Rockingham County approves $113,000 in incentives for Glass Dynamics.

But the motion wasn’t without debate:

Commissioner Vice-Chairman Bert Jones says he recognizes the need to play the incentives game, but wishes the county’s hands weren’t tied to offer the performance agreements.

“We’ve lost businesses and jobs to neighboring counties and states because if we don’t do it, somebody else will,” Jones said.

Jones says the system the federal government has set up, in addition to “ill-advised trade agreements” has forced the county to offer incentives packages to get new companies to come or existing businesses to expand.

“We as county commissioners can’t change the law; I wish we could,” Jones said. “We’d be a whole lot better off if we didn’t have the game to play.”

Stanley says he wishes the federal government would outlaw incentives to give everyone a fair shot.

“If the quality of life and quality of labor force are good enough, (businesses) would choose to come here,” Stanley said.

Commissioner David Isley agreed with Jones, but says he would rather listen to people complain about the county giving money to a company than an unemployed resident who could have had a job created by an incentives package.

While Stanley’s sentiment is appreciated, he’s calling on the federal government to do something local governments can certainly do for themselves. Their hands certainly aren’t tied as tightly as Stanley believes.