A while back, someone I trust told me the biggest secret in Greensboro concerned the megasite to which the city has provided water and sewer services.  He indicated competition for industries is a waste of time because the site had yet to be developed.

A look at the pathetic website lists no news since January.  A 12 inch natural gas line has been proposed, but NIMBY carpetbaggers and crew cut Visigoths in Raleigh are blamed when we lose another manufacturer.  The reality is we stand there with a booger in our nose and lose every competition because the site remains completely undeveloped.

Juxtapose this with the idiotic effort of NC13 Congressional candidate, Kathy Manning, to build an $80M performing arts center.  She and her Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro shoved this thing down the public’s throat by wringing every charitable dollar out of the city and gaining approval of $40M in bonds sans public referendum.

Meanwhile, the megasite languishes.  While we await construction of Manning’s Folly, her husband causes the city to pay millions to the victim of their latest hotel/parking deck scheme for encroaching on his easement.

Each of these situations was entirely avoidable, had not Greensboro’s leaders decided to compete with downtown Durham rather than act as responsible public stewards.  The downtown gentrification project has become an especially sore subject, as it remains a graveyard for emerging retail and food businesses.

Greenville, SC employs a Chinese lobbyist and has captured lots of global manufacturers.  By leaving the megasite undeveloped, we aren’t even at the starting line.  But the egos of people like Manning and Stanley Tanger must be satiated at public expense while ordinary citizens contend with the vagaries of deflation and austerity.

Kathy Manning does not deserve, as demonstrated by her conduct, to be elected to Congress.  Rather, she’s perfectly suited to swim with DC lobbyists, serving her own interests there as she has done here.  The election of Kathy Manning to Congress rewards hubris, villainy and malfeasance.