You gotta be kiddin! Jim Bispo has some thoughts on Quick Start II | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    Yesterday (2-15-12) we published a letter from Warren Smith that was the result of some statistical research he has done that shows that Beaufort County's Economic Development Program since 2000 has not only had little or no positive impact on key economic indicators, but in spite of spending over $8 million dollars our standing on those indicators, compared to neighboring counties has actually gone done. None of the comparables have spent anywhere near what Beaufort County has spent.

    On top of all that, Jim Bispo has some thoughts on the debacle that is the "QuickStart II" building that the EDC persuaded the Commissioners to build based on a study that they can't seem to locate anymore. The issue is the costs of maintaining the "Blue Goose." Here are Jim's musings:

   Fifteen thousand dollars of corrective maintenance required on a nominally two year old building. Add to that a little over five thousand more for an engineering firm to evaluate the maintenance required on this facility that is designed to bring unending prosperity to the area and we are looking at a little over $20,000 of what some folks would call "wasted money".

    It occurs to me that the engineering evaluation of the product as well as the new work (or is it rework??) to be performed will help employment in the county. It will certainly create work for companies that perform maintenance. How many man (person) years of work fo you suppose have ben created?? And, just think, by the time you factor in a multiplier of 2.5 or 3 - or more, we could well end up with enough economic improvement to give us the lowest unemployment rate in the state. Just think... Oh, but wait. The five thousand goes to a Wake County company. It's like the Economic Developer's salary - which goes to Craven County; it doesn't help Beaufort County at all. No "direct impact" and no "multiplier effect" on those dollars. It remains to be seen if the company that ends up doing the repairs is local or not.

    Jim Spain, the county's maintenance supervisor, as quoted in the WDN, is quite correct when he says a building cannot be allowed to just sit with no preventative maintenance being performed. Although he was not quoted as saying so, it seems rather clear that he knows that lack of preventative maintenance will result in a need for corrective maintenance. It is difficult to believe that our vaunted Economic Developer and his big time supporters at the Committee of 100, with all their industrial management experience, didn't know that. Apparently they didn't. Or maybe they didn't care...

    There are likely a lot of folks who are wondering just whose responsibility it was to design and oversee the construction of the building. Surely it was somebody. It is difficult to believe that anybody could be so careless with the taxpayer's money as to hand the plans and specifications for a building over to a contractor and then walk away until the facility is completed. Even if a lot of the money was acquired through grants, it still originated with the long suffering taxpayers...We deserve better. Whether you call it misfeasance, or malfeasance or nonfeasance, somebody's performance came up woefully short. It is time we found out how we got ourselves into this situation. We simply cannot afford to tolerate this type of performance (or is it lack of performance??). Even if we were a "rich" county we should not tolerate things like this.

    Talking about facility management, wasn't just a short year or two ago that the windows of this building required re-caulking and concrete panels required re-grouting?? And now the engineering firm that was engaged to evaluate what repairs are required seems to be recommending that a lot of the same work be performed again.

    And what about bringing the roof up to code?? If the code has changed since the building was constructed, that's one thing. If the original plans, specifications, and construction simply failed to comply with the code, it is quite a serious breach of professional standards. Please don't tell me that when the EDC or the Committee of 100 builds something they are not subject to inspection by the Building Department. Unfortunately after seeing how those two groups (with their occasional full page EDC / Committee of 100 propaganda ad in the WDN and Belhaven's weekly Beaufort-Hyde News) dazzle us with their presentations, it is easy enough to believe that they may well be above compliance with mundane things like local building codes.

    According to the Feb. 12th WDN article about this situation, we were told that if the county (whoever that is) cannot reach a deal with the company which constructed the building to cover at least part of the cost of repairs, the county's taxpayers could be forced to pay the entire cost. The repairs would be paid from money appropriated to the Beaufort County Economic Development Commission by the commissioners in the 2011 2012 fiscal year budget, county officials have said.

    Now, just wait a minute. A couple of years ago the EDC gave up without a whimper $5000 out of their budget so Al Klemm could fund the local Chambers of Commerce (Aurora, Belhaven, Washington). And now we are hearing that, if required, they will pick up the tab for the repairs to their spec. building. Surely that money could not have been included in the EDC budget. We are left to wonder how it is that they seem to have so much excess money in their budget that they are able to give it up so freely. There are some folks who would suggest that perhaps the EDC budget needs a whole lot closer scrutiny than it has been receiving. Never mind that the Committee of 100 seems to be so inexorably involved with everything the EDC does. Hmmm..

    We keep reading in the Committee of 100 ads that appear in the local papers from time to time about all the marvelous accomplishments attributable to the EDC. What we do not hear is that we have progressed out of our Tier 1 status. Considering all the money the EDC has spent, and the fact that much of it is still sitting on the sidelines waiting to bring us a return on our investment, we should perhaps consider a different road to prosperity. Perhaps the EDC should be done away with. It is certainly time to ask ourselves how much of the EDC style of prosperity we can afford..

    D'ya think??