Looks like the Red Route kill bill really was a jobs bill. Now that the legislature has canceled the N.C. Turnpike Authority's option to consider running a toll road through the middle of town, Garner is preparing Monday to announce the coming of an employer who promises to bring lots of jobs to the town in southeastern Wake County.

The announcement, said to involve a $12 million facility with more than 250 jobs at an average salary of $50,000, is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday, town council chambers, Building B, 900 7th Avenue, Garner.

What's the connection? Garner officials have said that the employer had optioned 10 acres in a Garner business park that found itself in the path of the Red Route, an alternate route for exending the Triangle Expressway toll road across southern Wake County. But the employer wasn't going to wait another year while turnpike officials agonized over whether to bulldoze this property.

It was this warning, that merely studying the Red Route would scare away a significant new source of jobs, that galvanized the legislature.