A dispute between the City of Nashua and the state of New Hampshire over a high-profile international purchase has raised questions about bureaucracy at home, as well as revealed the deep-seated bias that permeates American society.
Nongfu Spring, a Chinese beverage bottling company founded by billionaire Zhong Shanshan, purchased a 375,000-square-foot warehouse facility in Nashua for $67 million – four times the land’s assessed price – this past spring, according to NHPR. This purchase and its hefty price tag drew attention from officials at the local, state and even federal levels who questioned the transparency of the sale and whether any sale should be occurring with a “foreign adversar[y],” as Gov. Kelly Ayotte described China. Even Rep. Maggie Goodlander got involved, requesting the federal treasury department to review the transaction.
In particular, Michael Bergeron, a business development manager for the N.H. Department of Business and Economic Affairs, came under scrutiny for his role in organizing meetings between representatives of Nongfu Spring, the City of Nashua and local water utility Pennichuk. In response to Bergeron’s perceived failure to notify his superiors of the potential transaction and its inclusion of a foreign buyer until months into the process, the N.H. Attorney General introduced changes to the relevant process to more closely screen such potential clients.
Despite the process changes, Bergeron himself was cleared of any wrongdoing by the attorney general’s office, which maintained he broke no rules through his involvement in the sale. Indeed, the only wrongdoing on his part that is evident to me is a lack of transparency that I would expect should be simple to remedy going forward.
At a time when Republicans want to make constant and callous cuts to every government service imaginable, maybe some additional hefty investments are just what N.H. needs.
Transparency should be a top priority for any public official or body, so I can appreciate the attorney general’s attempt to be responsive to public concerns about Bergeron’s actions regarding this sale. Even so, I feel the involvement of a foreign buyer is one of the least concerning aspects of this scandal and it worries me to see our officials, in their predictable and tiresome fashion, turn this legitimate issue of public trust into an excuse to fearmonger about supposed ties between Nongfu Spring and the Chinese Communist Party, which have not been proven.
I can also understand concerns about potential water supply issues that could arise from introducing a large industrial operation to Nashua; once again, though, those sounding the sirens have failed to explain how such issues would be the fault of communism and not the fault of negligent business practices that are all too common in the worlds of business and politics across the U.S., China and pretty much every other industrialized nation on the planet. If they want problems to point to as threats, they can start by looking a whole lot closer to home.
Lawmakers must avoid regulating blindly out of fear or we will live our lives still disadvantaged and trembling the whole time to boot.
Charlotte King can be contacted at
cking@kscequinox.com
