Government
NC officials defend Google deal
At senate hearings officials explain why they gave hundreds of millions in incentives to Google.
North Carolina officials who offered Google as much as $260 million to locate a server farm there appeared before a state Senate committe to defend the deal, the Charlotts Observer reports.
The deal includes waiving $165 million in personal and real estate taxes.
"Why did we do that? We did it to be competitive," Lenoir Mayor David Barlow told a packed meeting of the Senate Finance Committee. "If we hadn't done that, we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be having these hearings because Google would probably be in South Carolina."
Critics of the deal also turned out. Bob Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice now running for the Republican nomination for governor, said afterward he's still not convinced that incentives were required to lure the company.
"All of these assumptions are based on, `Google wouldn't come but for,' " Orr said. "And yet, we have only Google's word that that's what precipitated their decision."