The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has announced that on Thursday, June 18, it will conduct a public hearing on a proposed new UPS project.
The multinational logistics and package delivery service is seeking $347,079 of county taxpayer money in return for expanding its operations at UPS’s Flagstone Drive location in Greensboro.
The county commissioners almost always approve economic incentives packages that come before them, and this one is likely to pass as well since the expansion will bring in over $54 million in capital investment in the facility and will create 141 new jobs in Guilford County.
According to the county’s announcement of the public hearing, the Guilford County site is one of four that the company is considering for expansion. Usually, however, what it really means when this information is made public and the board is at this point in the process, is this: The company has already decided to expand in Guilford County and it wants to get some money in return for doing so.
The state’s General Statutes – NC General Statute 158-7.1 to be exact – requires that a public hearing about the incentives be held and that the public be informed of that hearing. The “hearing” will be held at the Board of Commissioners 5:30 p.m. June 18 meeting in the commissioners’ second-floor meeting room of the Old County Courthouse in downtown Greensboro. But don’t show up there. Those wishing to make comments can only do so by submitting them in writing.
Those can be emailed to publiccomments@guilfordcountync.gov, or sent to:
Guilford County Clerk to Board
c/o: Robin Keller
301 W. Market Street
Greensboro NC, 27401
In recent weeks, the county commissioners have allowed people to phone in comments for public meetings, but not for this one.
Comments will be received up to 24 hours after the meeting and they’ll all be provided to the Board of Commissioners and archived in the meeting files.
Perhaps I’m just old fashioned, but I’m wondering when it became acceptable for individual citizens, the self-employed and small business owners in our community to be taxed so as to give the money to multi-national corporations. It’s surely just a manifestation of poltical and economic power over relatively small jurisdictions – or what used to be called bullying.
I resent being the victim of this shake down.