It's the second day of the New Year and the 5th in my series, Incentives In Greensboro and we've yet to get one single response from Mayor Nancy Baracat Vaughan and the City of Greensboro. Wonder what that is? It's not like Nancy doesn't know, she blocked me from calling her out on Facebook just yesterday. Seems Nancy has a big problem with the truth getting out.
"All economic incentive requests are thoroughly reviewed by staff and a strategic formula is used to determine the level of inventive that can be offered by the city." -- Mayor Nancy Vaughan, Greensboro News & Record, Sunday, Dec 29, 2013, print edition, City Handles Incentives Effectively.
Let's look at some of those incentives beginning with the $200,000 loan and grant package including a $100,000 forgiveable loan (free money) to Oakley Capital LLC, an entity managed by the executive recruiting firm Charles Aris Inc to get the company to locate in downtown Greensboro.
Problem is: Charles Aris Inc. is a local company founded and located in Greensboro since 1969. So basically all the Greensboro City Council did was pay Charles Aris Inc to move from one Greensboro location to another Greensboro location. Is that how Nancy's strategic formula works? I can't wait to see the city's reply to Public Information Request 3135.This ought to be a hoot!
The City Council-approved funds included a $100,000 incentive grant, which will be provided over an eight-year period and be paid back by incremental taxes and is contingent upon a $3.9 million capital investment by Charles Aris Inc and the addition of four new jobs by 2016.
Do you not think that Charles Aris Inc wasn't already planning to hire 4 new workers? And what's to stop Charles Aris Inc from laying off 4 or more workers in 2017? Nothing, my friends. Not a single damned thing.
If you haven't figured it out yet, Oakley Capital LLC is a real estate holding company owned by Charles Aris Inc. Rather than pay rent to someone else, Charles Aris Inc founded Oakley Capital LLC so that Charles Aris Inc could pay rent to themselves and still write it off their taxes as a legitimate operating expense. While it probably shouldn't be it is perfectly legal. But what the Greensboro City Council voted to do was nothing more than corporate welfare and cannot be justified in any way, shape or form. $200,000 for 4 jobs with no long term guarantees that the jobs will remain past 2017.
So why did this happen? Some speculate the substantial campaign contributions to Councilman Zack Matheny's campaign account by one Ms Mindy Oakley, wife of Chad Oakley who works at Charles Aris Inc. Mindy and Chad also have ties to the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro and the GPAC task-force. Mindy currently serves as executive director of the Edward M. Armfield Sr. Foundation, one of Greensboro’s largest foundations.
Incestuous is the word that best describes it. One big downtown orgy with Nancy Baracat Vaughn and Zack Matheny right in the middle of it all. And to think, Zack, with his ties to organized crime, wants to run for Congress.
And folks, just you wait until I tear into what Nancy Baracat Vaughan wrote about economic development in East Greensboro. Don will have to pick her up from the floor. That is, if he hasn't already rushed her to the emergency room.
Nancy, do you teach Katheryn to lie as well? Or could it be as someone suggested to me that someone on city staff actually wrote that article and Nancy was dumb enough to believe it to be true? There's your out, girl, use it or die a painful political death.
Please continue reading Incentives In Greensboro: Part 6.
