Last paragraph in Dan Way’s CJ write-up on the state House transportation budget:
The House provides $1.5 million in 2017-18 and $460,000 in 2018-19 to the Global TransPark near Kinston to relocate offices for the Highway Division and Lenoir County Economic Development, and $400,000 each year for Global TransPark to develop a strategic plan, contract with an outside vendor for marketing services, and turn management of its website over to DOT’s Communications Office. The Senate appropriates $400,000 in each year of the biennium for the strategic plan, marketing services, and operational support. No funding for those items was evident in the governor’s budget. The heavily subsidized TransPark was built as an industrial park and aviation transportation network for international cargo. It has failed to create 55,000 promised jobs or generating the economic activity promised at its inception.
As this CJ editorial from 2011 says, the Global Transpark “has been a boondoggle for two decades,” and the General Assembly “should get it off the books before this white elephant turns 30.” Looks the legislature is determined to the see the white elephant to its 30th birthday.
