This push for the North Carolina Research Campus just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Now the city of Kannapolis has reached out to the Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce to lobby the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners to get behind the $160 million scheme.
The nutshell:
The campus is being built under North Carolina’s tax-increment financing law. It allows governments to issue bonds or debt without voter approval to pay for public projects in a special development district. New tax revenues pay back the bond debt.
Billionaire David Murdock wants Kannapolis to issue $160 million in bonds for improvements tied to the campus such as roads, water and sewer lines. Murdock wants the county to split the bond costs 50-50 with the city.
But the final financial projections have continued to change. The latest proposal has not been made public and commissioners haven’t gotten answers to at least 50 questions submitted to the city weeks ago. Kannapolis City Manager Mike Legg said he’ll have those answers by Friday and new projections next week.
But the county notes that the Murdock development, while it is being built, will not pay taxes to help retire that new debt. Meanwhile, the development itself will create new strains on county infrastructure — public schools for one — that other taxpayers will have to pick up.
The county commissioners are exactly right on these points and should not fold. All details of this package must become a matter of public record. You cannot go into business with the public in a supposed “partnership” while keeping the details secret.
Once those details are made public, it should be clear that Cabarrus taxpayers are being asking to underwrite a risky real estate venture.
