The Mayor has increased the fees the city charges builders when they submit plans by $150,000.

Sounds fine? Doesn’t affect you? You’re not a developer.

Well, how expensive will the cost of doing business in Raleigh have to be before it does affect you?

Those developers the Mayor uses as political foils serve people who want to build a house or a business in Raleigh – who want to move here and bring new jobs. Because that’s who goes in those buildings. New businesses and new jobs.

Make it tough enough on builders with red tape, grinding regulations, bloated bureaucracies and rising fees and that growth and those new jobs can stop. They can go someplace else.

Mayor Meeker, Councilman Crowder and Councilman Stephenson have turned developers into ‘political villains.’ No doubt that is clever politics. No doubt promising voters they could pay for millions in new spending by squeezing developers helped Meeker, Crowder and Stephenson win the last election.

But what they’re really doing in the long run is saying to new businesses – and new jobs – we’re going to make it tougher for you to come here.

And what happens if they stop coming? All the spending for bonds, for Convention Centers and so on we’ve committed to is going to keep right on and the costs are going to rise and without growth we’re going to see some whopping big tax increases.

There’s a worse scenario. What if businesses start leaving? Granted, we’re a long way from that but it’s happened before in other places.

The Republican Mayors in Raleigh in the 1990’s helped create a low-tax city that boomed economically. Mayor Meeker and his allies are planting the seeds to end that boom.

So next time you hear a politician talking about socking it to developers with a 78% tax increase (which they euphemistically call an impact fee) remember what they’re really talking about is jobs.

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