Greensboro's Megasite-maniacs

By Alan Ferguson

"Good morning all.  Two days ago a reporter for Channel 8 called me up and asked me to do an interview about the megasite project.  She said she had called the usual movers and shakers and no one would talk to her, and then she had found me.  I congratulated her on finding the only source of public information about this project, NERPO.

I informed her, correctly I believe, that to this very day, there would be no publicly available information about this project but for the efforts of this group. Our State would be contemplating giving away to some unknown rich and powerful private stockholders up to $200 million worth of land purchase and development work with absolutely no public comment.

And by the way, you all may have also seen the recent story about growth in the Southeastern states.  North Carolina is second among southern states (trailing only Louisiana with its oil production) and ninth in the United States in the percentage increase in its gross domestic product (the gold standard measure for how a state economy is doing).  

Somehow, North Carolinians are doing this without the giveaways proposed by the boosters of the Greensboro-Liberty-Megasite.  All of this leads me to conclude that the project is indeed about jobs--the very well-paying jobs of the economic development folks who push these sorts of things everyday.

As a further update, Greensboro's former mayor, and the man we now know to be the megasites biggest pusher, Jim Melvin, has again mentioned in print (this time in the Triad Business Journal) the creation of "an Authority" to operate the megasite.  

As we emphasized at our last meeting, this is potentially a very great danger to our area.  Any such "authority" will NOT be beholden to the folk who live here and pay their taxes every day.  In fact, we'll be fortunate to even know the names of the human beings who are likely to have the power to affect all of our lives and the use and enjoyment of our property in dramatically bad ways. We all need to get the word out to our wider area on this danger.

I think Channel 8 did a nice job.  The link is below.

And by the way, the reporter really did call the megasite-maniacs who won't let go of this project.  As has been the case throughout this odyssey, not one of them would talk to her. She particularly mentioned calling the Piedmont Triad Partnership office--"That lady there was rude to me, and would tell me nothing", she said.

Spread the word,  because we need to grow into our wider area.  And let me know what you are hearing. Information is our friend."