TRIAC, We Hardly Knew Ye

A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line

The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company.

All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan.

Okay, so the little town of Salinas, California - known as the "Salad Bowl of the World" and host of the annual Steinbeck festival - decided to play venture capitalist to a "green" business.  Arguably, giving tax cuts to businesses to lure them to your location is a municipal function, but writing a check without consideration of the solvency of a company is not.

$300,000 in 2009, $240,000 in 2010 after the company "ran into financial trouble" - and now the mayor of Salinas says he is "surprised and disappointed" that the investment did not pan out, while council members are "equally irked that Ryan notified them through an email that his company had crashed and burned."

Better luck next time.