UPDATE (11/07/07): David Murdock is actually a rather nice guy.
Statement of Doubt: David Murdock is a jerk. His only interest is to see what he can get from us and run. We shouldn’t give him a dime.
Response: David Murdock could quite possibly be an irascible autocrat with whom you would not want to share a fruit smoothie. Many billionaires fall outside of the “nice guy” range. I’ve never met the guy - so, who am I to judge.
Frankly, what does David Murdock’s likeability have to do with anything? A few points to consider about David Murdock and the TIF:
- David Murdock can’t take the TIF money and run. There is a fallacy that the Kannapolis City Council and the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners will be handing David Murdock a big novelty check for $100 million for building the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC). The TIF projects are being used for infrastructure to support the NCRC and the area around it: roads, utilities (water, sewer, electric, etc.), and parks and greenways.
- If David Murdock is an evil genius - he’s going this project about it all wrong. When I first heard about this project and people talked to me about David Murdock - he started to take on a Flemingesque quality in the Bond villains like Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Elliot Carver (kudos for the first person to correctly name the Bond flick he was the villain in). However, when I heard how the TIF arrangement between Castle & Cooke and the City of Kannapolis would make Castle & Cooke fully pay their property taxes - I had a harder time buying the evil genius bit. If Castle & Cooke really wanted to screw the taxpayer - they’d make the entire campus non-profit and work to get a tax-exemption. Then we the taxpayer would be stuck footing the bill for any improvements needed around the area to support the NCRC project. Castle & Cooke is not doing that. So either David Murdock is trying to screw us - but he’s as dumb as Dr. Evil; or this project is above board. The question gets to be, what is his motivation? Here it is…
- David Murdock wants to enhance the value of the Castle & Cooke property in the Cabarrus & Rowan County area. Plain and simple: good, old-fashioned profit-based motivation. Plenty of other cities tried to lure the NCRC away from Kannapolis; but no matter what incentive they threw at this project - it never moved from Kannapolis. Why not? My guess is that David Murdock got to be a billionaire by enhancing the value of his investments and the NCRC will enhance the property Castle & Cooke already owns in the area. What’s wrong with that?
Of course, it will enhance the value for the property in the surronding area not owned by Castle & Cooke…like a modest 3 Bedroom, 2.5 Bath house with an open-floor plan in Afton Park…just a short commute from the NCRC campus. In case there are any entry-level researchers reading this article looking to relocate just click “Contact” at the top of the page.
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16 responses so far ↓
1 The View From The Cheap Seats » NCRC Doubts // Apr 5, 2007 at 4:01 am
[...] “David Murdock is a jerk. His only interest is to see what he can get from us and run. We shouldn’t give him a dime.” Link to Article Send Article via E-mail To Your Favorite Doubter [...]
2 Brad Spry // Apr 5, 2007 at 12:46 pm
One question people ask is “Why should we help a billionaire?”
Imagine for a moment if your spouse or loved one was diagnosed with cancer. You would do everything you could to find treatment, to save the person you love.
Now imagine if you were one of the richest people in the world, with the means to get the very best help for your loved one, and still losing.
Most people don’t know that Mr. Murdock lost his wife to cancer.
He’s human, just like us.
I see the NCRC as a continuation of his quest to find the cure.
3 Justin Thibault // Apr 5, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Yeah, I do want to be clear that I don’t actually think that David Murdock is a jerk…I’ve never met the guy. There’s been some talk in that direction and I wanted to address it.
4 Brad Spry // Apr 6, 2007 at 10:25 am
Just caught the Shameless Plug at the end
5 Jesse // Apr 9, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Cabarrus citizens are right to be wary. Isn’t this exactly what developers did in California? Castle & Cooke has low-value real estate, and uses the research campus as a lever to get the General Assembly and county to improve the infrastructure on the backs of the taxpayers. Then they push out the real people who won’t be able to afford to live here in another 10 years. There are lots of communities in California where the real people — the teachers, firemen, police officers, garbage collectors, waiters — basically everyone who keeps a community running — have to live in trailer parks out of town and commute to their jobs, while the leisured ownership class lives in the gated enclave and enjoys the fruits of their labor. Is this the kind of America we want? Our tax dollars are supposed to be used to promote equality and equal opportunity — not to line the pockets of private business.
6 Justin Thibault // Apr 9, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Jesse - I think there is a bit more to the real estate market in CA than Castle & Cooke.
Also, I would hardly call most homeowners in Cabarrus County a “leisured ownership clsss”
The point is that the NCRC will enhance values - if we can get all of the moving parts right.
7 The View From The Cheap Seats » Friday Five: COPs for NCRC = Stupid Idea // May 25, 2007 at 6:47 am
[...] 2. COPs let Murdock off the hook, and put the rest of us on the line. As I’ve mentioned before, if David Murdock wanted to avoid property taxes and get the County to give him whatever he wanted - pushing for a TIF is a really stupid way of going about it. With a TIF, it’s Murdock and his business interests that have to enter agreements to help secure the financing. With COPs, it’s every man, woman, and child who do the securing. COPs will NOT be secured by the NCRC project - only to the credit of We The People. [...]
