While everyone is all worked up over the P-cards and the non-profit grant scandals, the dollar amount involved is peanuts compared to the $$$ going for corporate welfare in Knox County.

Between handing out TIF's like candy to developers, to government funded initiatives disguised as economic development such as the proposed Midway Road Industrial Park, millions of dollars of tax money is wasted or redirected to the private pockets of insiders.

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Today's News-Sentinel has two stories on industrial and business park developments in Knox County. One is a story on the new Hardin Valley Business Park, and in it Development Corp. CEO Mike Edwards says that "a number of existing Knox County businesses have expressed interest in buying land in the Hardin Business Park. Although that’s good, it presents something of a dilemma because the main purpose of building the new park is growing new jobs," Edwards says.

So, we have a new business park in Hardin Valley that nobody but existing Knox County businesses wants to go into, leaving behind the empty buildings they are located in now and moving from private sector locations to a government-subsidized site? And then they tell us that we need to build yet another park at Midway Road and they are going to need to go to County Commission for several million MORE dollars than they have already gotten pushed through Commission earlier this year to put sewer out there? Not to mention that the cheapest option they are looking at is basically a giant septic tank that will pollute the groundwater in an area riddled with sinkholes?

They have said $30 million for the new industrial park at Midway Road, but it looks like the number is going up and up already. And of course, there is the lawsuit filed by the area residents who are vehemently opposed to it for a number of good reasons.

Many people believe that the industrial park is just another scheme to funnel government money to the right people. After all, you have to build something and spend money to enable developers to profit from it. KUB can't put in the new sewer that will allow developers to start building in rural Northeast Knox County because of having to pay for their PACE 10 program. So that's why The Development Corp is stepping up to the plate on behalf of the developers and putting in the infrastructure that will allow the land speculators to build their subdivisions. There's already been thousands of dollars funneled to a well-connected real estate firm for brokerage fees for the land acquisition, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm not saying that some of the outrage over the P-Cards and non-profits isn't justified, but my goodness! Where is the outcry and publicity over the millions being wasted by these quasi-governmental agencies like TDC?