Ho Hum, another economic development failure. 
Business Week!

Imation Corp. has shuttered its floppy diskette plant in Wahpeton and will transfer ownership of its buildings to the city this week, its spokesman says.

“We are out of the place,” said Brad Allen, an Imation spokesman at the company’s headquarters in Oakdale, Minn…

Imation has received millions of dollars in local, state and federal grants and guaranteed loans to expand its Wahpeton plant. The company plans to transfer ownership of two buildings in Wahpeton to the city on Thursday. One building the company used was owned by the city.

I have to give credit to these economic development guys.  They can pick a bad investment everytime.

Millions of dollars spent and nothing to show for it.  What kind of economic development WOULD have happened if this money weren’t coerced from the people that earned it to give to this corporate charity.

This investments seem to always turn out wrong.  That’s probably why the people of North Dakota made it expressly illegal for any ND government entity (which includes cities, counties etc) to give money to a private business.  And with the respect that we’ve come to expect from the government they decided that the state constitution didn’t apply to them if they formed an economic development corporation to do what they are expressly forbidden to do.

The former head of the North Dakota Workers Safety and Insurance agency is going to trial for misappropriation of state property.  The are accusing him of giving about $20,000 to employees as non-authorized bonuses. 

These Economic Development guys are losing millions and nothing happens to them.  Where was that story about North Dakota corruption again?