| I have been following the NASCAR debate here with some interest since moving here last year from Joliet, Illinois, near where the Chicagoland Speedway was built by ISC a few years ago. The change in our community was monumental — and mostly all good.
I have a difficult time understanding why a community would want to turn away a facility that generates jobs, and millions of dollars of new tax revenue for the county and state, without the enormous, ongoing expense associated with locating a major corporate facility here. If Microsoft wanted to locate a facility here and employ 3,000 people, would we fight them too?
What we wouldn’t have, is 3,000 new people jamming our roads going to work every day, the cost of schooling their kids, or the new developments required to house them.
As we found out in Illinois, hosting 80,000 race fans a couple of weekends a year is a much better deal. They come, spend enormous amounts of money in our community, and then they go home. Corporate racecar sponsors also come and get to see our community at work firsthand. Maybe they’ll consider us as a location for expansion, bringing family wage jobs with them. Compare that to a new Wal-Mart or Home Depot.
We found ISC to be gracious corporate citizens who are good stewards of the environment and active in our community — much more so than Wal-Mart or any of the other major corporate chains.
The vocal level of opposition to something so positive simply baffles me. As someone who has “been there and done that,” this should be a no-brainer.
Wendell J. Strong
Bremerton | 
