After reading the article on the front page of the Cleveland Daily Banner, I just couldn’t believe what I was reading.
First of all, who elected the IDB (Industrial Development Board) to run the business of Bradley County? I thought that we as voting citizens of Bradley County elected the Bradley County commissioners to run the business of Bradley County. Just who are the IDB board members and who appointed them?
It’s every day when you pick up the Cleveland Daily Banner that some non-elected board, and especially the Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce, comes up with some big deal where if the Bradley County commissioners will spend several million dollars that it will help Bradley County.
I don’t recall of the county ever having an election to elect Mr. Gary Farlow and his Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce to run the business of Bradley County. It’s every day he and his Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce, or some other appointed commission, are making suggestions as to how and where to spend money. Never do they come up with a way to save money.
I think it’s time the Bradley County commissioners listen to the people who elected them instead of the Chamber and all these other appointed commissions. Being big is not always the best. How many Chamber members hold a real estate license to make real estate deals?
Take some of the experiences of General Motors, Wall Street and the banking industry, and how the government had to borrow trillions of dollars to bail them out. They wanted to be big.
Also every day in the paper you read where some people wanted bigger houses and today they are being repossessed. I was a licensed real estate agent and auctioneer for 34 years and it is a fact that when you buy a piece of real estate and you intend to sell it for any reason that you are supposed to make a profit. I have never seen where the county has made a profit on any real estate that they bought. I have seen where they have bought several pieces of real estate, but I’ve never seen where they made a profit (maybe it’s a secret).
How can you say you will make money off the taxes it will bring in when all the time the Bradley County Commission is giving away more taxes to the big industries than they are taking in?
If you or anybody else think that these people that go to work in these big industries who are from out of Bradley County are going to spend their paycheck in Bradley County, then my friend, you’ve got your head deep in the sand. They will take that paycheck to their home county and spend it. And not one penny of any kind of taxes in Bradley County will be spent.
Did you or anyone consider how many thousands of dollars in property tax you will take off the tax rolls if the commission accepts this deal ... for just a real estate investment.
— Claude Wallace
