Today’s N&R takes a look at the culture (if you will) of econonomic incentives in High Point, focusing a bit on the controversial TransTech Pharma-Pharmacore deal reached late last year. High Point City Council member Mike Pugh says he’s still can’t “stomach” the deal:

“We had approved incentives for those companies twice before, years earlier,” Pugh said. “For them to then come to us and say that they may leave unless we give them more money to expand — that just feels to me like extortion and I don’t approve of it.”

Pugh said the city provides a robust work force, good schools and neighborhoods for the companies and their employees — and asks why that isn’t enough to keep them in a city where they’ve grown and thrived without the city continually sweetening the pot.

Pugh said he also doesn’t know how to answer his constituents when they ask him the inevitable question about millions going to corporations for construction: “How does that help me?”

“Most of the 205 jobs that Transtech is bringing to High Point start at $82,000,” Pugh said. “But can a former furniture worker get those jobs, or are they for people from outside and the surrounding area, who have much more education? How do we help those people who had good, blue-collar jobs in this city that have gone away?”

It’s good to hear Councilman Pugh speaking out, considering the fact that High Point has established itself as an easy mark for companies looking for economic incentives.