Recently, we reported at our daily newsletter the pending departure of a
California business, LiteBox.

It announced it was going to move to Indianapolis and create 1100 jobs in
a $20 million 125,000 sq.ft. facility

However, apparently after news reporters and community stakeholders had done
some background checks, the company was not all that it seemed.  It has been
identified by news sources that the founder of LiteBox has hundreds of
thousands in federal and state of California tax liens.

It appears that this was staged in a quick manner for the governor of Indiana
and mayor of Indianapolis without appropriate vetting of the company. 

Meanwhile, the company has been offered a variety of state and local incentives
and tax credits over a ten year period.  Some reports from the Indy Star to the
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette illustrate from $10 to $40 million.

Amid these and other concerns that have been brought to light since the news
conference to tout the Litebox proposal, the governor and mayor have tried to
allay any fears that the public is at risk. City and state economic development
officials have expressed confidence that LiteBox will deliver, based in part
on financial information they've seen that has not been made public.  However,
according to an article in the IndyStar, the governor acknowledged “that this
thing has longer odds than many of the other things we do," which to some should
raise a concern.

Apparently Indiana and Indianapolis are no strangers to projects announced that
never materialize. That’s not to say that the LiteBox development may or may not
happen.  However, it appears more of a “case of premature business attraction,”
based upon an effort to expedite this announcement and elevate the mayor in his
efforts to create jobs pending his re-election campaign.  This is truly an
unfortunate calamity impacting the economic development profession.

Of interest, not one economic development professional in California questioned
the move.

Tim Johnson
tjohnson@californiabusinessminute.com