On Sunday, December 29, 2013, Mayor Nancy Baracat Vaughan wrote the following in a News & Record (print only) article entitled, City Handles Incentives Effectively:
"We've also focused on creative concepts to offer opportunities to businesses that want to grow in Greensboro."
That's it. That was the entire paragraph, no explanation as to what she was referring to, no examples, nothing. If life has taught me anything it's that when you're trying to sell the voters on something then you'd best be giving them some examples of what you're talking about so I thought that since Mayor Vaughan failed to cite any examples I might cite a few for her.
Take for instance the Oakley Capital-- Charles Aris Incentive package that I wrote of in Part 5. Without rehashing the many other problems with the Oakley Capital-- Charles Aris Incentive package I'd just like to point out that Greensboro regulations limit incentives to $1,000 per new worker hired by the company receiving incentives. But the incentive package will be paying out $200,000 for just 4 new workers hired-- $50,000 Dollars or 50 times the amount allowed by City of Greensboro regulations.
Well, that was creative, wasn't it?
Or how about some of those shovel ready loans and grants to build empty industrial parks when the city and county are already littered with empty industrial parks? Is that what Nancy was talking about? What are those developers going to grow on those properties now that they're all covered in asphalt and concrete?
Perhaps Nancy was talking about the $215,116.36 that was given to Koury Corporation because the designer of the building forgot to include a lift pump in his original designs? That took some pretty creative accounting, I bet.
So Mayor Vaughan, which was it? Or is there something else you'd like for me to explain first?
Please continue reading Incentives In Greensboro: Part 8
