I have always supported GTCC, have taken classes there, and believe it’s a wonderful place. I also fully support education and the ability for those who want to improve themselves to get the education they need.

Now to the crux of this letter:

The GTCC bond issue should not be approved.

According to the High Point Enterprise and the flyer sent out by GTCC the stated purpose of this $76 million expansion is to train employees for FedEx and Honda Jet using taxpayer money.

We the overburdened and often ignored taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill to train workers for these two companies. Yes, job creation and education is great; however taxpayers have already been burdened with a ridiculous amount of corporate welfare for these two ‘profitable’ companies. If you add up all the tax breaks and incentives, and add in the money they want to support a school for them, then each job created costs the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars!

How much money are FedEx and Honda Jet contributing to this expansion? Nada, zip, zero. Not one thin dime. Why should they? They’ve got the taxpayers to cover it for them while they spend a quarter of a billion dollars to stick their name on a stadium somewhere for “PR purposes.”

Nido Qubein, a man I greatly admire and respect, has done an unbelievable job with expanding High Point University using privately donated (non-taxpayer) money.

GTCC should take a cue from HPU and hire their own Nido Qubein to raise the $76,000,000 + for the expansions they want to do. Not only will it be better, they won’t have a bunch of bureaucrats micro-managing it, and the taxpayers will appreciate it more!

So vote NO for the GTCC bond.

~~~~~~~~~~

Update: Someone asked me what my take is on the new jail and the parks bond issues, so here it is:

New jail: YES!  Reason: The drug dealer across the street from a rental house of mine was raided and arrested by the police on April 23rd.  She was out and home by that evening, and back in business two days later, even though she had been arrested for dealing before, as well as trafficing in stolen vehicle parts.  The Guilford County jail is so overcrowded that 2/3rds of people arrested are out the same day, free to go back to their criminal ways, often before the police even get the paperwork finished.

Parks & Recreation:  No. Postpone them until the next election and the economy improves.
Parks and the Greenways are important, however at this point in time the increase in property taxes this bond issue raises is more than the average person can handle. If you consider that less than 2% of the population utilizes the parks, and that most of the parks are just fine and serve the needs the way they are, then we can and should wait another year or two before taking these projects on.  There are more important issues we need to deal with first.

Now, the proponents that state that things like the GTCC bond would only add $16 to the average $100,000 home owner’s annual taxes are missing the point.  It’s not the $16; it’s the $16 for this bond PLUS $18 for that bond PLUS $12 for this one, etc. that adds up to an estimated increase of $126 a year by 2012 - just for this year’s proposed bonds alone - that’s the issue.  These figures they are throwing around don’t take into account the scheduled increases already on the books for the previously approved bonds, nor the ones that will be piled on next time, and the time after that.  These things add up, and I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of my property taxes going up twice as fast as my income is.  I can’t keep up with the increases, and any hope I had of keeping up was smashed flat by the increases in fuel, utilities, food, etc.  Right now it takes almost a full month’s take home pay just to pay the property taxes, and I don’t live in that good of a house or neighborhood.

So I’m saying NO to most of the bonds AND the sales tax increase this time. Now is not the time to be spending money on projects that either don’t benifit 99% of us, or aren’t needed at this time.

If 90+ counties in this state can provide all the services and run their local government on lower tax rates than Guilford County can, then it’s a sign that Guilford County is doing something wrong, and should be fixed. Throwing more money at it won’t fix it.

Just my humble opinion.

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