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THE JACKSON HERALD
WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2017
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com
Dear Arcade and Statham Officials
Here’s a hankie. You can wipe the tears from your
eyes with it. And you can wipe out the fake dollar signs
that have clouded your
vision in recent years.
You were wrong.
You, the city officials
in both Arcade and
Statham, thought you
had hit the “big time”
a few years ago when a
large, international land
speculation firm came
to town. They wooed
you, showed you some
pretty pictures and led
you to believe that if
you would annex and
rezone some property
for them, they’d make
your small towns into
big towns.
My, how that made you smile! Having existed in the
shadow of nearby larger towns for decades, this was
your chance to one-up the big boys.
So you played ball with the out-of-town speculators.
You didn’t ask any hard questions. You didn’t do any
research. You just opened your arms and kissed them
on the cheek.
I guess that’s what pretty pictures do to small town
officials. The firm had you believing that if you would
annex and rezone this land, they’d be building a mas
sive development very soon.
In 2011, the firm sent a
spokesman to the Jackson
County Water and Sewerage
Authority where he encour
aged the authority and Arcade
to settle their differences so
that the firm could “could
break ground on houses in
2014. ”
It’s 2017 and not a single
blade of dirt has been turned
on that land.
Nada.
Zip.
By the time the land specu
lators hit Statham, they were
a little more careful in what
they said.
Still, Statham officials clearly
thought that the firm intended
to build a massive develop
ment along Hwy. 316 in the the
town. The speculators showed
you some colorful concept
plans, tossed around the idea
that over 4,000 jobs could be
created and you bought their
pitch — hook, line and sinker.
So, Statham council members, where is that massive
project? Where are those jobs?
As with Arcade and all the other land the firm owns in
Jackson and Barrow counties, no dirt has been turned.
Nor will it be anytime soon. The firm has “extended”
its projected time to “exit” the property by selling it to
developers. For Arcade, that time went from 2012 and
2014 in initial projections to as long as 2023 in its more
current projections.
What’s amazing about this is that you embraced this
speculation despite the numerous red flags to go slow.
This newspaper, among others, raised a number of
questions about the deals. We wrote numerous articles
pointing out that this firm generally doesn’t do any
developing, that it’s a land-banking firm which buys
large tracts then sells them in small increments to
mostly Asian investors.
You poo-pooed those articles. You told our reporters
we were wrong.
And we weren’t the only ones who saw what
was happening. When the Barrow County Board of
Commissioners gave the speculators a rezoning on
other property, it did it with conditions in place so that
if the project failed to materialize, the land would revert
to its previous zoning.
But you, Statham, gave the firm no such require
ments. You gave the speculators immediate vesting so
that no matter what happened, the speculators had the
rezoning they wanted.
Brilliant.
Now that land speculation firm is in financial turmoil.
It’s not clear exactly what has happened, but the firm’s
leaders are blaming the recession and other outside
forces.
Maybe.
But perhaps the company’s business model wasn’t as
good as was being sold. The land the company bought
in Jackson and Barrow counties happened well after
the onset of the recession. It’s difficult to believe that
the recession has caused the company’s troubles. (The
firm’s financial problems are in some of its Canadian
holdings, not the property here.)
Whatever the reasons for the firm’s financial prob
lems, it could echo in how those holdings here move
forward. The biggest problem could be that nothing
happens for years to come.
Most of the large tracts the company bought here was
purchased on the cheap. The company then resold it in
small slices that equated to a high per acre cost. For the
investors to ever gain on their investments will require
these local large tracts be resold for prices in excess of
$50,000 per acre.
There are, of course, two
other options:
First, the land could be resold
on the cheap and the investors
take a financial bath.
Second, the investors could
continue to hold the land in the
hopes that someday a developer
will come along and buy it for a
price where they see a return on
their investment.
Either way, the property is
unlikely to be developed any
time soon. In fact, it may be fur
ther away from being resold and
developed than it would have
been had it not gotten caught up
in an international land specula
tion deal.
The moral of the story for
local governments is, don’t be
fooled by speculators and devel
opers when they make pie-in-
the-sky promises.
If it sounds too good to be
true, it probably is.
Ask hard questions.
Don’t let your own ego blind you to reality.
You were used, Arcade and Statham. A large land
speculator used you to annex and rezone property not
for the good of your towns, but to enhance the value of
the property they own.
Land speculators don’t give a whit about Arcade or
Statham. They’re interested only in their own bottom
line.
A lot of people tried to warn you, Arcade and Statham.
But you knew more than the rest of us.
You were the smartest guys in the room, at least in
your own minds.
