Amanda was quick to take shots at Developer Marty Kotis who borrowed $850,000 from the City of Greensboro secured by real property and Marty's personal guarantee. At 6.5% (compared to 1% for other programs) the City will profit approximately $53,000 in the first year of the loan and over $300K throughout the life of the loan.
But Amanda completely forgot forgivable loans and grants like the $2 Million Dollar forgivable loan given to Skip Alston and 2 developers along with the property at the Bessemer Shopping Center. In the comments in his post, When May NC Local Governments Pay an Economic Development Incentive? Tyler Mulligan of the North Carolina School of Government writes:
"A forgivable loan is indeed an incentive, as is a loan at an interest rate that is lower than what a company could obtain in the market. Please see this blog post regarding loans."
So the forgivable loan to Skip Alston and company was an incentive but because Marty Kotis is paying market rates for his loan the City of Greensboro did not provide incentives to Kotis Properties according to Tyler Mulligan's interpretation of North Carolina state laws.
So the News & Record lied again. And this time they cannot claim the lie of omission was because they did not know as Amanda has written several stories concerning the shopping center deal. And she cannot claim it was because the shopping center deal fell through because she chose to include the much smaller TV sitcom loan that Council also back out of.
Funny how the News & Record picks and chooses winners and loosers. They are apparently hoping to attract a lot of advertising dollars from Mr Alston's upcoming political campaign and his backers in the Simkins PAC.
I believe Amanda owes Mr Kotis a front page retraction in bold print.
