An 80-store, 317,000-square-foot Tanger Outlet Center is being built along the I-40/I-85 corridor near Mebane. It's scheduled to open just in time for Christmas shopping. Tanger is almost on the line between Orange County and Alamance County. You guessed it. It’s on the Alamance County side. (If it was on the Orange County side of the line, then it would be called “holiday” shopping.)

Yes, it’s another ED success story for the Progressives of Orange County. It was close, but Progressive elected officials just managed to keep those nasty chain stores out of the county. The local living economy may be anemic, but at least it’s safe from chain store contamination.

Ms. Kathleen Ferguson, chairwoman of the Orange County Economic Development Advisory Board clings to the Progressive belief that UNC can provide business taxes through future business spin-offs. She doesn't mention past failures to secure UNC spinoff businesses because it’s not pleasant to recall. Thankfully, Orange County ED officials continue to be free from the burdens of facts. (See Pulp ED UNC Spinoff Story.)

The local media continues to spin the yarn that Orange County residents want services that require high taxes. Retail snobbery is supported with statements such as “/Not that an outlet shopping center is necessarily what Orange County wants or needs…/”. Alamance County will receive about $7,200,000 a year in property and sales tax revenue from Tanger, apparently not what Orange County wants or needs. (See Herald Sun Tanger Out Story.)

Be careful of what you ask of whom. You just might find someone who’ll tell you the truth you don't want to hear.

Orange County’s crack ED team found out the hard way. The Orange County Economic Development Commission asked Ms. Mennu Tewari, associate professor at UNC's Department of City and Regional Planning in September 2009 about the flaccidness of local ED efforts. Ms. Tewari is an expert in the field of economic development and regional planning. Last month, Ms. Tewari and her UNC graduate students released a detailed report.

ED challenges listed for Orange County include most UNC business spin-offs leaving the county, high tax rates, no local incentives, a limited real estate product to offer for business development, and the county's reputation for a long regulatory process relative to surrounding counties. (See Herald Sun UNC ED Report Story.) Incredibly, not a single geniousity of either Alderman Dan Coleman or Alderman Sammy Slade (self-proclaimed ED experts advocating a "local living economy") was put in the report.

It just so happens that all of the above challenges stem from deliberate Progressive policies consistently implemented by Progressive elected officials over the past two decades. Snobbery in all forms (retail, commercial, manufacturing) led to a politically Progressive “if we don't build it they won't come…or stay” attitude. Who needed sales taxes and non-governmental jobs as long as you had a residential growth Ponzi scheme and UNC “bondomania”? All led to flaccid ED.

The UNC students, not having an institutional memory of these acts, neglected to connect the dots and recount who's responsible for how Orange County got into its ED predicament, a fact the Orange County ED people depended upon in picking UNC to prepare the report. Pals don't hang the tag of “responsibility” around pals' necks. Palocracy is a wonderfully Progessive thing! Problems just happen. The buck doesn't have to stop anywhere for it doesn't even get passed around.

Too bad the babes don’t realize that understanding how a problem arises is often key to fixing the problem for good. But again, that's why they were picked to write the report. Thankfully, Pulpsters have tasted this juice before.

Consistency has its merits. You don’t have to think or raise your blood pressure when a local Progressive governance board makes a decision. Usually it will be screwy. Usually it will be slanted. Usually it will come from hypocritical elected officials with a surfeit of hubris.

So there should be no surprise to learn that on 25 May 2010, the Carrboro Boa meddled in the water and sewer boundaries in the unincorporated community of Efland, North Carolina, miles and miles away from Carrboro.

The Boa objected to a proposal in a small-area plan for Efland that would allow water and sewer service to an area along Bowman Road. Mayor Mark Chilton said he would not be in favor of approving a plan to allow for mixed-use development in the area because of its alleged historical significance. Somehow allowing Efland redidents to have more water and sewer would destroy historical sites that are so historical, no one has bothered to mark them, much less preserve them.

Not to be outdone in folly, Alderman Dan Coleman felt that giving water & sewer to people who have failing septic fields and have lived in Orange County for longer than Mr. Coleman has been alive aren’t entitled to these municipal services. Why? According to the Eco-Marxist, county ED policy is skewed toward recruiting national chain retailers and not in shoring up the local economy. Apparently, Mr. Coleman has never visited Efland and is not aware that Efland essentially has no significant local retail economy to shore up. (See Carrboro Citizen Efland Quidnunc Story.)

Imagine if Efland residents came down to Carrboro town hall to discuss the development of the northern transition area in Carrboro. Only delusional Progressives could fail to appreciate the icy reception Messrs. Chilton and Coleman would give them.