A rural Ky. county decides some jobs cost too much - Entrepreneur Generations

Opponents of the proposal applauded when magistrates rejected the plan.
(Herald-Leader photo by Tom Eblen)

Rural counties all over the country are trying desperately to attract more jobs, but what happens when the price of those jobs is too high? That was the dilemma faced by residents of rural Bourbon County, Kentucky, when Lockheed Martin wanted to open an industrial park that might have created 3,500 good jobs. 

Lockheed Martin is the nation's largest defense contractor, and scored a Pentagon contract last summer to modify C-130 cargo planes for military special operations. The company wants to do that at Bluegrass Station, a military industrial park right next to Bourbon County. "This summer, state officials came to Bourbon County Judge-Executive Mike Williams with a proposal: If Bourbon County acquired 2,500 acres of farmland — likely through condemnation, because most landowners didn’t want to sell — and built an industrial park with an 8,000-foot to 10,000-foot runway and two hangars, Lockheed Martin would create 350 jobs by 2020," Tom Eblen writes for The Herald-Leader in Lexington, Ky. If the industrial park filled with other tenants, state officials projected 3,500 jobs by 2027. But Williams was sworn to secrecy."

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Williams wasn't allowed to tell the other magistrates about the proposal until Dec. 6, and Lockheed needed the magistrates' decision by Jan. 13. Locals (and the magistrates) were horrified and spoke out against the proposal. They didn't want to give up their farmland, they said. Local infrastructure would need expensive improvements, and the jobs were only projections, not guarantees. So the magistrates voted no.

Their decision was "courageous" and "struck a blow against corporate welfare," Eblen writes. Lockheed Martin has received more than $1 billion in state and local incentives in recent years despite $5 billion in profits. And the decision was remarkable too, for the locals' swift defense of their land and their rural way of life.

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2CF3jEt A rural Ky. county decides some jobs cost too much - Entrepreneur Generations

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