W-S incentives for Mast General Store

The Winston-Salem Journal reports the City of Winston-Salem is set to offer a $1 million-plus incentives package to Mast General Store, which is planning a mixed-use development downtown:

The financial assistance package, valued at more than $1.27 million, has four parts: a $500,000 loan; $250,000 in infrastructure improvements such as sidewalks lighting and landscaping; $273,000 in free or reduced parking for up to 20 years; and a $250,000 grant.

The City Council’s finance committee recommended the package be approved at the council’s next regular meeting on Monday. City Manager Derwick Paige said the city usually does not consider incentives for retailers, but the residential part of Mast General’s plan was a game-changer. Although finite plans weren’t available, Mast General reportedly plans to combine the retail store with 45 apartments on the second and third floors of the building.

You know I’m skeptical of so-called mixed-use development. If Mast General thinks it will work, fine; let them build it without taxpayer subsidy.

Judge throws out anti-McCrory lawsuit

Associated Press reports a Superior Court judge threw out a lawsuit by an “independent group” claiming in political ads that gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory “improperly lobbied for a real estate and lending business.”

The independent group is North Carolina Citizens for Progress, which ran the ad with funding from the Democratic Governors Association. Basically, NCCP wanted the judge to declare the ads true —and therefore constitutionally protected free speech — in a preemptive strike against defamation lawsuits from McCrory campaign. Judge Paul Ridgeway, however, ruled there was “disagreement in the facts.”

If you haven’t noticed, this is the crazy season, and if a judge is required to sort out what’s true and what’s not, then heaven help the judicial system.

NFL’s moral ambiguity

Any football fans out there feel this way?

Without question, the NFL began its regular season shrouded in an unprecedented kind of ambiguity. The moral basis for its very existence is in question in a way that never has been the case before — and, generally, the moral basis for football itself is being questioned in a way that hasn’t occurred since Teddy Roosevelt threatened to ban the game in 1905. Usually, football has been able to toughen up and brazen its way past complaints about its inherent violence. But there are too many aging, walking wounded these days for those testosterone-fueled alibis to hold anymore. Former players — many of whom are tougher now on their plastic knees and with the amyloid encroaching on their brains than the radio cowboys yapping about the “wussification” of the game they love — are witnesses beyond reproach. This is going to require that Roger Goodell be smart and humble. The latter, especially, never has been a conspicuous characteristic of the job he holds.

I’m just asking. BTW, Week 2 starts early —Thursday night, Packers vs. Bears.