It’s time to declare another Job Bust dead.
Hybrid Vehicles of Danville is located at 417 Loyal St. in Danville… or what’s left of the place is there. You can see from their website that they were going to make armored vehicles with hybrid engines. Their business plan seems to have failed for a few reasons.
First: To build armored vehicles with hybrid engines, you have to have hybrid engines. Oops. The only hybrid engine that they came up with was about enough to power a small car. That was nowhere close to being enough for a big vehicle with lots of armor on it. If they had been able to develop an engine like that, it could have been retrofitted into other types of large vehicles.
Second: You’ve got to have Lots-O-Employees to build those engines. Hybrid Vehicles of Danville has zero. Oops again.
Third: You’ve got to have Lots-O-Money to start a business like this. Would you be surprised to know that Hybrid Vehicles of Danville got $420,000 of Free Money from the Tobacco Commission to help with the start-up costs? Guess who’s paying for that if they bankrupt out? Yep, you’re right.
They promised $1.5 million in capital investment and 150 jobs in three years. That clock started in May 2012 so there’s still time on that clock… for now. I have discovered that Jim Bailey tried to get some more funding from private sources in Florida, but that has failed so far. Although I can’t confirm this directly, I have three independent sources that say the one armored hybrid vehicles that was produced and seen around Danville has been repossessed by the lien holder.
The building’s empty. There are no employees. They’ve got nothing.
Happy Trails, Hybrid Vehicles of Danville. You’re a Job Bust.
Our community loves to throw money at promises of industrialization, while ignoring our greatest community asset. We are surrounded by some of the best farmland in the world, but we continue to pursue these kind of industrial pipe dreams. By comparison, check out what Floyd County is doing with its Sustainable Floyd initiative–playing to its natural strengths.
I guess the Hybrid vehicle had Macerata Wheels on it and held furniture built by GOK. All received lots of money from Tobacco Commission and all busts. How is city going to pay it back? Bruce do
you have and answer?
I do, and I don’t like it. WE ARE! The taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook if these companies end up with no money and judgment-proof. Even if the owners end up in jail, the money still has to be repaid. Ugh.
I want to know who is in charge of vetting these businesses? Is there one business that the Tobacco Commission/City has given money to that has been a success? Are they actually looking at the business plans for these ventures or are they just blinded by all the smoke and mirrors?
As I drive by the Riverstone complex in South Boston often, I wonder how much $ has been invested there… As I know there is a LOT of open space around the circle.
Ahem. You mean the “Southern Virginia Technology Park”. That makes it better, you know.
Oh yea, i withdraw the question… Not
In addition to the job bust we now have at least one of the present local industries that is cutting back due to the high utility rates. This is not a good sign. Note to the Mayor, you have been telling us for months (years) to “be patient, the jobs are coming!” My question is “How long must we wait?”
The only reason any of these outfits are interested in a place like Danville is the Free Money. We don’t have any of the traditional assets such as a well-trained workforce or a strong educational system. All we have is a mediocre economic development operation that has learned how to throw around Free Money (Other People’s Money) and to attract the sort of places that SSC has chronicled in its Jobs Bust series. That’s all you are going to get. What serious operation is going to come here and invest its own money????? Examples, please.
Why are these questions never bought up to City Council or Economic Development Leaders? . We should ask for answers as to how these business
owners are going to repay or are they going to file legal charges against them?
Legal charges will require proof that the money was not spent on the things that the contract signed allowed for. For instance, if the principal at Danville Hybrid Vehicles was taking cash out of the account that held the $420,000 when it was earmarked exclusively to pay for capital property then there could be charges. If he only used it to pay for capital equipment (in this hypothetical) then there would be no fraud and therefore no charges. He could be sued by the city, but he very possibly would be judgment-proof.
$420,000? Really? That money was clearly destined to go up in smoke from the moment it was given.
I think it’s time to give the Tobacco Commission some of the blame here, too. It’s not as though they were doing vetting any more than Danville was, apparently. Between these massive job busts and the clear and rank political game being played at that agency by the Republican Party with Senator Puckett, there should also be a lot of scrutiny going their way.
There is no trainable workforce here unless we are going to make blankets and chinese furniture. Not only is the labor force unskilled, education levels are so low that the odds of finding any that are trainable for more than factory labor is laughable. Many can’t pass a drug test.
The only business that came here and stayed is the Greenrock prison.
Nothing amazes me more than the failure to acknowledge this. The jobs of the 21st century are all about skill acquisition. If you don’t have a well-educated workforce, you simply don’t have a chance as a city. And yet, there is this philosophy to just “throw free money” at companies. It’s been an utter failure over the past 5 years.
Danville needs a top notch public school system more than it needs to simply “make it rain” for companies looking for free money.
The better path than just having a top notch school system (both in the city and county) would be for each to specialize in some way in technical education. That’s really where Danville could improve things quite a bit. We don’t have a public university here, and we are not likely to get so much as a public four year college. Instead, it would be helpful if Danville could target industries it does want and train the non-college bound kids who might stick around to work in that industry as part of the high school curriculum.
What is the ALRC?
What is RCATT?
RCATT is the Regional Center for Advance Technology and Training. This is the Workforce Services part of DCC. RCATT does training for the jobs in local industries. Also does post high-school training to get the population ready for entry level jobs in the local industries. RCATT works with the local industries to identify their training needs.
