competitive, should by statute include a "substantial contribution" from the project owners, and should be as apolitical and pure as Caesar's wife. In my opinion, this particular venture unfortunately failed on all four points. I would suggest that the use and application of the anti-donation clause needs serious review.

Santa Fean Gregg Bemis is an industrialist/adventurer and concerned senior citizen.