Full article here https://starkmanapproved.com/democracy-stands-trial-in-marshall-michigan/
The Ford arrogance and lack of concern for the environment both saddens and angers me. Take take take, poison the water, ship good paying jobs overseas until there is a tax break and subsidies to build in US. Then create faux-jobs in the US for which there is already a plan to bring in immigrant labor for. All the secrecy and back room dealings tells you there is something amiss, especially given that other states told Ford to bu---r off.
Snips below from article below
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Ford Motor Co. is an example of a phony baloney company professing concern for the environment. Reading the sustainability commitment claims on the Dearborn, MI- based company’s website one might mistakenly conclude that environmental protection is Ford’s overriding concern.
Here’s the unvarnished truth about Ford. The company last year realized more than $158 billion in revenues selling mostly shoddily made, gas guzzling, climate destroying SUVs and trucks. The company dreams about one day being an EV manufacturer, but at the moment it’s a bit player slated to lose billions as it figures out how to manufacture electric vehicles without them catching fire, losing power, and other issues. If EVs are indeed the future, it’s far from certain that Ford will survive an expected industry shakeout.
As for the “trust” Ford professes to engender in its communities, let me share the latest as to what’s going on in rural Marshall, MI, where Ford, with the full support of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is literally attempting to bulldoze its way into a region where it isn’t welcome to build an environmentally hazardous electric battery plant on fertile farmland in partnership with a Communist China-based company.
Whitmer spearheaded $1.7 billion in government subsidies and other goodies so Ford can build its battery plant on a 1,900-acre megasite and supposedly create a measly 2,500 jobs paying on average less than $42,000 a year. The secrecy on how Ford’s battery site in Marshall was assembled is cause for alarm, as are the paucity of critical details about its operation.
Thirteen Michigan lawmakers signed confidentiality agreements preventing them from disclosing details of potential development projects before approving a $1 billion incentive plan for the state’s increasingly controversial Michigan Economic Development Corp. Whitmer says her lips must remain sealed because she is covered by a separate nondisclosure agreement signed on behalf of a handful of people in the administration who might be privy to details about the potential developments.
Despite all the secrecy, backroom dealing, and conflicts alleged by Marshall residents who as best I can tell overwhelmingly disapprove of the battery plant, Ford appears to have hit an unexpected snag.
The property where Ford wants to build its battery plant is zoned for light manufacturing, although it’s occupied by historic farms and homes. The Joint Planning Commission, representing the city of Marshall and Calhoun Township, last Tuesday night voted 4-2 against a rezoning petition, determining that it didn’t meet the necessary conditions required to rezone the land for heavy manufacturing.
Marshall’s City Council is scheduled to meet Monday, May 1, at 7 pm to review the rezoning application, but Jim Durian, CEO of the Marshall Area Economic Development Alliance (MAEDA), is on record saying it doesn’t matter how Marshall’s elected officials choose to vote.
“No matter what they choose, the project will move forward,” Jim Durian, CEO of MAEDA, told Bridge News, a nonpartisan news service that runs circles around Michigan’s major dailiEs
Durian is clearly confident his organization can ride roughshod over local elected officials. MAEDA has already shredded hundreds of old-growth trees, posting footage online showing them being destroyed to the music, “Takin’ Care of Business.” Tons of gravel and broken concrete have been dumped on fertile farmland.
The arrogance has only fueled more anger, and Marshall residents are loaded for bear.
- It is already known that Marshall’s city water supply is inadequate to meet the plant’s gargantuan consumption of water, which sources say will necessitate a line from Ford’s plant to the large casino midway between Marshall and Battle Creek. The casino gets its water from Battle Creek. It’s not certain how Ford will dispose of water potentially contaminated by the manufacturing of lithium batteries.
Residents living near GM’s electric battery plant under construction on farmland near Lansing were advised to test their water twice a year for contamination after the site goes live.
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