Or, with apologies to Monty Python, “Now you see the mendacity inherent in the system!”
The ink is barely dry on the $150 million welfare package for NASCAR; the county commission just rubber-stamped the hotel-motel tax hike to 8 percent, minus Dan Bishop’s brave opposition, and — wham! — the city immediately shifts another $1 million to the convention center authority in order to try and drum up convention business with more subsidies.
This is why the hotel-motel tax hike was needed — the convention center has no money, the NASCAR Hall was just a cover-story for the continued disaster that the convention center has been for, oh, almost 15 years now, going back to the planning stages. Your city officials, elected and entrenched, think they are so smart for pulling this scam off in broad daylight, for continuing to throw good money after bad.
And guess what? I guarantee they will be back for more. After all, why stop if no one cares?
