Tag Archives: debt

Industrial Park Acreage —Andrea Schruijer @ VLCIA 19 July 2011



Apparently VLCIA has few or no tracts of 200 acres or up
out of their 577 acres.

New Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said:

We’re looking at having prospects in,
or existing industries are looking to come here,
we don’t actually look like we have a 577 acre tract that we can market.
It’s actually a lot smaller than that.
So when a company comes in and wants 200 acres
that’s something we have a gap in.

She’s following up on former chairman Jerry Jennett’s request.
Jennett remarked at this meeting

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Prison slave labor

You, too, can end up as a 21st century slave in the U.S.A.!
For drugs, or debt, or especially for being black.

Rania Khalek wrote for AlterNet 21 July 2011,

21st-Century Slaves: How Corporations Exploit Prison Labor:
In the eyes of the corporation, inmate labor is a brilliant strategy in the eternal quest to maximize profit.



There is one group of American workers so disenfranchised that
corporations are able to get away with paying them wages that rival
those of third-world sweatshops. These laborers have been legally
stripped of their political, economic and social rights and ultimately
relegated to second-class citizens. They are banned from unionizing,
violently silenced from speaking out and forced to work for little to
no wages. This marginalization renders them practically invisible, as
they are kept hidden from society with no available recourse to improve
their circumstances or change their plight.

They are the 2.3 million American prisoners locked behind bars where
we cannot see or hear them. And they are modern-day slaves of the 21st
century.

And who are these prison slaves?

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Lowndes County has to pay Industrial Authority’s bond debts



According to the
Intergovernmental Contract between VLCIA and Lowndes County:

WHEREAS, the Authority and the County propose to enter into this Contract,
pursuant to which the Authority will agree, among other things, to issue
the Bonds, and the County will agree, among other things, to pay to the
Authority amounts sufficient to pay the debt service on the Bonds.

So it seems the Lowndes County Commission committed the county,
that is, we the taxpayers, to pay the debt service on
$15,000,000 in bonds issued by VLCIA.

Still, what did VLCIA want $15 million in bonds for when
it already gets $3 million a year in its own tax millage?

WHEREAS, the Authority proposes to acquire and develop one or more parcels
of land located in the County for potential economic development purposes
(the “Project”);

To buy land to trade to new industries as they come in.
A variation on what

Brad Lofton got fired for doing in Effingham County.

Continue reading →

Do you miss him yet? Brad Lofton in SC



He may be gone, but he’s still up to his old tricks, and he’s using us for a reference.

Adva Saldinger wrote in The Sun News 8 May 2011,

Lofton hits ground running in new post; CEO asking taxpayers for $1.6 million:

The new Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp. president and
chief executive is by many accounts aggressive and personable, and he
says, ready to take charge and bring much needed jobs to the area quickly.

Brad Lofton said he will bring 500 jobs in the first 18 months, and an
average of 500 jobs each year over the next five to 10 years.

And a pony!

Has anybody verified the jobs Lofton claimed he brought to Lowndes County?

Continue reading →

Harrisburg, PA loses solvency and trust over incinerator



Michael Cooper wrote in the New York Times on 20 May 2010 about

An Incinerator Becomes Harrisburg’s Money Pit:

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Officials here decided seven years ago to borrow $125
million to rebuild and expand the city’s enormous trash incinerator,
which the federal government had shut down because of toxic air pollution.

But the incinerator burned through the money faster than the trash,
leaving Harrisburg residents feeling like they were living through a
sequel to the 1986 movie “The Money Pit.”

There were contractor troubles, delays, cost overruns and squabbles. The
city borrowed tens of millions more, shoveling good money after bad into
the job.

The Patriot-News Editorial Board wrote on 12 April 2010 about

Harrisburg incinerator fiasco deserves an investigation to understand how it happened:

Over nearly a decade, officials at the Harrisburg Authority and City
Hall made a series of decisions that sought to get the trash incinerator
working and profitable, but which instead brought Pennsylvania’s
capital to the brink of bankruptcy.

The 2003 deal that took on $125 million in debt to repair the incinerator
neglected to include a performance bond.

Inexperienced firms were hired. Fees were paid for work poorly done. Loans
were taken on disastrous terms.

Officials were aided, or rather misled, by the advice of numerous
attorneys, bankers and engineers apparently far more interested in
collecting handsome fees than they were in protecting the interests
of taxpayers.

As a result, there is a deep distrust of the fundamental institutions
that created this fiasco.

Something else sounds familiar about this situation:

While some of the seats have changed, many of the same people in
government today had their fingerprints on these decisions.

It’s the same old boy network locally as approved Sterling Chemical,
and the chair of the county commission at that time is now on the
Industrial Authority.
And the VLCIA has taken on what is reputed to be a $15 million bond issue.

How big is Harrisburg?

50,000 people,
same as Valdosta.
What is Harrisburg considering?
Bankruptcy.
Who profited anyway?
Local developers.

What’s the moral?

All of the guarantees proved worthless.

All of the fail-safes failed.

What say we have the investigation now, before the fail-safes fail?

-jsq