Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Last week Gov. McCrory and Susan Kluttz’s pet resuscitation project the North Carolina’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit bill was side-armed into the State Senate’s Ways and Means Committee where it is likely to languish and never breathe fresh air again. If it ever slithers back out, what would emerge would be a very watered down bill relying on local government contributions . Apparently the governor and Kluttz’s doomed whistle-stop campaign for tossing taxpayer money after their municipal cronies was poorly received by the state senate. Our state senate was more interested in protecting tax payers and businessmen who would rather spend their money on their own businesses.
Salisbury, N.C., now becoming far better known for its criminal violence than its alleged history, is a treasure trove of flagrant N.C. Historic Preservation Tax Credit abuses. Who can forget how taxpayer money was used to do a multi-million dollar renovation on a mansion owned by one of the wealthiest real estate families in Salisbury or to gentrify minority neighborhoods to squeeze out the elderly and the poor by creating higher property taxes.
Here is a selection of articles offering many of the overwhelming reasons why the N.C. Historic Preservation Tax Credits need to disappear forever:
http://rowanfreepress.com/2015/03/10/crisis-in-n-c/
http://rowanfreepress.com/2015/01/30/defrocking-the-so-called-historic-preservation-tax-credit-scam/
http://rowanfreepress.com/2012/11/22/gentrify-this-the-dark-side-of-gentrification/
http://rowanfreepress.com/2015/02/03/historic-preservation-tax-credits/
