In Part 1 I told you how the White Street Landfill could be used to bring jobs to Greensboro by recycling glass. In Part 2 it was turning waste wood into clean burning wood pellets and in Part 3 it was using landfill gas to attract aviation manufacturers to East Greensboro. Today it's the landfill as a means to recruit all sorts of high paying businesses.
Let's begin by qualifying the types of businesses we want in East Greensboro. Data centers are out as data centers are for the most part big empty boxes filled with computers and very few people. And operations like Federal Express? Allow me to remind you that locally we spent $300 Million Dollars on FedEx in the last 15 years only to end up with a net increase of zero jobs. FedEx employed 250 local workers 15 years ago and FedEx employs 250 local workers today.
Call centers are no bargain either as they tend to move around a lot as soon as the incentives are gone and while my suggestion will return a net profit for the City of Greensboro it still remains an incentive. No, what we primarily want are North Carolina based manufacturing businesses with big electric bills.
The plan is simple. Like the aviation plan in Part 3, the 500 acres of never used property in the White Street Landfill could be developed into an industrial park with its own source of electricity produced from landfill gas sold to the companies located there below market rates. They'll want to come here to save money on their electric bills. The city profits from a slim mark-up on the electricity plus the leases on the property. Zack Matheny will just have to get off his lazy ass and learn how to become a good landlord, like it or not. Of course, as the goal is to attract new jobs this would be limited to new companies or companies that are new to Greensboro. Yes, that's a little unfair to existing companies in Greensboro but that's the breaks. Besides, the landfill gas isn't going to last forever and the longer Greensboro waits to do this the less Greensboro will benefit.
Remember: currently, most of the gas is being wasted in flare offs, burned because no one knows what to do with it. If I were a member of the Greensboro City Council I'd quit wasting time and taxpayers' money and get on the stick.
In Part 5 we'll go fishing.
