Dear Mr. Hyundai First, lest you think me ungrateful, thank you.

Thank you for bringing thousands of good paying jobs to this part of Georgia. It’s been a need for a long time.

In fact, me and my buddies have often sat up late at night discussing life’s ever changing moods over a cold adult beverage and invariably we’ve come to the conclusion good paying industrial jobs are what this part of Georgia needs more of.

“So, of course, are people to work them,” one of us would invariably say, then go get another beer, but not before adding, “after all if some is good more is better and too much is not enough. It’s a law.”

If you doubt just ask the folks who run the Savannah port. You’d think they’d see a line of semis backed up or broke down in every direction from Port Wentworth to Macon to Camden County and think, ‘maybe we should back off a bit,’ but nope. They know the score. Winners don’t back off. They pile on.

That said, not everybody agrees. My arch nemesis, Basquat Finch, says most of the people who will benefit from your decision to build the world’s best-ever EV plant up in Black Creek will be those who need jobs or property owners in the area who can cash in, sell up and move to the beach or some gated community with the other swells.

And maybe those with connections and an elected and appointed official or two, who knows. The rest of us, meaning those of us who have jobs or are retired or about to be retired, or are too dumb to build EVs, or just want to live out in the country and be left alone, will be left instead with our figurative fingers up places they shouldn’t be wondering what happened.

“What’s in it for me?” asked Basquat, who can see the dark cloud in every silver lining. “All I’m getting out of this deal is more traffic, aggravation from neighbors I didn’t ask for and higher property taxes I’m already having a hard time paying. Fooey.”

Yep, he actually said “fooey.” That’s when I had the inspiration, Hyundai. Instead of fostering ill will among those who would’ve rather their once still largely rural community stayed mostly unchanged until whenever it is they shuffle off this mortal coil, you can make friends.

Here’s how. You give them something they don’t have to pay for. Think of it as a kind of Prize Patrol, like Publisher’s Clearing House or Coastal Electric, but instead of picking out a handful of winners every so often, you just go ahead and give out a free Hyundai EV (complete with battery and charging cable) to every longtime resident of Bryan, Chatham, Liberty and Effingham counties, with a caveat.

That caveat is they pay their property taxes, can prove they’ve lived here at least 25 years and don’t have any relatives from north of the border between the Carolinas.

I say 25 years because that’s probably about the time this once largely unspoiled place first started turning into what’s become one giant unplanned series of approved subdivisions punctuated by outlet malls and Big 10 alumni groups full of large people who wear Michigan or Ohio State jerseys to supermarkets and think buying a house means they own the whole town.

Before then, there were probably fewer than 250,000 people in the boundaries of the Savannah Harbor Interstate 16 Joint Development Authority, and most of them were in Chatham County.

That’s not even a year’s worth of production since you project this plant will make some 300,000 cars a year at full production. For perspective, that’s roughly as many vehicles as you see per hour at the signal at Highways 144 and 17 on any given weekday afternoon.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking I’m nuts by now, Hyundai, but stick with me for a minute or two longer.

I’m not suggesting you give everyone who meets the criteria a top-of-the-line EV, or even one of your lower-end models.

Instead, create a new model, just for residents of the four counties in the Savannah Harbor Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Industrial. Make the car a two-seater, with a rag top and have it resemble say an old Triumph Spitfire or MG Midget, and make it as basic as basic can be — but street legal, of course.

We don’t want people trying to drive something powered by 40 AAA batteries on I-16, for example. They’ll get squashed by a truck, or some woman realtor in a Tahoe.

You don’t even have to think up a name. Just call it the Hyundai JDA-model Here-UGo. Get it? “Here you go, here’s your free car.”

Anyway, it was just a thought. Thanks again for coming here and don’t be a stranger.

Your pal, Jeff.