Giving away school money for this but they are going to monitor it? What good does monitoring it do if they can't stop it? Why are we giving away the farm people? Let them come on their own. They want to be there. These negotiations are a joke.

Drawing new business doesnt work that way anymore. There are towns and cities all over the US that need and want new business to create new jobs and income. So if you dont want to offer an incentive then the next town will! You want the jobs? You want the income from the business? then you have to put up a offer to incent the business to come. Will they come here without it? NO they will not, they will go to the best offer out there. SO the schools have to give up a little while the business gets going so they can reap a larger benefit in the future. Its called "investing" for growth!!

http://public-accountability.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/fishing_for_taxpayer_cash.pdf

Interesting read.

What's REALLY dumb is thinking Limestone County won't take it ALL!!! How STUPID was it for the city governmnet clowns to think they could take ANYTHING from another county?? Watch: After the whole thing is bought and paid for by the citizens of Decatur, Limestone County will claim that it was theirs all along and NONE of the tax revenue will go to Decatur. The whole thing is totally corrupt!! The mayor gets rich on 'campaign donations', the contractors get rich on inflated building costs and kick-backs, the farmer gets rich selling plaid-out land for REAL money, and Limestone County gets the whole thing for FREE!!! Stanford was an idiot, but he wasn't corrupt! I despised him as mayor, but he didn't sell the city for his own personal gain!!!

First, you do realize that this property is in the city limits of Decatur. It is no different than being in Morgan county. What you are claiming cannot be legally done. I don't see your logic for the mayor and his personal gain. Limestone will get a share, but the Limestone commission cannot de-annex the City of Decatur. So, I think your claim lacks some legal basis,not trying to get personal First, but what you state here cannot be done.

I'm not really following First's logic. Except Limestone gets it for free. They don't have to commit to anything. I think it hurts Morgan County schools and Decatur City Schools because tax money will be spent and diverted from those schools where it would usually go.

Only portions of the 1 cent will be moved. As this property grows, it will grow the tax base for schools. Also when this is paid off it will be that much more for the schools.

So - the DCS board is against bringing jobs into Decatur because they are afraid they will lose money? Doesn't more jobs generate more taxes? Maybe they are afraid a certain project will not get funding - something that will go on the land out on Moadus Road that they have, or are looking, to buy??

Decatur City Schools officials need a lesson in economics. Obviously they do not understnad it.

I am pretty sure Decatur City School Officials can spell the word "understand" though.

My first red flag in this new sworm of activity regarding this development is how it has now been, very savy might I say, wrapped in a pretty bow as a job creator, one that would possibly create what seems to be a number pulled from the air of nearly 4000 jobs. Most I hope would see this as a completely made up number only to help create a tough situation for the elected officials. The Mercedes plant outside of T'town employs around 4000 when running at full capacity...we are not talking about building a plant here even with the talk of medical and office space. Job creation is a savy way to get public pressure put on local governments to press this deal through without doing the proper due dilligence on all ends. The developer has certainly sharpened their PR pencil and now has created an opportunity to blame any or all factions of government involved as job killers if they stand in the way of this developments' progress. It is a savy way to approach the public as it is being taunted as a job creator and a political nightmare if you are either a councilman in Decatur or a commissioner in Limestone County who has to sign off on the deal. This leads me to the developers in this deal and what is at stake on their end, financially speaking. I would be very curious to see who the developers are that all of these government intities are being asked to get in bed with regarding this deal and the incentives attached to it. What has this developer accomplished in the past on this scale and magnitude? You can argue that they must have enough money and clout behind them to at least purchase the land, but it has widely been reported that they have "options" on the land and are currently not the land owners. I can assure you that a savy developer can spend a small amount of option money to tie the land up and in this case it seems to be just that. Decatur is actually purchasing the land for Bass Pro as reported in this article and others. You have to start questioning the amount of secrecy that has surrounded them since the announcement of this project in 2008 and the financial backing they have to pull it off. They had a website at one time that listed all the individuals involved with Genisis, but when you looked through their bio's you never got the sense that they had accomplished anything close to the size of this project. There has been alot of discussion from the start in 2008 involving the incentive packages, tax breaks and overall public cost of this development to Decatur and Limestone County, but I do not recall in specifics outlining any pledge of monies that the developer will incur or actually any financial obligation that they must meet to get this project started. Are we as tax payers on the hook for the complete first phase of the project if it fails? One of the big issues dating back to the public knowledge of negotiations in 2008 and reported in a one liner in this very paper a few weeks ago was that the developer could not retain a letter of credit regarding this project, which should be a red flag to all involved. Have any of the public officials seen first hand any of the developments that this development group as a whole or even as individuals as completed in the past ? If the key components in this first phase do not perform as planned, all of these numbers will be skewed and the agreement will having nothing but holes in it with large financial obligations that would need to be fulfilled. I would imagine Pratville, who's city council has had to borrow money to survive its financial obligations to Bass Pro over the last few years would certainly do things different if presented the deal again. One must ask can the developers actually pull this off having never done it before.