And by “almost”, they mean not anywhere close at all. There’s a giant reason that they didn’t really come close…
Three hundred million reasons, in fact.
From the GV’s story fragment (idiots for not posting the full story, but I digress)
According to IDA Executive Director Mike Sexton, “I think it’s important for people to know that we were never really cut from that project. We were a finalist in that project, and I think that people should understand we worked real hard on a large project like that. We spent a lot of time, and when you lose, you get nothing.” Out of six sites selected in the state, Halifax and Mecklenburg counties made the final cuts, and we were the two finalists in Virginia.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, it’s horsecrap because Halifax and Mecklenburg counties didn’t have the state legislature behind them throwing $300,000,000 in incentives at Apple. Face it, Halifax and Mecklenburg had zero chance at all in the final selection process.
You have to give Mike Sexton credit for trying to spin this into a “Hey, we tried hard” news release, and I’m sure that lots of people will actually believe what he’s saying. If you take a step back and look at the lack of incentives, you have to see that’s the reason it never came to be. By the way, what’s all of this about a “closed-door meeting”? You’d think that transparency would be welcomed in a “what went wrong” meeting. That way, the public could see what really happened and make their own determinations on who dropped the ball yet again.
Wonder what documents are available from that meeting? Hmmm… more to come?
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