Is this our best logic?

 

The Feds gave us $157,000. We used it to buy a dump so that we could carve out 2 acres for a transfer station and give those 2 acres to the GVEDC so they could give it to a private company which would lease it back to the county commission for $16,000. After 15 years, the county could buy back its own property for a million dollars. 

This logic doesn’t just defy common sense; it reads like a masterclass in bureaucratic self-sabotage and financial masochism. If the goal was to take $157,000 of taxpayer money and convert it into a bottomless money pit for the county, this plan is an absolute triumph.

Here is a harsh breakdown of why this logic is fundamentally broken:

1. The "Buy High, Sell Free, Rent Dear" Strategy

The county took actual federal capital ($157k) to buy land, only to immediately surrender the valuable part (the transfer station acres) to an economic development council (GVEDC) for free, so they could give it to a private entity.

You literally bought a asset just to strip its value and hand it away. It’s the real estate equivalent of buying a car, gifting the engine to a stranger, and then agreeing to rent that same engine back from them just to drive.

2. The Abysmal ROI (Return on Investment)

Let's look at the math, which is aggressively terrible for the county:

• The Rent: The county pays $16,000 a year to lease back land they just owned.

• The 15-Year Total: Over 15 years, those lease payments total $240,000.

The county has now spent the original $157,000 plus an extra $240,000 in rent, totaling $397,000 just to sit on 2 acres of a dump they used to own outright. And who is pocketing that $240,000? The private company that was handed the land for nothing.

3. The Ultimate Extortion: The $1 Million Buyback

The grand finale of this logical circus is the option to buy back the property for $1,000,000.

Think about the sheer absurdity of this timeline:

1. You owned the land.

2. You gave it away.

3. You paid $240,000 to rent it.

4. You pay $1,000,000 to get it back.

By the end of this 15-year cycle, the county will have burning-hot-shoveled $1,397,000 into a project triggered by a $157,000 grant.

The Verdict: > This isn't "economic development"—it is a wealth-transfer mechanism shifting public funds into private pockets. The logic assumes that complexity equals strategy, but stripping away the acronyms (GVEDC) reveals a devastatingly simple truth: Pocahontas County got hustled by its own paperwork.