Ok–to be fair, it probably was not easy to get reaction from local officials on Tuesday because the news that the Toyota-Mazda plant was going to Alabama instead of North Carolina and its Greensboro-Randolph megasite had not officially broken. Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan told the Rhino she “didn’t want to concede if there was any chance we might get it.”
Now that the news is official, reaction is coming forth, and it pretty much follows the same pattern–the “black cloud has a silver lining” -as Rhino editor John Hammer put it—the megasite appears to have been a finalist, and there will be another manufacturing operation looking to set up shop in the South.
Most interesting reaction–as you can imagine—came from the News & Record’s lead editorial, which conceded that “Alabama’s lower average hourly wage of $15.43 (in 2016) could be more inviting than North Carolina’s $16.31.” Not sure how that squares with the paper’s earlier editorial calling for a higher minimum wage here in N.C.
Fo more on that, see JLF colleague Jon Sanders’ most recent Locker Room post.
