It is official: The $21m. Randy Parton Theater, built with tax-increment financing in Roanoke Rapids, needs a property tax hike on local residents to generate enough revenue to pay for the debt.

Chad Adams points out:

Seems that it wasn’t that long ago that Phil Kirk and Ken Eudy were going around the state selling Amendment 1, Tax Increment Financing, as Self-Financed Bonds. They promised these bonds would not increase taxes and would create jobs.

And that was, frankly, a lie. The truth is that unless a project throws off enough money via its re-developed new purpose, local taxpayers must pick up the tab.

That is true for Dr. McHealthy’s Fruit & Nut Complex in Kannapolis that is using TIF financing, would be true of the North line commuter rail — remember the North line? — in Huntersville, or the $400m. worth of streetcars the city of Charlotte wants to build in West Charlotte.