8 Mark Cada // Jul 23, 2007 at 9:15 am
Eliot Carver - Carver Global Media - Tomorrow Never Dies
9 Justin Thibault // Jul 23, 2007 at 9:33 am
Mark, thanks for playing!
10 Liz // Jul 23, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Justin - Did you search for David Murdock on the Obsever web sites as I suggested? Why do you think he was sanitized off of them?
The jail remains a poorly planned project and the first failure in planning was not to expect a fight from the local community. So question #2 - could you and Aaron tell me why it did not end up at the fair grounds - especially if people there want it?
The only point to the downtown location seems to be convenience in transporting prisoners. And yes, I have noted some of the jail history and that seven jails have been in Concord for 200 years. This one then should be functionally obsolete around the time the number of Cabarrus inmates is projected to reach the 575 capacity…
11 Justin Thibault // Jul 24, 2007 at 6:22 am
Liz - Did I search? Yes. Did I find? Yes.
Go back to the “Justin’s Late” article and click on the link. You know how to do that, don’t you? You just point. And click. Not hard, now, is it?
12 Liz // Jul 24, 2007 at 9:26 am
The Raleigh News Observer is not on your links. Further - Eric Deines did not report that they were debating the annex (read it again). It is one thing to be arrogant - but another to be arrogant and wrong!
13 Justin Thibault // Jul 24, 2007 at 11:44 am
Liz - I think the Lord Himself has dispatched you to help me communicate with toddlers. Let me make this really simple for you.
1) Go to “Justin’s Late” and scroll down to Comment #16 [CLICK HERE] - you’ll find a link to the article in the sentence that reads: “It helps when you add a link - like this: [CLICK HERE]“. Click that, and you’ll find your “hidden article”. In your defense - it didn’t show up on any Google searches; but I did find links from other blogs. This proves that any referencing of articles using links with you is futile as you will not follow the links, because that might shatter your little, paranoid reality. I think you need to talk to a professional.
2) If you read the Independent Tribune article, you’d notice that the headline currently reads “Cabarrus board seeks third compromise on jail annex”. Earlier today “Cabarrus” was spelled “Cabbarus”. It’s not Eric’s fault; because it’s usually not up to the writer of the article to attach the headline.
14 Aaron // Jul 26, 2007 at 3:02 pm
OK Liz, go to the Justin’s Late article and read my first reply where I told you that “Quietest Kept” The downtown jail is eventually going to be a pretrial detention facility when a satellite jail is built in a few years. “or make that decades” to quote my first post. Geeze, by your logic we should build schools to fit 10,000 students cause we might need some extra room in the future. But I guess you can afford a 200% increase in your property taxes to build 2 jails simultaneously and all these 10000 desk schools.
Secondly, quit inferring what people say and twisting it to meet your rebuttal needs, Justin, Myself nor any other person with an ounce of common sense suggested that the people who live near the old fair grounds were running some campaign to get the jail moved there. There was no need. The city and county governments already knew where the jail needed to be. They knew that it would be the most cost effective place and would make a “master design plan” that you so desperately seek irrelavent. “Move jail 30 feet to right and continue business as usual.” Thats as much of a master plan as anyone would ever need.
And God forbid, but you’re right. The city and county government never though that 11 elitist yuppies would jeopardize the safety of the county because the jail wasn’t pretty enough…
Oh, by the way, next time you walk downtown, take a look at the old First Union blding, its 5 stories tall so a 6 story jail isn’t as much of a “monstrosity” as your jail trail buddies like to say. But then again, the first union building is all but vacant so maybe that’s the way you like it.
15 jfr // Jul 28, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Liz,
Just for the record: The location of the jail is not a matter of convenience. The current detention facility is classified as a maximum security facility. The intent, including the secured transfer tunnel underneath Corban Avenue, is for the new facility to remain classified by the State as maximum security. If you knew half as much as you think you know, you’d recognize the facts for what they are.
16 Stacey Garretson // Feb 12, 2008 at 5:37 pm
It is true that Mr. Murdock lost his wife to cancer. I met Mr. Murdock many years ago in Los Angeles and I must say that every experience I ever had with him was extremely positive. He is a gracious, brilliant man who displayed an ernest interest in the well being of others. He has long been a supportter of the Mayo clinic and when I learned of his involvement in this project, I thought it a natural extension of his passion for the advancement of cancer research. He has also outlived two of his children. So while he has experience great financial success(self-made I might add) he has also weathered extreme tragedy in his life, and people at large should not be so quick to judge a man they have never had the opportunity to speak to or deal with. I wish him well.