The clown circus over at The (Monroe) News Star is in a full tizzy over the actions Tuesday night of the Monroe City Council, where they vetoed “economic development” money to a private business.
This is the same crew of fools who have no interest whatsoever in uncovering the secret machinations of the I-20 Board, and their control over millions of dollars of taxpayer funds.
By their lights, if something is tagged “economic development,” the taxpayer’s money should be looted at will, with no oversight or questions asked.
Long time readers will recall that the News Star was leading the charge to dump hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into a phantom auto company several years ago, the infamous “V-Vehicle.” We covered the story here:
Lincoln Parish News Online 
02/27/2014 at 8:29 am |
Sperlock, Petty and Marx are the three stooges of the journalistic world. Sperlock and Petty will be retired when the rag of a paper is clossed. The Progressive Boys club will kill Marx when the city starts defaulting on their bonds. Marx encourged the Progressive Boys Club to over buy city bonds by telling them the city is in great shape. Good luck to you all. You are going to get what you deserve.
02/27/2014 at 9:19 am |
And the beat goes on…Thank you Bob Roberts you hit the nail on the head.
02/27/2014 at 11:55 am |
the real shame is that some people buy their BS…as Bob says you get what you deserve…This is a welfare city but crony capitalism gets the big piece of the pie while the poor gets the blame.nbccc
02/27/2014 at 8:48 pm |
There are employers in Ouachita parish who would laugh at the so called incentives: they would not make a bit of difference in the bottom line. I work at one of them so I know.
02/27/2014 at 9:53 pm |
Exactly right, the company had employees write to the paper trying to get money from city government, who else would do that. Check the benefit package there and how many are full time employees. All of their sales are out side of the parish so they do not pay any sales tax.
02/27/2014 at 10:46 pm |
Yes Mayo does call Vining a poodle. Did anyone see Vining attack several people for Mayo at the Mayo speech today? It was rude and disgusting. Mayo sends Vining after anyone who dares to disagree with Mayo. News Star reporter, Avery Cole would call Vining his hero. Avery tries to copy Vining with his work at the News Star. So I guess Avery would be called a hamster.
02/27/2014 at 10:50 pm |
Yes Cole is still pushing the V-car…or something similar called crony capitalism.
02/27/2014 at 11:18 pm |
I’m not going to bag on the News-Star or Monroe/Ouachita leadership (that isn’t clearly on the take) too badly over playing the “economic development” game. Truth be told, they were desperate. The Southern manufacturing/car plant boom of the 1994-2007 pretty much completely passed Louisiana by. Then State Farm and a good chunk of the timber/paper products industry shut down or packed up and went elsewhere. People were seeing these big, nice new plants opening up in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, and were asking, “Why not us?” And politicos do what they do; we gotta have industrial parks, and ED agencies, and tax incentives, and this, and that! And of course it all costs money. When people see the local economy is in the tank them and the media are gonna press the politicians to do something, ANYTHING to create some jobs, lure a big build here, get something going.
We don’t want to hear the truth; REAL economic development isn’t just plopping down an industrial park, throwing out some tax breaks for bait, and it sure ain’t creating some government office with multiple paid bureaucrats to basically be the municipal salesmen. It takes DECADES of real building of a worthwhile community; fostering a good business climate, a good civic climate, sound and clean governance, great public schools to build an educated, well-trained workforce and is attractive for working families, good infrastructure, and just having a community that has pride in itself and puts it forth well, not just in appearance but in the substance.
Now you tell me, does that sound like Monroe? Or even Ouachita Parish as a whole? Why or why not?
That takes longer, much longer. And is much more expensive. And you may not see the payoff for DECADES!!! But places like Tupelo, Mississippi and West Point, Georgia are sure seeing it now. 40 years ago, Tupelo was nothing compared to Monroe. How about now?
Naw, we’ll just create an Office of Economic Development, and pay Joe Blow a nice salary to travel to conferences all over the globe and talk about how nice and awesome we are and you should come here because we’re so darn nice and the food is great! And buy a big ol’ plot of land and pay to run some utilities out there and call it our “industrial park.” Then sit and stare at it for a decade and wonder why Fortune 500 companies aren’t kicking down your door to locate plants there. Durrrrrrrr…………..
This is assuming honest and well-intentioned political leadership (ie., not Jamie Mayo).
02/28/2014 at 11:42 am |
Well said
03/26/2014 at 1:16 am |
excellent post on economic development…..