Sanofi-Aventis is the largest pharmaceutical company in all of Europe,and is one of the world's five largest pharmaceutical companies, along with Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, and GlaxoSmithKline. In their last fiscal year, this mammoth organization had revenues in excess of $38,000,000,000. If there are too many "zeroes" to comprehend, that number is THIRTY EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS.
As we previously noted, they are presently in a 35,000 sq. ft. building in Oro Valley and on November 15th, broke ground for there brand new 110,350 square foot research and development facility in Innovation Park.
Sounds like good news, right? But wait...
On December 12th, the Oro Valley Town Council went into Executive Session (also known as "a secret session") to take up the following agenda item:
"Discussion and consultation with legal counsel regarding moving forward and presenting an economic development agreement to Sanof Aventis Tucson Research Center."
As this was a "secret session", all we can report is the fact that Council Member Paula Abbott, to her credit, opted not to be part of this "deal." Whether or not it was legal to discuss this EDA in secret is another question.
Why this Council will even consider giving any incentive to a company will more than $38 BILLION in revenue is mind boggling, while this same council keeps coming up with new ways to tax the citizens. If that's not crazy, you tell me what it is! Hopefully, will all soon find out what was done behind closed doors (See our posting of December 16). In any even, this Council can't get away with any "giveaways" without allowing the citizens to know.
Might this be just another reason to get new people on this council with a little more fiscal responsibility?
