“What we really need with the Winchester/Ashuelot paper mill –is a public accounting of all the public monies, incentives, borrowing, and tax breaks given to this plant.
I guess I would worry about the justification of private borrowing –seeing how that led to the downfall of American Tissue. It would not be bad to look at the Berlin mill in the same lens. What is a rather well warn path throughout New Hampshire with all the Mill closings and economic development –is that there has been a lot of ineffective governmental help in an attempt to help prevent most of these mill closing. But I don’t think the beneficiaries have been the employees with grave threats against their jobs –but on a cadre of special interests crooks, like lobbyist, lawyers, politicians, real-estate people, banks and politically connected non transparent quasi governmental economic (re)development authorities. We are even worrying about the meaning of the non profit TIP –where they create economic development –and then get compensated by diverting taxes to the communities for a long period of time into their own account.”
“So, a lot of this governmental help in grants, borrowing and regulatory assistance ends in creating an unconscionable profit opportunity to a select group of people –this drives up debt in these failed ventures charged to the public through governmental and quasi governmental authorities. It limits the mitigation of local economic damage when a business closes. What you got is a group of corrupt insiders who untransparently control a huge amount of public resources (tax monies) –these guys are scratching each others back with special deals that unbelievably enrich themselves in the tragic face of many families losing a livelihood.
So I’d like to see the compensation and bonus plans for the officials of these authorities –and asked if there are any conflict of interest issues here. I would also included all the related issues like how NHDES paid for the recent pollution services with the leaking heating fuel oil tanks, I might add I think they paid for the pollution sampling wells too.
This just might be a lens where the public gets to see how corruption is played in Monadnock regions, in the name of employee and family altruism when faced with a loss of a business.
You see, I am asking what is the meaning of this. The situation frames it in the preview of a private company -it always has. But I have faced these guys -the corporation the federal and state officials, our local politicians, who were blatantly lied to my face in front of a massive corruption issue. They all play stupid. You see, it is always about a business privacy issue to the regulator and the politicians -when somebody asked for transparency and accountable for these governmental officials.
I see it as the typical way our local political system interact with the public on our economic interest -and I can make the case that our economic and educational depravation of this area is a result of our political dysfunction. You understand, when we allow these things to go on between the officials and business, we ask for corruption, and by that, we invite poverty into our area.
I don't know, I think in metro area we would get a local politician to stand up next to a microphone, telling us that this is an intolerable situation, focusing a lot of media attention of the act of this company - talking about how hard it's been on the employees in the last five years... one way or another, we would get to the bottom of what's going on, and send signal to the rest of the businesses that this is improper behavior.
So I would say in this way -it is in the typical dysfunctional ways that individuals, the media, the bureaucracies and the politicians -over and over again sees these things -that this is what drives local economic deprivation and stagnation.
"We have such a political vacuum in our area.”
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