And as Harold Garrison points out above, one of our oldest and most reliable companies has just stated in public that it is having to lay off workers because of the exorbitant electricity rates it must pay to operate. The disrespect for the public and the incompetent management runs from top to bottom in our city. You would think that at the very least, the city could competently operate its electric utility monopoly.
Who came up with this business model, and more importantly, who reviewed it and said “Yeah, that’s a money-making, job-creating idea, let’s fund it!”
Hybrid Armored Vehicles? Who is the target consumer, some tree-hugging, apocalyptic survivalist? Geez!
Might want to check out Norhurst and see what they have been doing with the 625K of Tobacco money…
I thought I read that Norhurst had already bellied up and skipped???? Are they still here?
So many good questions and observations here.
Several observations of my own if I may:
1) Hurray to Southside Central! These economic development failures go largely unreported in the regular media. If not for this forum, only a few of us that follow this stuff closely would know. New announcements are front page stories with the mayor proclaiming ‘another great day for Danville’ yet when they flop the quietly fall off the City’s economic development report without a mention.
continued
2) The City Council is incompetent on economic development issues. No great shock since none of these folks are professionals in this area and they rely on the city manager for direction. But they seem unable to ask the obvious questions, at least obvious to me. Plus they are guilty of putting on a facade of great success when their track record is the opposite. I truly think most of them believe the bullshit they are spreading. They are not bad people. Just incompetents who want to do good but do not have the tools to do so. Some will run for higher office proclaining the great job they did for the “river city”. The sad thing is they are unwilling to discuss with the public when inquiries are made. The excuse is the normal “this is under litigation and I cannot comment”.
3) The real fault lies on the city manager and economic development director. Let’s give the new guy a chance. Jeremy Stratton was an utter failure but he was heralded as a great success.
This comment is right on. If you take people with little knowledge in the field, as in the city council, you can only get out what is put in. In the case of technology and city council, zero in gives zero out. There are people in Danville with good knowledge of technology in general. They would be an excellent bed of information on what it takes to build a sustainable business and have good ideas from past experience on the type of businesses that have a more than 50% chance of making it. City council needs to use that resource to help them make educated decisions on whether an idea has more than a slim chance of making it.
4) More bad news will follow. Remember the Chinese floor company that took over the lease of the Chinese furniture company. While I do not know the details, I know their has not been a single car in the parking lot all summer on week days. Usually an empty parking lots is a great indicator. (ie Check the parking lot on any work day at eComnets in Airside Industrial Park.)
PS to Shawn on Norhurst:
1) Bet your money on another failure. Bruce will keep us up-to-date.
2) Appears you did not hear the other half of the story: Shortly after closing the deal on the old Dan River Corporate headquarters, they promptly sold a good part of their parking lot and Additional land to the IDA (Industrial Development Authority) for $425K so they actually walked away with $1,050,000.
while I agree that Danville needs to have a workforce that possesses the skills employers are looking for please remember that both the city and county school systems must do more and more with fewer and fewer resources every year. The reason for this is because state funding is based on the tax base of the school system so the higher your tax base the more funding you get from the state. Try teaching students to be ready for the 21st century when you are still having to use technology from the 20th century—and when you figure out how let me know
I think we’re suggesting that the city should kick in at least a little more for this education and the county should kick in a LOT more.
I don’t think any of us mean it as an attack on the schools. As a parent of a child in Pittsylvania County, I am appalled at the lack of county support the schools get for anything other than building sheds for the football teams and also very happy with what the schools are doing to teach my child in spite of this limitation on resources that constrains them.
If the millions upon millions poured into so-called economic development over the past 20 years had been put into basic education, the city and county schools might well be producing education levels that would attract solid companies and sustainable economic development. It is a classic tragedy to behold what our “leaders” have done to the public in squandering these huge monetary resources.
But it couldn’t have been done that way. This Free Money was allocated to only business development.
Wasn’t that a Joe King project?
Not really. Joe was only a part of the decision making process.
So you’re saying that the “City Manger” has no responsibility to oversee city projects? Who should be in charge if he’s not? What is his purpose then?
This isn’t a “city project”. It’s a private business venture. He was only part of the decision process to approve the backing of the grant.
However the city will have to repay the money!
True. I just wanted to point out the role of the city manager in this process.
Bruce, Who is responsible for following up with these busts and letting us know that they won’t be hiriing, will not repay the money, and did not honor any of the commitmments made to the city of Danville?
When is enough enough and when is ti time to hold these people that have come in and taken the funds and left town, accounatable both in public and in the courts?
It would seem that the answer is “nobody”, as nobody officially wants to publicly announce that a business is a Job Bust.
Case in point: I declared GOK Furniture to be a Job Bust and within three days, the city issued a statement saying that were “reorganizing” and trying a new business plan. I immediately called horsecrap on that as well. FYI: What they said was “going to happen” hasn’t happened yet.
Nobody else has the guts to do the investigative reporting and call these things out.
Perhaps we should have a “critical mass” of people at the next City Council meeting asking the same question of City Council. The Mayor has said many times during his closing remarks, “Be patient, the jobs are coming.” We need to ask how long must we wait and what is the status of each of the “job announcements” where members of City Council had their photo-op. September 2 is the next council meeting, however there will be a large group of city retirees there asking for their “Cost of Living” adjustment. Maybe a large group at the September 16th meeting asking about the status of all the companies that have decided to “invest” in Danville are and when the jobs are going to appear will get some answers for the citizens of Danville. We need to know how much we will have to repay in the future for the “JOB BUST”!
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