But you were just a tool being used by some slick
speculators.
Next time, do a little research before you roll over for
a bunch of pie-in-the-sky promises.
Here’s that hankie.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet
Newspapers, Inc. He can be reached at mike@main-
streetnews.com.
The property
is unlikely to be
developed anytime
soon. In fact, it may
be further away
from being resold
and developed than
it would have been
had it not gotten
caught up in an
international land
speculation deal.
congress report
Closing an H-1B Loophole,
Protecting American Jobs
BY REP. DOUG COLLINS & REP. DEREK KILMER
From Washington state to Georgia, a powerful American narra
tive unites workers—whether you sit at a desk or have a station on
a shop floor. It’s the idea that, with hard work and dedication to
your craft, you can carve your own piece of the American Dream.
What if, however, you are performing well at work only to be
told to train someone from another country to take your job? That
doesn’t strike anyone as right. But it’s a scenario we’ve seen play
out as outsourcing firms abuse a federal visa program.
Congress established the H-1B visa program to allow U.S.
employers to bring foreign individuals into the country temporar
ily as skilled workers when no Americans can be found to fill
certain specialized positions, often in technology and science.
The program is exceptionally popular, with companies reaching
the 2018 visa cap of 85,000 workers less than a week after the
application period opened.
A few firms, however, have fallen into the cult of creative out
sourcing, using loopholes to replace domestic employees with
cheaper foreign workers. The result has been a loss of jobs for
Americans.
Spotting exploitations of this provision is straightforward, since
lawmakers designed the H-1B visa to operate within well-defined
parameters: Highly educated and skilled temporary workers must
earn at or above the market rate for their positions (so as not
to incentivize employers to seek cheaper labor abroad); work
ing conditions for visa holders must not negatively impact the
environment of American workers; employers seeking to hire
H-1B eligible workers must advertise those job openings in their
workplace; and firms that rely on H-1B workers must not lay off
employees within the 90 days before or after filling positions with
H-1B visa holders.
To be clear, we do not object to the use of foreign workers
to strengthen American operations. What deserves attention,
though, is a disturbing abuse of the program.
When engineers, accountants and technology managers invest
decades in a U.S. firm only to learn that their employer has
hired a foreign outsourcing operation to replace them with H-1B
workers, that firm has colored outside the legal lines. When the
same firm instructs its employees to train—from A to Z—the same
temporary workers who are displacing them or to forfeit their sev
erance, it strips those American workers of both salary and dig
nity. Yet organizations home to dedicated and capable citizens—
some immigrants themselves—have worked with outsourcing
firms that engage in this practice and send jobs to other countries.
Firms that engage in this unscrupulous practice are reducing
the resourcefulness of American professionals to how-to manuals
that they then export to their off-shore operations. The men and
women who find themselves replaced not with fellow industry
experts but with untrained temporary workers often find that train
ing their replacements is tedious and humiliating.
While we hail from opposite corners of the country, we are
similarly bewildered that some companies are wielding their
employees’ expertise against them and capitalizing on their work
ethic in order to equip their replacements. While these compa
nies claim that their actions are technically legal, we believe they
have trespassed on the letter and the spirit of the law.
As a result, we are taking bipartisan action to ensure that none
of our skilled professionals are forced to aid and abet in disman
tling their own careers. The Keeping American Jobs Act embrac
es the reality that America’s unparalleled economic opportunity
isn’t sustainable unless we prioritize the dignity of our workers.
There’s no doubt that America can and should promote its
domestic economy while maximizing the opportunities that glo
balization affords, but this includes developing our talent rather
than disparaging it. Recent manipulations of the H-1B provisions
of immigration law represent a particularly grim chapter in the
outsourcing playbook, and we are working across the aisle to
bring that chapter to an end.
This op ed by Congressman Doug Collins (R-Ga.J and
Congressman Derek Kilmer (D-WashJ first appeared in Morning
Consult on May 2, 2017. Collins represents Georgia’s 9th District
and serves as vice chair of the House Republican Conference.
Kilmer represents Washington's 6th District and serves as vice
ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee along
with being the New Democrat Coalition’s vice-chair for policy.
The Jackson Herald
Founded 1875
Merged with The Commerce News 2017
The Official Legal Organ of Jackson County, Ga.
Herman Buffington, Publisher 1965-2005
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher & Editor
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher & Advertising Manager
Angela Gary Associate Editor Features
Alex Pace Braselton News Editor
Ron Bridgeman Reporter
Ben Munro Sports Editor
Charles Phelps Sports Reporter
Wesleigh Sagon Photographer/Features
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