Re: City-subsidized restaurants

I can’t help but take note of the situation down in Raleigh, where the city-subsidized Mint eatery is closing, albeit “with plans to reopen with a new name and concept.”

The City of Raleigh “pitched in $1 million toward the cost of converting the former bank office into a restaurant.” Turns out we’ve had a little bit of that action up here in G’boro when the city pitched in $200k toward a Mexican restaurant on Elm Street:

By an 8-to-1 vote, with (council member Trudy) Wade voting no, the City Council agreed to loan Greensboro Parking Group LLC $200,000 to build a Mexican restaurant, parking lot and outdoor venue in an area just west of South Elm Street and just south of the railroad tracks. According to the deal presented to the council, a private bank has agreed to loan the group $1.47 million for the project if the city ponies up $200,000. The project will create restaurant and parking lot attendant jobs. The $200,000 will be loaned at 2.5 percent for a 20 year term.

One interesting aspect of the project is that the property appraised at $1 million, but the tax value is $318,000. In this economy, for the tax value to be one-third of the appraised value should raise some questions.

Wade questioned whether it was wise to loan a group money that couldn’t get a bank loan unless the city participated.

Without a doubt the restaurant business is one of the riskier ventures in the private sector, so why you have to wonder why public officials would risk taxpayers’ money on such a venture.

Free money, courtesy of friends at the Commerce Dept.

It’s really, really free money when you have to do absolutely nothing to get it.

CJ’s Don Carrington follows up on Department of Commerce official Henry McKoy’s alleged money laundering operation that funneled money to four N.C. counties —one of which was Yadkin County —- only to kick the majority back to McKoy’s North Carolina Sustainability Center:

Yadkin County Manager Aaron Church told CJ that even though McKoy selected Yadkin County, the board of commissioners did not pursue the funding actively. “We thought it was odd that we never applied for the money and we never asked for the money,” Church said.

Note also a couple of things —-McKoy senior adviser Libby Smith applied for and received a $150,000 grant from Winston-Salem-based Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation NCSC while she was still a state employee.

Also the N&O reported in its follow-up story that Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco had asked McKoy to resign. McKoy refused, and is still employed at Commerce. Seems to me if you ask a guy to resign, and he doesn’t, then you fire him, right?