FYI Joe -------------- Independant, Wed Feb 19, 2007, p18 "How about a raffle to pay for Google Incentives" Kirk Ross
You might think that the rest of the country is looking askance at all the bristling over Google's incentives for its new server farm in Lenoir, but as Ed Cone recently pointed out on his blog (edcone.typepad.com/wordup) and his Sunday "News and Record" column, the way the company twisted arms among legislators runs a little counter to its whole "don't be evil" creed.
Details of the deal continue to emerge and fascinate, including the use of a nonprofit set up by Caldwell County and funded by company cash to buy up the land, with Lenoir Mayor David Barlow and other officials personally making the rounds to homeowners to get them to sell.
And the deal begins to look bigger than originally estimated, state Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight and roomie and finance chair Sen David Hoyle say they'll take a hard look at incentives, including some kind of cost-benefit analysis of recent incentive deals. While, as Hoyle said recently, a lot of these deals have been hold-your-nose-and-vote moments, there have to be some boundaries. In addition to the tax and infrastructure package, for instance, the deal also included no sales tax on electricity, and no sales tax on goods bought in North Carolina. Nice
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