A Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council report released today (see story on Page 1) provides evidence of what businesspeople have been lamenting for years. The city of Providence’s commercial property tax burden is excessively high.
How high?
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According to the RIPEC study, Providence ranks fifth highest among the nation’s 55 largest cities. Its commercial property tax burden is 70 percent higher than the average of the 55 surveyed cities and is the highest among all New England cities included in the study.
We hope lawmakers at the state Legislature see this RIPEC report as a call to action. They must work to find ways to ensure that the state develops a less punitive tax structure.
Perhaps James Hagan, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, puts it best in pointing out that businesses are in fact the engines of economic growth in any city.
“We must create a tax environment that’s conducive to doing business here and creating jobs,” he said. “If you tax businesses to the point where they can’t compete or attract investment, they no longer will be the engine, and then where do you turn?”
A decline in crime – again
For the second consecutive year, violent crime in Providence has decreased.
Providence Police Chief Dean M. Esserman and the men and women of his department should be commended, not only for their commitment to community policing, but for their overall efforts to fight crime in the capital city.
Their hard work has resulted in a 20 percent drop in violent crimes in Providence in 2004 over 2003. The city’s homicide rate fell from 20 in 2003 to 17 last year and the number of rapes, shootings, burglaries, break-ins and drug arrests also declined.
The police are continuing a community policing program in which police commanders are responsible for specific neighborhoods. Other components of the community policing program include the establishment of a gun task force and the forging of a relationship between the police and several churches and social service agencies. Crime statistics compiled over the past two years suggest that such an approach is working.
We have noticed a greater police presence downtown over the past couple of years. That’s a good sign – and an important one, in terms of economic development.
A safer capital city is a critical component of the latest chapter of the Providence renaissance. People are finally turning out in big numbers to live downtown – a chapter of the renaissance that we have all been anxious to see written.
Don’t underestimate how important it is for crime to decline in the capital city. It is a matter of public safety, but also, a matter of economic development.
