Gentlemen (Dear Commissioners, March 16, 2013) | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I want to add my thanks for Bob Huets to that of Delma Blinson. Bob has done a great job in moving us one step closer to ending the disaster that the EDC has created with the industrial parks. I wish Blue Goose the very best and am thrilled that they have found some use for QSII.

    The EDC has been the stupidest, most inept program of financial wreckage I could have imagined. It is a cess-pool of economic fallacies. Anyone who served on it should be ashamed of themselves. They have contributed to the waste of over $10 million in a small community that can ill afford the mistake.

    I would like to point out that of all the reasonably wealthy men who were on the EDC and came forward to speak in support of it, not one of them felt that the concept of an industrial park was worthy of being invested in with their own money. What does that tell you regarding their honest belief in the idea?

    If it were worth a damn they would have undertaken it themselves. Instead, they fronted a disingenuous political hack, glad-handed a few fawning politicians, had a couple of cocktail parties and slapped each other on the back while parading around as civic leaders. What a joke.

    As to the brand new jobs:

    Flanders. BlueGoose. Subsidy Sump

    The rumored explanation most favorable to this grant is that in the distant past Flanders did, at one time, produce the inputs that it will now be buying from Blue Goose. However, at some point Flanders ceased producing these items internally and began to purchase them from a handfull of outside manufacturers. Over time these outside suppliers closed down and Flanders was confronted with rising procurement prices due to less competition existing among its sources of supply.

    In order to resolve this problem of limited suppliers and rising input prices Flanders has entered a five year contract with Blue Goose to produce these goods at the industrial park.

    In effect, under this scenario, these jobs were going to be created either through Flanders reopening its own internal manufacturing division or by reaching an arrangement with a nearby satellite supplier.

    By choosing to create an arrangement with Blue Goose, Flanders has been able to find a free standing source of supply which takes advantage of the cost benefits of acquiring the price depressed, otherwise unsellable Quick Start II building and the low cost capital and financing provided by the government subsidy that was made available by virtue of the acquisition of property at the industrial park.

    In short, the jobs being created were inevitable and would have been created by the business requirements of Flander's own market driven strategies to meet procurement needs. However, the existence of the subsidy sump at the industrial park allowed these jobs and expansion in facility to be undertaken more advantageously through the use of subsidies.

    The Economic Development Commission has set in place damaging long term problems for Beaufort County taxpayers. The industrial parks are no more than failing schemes that encourage further expansion of subsidies.

    Warren Smith

     Beaufort County