Corruption in economic development. Surprise, surprise the State Auditor blasts the Rural Center | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    At the same time that the Legislature is considering creating a "private partnership" structure to manage state economic development activity and on the heels of a similar audit of the Golden Leaf Foundation the State Audior Wednesday (7-17-13) release a scathing report of the Rural Economic Development Center. You can read it for yourself by clicking here.

    This is the same outfit that the Observer has reported on in the past, as a result of the very able research of Betty Murphy. You can read those articles simply by entering the term "Rural Center" in the search box on the home page. You will find specific projects reported in the archives under "Carver." Warren Smith has exposed this corruption in a number of articles you can review by searching for his name.

    And you may be interested that even at the last County Commission meeting Bob Heuts, the county's economic developer, appeared before the Commission seeking approve to seek money from the Rural Center.

    Rumor has it that the majority on the County Commission has already decided to try to get the Rural Center to finance a new jail so the issue does not have to be put to a vote of the people as is actually required by the State Constitution.

    Governor Pat McCrory issued the following statement in response to the audit:

    Governor Pat McCrory released the following statement on the Rural Center audit today:

    "Based upon the recent audit, I believe it is time for new leadership at the Rural Center in the roles of president and chairman of the board.

    "At a time when rural areas of our state are suffering the most, we must ensure that we are using our limited funds by the most effective, efficient and transparent means. These funds must be used to grow our rural economies and create jobs.

    "I believe that new leadership will begin to address and fix the serious issues identified by the state audit."

    Commentary

    The most serious damage done to the people of this state is not even mentioned in the State Auditor's report and the Governor's action is irrelevant to it. That is the damage that comes from sucking this money out of the economy from private businesses in order to redistribute it to the select few who get these grants that the audit finds do not provide adequate accountability. The Auditor does not even attempt to show how much more productive those private businesses would have been had the money been left with them to invest rather than being collected by the state and then turned over to the Rural Center to be distributed to a few marginally successful enterprises, many of who failed. Except at making political contributions to politicians who support these grants.

    How much more of this corruption are we going to put up with - from both Democrats and Republicans before a stop is put to it?

    In all due respect Governor, the problem is not going to be solved by changing the names and faces. The problem is systemic. The problem is the concept or crony capitalism. We urge you to correct the problem root and branch.