Piedmont Triad Partnership's David Powell, Again We Were First

Today the News & Record is reporting:

"The former CEO of the region's economic development agency is being investigated for "financial irregularities," according to a statement released today by the Piedmont Triad Partnership.

"The Piedmont Triad Partnership has provided law enforcement authorities information about financial irregularities involving former CEO David M. Powell," according to the written release.

The organization did not say what law enforcement authorities are involved."

Interesting.

Interesting because on Friday, April 3, 2015 I wrote,

 "And rumors abound as to why David Powell of the Piedmont Triad Partnership is leaving town."

Not only that but a search of this site for the keywords,  David Powell brings up lots of posts that point to questionable behaviors on his part and the part of the Piedmont Triad Partnership and its members.

Will our local media outlets report those as well?

You know an FBI agent once told me he reads this blog every day. Mr Powell might not be the last.

Update: Thursday morning, the Original press release from PTP.

A Message To The Piedmont Triad Partnership

I read with interest the story about Bioadhesive Alliance and their effort to replace asphalt ingredients with pig manure. Unlike previous attempts to replace asphalt ingredients with ground up tires, glass, roofing shingles, etc which all failed not because they didn't work but because the asphalt companies simply didn't need what they were selling, the glue is actually something that has to be added each time the asphalt is remade.

You see. the majority of the asphalt made now days is made from recycled asphalt.

But as a resident of East Greensboro where Bioadhesive Alliance was founded (with taxpayer Dollars, I might add) at NC A&T University, I believe their refinery should be located in East Greensboro and not in some megasite or industrial park far from where we live. After all, to put the jobs so far away from where we live defeats the entire purpose of designing alternatives to petroleum as NC A&T and Bioadhesive Alliance has done.

Of note: while the article didn't mention it: an alternative adhesive for asphalt might also lower the future cost of roofing shingles and a number of other products used in home construction and remodeling.

And just so everyone else knows: the largest funder of the Piedmont Triad Partnership is the City of Greensboro.

Another Reason To Dump Robbie Perkins And the "Non Profits"

As I pointed out in Existing North Carolina Megasites, there are 18 empty "megasites" in North Carolina and as was pointed out in The MegaSite Myth, there are 180 empty megasites across the United States that we know of. And those are only those that have been certified as megasites. Others who have not gone through the expensive certification process exist.

As was pointed out in the Op-ed: Megasite plan for Randolph County carries a steep price for taxpayers, megasites are another form of corporate welfare. It's time North Carolina workers heard the truth.

And the truth is: according to today's News & Record editorial: Megasites are a mega-gamble.

"Greensboro could be tapped for water and sewer connections, but servicing the site could require an investment of more than $21 million, according to a 2011 report. How would the city pay for that? Fees alone wouldn’t come close. In regional projects of this kind, local governments may have to explore “potential revenue sharing,” PTP President David M. Powell wrote in the News & Record Ideas section Sunday. That could mean some division of property tax income."

Translation: Higher property taxes so that men like Greensboro Mayor and Commercial Realtor, Robbie Perkins and Developer Roy Carroll, who currently pays 4/5s of the Mayor's commissions, can get a whole lot richer.

"If the Triad isn’t prepared, it will lose to competing regions. There are other megasites that are fully developed and waiting. Southern Business and Development magazine last year identified 10 in the South, including the Mid Atlantic Logistics Center in Brunswick County. "

Translation: We're trying to scare the moron taxpayers into giving us every penny they'll ever earn. After all, the taxpayers are too stupid to know they don't deserve the money anyway. What did they ever build?

There are better ways and if people would like to meet with me face to face to discuss these better ways I'll be more that happy to do so but I'm not going to give away the secrets on the Internet and give another community with brighter leaders the chance to get ahead of us. And I'm also not willing to give Greensboro's status quo the chance to steal it all away from you before you get your part.

Existing North Carolina Megasites

Update: There are no accredited Megasites in North Carolina that I have found and only 1 in Virginia but all of these sites claim to be megasites. Accreditation requires hiring certain agencies in the US to certify your accreditation. Those also happens to be the same compaies that lead the nation in the development of megasites. Begin original post:

The Heart of North Carolina Megasite in Moore County just south of Asheboro, a project affiliated with the Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway Company sits just off of Interstate 73/74 (Hwy 220) with further connection to I-85 and I-40 and US 64.

"Incentives: The N.C. Department of Commerce categorizes each of the state’s 100 counties into one of 3 “tiers” based on economic well-being. Counties needing a competitive boost to attract new industry are assigned a Tier 1 designation and are eligible for more state incentives at larger dollar amounts. Montgomery County has a Tier 1 status and because 1/3 of the mega-site is located in Montgomery County, the Tier 1 designation applies to the entire site. Businesses locating in the MegaPark may qualify for a job creation tax credit of $12,500 per new job and an investment tax credit of 7% of the cost of tangible personal property."

