President Obama was not the only person to come from Washington, D. C., Thursday to talk about the importance of good jobs.

Greg LeRoy, a national development expert, endorsed calls for a living wage, minority and female hiring targets and other goals as part of a binding “community benefit agreement” for the Canal Side project.

Standing near the Canal Side project, which includes a proposed Bass Pro, the head of the Washington, D. C.-based Good Jobs First warned against an agreement that doesn’t lift workers out of poverty.

“As taxpayers, you have a right to know the full cost of the deal. You don’t want hidden taxpayer costs, in the form of social safety-net needs, for poverty wages being paid at a project that’s getting such a massive amount of subsidies,” said Le- Roy, author of “The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation.”

“We know from disclosures in other states that big-box retail chains have lots of employees dependent on Medicaid, on state children’s health insurance programs and food stamps, and Section 8 housing.”

The public cost for the $294.8 million Canal Side project is $154 million, including $35 million to construct a Bass Pro store and more than $17 million to build a parking garage beneath it.

The Canal Side Community Alliance has promoted a pact with Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp, and in March the Common Council voted not to transfer 12 acres of city-owned land outside the Canal Side footprint for development without one.

But Jordan A. Levy, chairman of the development agency, has maintained that a livingwage provision for businesses with 20 or more employees would drive would-be retailers away. Thursday, he said successful projects with substantial private investment don’t have living-wage requirements.

“We cannot mandate to the private sector what their wage rates need to be in this development or any other development around the state. We are unwilling to do it — it will make the project fail,” Levy said.

Levy also backed away from an earlier comment that the Council’s stance threatened the Canal Side project.

“The project isn’t going to die unless they can scare off Bass Pro and other tenants. And Benderson, our development partner, says we can’t get involved with this,” Levy said.

LeRoy, who was the keynote speaker Thursday night at the Coalition for Economic Justice’s annual banquet in the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center, insisted a community benefit agreement with a livable wage was needed for taxpayers to get “a good return for their buck.”

“There are about a dozen CBAs around the country, usually attached to local livingwage ordinances, and the sky didn’t fall,” LeRoy said.