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NY taxpayers built $90M factory in DeWitt for firm that walked away, didn't create a job
Post Standard, Syracuse NY ^ | 01/04/18 | By Rick Moriarty rmoriarty@syracuse.com,

Posted on 01/04/2018 9:06:56 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines

DeWitt, N.Y. -- In 2014, the development arm of SUNY Polytechnic Institute agreed to build, with $90 million in state money, a factory in DeWitt for an LED light bulb manufacturer.

The company, California-based Soraa, agreed to create 250 full-time, high-tech jobs at Collamer Crossing Business Park and to encourage Soraa contractors and suppliers to create another 170 jobs in Central New York.

In return, the company would be allowed to lease the factory for $1 a month for 10 years.

But the deal with SUNY Poly's Fort Schuyler Management Corp. did not require Soraa to spend any of its own money to build or equip the factory. And it contained no penalties if the company did not occupy the building or create the promised jobs. The company never even signed a lease.

So when Soraa recently said it no longer needed the factory and pulled out of the deal just as the state was completing construction of the 82,000-square-foot building, there was nothing the state could do about it.

The state was left with a factory, nearly fully equipped, but no company to use it....

(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections; US: New York
KEYWORDS: collamercrossing; cuomo; dewitt; fortschuylermgmt; fraud; kaloyeros; ledbulbs; ledlightbulbs; lightemittingdiode; newyork; princeandrew; scam; soraa; sunypolytechnic
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To: Behind Liberal Lines
LED lighting? In the US?

With all the available slave labor, when the Chinese whore out an industry, nobody can compete.

21 posted on 01/04/2018 9:20:15 AM PST by Sgt_Schultze (When your business model depends on slave labor, you're always going to need more slaves.)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

Terrible...


22 posted on 01/04/2018 9:21:46 AM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
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To: Fido969

Exactly, must be great to have government subsidizing a competitor newcomer.


23 posted on 01/04/2018 9:21:53 AM PST by headstamp 2 (My "White Privilege" is my work ethic.)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines
The Art of the Deal

Having politicians who have a basic understanding of Contracts is not such a bad idea.

24 posted on 01/04/2018 9:22:37 AM PST by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

A headline comprising these three items is all you need to know:

“...SUNY (Sate University New York)
“...state money
“...LED lightbulb...”

“SUNY and LED Lightbulb Maker Fleece Taxpayers.”

A state school used state money to help a federally mandated green weenie product manufacturer. A good time was had by all.


25 posted on 01/04/2018 9:23:43 AM PST by FreedomNotSafety
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

LOL, sounds like those 250K high tech jobs Hillary promised NYS. (btw, via her “connections”) High tech jobs need high tech people, does Dewitt NY have them? Are there people who like snow available? Its a suburb of Syracuse, so there are all sorts of highways, airports and RR connections for commercial enterprise. ??? Its probably a cost factor problem involving tax deals and pay offs?


26 posted on 01/04/2018 9:23:44 AM PST by Bringbackthedraft (Damn, the tag line disappeared again? Coursors!)
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To: alternatives?
But get caught with a 20 clip magazine and see what happens.

I don't mean to sidetrack the thread over a vocabulary slip, but I would love to see a 20 clip magazine. :)

27 posted on 01/04/2018 9:24:32 AM PST by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

Cueball signed upstate’s death warrant when he permanently banned fracking in NYS for no other reason than politics.


28 posted on 01/04/2018 9:24:47 AM PST by headstamp 2 (My "White Privilege" is my work ethic.)
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To: unixfox

“Maybe I should go to New York and ask them to build AND pay for a craft beer brewery.”

Just ask them to convert the existing building. Will take less time and you can be in business by spring.


29 posted on 01/04/2018 9:25:54 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (Delusional - Adjective, Describes a Democrat or member of the MSM)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines
From greentechmedia (January, 2017):

Soraa has just under 200 employees, and is in the process of building a new factory in Syracuse, New York to add production capacity beyond that of its current factory in Fremont, California.

A funding filing from 2011 shows that Soraa raised at least $88 million....

They make LED light bulbs for $50 and you need a $30 controller for it. One controller will control multiple lights. The controller helps adjust the lighting to help you sleep better....

30 posted on 01/04/2018 9:26:09 AM PST by jeffc (The U.S. media are our enemy)
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To: alternatives?

20 clips?.......that some magazine!..............


31 posted on 01/04/2018 9:27:19 AM PST by Red Badger (Road Rage lasts 5 minutes. Road Rash lasts 5 months!.....................)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines
But with NextGen, the prospective new tenant, SUNY will get it right...a slam dunk.

from the source article:

....make semiconductors for the electronics industry. It does not yet manufacture anything. The DeWitt facility will be its first manufacturing operation.

Dinesh Ramanathan, NexGen's president and CEO and one of its founders, also was CEO of Avogy Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up that planned to make power sources for electronic devices such as computers...."

read the full article, it gets better.

Carefully avoids naming names, only the arrested former head is mentioned, not the other members of the board that approved this fiasco. 'Nuff said.

32 posted on 01/04/2018 9:28:21 AM PST by Covenantor (Men are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern. " Chesterton)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

They could spend $90 million to build a factory at the bottom of the ocean or at the South Pole and it would have a better chance of creating jobs than one built in New York state.


33 posted on 01/04/2018 9:28:32 AM PST by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: headstamp 2
Cueball signed upstate’s death warrant when he permanently banned fracking in NYS for no other reason than politics.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania's economy is booming because of fracking.

34 posted on 01/04/2018 9:29:30 AM PST by henkster
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To: Sgt_Schultze

The LED competes with an incandescent. Absent government intervention the LED was never going to win that competition except in a few niche markets.

The labor component for LEDs is insignificant. With a sane tax code and a government which does not hate manufacturing we will make LEDs here. But it won’t employ many people.


35 posted on 01/04/2018 9:31:01 AM PST by FreedomNotSafety
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

Why don’t the good New York Bolsheviks just run their own lightbulb factory on Socialist Principles....


36 posted on 01/04/2018 9:34:57 AM PST by Kozak (DIVERSITY+PROXIMITY=CONFLICT)
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To: I want the USA back

Dr. “Nano” Kaloyeros and his cohorts handed out many million dollar construction contracts to Cuomo campaign donors. Dr. Nano and his goons rigged the contracts throughout upstate NY.


37 posted on 01/04/2018 9:35:32 AM PST by Bruce Kurtz
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

I’m sure the company gave money to the candidates who built someone else’s building.


38 posted on 01/04/2018 9:36:24 AM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

I find it hard to believe this level of incompetence in negotiations of this deal.

I wonder what sleazy NY representation got a kick back from the contractor to be awarded the bid to build this facility for no purpose.


39 posted on 01/04/2018 9:39:05 AM PST by Popman (My sin was great, Your love was greater  What could separate us now…)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

“The state was left with a factory, nearly fully equipped, but no company to use it....”

Suckers. Now follow the money.

L


40 posted on 01/04/2018 9:42:23 AM PST by Lurker (President Trump isn't our last chance. President Trump is THEIR last chance.)
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