SouthsideCentral has been working on a countdown of the biggest job busts that have been announced in the Southside Region in the last few years. I know I’ve missed a lot of them, but I’ve got eight of them all snarked up ready to go. Let’s get it started with #8, #7 and #6…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
#8: Horse Park of the South<\/strong> \u2013 On paper, this looked like a great idea for Rockingham County. Apparently, there isn’t an abundance of horse parks in the region. All the county had to do was build this horse park by spending a few million dollars and watch the horses fly in (figuratively speaking, of course). The intelligent people who live in Rockingham county quickly smelled horsecrap instead of a horse park, voted every county commissioner out of office who supported the idea and the land area off of Highway 29 is still a land area off of Highway 29. The Horse Park of the South isn’t really a big Job Bust, but SouthsideCentral just loves to use the word \u201chorsecrap\u201d whenever we can.<\/p>\n #7: Ecomnets<\/strong> \u2013 In September 2010, there was a big celebration at the Airside Industrial Park as Governor Bob McDonnell came in to preside over the official ribbon cutting of Ecomnets. The company had just closed on the former EDS building and was ready to start retrofitting the building for the production of their \u201cgreen-friendly\u201d Verdio computers. The company announced they would be hiring over 160 employees at an average salary of $50,000 over the next three years. They got $500,000 from the Tobacco Commission and $90,000 from the Danville Regional Foundation to \u201chelp\u201d out. How’d that business plan work out? <\/p>\n Not too good. Ecomnets realized that people weren’t going to buy \u201cgreen-friendly\u201d computers made in Danville, so those 160 announced quietly went away. And by quietly, I’m meaning with none of the hoopla when the company’s plans were announced. Ecomnets quickly changed their strategy into a data center that has about 15 employees and you haven’t heard much out of them since. The CEO of the company said that \u201cperformance agreements would be amended\u201d, which means they’d have to give the bonus money back. Oh yeah, Ecomnets held a \u201cGreen Computing Symposium\u201d (or something like that) during their first year in Danville. It was all done up fancy at the Institute and had all the high-level big names of the industry make presentations on the future. We should have known that Ecomnets was going to be a Job Bust when the 2nd annual \u201cGreen Computing Symposium\u201d was held in Northern Virginia instead of Danville.<\/p>\n #6: Lifebatt<\/strong> \u2013 Lifebatt came to Danville from Las Vegas (you can insert your own gambling joke here). They make or import or do something with fancy batteries. Every so often they show off a fancy bicycle that’s powered by their batteries. They have gotten some economic development money to make Danville their World Headquarters but I haven’t seen or heard of any jobs being created there. They’ve been around since 2010 and so far, it’s a Job Bust. (Sidenote: Then-Senator Jim Webb attended the Lifebatt ribbon-cutting in one of his few visits to Danville. During his small speech, he looked uncomfortable, constipated and took off out of Danville as fast as he could.)<\/p>\n That’s three down, and I’ve got 5 more to go. Part #2 comes later this weekend. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SouthsideCentral has been working on a countdown of the biggest job busts that have been announced in the Southside Region in the last few years. I know I’ve missed a lot of them, but I’ve got eight of them all snarked up ready to go. Let’s get it started with #8, #7 and #6…<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"\"Who's #1? - Biggest Job Announcement Busts - Part #1\" - New SouthsideCentral article at http:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-21k","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,58,33,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-businesscentral","category-danville","category-rockingham-county-nc","category-whos-1","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-21k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11685,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/01\/02\/reportcard-economic-development\/","url_meta":{"origin":7770,"position":0},"title":"ReportCard! – Economic Development","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"School's out but SouthsideCentral is still filling out ReportCards. Today, we're grading economic development efforts around the region. All righty, let's pull out the big chalkboard and get it ready to hand out grades... Simple yet effective. Let's get started. And because I'm a rebel, I'm going to do them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ReportCard!"","block_context":{"text":"ReportCard!","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/reportcard\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/FKHDVyy.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/FKHDVyy.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/FKHDVyy.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/FKHDVyy.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6295,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/25\/rockingham-county-nc-road-flooding-photos\/","url_meta":{"origin":7770,"position":1},"title":"Rockingham County (NC) road flooding photos","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to the Rockingham County Sheriff's Department for sending out these photos... This is the Bethlehem Church Road Boat Landing (across from Lynrock Golf Course) in Eden NC This is off Rt. 863 (Berry Hill Rd.) about one mile past the VA\/NC border","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4870,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/29\/busy-days-for-the-rockingham-county-sheriffs-dept\/","url_meta":{"origin":7770,"position":2},"title":"Busy days for the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Dept.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Three incidents in 24 hours make for a lot of press releases... First: A 15 month-old child was bitten on the shoulder, jaw and nose by a chained dog and recieved stitches in the Morehead Hospital emergency room. The owner of the dog was charged with having an non-vaccinated dog.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5043,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/16\/jail-fail-fail\/","url_meta":{"origin":7770,"position":3},"title":"“Jail Fail” Fail.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When we get something wrong, we have no problem mocking ourselves at our own Fail. We've got no regrets in announcing our own Fail on this one. We declared the attempted hanging in the Rockingham County jail as a Fail. It seems that we were premature in sticking the Fail\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7165,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/07\/25\/eden-man-drowns-in-mayo-river\/","url_meta":{"origin":7770,"position":4},"title":"Eden man drowns in Mayo River","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We've got a tragic story from Rockingham County (NC). A 42-year old Eden man drowned while helping to save his sons from an undercurrent in the Mayo River on Saturday evening. Glenn Elmer Hampton (42) drowned in the Anglin Mill Loop area of the Mayo River at 6:45 PM on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5103,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/24\/rockingham-county-sheriffs-office-still-busters\/","url_meta":{"origin":7770,"position":5},"title":"Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office: Still-Busters!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What happens when you have a liquor still on your back porch? Dumbasses. Like father, like son. From our friends at the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office... (Madison, NC) - - Narcotics detectives with the Sheriff\u2019s Office went to 571 Planters Road after receiving information about marijuana plants growing outside and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7770"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7792,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770\/revisions\/7792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}