Triangle North Warren is an 860-acre megasite located the northern part of the Research Triangle Region of North Carolina just 3 miles from Interstate 85.

Triangle North Granville is a life sciences and technology 527-acre park in Granville County located in the northern part of the Research Triangle Region of North Carolina.

Triangle North Vance is a 422-acre business and manufacturing park located near Interstate 85 at exit 209, across from Vance-Granville Community College in the northern part of the Research Triangle Region of North Carolina.

All the Triangle North parks offer $12,500 per job state tax credit for companies that locate in the park plus all the other perks that go with locating in the original Research Triangle Park (RTP) built in the 1950s.

GIPH Site, 1700 Acres, Hertford County

Tanglewood, 5,915 Acres, Pasquotank County

Verona Site, 3,943 Acres, Northampton County

The North Carolina Global TransPark (GTP) is a 2,500 acre, multi-modal industrial park offering unparalleled access to air, rail, highways, and North Carolina's two international ports.

 Hearts Delight near Aulander 1900 acres.

 Riverstone Business Park,  Forest City 1000 acres

 Pine Hills Ind.  Hamlet 1500 acres total, 400 acres still available

 Laurinburg-Maxton Airport Industrial Park 1,800 of 4,000 acres currently available, Former Army Air Core Base Training Facility, This one made sense.

 Great Meadows   Morganton 1200 acres

Newton Grove 1161 acres

 Mid-Atlantic Business Ct Rocky Mount  1,668 acres

 Kingsboro Rose, Rocky Mount 1300 acres

 Norwood Tract,  Saratoga 1315 acres

 Monroe site, Southern Pines 1130 acres

 Mid Atlantic Logistics Center in Brunswick County 1000 acres

Leland Industrial Park in Brunswick County 2200 acres* Disputed

International Logistics Park of North Carolina in Brunswick County 1000 acres

(I'll add more as I find them.)

What do all these North Carolina megasites have in common? Just like 180 megasites across the United States of America they are all for the most part, empty. All that money, tax dollars and environmental damage, farms, homes, trees, ponds, fields and memories... entire ways of life destroyed so that a few wealthy developers like Greensboro's Roy Carroll, a few realtors like Mayor Robbie Perkins and the fat cats from the "non profits" like The Greensboro Partnership and the Piedmont Triad Partnership can get fatter at our expense.

South Carolina has literally built dozens of megasites and almost all of them remain empty. Here's an example of just 1 South Carolina megasite 30 miles south of Downtown Charlotte with 39 connected smaller industrial parks all crying for tenants. Can you not see the absurdity of the while megasite scheme? If developers were forced to foot these costs on their own they would never build these sites. They only do so because they are spending our money.

Edgecombe County actually did a study in 2011 in which they determined it was a bad time to do speculative building. The economy hasn't improved that much since then. It's long past time for talk of Megasites in the Piedmont Triad to end before we fall into the same trap as 180 other communities across America.

Op-ed: Megasite plan for Randolph County carries a steep price for taxpayers

I stole the following from today's News & Record for fear they might "lose" their archives a 3rd time.

"By Alan E. Ferguson

Stories about the assembly of local property into an industrial megasite of from 1,000 to 2,000 acres have appeared recently in this and other local newspapers. We have learned that the N.C. Department of Commerce and Randolph County, in an effort led by the Piedmont Triad Partnership, hope to attract a major industry such as an automobile assembly plant to the site.

I live on a parcel of property adjacent to one of these targeted areas, just northwest of Liberty in Randolph County.

Who opposes attracting a big, high-paying employer to the Piedmont? Well, no one, really. But all of us should be concerned as to where that employer is located and who pays for bringing one here. At present, those behind the assembly of a Liberty site have a big problem:

They don’t own the property. The site consists of 70-plus Randolph County tax parcels, many of which are occupied by owner residents who are unhappy that their rural acreages have been targeted for our area’s next great industrial zone.

This means someone yet has to pay for the property. After some digging by a group of us who have incorporated as the Northeast Randolph Property Owners, LLC, we know that those payers will be the taxpayers of North Carolina, Randolph County and to some extent Guilford County.

Randolph County was recently given $1.67 million by state government to begin acquiring property for the megasite.

Anyone can do the math on such a large acreage and see that even at bargain basement prices, many millions of tax dollars will be spent before this site is titled to a single owner. (And they cannot get the property by eminent domain, as our law does not allow forced acquisitions for economic development purposes.) Each contract for purchase will have to be negotiated with each property owner.

There are no business suitors for this property. If private parties were doing what the state and county are doing, their activities would be defined as land speculation. After acquisition, of course, the government will shop the parcel to a large company and likely give away the taxpayers’ new tract as an incentive to build a factory here.

This process is particularly interesting considering that our government is now run by a party whose 2012 platform contained the following:

“We oppose bailouts and corporate welfare. It is contrary to the free enterprise system to recruit or retain businesses with targeted tax incentives when other businesses bear the full burden of taxation. Higher tax rates on the many to provide preferential treatment for the few is unfair.”

