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Observations
July 11, 2019 |
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 Wingate Lassiter |
We're in the Top Ten for "incentives"
Johnston County made another Top Ten list in Business North Carolina magazine this month. Among "Biggest subsidy deals in N.C. history" regarding industrial recruitment, state and local incentives totaling $110 million for the current plant expansion at Clayton of Novo Nordisk, the insulin manufacturer, ranked No. 7 on the magazine's list. (No. 1 on the list: more than $3.2 billion in state and local incentives for Apple Inc.'s data center and "server farm" in Catawba County, announced in 2009.)
The county's portion of incentives for Novo Nordisk is $94.7 million of the $110 million, according to the Johnston County Economic Development Office. Johnston's contribution will come in the form of refunds over 15 years of about two-thirds of Novo Nordisk's county property taxes resulting from the expanded plant --- a $1.2-billion investment by the company.
Proponents of industrial "incentives" like ours are quick to point out the benefits to the local economy in terms of good-paying jobs and long-term gains in the property-tax base (once the rebates run their course).
Still, is it fair to long-standing businesses that came without incentives that new projects are given such favored treatment?
It's a moot question so long as states competing for the "big fish" continue to permit the incentives game to be played. And so far, the judiciary has refused to stop it.
Why are we lagging on highway safety?
A bill to prohibit "texting" while driving apparently is doing to "die" before the N.C. General Assembly adjourns this year's session. Johnston County's two representatives in the N.C. House --- Larry Strickland and Donna White --- are among co-sponsors of H.B. 144, which won approval in the House by a vote of 92-23 and in early May passed "first reading" in the N.C. Senate.
But that, apparently, is as far as it will go before this year's session runs out.
You can thank the Senate's leadership for bottling it up --- just like they refuse to allow the Senate to vote on another bill we'd like to see approved: Giving local school boards flexibility in when to set the opening day of school each year.
Johnston's school leaders, as many across the state, want to begin the school year in mid-August so a full semester's work can be completed before the Christmas holidays. But once again, the State Senate's leadership has blocked the bill's passage even though the N.C. House this spring approved it by a vote of 100-10. Looks like the tourism interests at the coast are still pulling the strings to make sure school won't start till late August.
"Pictorial" of the week:
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The ends of the
Buffalo Creek Greenway seem incomplete, especially
for those of us who ride bicycles. LEFT PHOTO: At the
Jaycee Kiddie Park off Second Street, the paved pathway
leads onto a graveled parking lot. It would be smoother
sailing for cyclists (and their bike tires) if the
pavement could be extended a couple hundred feet to
Second Street. RIGHT PHOTO: At its north end, the trail
stops at the narrow sidewalk that circles Community Park
--- not the safest arrangement for shared usage by
pedestrians and cyclists. Meanwhile, there's a straight
shot through the woods to the heart of the park that's
already cleared for a sewer easement --- a ready-made
route for a paved extension in keeping with the rest of
the Buffalo Creek Greenway.
Smithfield's red crape myrtles are still blooming halfway through July, adding color in this instance to the campus of South Smithfield Elementary School.
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