On the day of the council’s vote, the Journal’s Scott Sexton makes the pitch, giving Billy Prim and Andrew Filipkowski the ‘deep roots’ treatment:
First, we should all remember that there’s something to the notion that Prim and Filipowski want to give something back to the community. Both men have deep roots here; they’re brothers-in-law who married sisters from Tobaccoville.
If not for Flip meeting the former Veronica Wood about 20 years ago – Prim was already married to her sister, Debbie – we’re probably not having a conversation about a ballpark. Filipowski made a pile of cash with his startup software company Platinum Technology (which sold for $3.5 billion in 1999). He invested in a Prim business that grew into Blue Rhino.
We, and by extension, our elected officials, also would do well to keep in mind that the new ballpark and surrounding development is about making money. Prim and Filipowski will, but so will a lot of others. Unbridled, naked capitalism at its finest.
Prim and Filipowski didn’t set the precedent. Council did. Can you really blame smart (local) businessmen for trying to get theirs in this era of public incentives? Or, to put it another way, asking “What’s in it for me?”
Sexton is correct when he writes that city council members haven’t asked probing questions about other incentives deals to out-of-town companies. Nor have the editorialists on his newspaper asked hard questions about this deal. That’s because the Journal, which supposedly looks out for the ordinary citizen, wants it too bad. What’s in it for them?
Sexton also says Forsyth County commissioners “want to know what the county’s going to get out of it.” Based on what I’ve heard, the county’s been more vocal about what it doesn’t want out of the deal: A 25-year-old stadium.
