The following Op-Ed Column, written by yours truly, ran in this morning’s Prattville Progress:
As you are reading this column, the elected officials of Prattville are anxiously waiting to hear if a bankruptcy court will allow Hyundai to pull out of its agreement with Venture Industries. How did we get in this position? Well the short answer is no one will lend the money to Venture to build their manufacturing facility. The Detroit Free-Press reported that Venture’s own restructuring officer received the following response to their request for a loan, “So you want to borrow $90 million for a start-up company, serving only one customer, to build and equip a 600K-square-foot building in rural Alabama, that will be owned by a bankrupt company, with nothing down, no guarantees from the parent nor customer and your own bank will not participate?”
Well, when you put it like that… Why did Hyundai contract with Venture in the first place and did Prattville do enough to protect itself in case Venture, already in bankruptcy, did go under, either before or after the plant became operational?
When the news became public that Venture would be building a plant in our fair city, there was little open debate or discussion about the positives and negatives. As with other cities in central Alabama, we were just excited to get one of Hyundai’s suppliers and the jobs that come with it. Then we began to hear of the company’s financial struggles, bankruptcy filings, and difficulties in securing funding.
Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill said, “All politics are local.” Yet, we often see a general malaise surrounding political issues here in Prattville. Even when a topic generates some controversy, we see little political organizing or action. If the Venture deal fails there will be plenty of people looking for someone to blame. Much criticism will fall on our elected officials, some of it deserved. However, just as much, if not more of, the blame should fall on the shoulders of the citizens who failed to ask the questions and participate in the process when commitments were being made to make this deal happen. We all have a responsibility to be active participants in our political process, or suffer the consequences together.