Funny what you find in the archives sometimes.
It’s been hilarious watching the LEDC and Talbert trying to make a case for why blowing ANOTHER $2.7 million on the Business Pork is so awesome and necessary.
FIRST it was all about “jobs” it would bring. HUNDREDS of them, probably!
THEN it was all about the property taxes it would generate (which is nonsense).
THEN it was all about selling electricity to them. More nonsense.
THEN after they screwed it all up so badly and nobody moved in, they talked about selling it all and making it residential, which Talbert pooh poohed because that just wouldn’t generate much income. She explained all that to Zac Morris during her Valentines Day Begging.
(Of course, she had no problem handing Deorald Finney $72,000 in free stuff for HIS residential development. Nor did she have a problem with handing her formal City council buddy Chris Harrison $185,000 for HIS new company (S2M2) and THEIR development:)
But if you go WAY back into ancient history (Jan 2015), you can see that the LEDC WAS planning to just sell the land to developers as recently as then! From the minutes (page 2 under “Staff Updates”):
“The refinancing of the land is considered taxable becauseit was purchased with the intent to sell land for private development…LEDC does not have enough revenue to pay off the existing loan and take on the additional debt service…one of the ways to offset the additional interest is to pay down the land loanwhen property is sold to a developer.“
Wow. So for a LARGE portion of the Business Pork history, the intent was to just sell off the land to developers and let THEM incur the expense of developing it.
As much as Talbert likes to portray herself as a leader who is “committed to this project”, it is clear that they have changed their minds over and over about the direction of the Business Pork.
A slightly less-charitable way of putting it would be that they have no fucking idea what they are doing.
Handing millions of dollars to the likes of Talbert, TJ Monroe and the other dingbats to play in the sand on south 183 is like handing a bottle of whiskey and car keys to a teenaged boy. The results are just as predictable.