{"id":10464,"date":"2014-10-02T02:40:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T06:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=10464"},"modified":"2014-10-02T02:40:47","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T06:40:47","slug":"its-payback-time-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/02\/its-payback-time-again\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Payback Time… Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you Danville taxpayers liked paying back US Green Energy’s Tobacco Commission grant money<\/a>, you’re going to just love paying back more!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We called GOK Furniture<\/a> and Web Parts<\/a> as Job Busts a long time ago. Now, it’s official. Say goodbye to $2,000,000, folks.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, October 9th, Danville City Council is going to discuss the agreement that’s been reached on how to pay back $1,000,000 in Tobacco Commission grants for both GOK and Web Parts. Here the council letter that discusses it…<\/p>\n

SUMMARY<\/strong>
\nCity Council is asked to authorize the City Manager to execute agreements to reimburse the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission (Tobacco Commission) for non-performing Tobacco Region Opportunity Fund (TROF) grants of $1 million each issued to Web Parts and GOK, using the approach previously authorized for the U.S. Green Energy TROF grant repayment. Each agreement would provide for 25% of the obligation to be paid upon its signing with an additional 25% amount to be paid each year for the next three years, without interest. Funding would come from the unrestricted cash balance of the General Fund. Law suits have been filed against both companies to recover grant funds.
\nBACKGROUND<\/strong>
\nThe collapse of Danville’s traditional textile and tobacco industries had a devastating effect on its economy. The City has consequently been aggressively recruiting new businesses to replace thousands of lost jobs. Some of the City’s economic development clients have received financial incentive grants from the Tobacco Commission in exchange for taxable investment and employment commitments over three-year periods.<\/p>\n

In exchange for a $1 million TROF grants issued in the 2012, Web Parts and GOK committed to taxable investment and employment obligations within a three year period. Both companies have failed and these commitments have not been met. TROF grant agreements require recipients to refund the City if promises are not kept. Whether or not they do, the City is responsible to reimburse the Tobacco Commission for the grant. If outstanding amounts are not refunded by the City, the Tobacco Commission could freeze current disbursements, disallow any future grants, initiate State debt set-off collections, and pursue collection proceedings.<\/p>\n

The accompanying Grant Repayment Agreement form calls for the City to make annual payments of $250,000 over the next four years to satisfy this responsibility. The City has filed law suits against both companies seeking full reimbursements of grants paid to Web Parts and GOK.<\/p>\n

RECOMMENDATION<\/strong>
\nIn order to meet its commitments and maintain good standing with the Tobacco Commission, it is recommended that the City Manager be authorized to execute agreements to reimburse the Virginia Tobacco Commission for non-performing TROF grants of $1 million each issued in 2012 to Web Parts and GOK, providing for 25% of the obligations to be paid upon signing of agreements with an additional 25% amount to be paid each year for the next three years, without interest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, what can you say? It’s time to get real. The city is hiring outside legal counsel to sue these companies to get the money back from them, but that’s going to be hard to do. GOK’s assets appear to be a good looking sign outside their former building and three lawn chairs. Everything else is in China. As for Web Parts, Brad Mainland was such a good conman that I’m sure that he knows how to be judgment-proof. There’s a better chance in getting something out of him than GOK, but any money recovery is highly unlikely.<\/p>\n

And now, my head will explode.<\/p>\n

This is exactly what I was talking about when I strongly urged against paying out a bonus to the city retirees from the city’s general fund<\/a>. I knew this repayment was going to have to be made, and so did any rational member of city council. Fred Shanks & Buddy Rawley were the only ones to also take a stand against the bonus payout and they were damned right in doing so. That amount would have been pretty close to the first year’s installment and now that’s going to come from me and other Danville taxpayers in the long run.<\/p>\n

I’m directly calling out Sherman Saunders, Gary Miller, Larry Campbell, Alonzo Jones, Lee Vogler and James Buckner to justify their votes for the bonus now that $500,000 more has to come out of the city’s general fund. I don’t want to hear horsecrap like “The city had a good year.” or “We were running an unexpected surplus.” With their vote, they have eventually put that first repayment installment on the back of all Danville citizens, while only giving that bonus to less than 600 of those citizens.<\/p>\n

And to make it worse, there’s more of these repayments coming down the tracks. This isn’t over.<\/p>\n

Shame on the process that caused this situation to arise in the first place. Shame on those six Danville City Council members for making this dose of medicine taste even worse.<\/p>\n

\"sclogo\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you Danville taxpayers liked paying back US Green Energy’s Tobacco Commission grant money, you’re going to just love paying back more!<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,58,20,22,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-businesscentral","category-danville","category-newscentral","category-opinioncentral","category-politicscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-2IM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12840,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/28\/allergease-job-bust-but-not-so-fast\/","url_meta":{"origin":10464,"position":0},"title":"AllergEase: Job Bust! (But Not So Fast…)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Another Job Bust! AllergEase has left town! Their phone has been disconnected! The sky is falling! However, this could be a case of \"Not so fast, my friends!\" Next Tuesday night's Danville City Council agenda was released yesterday and local media swarmed on this... CL- 1151 New Business Item #:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10731,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/21\/danville-city-council-preview-102114\/","url_meta":{"origin":10464,"position":1},"title":"Danville City Council Preview (10\/21\/14)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's take a look at what's on tonight's Danville City Council agenda. We'll have LIVE! coverage of the meeting tonight (but you already knew that). Heh. Let's get a Big Board up... Although the business meeting starts at 6:30 PM, Council will have a closed session with City Attorney Clarke\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11954,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/02\/04\/lee-voglers-city-council-remarks-232015\/","url_meta":{"origin":10464,"position":2},"title":"Lee Vogler’s City Council Remarks (2\/3\/2015)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"February 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"At Tuesday night's Danville City Council meeting, Lee Vogler made a terrific, well-needed speech. We're glad to print his remarks in full here on SouthsideCentral. 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Nothing happened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12522,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/04\/30\/time-machine-hows-it-going-zeyuan-flooring\/","url_meta":{"origin":10464,"position":4},"title":"Time Machine: How’s It Going, Zeyuan Flooring?","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Not Too Good. Let's hop in the SouthsideCentral Time Machine and go back to October 17th, 2013 where this story began. And here we are out at the Institute on October 17th, 2013 where this announcement is made... 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I don't believe a damned word of it. Here's the press release... DANVILLE, Va. \u2013 GOK International Corp. will shift its product mix at its assembly plant and showroom in Ringgold\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10464"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10466,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10464\/revisions\/10466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}