How in the hell does anyone justify spending tax payers money like this, this crap should be a hanging offense.
This is the nonsense called “economic development”, and every state, city, and even small towns practice it. It’s no different from Soviet-style 5-year plans, but everybody (especially the Chamber of Commerce types) swoon over it. We all have our local economic development bureaucrats who get to take nice trips at our expense to schmooz with business people in other states. If I owned a business, I would be incensed that my tax money was being used to lure competitors to my area.
Oh, and like all central planning, it always fails miserably in the long run.