Warren Smith: Mr. Klemm | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Publisher's note: We addressed the much belated Beaufort County EDC annual report in a previous article published June 9, 2012. This companion piece, also from Beaufort County concerned citizen, Warren Smith, is also addressed to Beaufort County Commissioner Al Klemm, who was mentioned in an article in the Washington Daily News, published June 9, 2012.

Mr. Klemm,

    In referring to the Economic Development Commission's 2012 annual report:

    "It's acceptable," said Commissioner Al Klemm in an interview Saturday. "It meets the criteria of the by-laws. You could argue about it with this little point and that little point, but let's be sane about it."

    Click here to view the Washington Daily News article.

    What is actually sane about this report? What do you find acceptable about a one sided public relations piece being submitted, 75 days late and only after a threatened suspension of pay, in place of documented tool for management review and oversight?

    There is not a single lending officer or corporate credit manager in the nation who would not see this report as an amateurish effort. Every teacher in this county would see it as a simple variation of "the dog ate my homework."

    In 2011 Thompson's pay package ($157,000: Beau Co. plus $24,000: C100) took more money to Craven County than he brought into Beaufort County by way of grants and loans.

    Quick Start II lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in market value and literally was allowed to deteriorate structurally through neglect of basic maintenance. While surrounding counties, and now the Washington Industrial Park, are glutted with real estate offered for sale by professional realtors, QSII languishes.

    There is no formal analysis of the problems which our economic developer sees as holding this county back. None. No discussion of number of firms, various industries and their products, changes in unemployment and profitability of local businesses, share of business income going to local taxes, etc. , ad infinitum. No mention of how our economy integrates its commercial life into the region's economy. No plan on what to do about marketing the QSII.

    There is no mention of the criteria used to evaluate the long-term survivability of the beneficiaries of awarded grants, i.e., the financial ratios and profiles of the chosen firms. Have we learned nothing from Hi-Tide, SouthTech, AEP? Here today, gone tomorrow. Is the EDC continuing to hand out money on the word of the recipients that they can make a go of it?

    There is nothing here except 2011's continuing lack of actual achievement beyond preparing for 2012 to again give more matching grants to a Canadian firm, Spinrite, at the request of a friend of Mr. Thompson's at the Committee of 100, and a second grant to P&G targeting the ever worsening morass at the Washington Industrial Park.

    Regarding these two grants the first has cost local taxpayers $180,000 while the second project has required that improved land with infrastructure in place be substituted for unimproved land at a financial loss to the taxpayers. Due to the inept handling of the initial P&G grant's terms, P&G has been long delayed in beginning their construction.

    Finally, but by no means exhaustively, is there any documented or verifiable resubmission of the self contradictory and unsupported jobs sheets that Mr. Thompson has presented in his earlier fantasies? No discussion of pending claw back liabilities facing taxpayers?

    What can taxpayers or commissioners actually glean from this report? Sadly, it is foolishly one sided in its presentation and aims only at trying to salvage the tattered reputation of the Economic Development Commission.

    The commissioners need to take off the blinders and begin to see this mess for what it is: an unsupervised and expensive mistake which is very much the result of gullible oversight which consists in accepting every excuse offered by Mr. Thompson from "soon to be announced super secret corporate arrivals" to empty reports built of no more than half truths.

Regards,

Warren Smith
  Beaufort County

    PS: On June 4, 2012, when Mr. Deatherage mentioned that Craven County had closed their Economic Development office down, you commented, to the effect, that Craven County's development efforts were a failure while our efforts were a success. Why is it then that Beaufort County is a bottom tier county while Craven is a very top tier county?