By Jessie Burchette
Salisbury PostCounty commissioners are in the midst of hashing out a standard form legal agreement to be used for future incentive grants.
Several weeks ago, county officials discovered that there isn’t a standard agreement in place. In addition, commissioners have approved incentive grants for four or more companies over the last two years and no legal agreement has been signed.
County Manager Bill Cowan said previously that the Salisbury-Rowan Economic Development Commission had been assigned the task of dealing with agreements. With the departure of the executive director, Cowan discovered that agreements had not been prepared or signed for five prior incentive grants.
Monday night, Cowan gave commissioners a completed inch-thick agreement with Wind Tunnel eXtreme.
County Attorney Jay Dees negotiated that agreement over a period of several weeks. Since becoming county attorney two years ago, it was the first involvement Dees had in an incentive grant agreement.
During that process, Dees recommended the county develop a standard agreement and make it available at the outset of the incentive grant process.
Cowan said an agreement with Toyota Racing Development is also complete.
Commissioner Jon Barber, liaison to the EDC Board, said agreements with National Starch, PGT, Food Lion and Square D are in the works and should be completed within 60 days.
A signed agreement is necessary before the company can receive tax rebates.
Under the new proposal, the standard form agreement will be given to companies at the start of the incentive process and will be executed when commissioners approve an incentive grant.
Commissioners raised several questions at their Dec. 17 meeting about the agreement proposed by the EDC.
After it became clear that commissioners were not going to reach agreement on the contract that night, Chairman Arnold Chamberlain asked commissioners to contact County Attorney Jay Dees or others and hash out their concerns.
Among the issues, Commissioner Jim Sides questioned whether the county should allow the incentive grant to be transferred by sale to an entirely different company. He cited the example of Progress Energy selling its power company to Southern Company.
Also, Dees advised that the county shouldn’t give incentives on property the company fails to list. He cited an example where the county discovered $25 million in unlisted property at the Progress Energy facility. The company then asked to include it in the incentive grant. The county refused.
Other issues include how long a company has to build its facility and receive its full incentive package.
The agreement will be back on the agenda in January.
Officials also welcomed Robert Van Geons as the new EDC executive director.
In another matter, the board approved a right-of-way and easement agreement across two county-owned parcels in the Speedway Business Park to allow installation of a sewer line to serve the David Blaney property. Blaney, a NASCAR driver, is building a racing-related facility in the park.
Sides made clear his displeasure at discovering the line was being installed across county property before commissioners had approved the easement. He said county officials should not allow that to happen in the future.
Sides joined other commissioners in unanimously approving the easement.
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Contact Jessie Burchette at 704-797-4254 or jburchette@salisburypost.com.