Posted on 01/06/2018 1:42:01 PM PST by ameribbean expat
DeWitt, N.Y. -- In 2014, the development arm of SUNY Polytechnic Institute agreed to build, with $90 million in state money, a factory in DeWitt for an LED light bulb manufacturer.
The company, California-based Soraa, agreed to create 250 full-time, high-tech jobs at Collamer Crossing Business Park and to encourage Soraa contractors and suppliers to create 170 jobs in Central New York.
In return, the company would be allowed to lease the factory for $1 a month for 10 years.
But the deal with SUNY Poly's Fort Schuyler Management Corp. did not require Soraa to spend any of its own money to build or equip the factory. And it contained no penalties if the company did not occupy the building or create the promised jobs. The company never even signed a lease.
So when Soraa recently said it no longer needed the factory and pulled out of the deal just as the state was completing construction of the 82,000-square-foot building, there was nothing the state could do about it.
The state was left with a factory, nearly fully equipped, but no company to use it.
(Excerpt) Read more at securepubads.g.doubleclick.net ...
Welcome to the new New York
Prince Andrew Cuomo’s Legacy, super expensive empty buildings and an Unemployment Insurance system working overtime...
Stupid. Owners of the company must always have skin in the game. There is always a risk to a state doing this sort of thing but this ineptitude by the state is of galactic proportions.
Corporate welfare. Taking citizens’ money to bribe companies to stay and hire people, so the politicians can say that they (the politicians) are creating jobs.
All of the Cuomo’s are idiots. Always have been.
Trump should send them his book.
Gee, I wonder who... Cuo-something... big dealer in NY... Damn. I got nuthin'.
Link doesn’t seem to work.
Here's a thread on this subject from a few days ago: NY taxpayers built $90M factory in DeWitt for firm that walked away, didn't create a job
70 replies. I put a link on it so you can see the actual building on Google maps.
Solyndra
Was Coma involved?
Leftists sure know how to pick em.
The deal should not have provided that much incentive, however if that was something they wanted to do, there should have been a clause that the company would have to cover all expenses if it opted not to move in and follow through.
Trump would call this the Fart of the Deal.
Hey Cuomo whats the excuse? despicable rat bastard elitists
Here is the other side of this, my friend who has the pleasure of being raped in NYS received a property tax relief check right after the first, his taxes are above 10,000 a year and he got a check for 117.00. 90 million could have given everyone in the state a free year or more in relief, scumbags!
The goal was not to create jobs, it was to rob the tax payer
Money was passed around (at taxpayer expense) that was the goal, if a job was created or a light bulb ended up getting manufactured, that would have been an side effect, not the actual true goal of the project.
Political donors got great deals to build a building that will be auctioned of for 1/100000 of its “build value”
I remember a local school was building a pole barn to store extra equipment in it, cost something like $300K, 30x50 nothing crazy, funny, when I priced out the same size building for my property it was under 30 grand. Amazes me how government ends up paying 10x what it would cost me.
LED is great tech - reliable, efficient, great in harsh environments like extreme cold, underwater, etc. I recommend using LED bulbs wherever you can make them fit.
But overseas companies (mostly Chinese) saw this coming, tooled up and streamlined production. A $10 bulb is now $3, and a company can't match that price building bulbs in NY.
So they walked away, rather than lose their shirts.
Ohio had nothing on New York.
Thanks. This article makes me feel lucky. 😉
The problem as I see it, is too many lawyers, and not enough businessmen in politics. Well, that was my first take, but it seems attorneys only make up about 39% of the House today. It seem political majors are taking over. Of course they have no business involvement either.
These two groups are clueless to the dynamics of a guy like Trump and other very successful business men, what they deal with each day and how they resolve their issues related to the business environment.
The legal profession and the political majors should be ashamed of themselves, their high percentage of involvement and low value return in government offices across the land.
from 2016:
Chump change compared to the Solar City business in Buffalo. 800 million buckaroos, was supposed to be fully operational by 2016, with 1500 employees. I don’t believe there’s more than 300-400 people employed there right now, 2018.
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