Maybe it'll all work out. Maybe Scott Congel really will build that grand new development on top of the ruins of Medley Centre - Irondequoit Mall.

Congel managed to meet his Monday-afternoon deadline and pay his past-due, $322,813 in-lieu-of-taxes payment. If he hadn't, the Town of Irondequoit, the East Irondequoit Central School District, and the county's Industrial Development Agency were prepared to cancel an agreement giving him a substantial tax break, and that could have doomed the project. Congel still owes the town an additional $500,000, though.

I don't wish bad luck for any business. And certainly this has been a tough time for Congel to be looking for financing.

I don't wish bad luck for the Town of Irondequoit, either.

But in my humble opinion, Congel's project has been iffy from the start. This community doesn't need another mega-mall. It doesn't need more housing. It doesn't need another hotel or another movie theater.

Our population hasn't grown appreciably in years, so any time we build something new - especially something new and really big - one of two things will happen. Either the new project will put other businesses out of business, or the new project won't make it.

I continue to be amazed, though, that otherwise intelligent government officials dole out tax breaks to businesses and projects that A) carry a good bit of risk, and B) will add absolutely nothing to the region's overall economic development.

The state comptroller's recent report on the Rhinos' soccer stadium shows what can happen when elected officials spend taxpayers' money on risky projects. Local government officials wanted nothing to do with the stadium. They thought it relied too heavily on public funds, and they didn't think it was viable. But that didn't stop the Rhinos' owners. They lobbied state legislators, who threw caution to the wind and threw buckets of money at the Rhinos.

In the end, state money built the stadium. And now, city taxpayers are helping subsidize its operations, because otherwise, the operations would have failed, leaving a big, empty stadium in a fragile neighborhood.

OK, I'm not comparing apples to apples. No branch of government is giving Scott Congel money to create his complex in Irondequoit. But it amounts to pretty much the same thing. Monroe County, the East Irondequoit School District, and the Town of Irondequoit are giving Congel tax breaks. And whatever property taxes he gets to skip, whatever sales taxes he avoids on the construction materials he buys, the rest of us (most especially the residents of Irondequoit) will have to make up.

Governments do this all the time, of course, to try to increase economic development. Since other towns are doing it, Irondequoit has to. You can't blame Irondequoit.

Or the East Irondequoit School District.

Or the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency.

I guess.

But a couple of things about these officials:

1) They, like the state legislators who handed over taxpayers' money to build the Rhinos' stadium, apparently don't think it matters whether this project is feasible.

2) And they sure don't think it matters whether it threatens other businesses.

Officials of the Town of Irondequoit, the East Irondequoit School District, and COMIDA are gambling with taxpayers' money - and with the stability of businesses that won't be in the Congel project. If they win, over time the new development will boost the town's tax base and add jobs. If they lose - if Congel can't pull this off - they'll be left with a sprawling, empty shopping center, tarnished yet again by a failed dream.

But even if they win, only Irondequoit - and maybe only the complex formerly known as Irondequoit Mall - comes out ahead. New businesses there will kill off some in other parts of the county. A new hotel there will jeopardize one somewhere else.

The Community of Monroe will gain absolutely nothing from the Congel mega-mall. But I don't suppose any government officials are ready to talk about regional planning.