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More about that $1.3 million

We learned some more about the $1.3 million plan for commercial incentives today.

Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin "Skip" Alston said that Vice Chairman Steve Arnold has plenty of support for the plan, including TREBIC, business groups around here and a majority of the commissioners.

Arnold said that he expects the plan to keep being worked on until and during the commissioners meeting in which the plan will be discussed, 5:30 p.m., Aug. 20 at the Old County Courthouse.

"Relatively speaking, I don’t think that anybody’s going to be able to take advantage of it in an illicit sense," Arnold said. He added that expansions and land purchases could qualify.

So, if a farm, which has a traditionally low property value, is sold to a small commercial business - which usually has a higher property value - then the county would allow the purchaser to have a break.

Though there are some more questions to be answered, such as how that would work for new businesses to the area. And the issue that we consider here often - oversight.

No doubt, there's math behind how the money would be spent. Basically, it sounds like the difference between new property value and the old property value would be refunded after tax payments for three years after the expansion. But how can we check that? Will there be an easy way to do so?

The plan calls for the tax director to oversee the plan and provide occasional reports to the commissioners. Otherwise, Scoopsters seem to have some questions about the idea.