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www.StiresforSenate.com

Chuck Stires says Doug Berger’s biolab support shows lack of vision and judgment

“It’s just another example of political grandstanding.”

-  Chuck Stires

 

Youngsville, August 3, 2008:

“Today, the Henderson Dispatch reported State Senator Doug Berger saying that had the GAO report on the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) been released in September, he would not have initially supported the project,” said Chuck Stires, candidate for the NC senate representing Granville, Vance, Warren, and Franklin Counties. “The GAO report was prepared in June of this year. But the report referenced studies and information that date back more than fifteen years. The report contained much of the same information that opposition groups and individual citizens have highlighted since the NBAF’s Butner location was initially discussed. 

“Could there really have been so much new information in the report to change Doug Berger’s mind?  Or did the report confirm his lack of vision and judgment regarding the real impact of the NBAF on this community?” Stires continued.  “The public depends on its elected representatives to perform the due diligence of evaluating and examining projects such as the NBAF. They don’t expect their elected representatives to jump, ill-informed, onto a bandwagon, and then jump off for political expediency.”

Repeatedly, over many months, groups and individuals who were concerned about, and opposed, the NBAF Butner location noted previous studies and occurrences at other sensitive facilities that put the safety and security of the NBAF in question.  These groups and individuals challenged the location of the NBAF in relation to residences, schools, places of employment, public infrastructure and natural resources.

“These questions and concerns, raised by members of the community, will remain as long as the NBAF exists in Granville County,” Stires said. “A potential residential or commercial investor or developer would be foolish to not take the NBAF’s location and those questions and concerns into consideration. Developers and investors will look at all the factors that impact the investment viability of Granville County and the region. They will bet their fortune on whether this would be a desirable place to create a new residential community or commercial enterprise with the jobs that would follow.

“As a family man and a businessman, I would certainly take those questions and concerns into consideration before deciding to relocate my family or invest in a business in Granville County,” Stires continued. “I would have to ask where my children and my employees’ children would go to school in proximity to prisons, mental hospitals, landfills, waste treatment and a bio-defense laboratory. Who wouldn't ask those questions? How many will choose Granville County? Investment and development dollars are not easy to raise. How many developers will decide to continue to look around at other locales that, perhaps, don’t have the concentration of these kinds of facilities that could add additional risk to investment dollars? 

“Last week, Doug Berger said that he had to ‘provide leadership’ on the issue,” Stires went on. “I would ask where that leadership was last year when Doug Berger jumped head first in support of the NBAF.  Over these many months, where was that leadership as citizen voices continued to question if the NBAF’s location in Granville County was really in the county’s long term best interest?”

Chuck Stires concluded, “Doug Berger’s convenient, newly enlightened opposition to the NBAF is not ‘leadership’. It’s just another example of political grandstanding.”

www.StiresforSenate.com

 

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