As I recall, the Democratic candidate for governor was beaten up on this issue during at least one of the debates during the 2012 campaign.

Buying the land won’t be the end of the cost. This parcel is 16 straight-line miles from the center of Greensboro. The Rockingham County line, the Alamance County line and the center of High Point are closer. The site has no water line, no sewer line, no natural gas and no nearby big electrical substation. It is agricultural land. We have asked about the water and sewer and were told that Greensboro would provide both. We wonder if the taxpayers in Greensboro know they could soon be asked to extend water and sewer services another eight miles beyond Forest Oaks down to Randolph County?

All of this means that easements and rights-of-way would have to be purchased, some likely only through the exercise of eminent domain (and the attendant expense), across properties between the current terminal points of these utilities and Liberty.

Much has also been made of the fact that this site is adjacent to a major rail line and four-lane U.S. 421. If the railroad track is to carry substantial additional traffic, will it soon become a double track? How long would it be before increased truck traffic required that nearby N.C. 62 and Old U.S. 421 be four-laned? How would the hundreds of Guilford and Randolph residents feel about these improvements across their front yards?

The shame of all of this is that many, many acres of vacant industrial land already exist in Guilford, Alamance, Forsyth, Davidson and Randolph counties. These acres are already served by all of the utilities I have named and are closer to the pool of available workers to man the jobs at the plants to be built.

I know, I know: The fashion now in industrial recruiting offices is to assemble a large tract of virgin farmland for development and then offer it to industry, but that is fashion and not necessity. And fashion should never dictate that fields and woodlands be forever destroyed for lack of better imagination.

This megasite business is a transformative economic and social project. If it comes, it will forever change the lifestyles of thousands of residents of Randolph, Alamance and southern Guilford counties. It’s all being done on those taxpayers’ dime, with no discussion and nearly completely under public radar. And now a political party that has long claimed to oppose just such public expenditures and campaigned against them is running the show. Pity, all that.

Alan E. Ferguson practices law in Greensboro and lives in Liberty."

Like I've been saying for years, put the jobs where the people live and stop subsidizing local developers with municipal tax dollars. You see, that's what these mega sites are really all about.

Piedmont Triad Partnership Fails Audit

It has just been brought to my attention that the Piedmont Triad Partnership, a 501 (c)3 non profit funded by the City of Greensboro, Guilford County and the State of North Carolina has recently failed an audit by Davenport, Marvin, Joyce & Co., LLP, 703 Green Valley Road, Suite 201, Greensboro, NC., 27408

I guess the City of Greensboro will be adding the Partnership to their list. Maybe I should be contacting the county and State as well?

Mayor Robbie Perkins' Record Of Failure

While Mayor Perkins and the Piedmont Triad Partnership are talking about extending Greensboro's water and sewer lines to the Alamance County line to help sell commercial properties owned by Mayor Perkins' buddies, the folks in Montgomery and Moore Counties are already 5 years ahead in building a 3400 acre Mega Park-- said to be the largest industrial park in the history of North Carolina.

Does that sound smart to you?

Meanwhile, the 2500 acre North Carolina Global Transpark established by the State of North Carolina over 20 years ago, still has 5,775 empty acres. And the GTP has railroad access, 2 Interstate highways it's own airport capable of handling the largest airplanes in the world, State funded incentives and 900 acres ready to move to today.

And to add insult to injury, in East Greensboro alone, over 2000 acres of undeveloped commercial and industrial properties lie unused with water and sewer already in place. If you'd like a tour shoot me an e-mail to GreensboroPerformingArtsCenter@gmail.com and I'll arrange it. In my younger days I used to hunt and fish those very properties.


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I bring this up because Mayor Perkins and his developer buddies are the current "leadership" of Greensboro and Guilford County and have repeatedly tried to develop outlying areas of the county while ignoring infill development as was made the City's development policy several years ago. Previously, Mayor Perkins was pitching Greensboro taxpayers' dollars be spent to develop the Heart of the Triad-- a 7.500 acre site on the western edge of the county.

Meanwhile, the industrial park at I-85 and Mcconnell Road, built by Mayor Perkins and paid for by Pete Goria, has 2 buildings and 1 tenant. The Eagle Equipment building across Mcconnell Rd. was built by my uncle in 1970. I used to hunt and fish there as well.


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Greensboro-- especially East Greensboro-- is filled with empty commercial and industrial properties that already have access to city water and sewer and yet all the Mayor and his cronies are interested in are developing downtown and the farthermost reaches of the county. Why? Because they own the land and they want to develop it with taxpayer's dollars. Have we forgotten that Mayor Perkins was a partner in the Shoppes at Gunter’s Crossing? Private developers no longer want to deal with Robbie Perkins because he has a history of loosing clients' monies so Mayor Perkins plans to waste your money instead.


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And these are the people you want in charge of building a performing arts center in Greensboro?

Continue to article #64 A Letter To The Business Journal.