As Planning Director, you are asked to develop an economic development strategy that includes incentives for retailers, even though you oppose incentives that don't create basic jobs. What should you do?

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When facing a request to develop incentives for retailers while you oppose incentives that don’t create basic jobs, the best path is to deliver a thorough report that lays out all incentive options, along with their potential impacts and trade-offs. This approach shows you’re taking a measured, responsibility-driven stance: you can show which incentives would actually drive basic-job creation, outline the expected benefits, costs, and risks, and explain under what conditions each option would succeed or fail. It also provides decision-makers with a transparent basis to choose or design incentives that meet your policy criteria, such as tying assistance to measurable job outcomes, setting caps, or implementing sunset provisions.

This keeps you aligned with your policy position while fulfilling professional duties to analyze, compare, and communicate the options clearly rather than making ad-hoc or unfounded choices. It’s preferable to refusing to prepare any report, proposing incentives indiscriminately, or ignoring the request, all of which would undermine accountability and policy coherence.