Incompetent Innovista Leaders Refuse To Take Fall

Claiming that University of South Carolina President Harris Pastides and the school’s Board of Trustees approved their decision to hire a glorified con man as the second developer for the school’s failed “Innovista” project, two senior University officials in charge of the development allegedly refused a request from Pastides’ office to resign their positions yesterday.

That means “Innovista Czar” John Parks and his deputy Chad Hardaway will either have to be fired from their posts  or (gasp) they may actually be allowed to remain at the helm of this sinking ship.

Clearly the latter option seems highly unlikely, though, particularly given the level of scrutiny this latest Innovista embarrassment has created. Specifically, sources tell FITS that “multiple investigations” are in the works related to the doomed campus, although it remains to be seen which agencies will be sifting through the paper trail lurking behind all the empty buildings.

Let’s hope that whoever is tasked with that responsibility will investigate not only the bureaucrats responsible for this colossal failure, but also the politicians who kept dumping millions of tax dollars down this gaping hole.

Driven by S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell, Columbia (S.C.) Mayor Bob Coble and President Pastides, taxpayers have poured over $140 million into the Innovista campus – which was supposedly going to produce millions in capital investment and “thousands of high-paying jobs.”

It has failed miserably to deliver on those promises, though, attracting only $5.1 million in private investment and creating less than 250 jobs – nearly all of them taxpayer-funded University positions.

On top of all that, the administration of President Barack Obama has decided that hydrogen fuel cell research (i.e. what Innovista was supposed to be doing) is not worth funding.

In other words, Innovista has been a complete and total bust on all fronts – the definitive case study in why government should never be put in charge of economic development.

Amazingly, though, USC’s Board of Trustees is voting tomorrow on whether or not to “self-fund” this ongoing taxpayer debacle.

That’s insane. We believe that all work on Innovista should be stopped immediately pending a full, independent investigation of the project and the politicians responsible for its perpetuation.

Anything short of that at this point can only be described as gross negligence.

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