Firefighters or Mitch Albom's Movie Subsidy? [Michigan Capitol Confidential]
"Taxpayers in Allen Park may not share Albom’s confidence in the program after the city voted to lay off all 27 firefighters.
As reported in the Detroit Free Press, a failed film studio project is the reason.
“The decision to issue the layoff notices was attributed to financial problems caused by the decision announced last year by Unity Studios to leave the city for Detroit.”
The city and state offered a sweet subsidy deal of its own to lure the promoter of a supposedly $146 million project called “Unity Studios.”
A Nov. 2010 Mackinac Center blog post summarizes what followed:
“It’s taken less than two years for the entire project to implode.
The (ceremonial) groundbreaking in August 2009 was followed by a tumultuous period which saw Unity Studios founder Jimmy Lifton go from promising thousands of jobs at his privately owned utopian 104-acre film studio and “retraining program,” to a scaled down studio and film school on city-owned property, to near eviction and eventually hightailing it out of Allen Park to set up shop in Detroit.”"
No comments:
Post a Comment