Small-town Wisconsin suffering under weight of Foxconn deal, with CEO headed to White Hous...
There's no sign yet of Foxconn's $10 billion plant, or the 13,000 local jobs it was supposed to provide, but wide swaths of Wisconsin's Mount Pleasant town have been very nearly totally demolished in preparation for the promised factory.
President Trump (center) breaks ground on the Foxconn factory in June 2018
While Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple, has so far done little toward its plan of building a $10 billion manufacturing plant in Wisconsin, the state has demolished 75 homes and bought land in a plot that remains chiefly unused. The town of Mount Pleasant, 29 miles south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has large sections of the town that have been demolished in preparation for the promised plant.
Beyond just the homes and land, infrastructure work has begun largely at the locality's expense, reports the Wall Street Journal. Interstate 94 is being widened to support the promised thousands of employees at the county's expense, and for compatibility with driverless trucks, but Foxconn is largely absent from the area.
The original project was for a plant that would manufacture large LCD panels for televisions sets. Following purported issues with finding appropriate skilled labor, Foxconn spoke of transferring Chinese engineers to the region.
Foxconn has maintained its claim of creating 13,000 jobs in the Racine County area. Mount Pleasant itself is currently home to 27,000 residents. At the end of 2018, Foxconn had spent only $99 million, 1% of its pledged investment, according to state filings. Foxconn had estimated that there would be 2,080 in-state employees by before 2019 ended, but ended up with less than 200.
Following complaints from Wisconsin's recently-elected Governor, Tony Evers, Foxconn has attempted to renegotiate the contract.
"To my knowledge, this was the first time either Foxconn or the State of Wisconsin has mentioned amending or changing the agreement approved [in] 2017," Evers has said. While not revealing Foxconn's recommendations, Evers added that Wisconsin is identifying areas that "will enable greater flexibility and transparency as the project continues to evolve."
"Foxconn has never wavered from our commitment to our contract with the State of Wisconsin and the creation of 13,000 jobs as part of our broader effort to make the Badger state a global technology hub," the company said to us in a statement earlier in April.
In the meantime, the local council has decided to lease 966 acres of land back to the local farmer they bought it all from for $1.7 million last August. For the privilege, the farmer is paying $170,000 per year.
Local residents who haven't accepted deals are campaigning to keep their homes, and are complaining to officials from the county about the future of the Foxconn plant.
"At some point we're talking about things that are just imaginary," said Nick Demske, a commissioner in Racine County. "We're pretending."
Foxconn's chairman Terry Gou is reportedly set to attend a meeting in the White House on Tuesday afternoon. It's not known whether Gou was summoned to the White House by the President, but Reuters is reporting that the meeting is related to the Wisconsin project.
President Trump (center) breaks ground on the Foxconn factory in June 2018
While Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple, has so far done little toward its plan of building a $10 billion manufacturing plant in Wisconsin, the state has demolished 75 homes and bought land in a plot that remains chiefly unused. The town of Mount Pleasant, 29 miles south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has large sections of the town that have been demolished in preparation for the promised plant.
Beyond just the homes and land, infrastructure work has begun largely at the locality's expense, reports the Wall Street Journal. Interstate 94 is being widened to support the promised thousands of employees at the county's expense, and for compatibility with driverless trucks, but Foxconn is largely absent from the area.
The original project was for a plant that would manufacture large LCD panels for televisions sets. Following purported issues with finding appropriate skilled labor, Foxconn spoke of transferring Chinese engineers to the region.
Foxconn has maintained its claim of creating 13,000 jobs in the Racine County area. Mount Pleasant itself is currently home to 27,000 residents. At the end of 2018, Foxconn had spent only $99 million, 1% of its pledged investment, according to state filings. Foxconn had estimated that there would be 2,080 in-state employees by before 2019 ended, but ended up with less than 200.
Following complaints from Wisconsin's recently-elected Governor, Tony Evers, Foxconn has attempted to renegotiate the contract.
"To my knowledge, this was the first time either Foxconn or the State of Wisconsin has mentioned amending or changing the agreement approved [in] 2017," Evers has said. While not revealing Foxconn's recommendations, Evers added that Wisconsin is identifying areas that "will enable greater flexibility and transparency as the project continues to evolve."
"Foxconn has never wavered from our commitment to our contract with the State of Wisconsin and the creation of 13,000 jobs as part of our broader effort to make the Badger state a global technology hub," the company said to us in a statement earlier in April.
In the meantime, the local council has decided to lease 966 acres of land back to the local farmer they bought it all from for $1.7 million last August. For the privilege, the farmer is paying $170,000 per year.
Local residents who haven't accepted deals are campaigning to keep their homes, and are complaining to officials from the county about the future of the Foxconn plant.
"At some point we're talking about things that are just imaginary," said Nick Demske, a commissioner in Racine County. "We're pretending."
Foxconn's chairman Terry Gou is reportedly set to attend a meeting in the White House on Tuesday afternoon. It's not known whether Gou was summoned to the White House by the President, but Reuters is reporting that the meeting is related to the Wisconsin project.
Comments
It was a scam when Trump and the previous Governor staged their photo op.
Now the state and local governments are out massive amounts while Foxconn got what it came for.
A few million dollars worth of good press.
Wisconsin may gain a few hundred, maybe a thousand jobs, but not the giant tech hub promised. It just isn't, and was never going to, happen. You can tell by the way Foxconn's story keeps changing; a device manufacturing plant, an LCD plant, a research centre, it's whatever will sell at this or that particular press conference. They can say anything. It doesn't matter it isn't going to happen anyway.
It was a scam from day one.
As for the residents of that area footing the bill for infrastructure improvements, Foxconn has agreed (and is obligated) to reimburse for those expenses at minimum, regardless of how many jobs eventually are created.
I have family in Mount Pleasant, who were dismissive of my cynicism over Foxconn when the project was pitched (given my knowledge of Foxconn's Brazilian experiment) and are still (I think unreasonably) hopeful. The tax burden on Mount Pleasant residents for the infrastructure work already completed is substantial, and without tax revenue to repay it, the community will be hurt. This is a serious issue, but it does no good to make wild claims as AI has done here.
Apparently you didn't read all of the comment. 1STnTENDERBITS doesn't think it's going to happen either.
To me is seems the local Government there screwed up. I don't think taking 75 homes for something like this was a smart move. I'm not a fan of Local Governments taking homes because they think they can make more Tax money for a Business. It's something that's been happening around the country for years.
https://ij.org/press-release/top-ten-worst-abuses-of-eminent-domain-spotlighted-in-new-report/
The scheming is not over. Foxconn made agreements and promises to the University of Wisconsin System and to the University of Wisconsin Madison flagship, all with much fanfare and little public knowledge of what was promised and what commitments UW made. Then, within the last week, Foxconn contracted with BMO bank to purchase their building across the street from the Wisconsin State Capitol. As a counter to the last article written about Wisconsin and Foxconn, where they emphasized empty buildings, Ghou made references to this bank building purchase that it will have hundreds of people there. At the present the building will be home to, of course, at least 100 BMO Bank employees who continue to occupy and do business there. Ghou mentioned the purchase of this building demonstrates Foxconn's commitment to Wisconsin and UW (the Madison campus and System admin is just down the street from the Capitol). Besides the typical tax benefits of sell and lease-back of the BMO Bank building, it's not been made clear what Foxconn plans to use this building for. Lobbying?
https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2019/03/18/foxconn-says-move-forward-flat-screen-factory-summer/3202103002/