David Michael Miller
Taiwanese flat screen maker Foxconn has announced that it is purchasing a building on the Capitol Square to make it easier for local protesters to gather at the building to denounce the $4 billion subsidy for the company, its skirting of environmental regulations and its history of backing out on its agreements.
On Friday the company announced that it would purchase a building from BMO Harris Bank on the corner of Main Street and Martin Luther King. Jr., Boulevard. The company was vague about the actual uses for the building or why a company that promised, then didn’t promise, then changed its promise, then backed out on its promise and then re-promised to build a large (then smaller) manufacturing facility 100 miles away on the shores of Lake Michigan needs an office building in downtown Madison.
Spokespeople made it clear that it had something to do with an “innovation center” it plans (but hasn’t built) on the UW engineering campus. It was not immediately obvious why a building on the campus would need a sister building about a mile away.
Last year Foxconn announced that it would build “innovation centers” at a few locations around the state. Why an international company would need “innovation centers” in Eau Claire, Green Bay and Madison is not clear, but observers observed that the very idea of an “innovation center” may have been needed to help Foxconn booster and then-Gov. Scott Walker win reelection. The company may now need to reevaluate its plans as the centers failed to deliver that particular innovation.
Insiders say that UW-Madison may also want to build a Clue Center in which UW administrators can research the “Charlie Brown Effect” in which a metaphorical football is held in place while a gentle yet gullible boy (the UW) runs at the ball only to have it pulled away at the last minute by a young lady (Foxconn) over and over and over again. Clue Center researchers could do a field trip just 80 miles down the road to Milwaukee where, amid much hoopla, Foxconn announced elaborate plans for an office building downtown only to hedge, if not back out altogether, on the deal amid much less hoopla.
The UW was all over it itself last year thanking Foxconn for a $100 million matching gift for its “innovation center” on the UW campus. But more recently the UW has refused to share information about how much money has been raised toward the matching gift, what exactly the UW has agreed to do for the company or what sorts of innovations will be researched at the center. UW faculty have expressed concerns about the whole thing, but administrators say that that kind of critical thinking just isn’t very innovative.
Nonetheless, UW officials were there again last week to laud the announced purchase of the building on the Square. Sources say that UW administrators are absolutely certain that this time the ball will be held in place and that they will kick a metaphorical 50-yard field goal to win the game.
But one thing is clear. While most Wisconsinites are skeptical of Foxconn, outrage at the deal runs high in Madison. The new company building in the heart of the city will give Madisonians easy access to a protest site. Bringing the protest to the protesters. Now, that’s an innovation.
