Still on drugs, Ms Ladd?
Then there's the Revolution Mills incentive package.
While a long time fan of Martin Eakes and Self Help Credit Union and ever so thankful for their support of my own neighborhood's Renaissance Community Co-op, I can't help but wonder if the Revolution Mill project would have gotten the kind of support it got had it actually been located farther east. You see, Self Help asked for $750,000 for the Renaissance Community Co-op but Greensboro Mayor Nancy Barakat "Grasshopper" Vaughan and then Greensboro City Councilman Zack Methany who is credited with bringing Self Help to the RCC venture could only find it in their hearts to give the project $250,000.
But when Self Help needs $387,500 incentive for Natty Greene’s Brewery, a company that already has a location in downtown Greensboro where Zack "Pour me another round" Methany is now working as the head of Downtown Greensboro Incorporated and wants to put their newest brewery in the very neighborhood were Zack and Nancy live... Like wow, do I have to spell it out for you?
Nancy Vaughan lives at 904 Sunset Drive. Zack Methany lives at 3204 Round Hill Road. Here's a screen grab I took from Google maps showing a 22 minute 7 mile round trip between the 3 locations. For comparison, it's 5 miles from my East Greensboro home to Page High School which you can see clearly in the map. (Click to enlarge.)
In case you are so new to town that you don't know the history, Revolution Mill was one of the first of several Cone Mills textiles plants built here in Greensboro. The houses built around the mill were known as the mill village. But Irving Park was a part of the Mill Village as well. The Cones themselves built and lived in Irving Park back in the horse and buggy days when everyone, even the owners of businesses, had to live close enough to walk or ride a horse to work. Irving Park was a part of the same neighborhood then and it remains a part of the same neighborhood today.
The Greensboro City Council didn't vote for incentives for East Greensboro, they voted for incentives for Irving Park.
And please share as that is the only way we can get past the propaganda machine. Far more incentives and community resources continue to be spent in the north, west and downtown than in the east and south. And our neighborhood economies show it.
Remember: we're only one madman away from the Gate City Bomber and perception is everything. Sorry folks, but unlike Susan Ladd, when I write fiction I don't try to label it as truth. Gate City Bomber is a work of fiction based on how things really happen and could happen with today's technology and enough advanced planning.
