EDA Meeting for 11-18-2010

The meeting ended today with a closed session. Starting out were guests John Sissler and John Coffey, who works with the SVEC and John Coffey talked to the EDA on how they can help in the community. SVEC has and EDA arm to which they can help getting business started in a community by offering incentives to a newly formed business. They also can help with a plan, which would be custom tailored, to what a new business may need as far as electricity usage. John also spoke that a $46 million capital improvement plan will be spent over the next few years, most of it being spent in Page County. Also explained that there will be 7 years for vegatative maintaince for a complete ground to sky clearance of vegetation around the power lines.

Baughn had recieved notice on the bills that the EDA had sent to the BoS to be asked to be paid. The letter provided what will be paid:

• $1,425 to Bach Rowe
• $800 Stowe Engineering
• $8,500 for Mrs. Hudson’s legal fees
• $8,777 reimbursement of the EDA revolving loan fund
• $7,000 appraisal fee (It will be lower if Rebecca pays for her part as she agrees to)

Any future fees accured by the EDA will discussed at the the Dec. BoS work session.

Time to Move Foward

Last week’s Page News & Courier story on the front page, above the fold titled “The Board Reluctant to Pay the EDA’s Bills” did not sit well with J.D. Cave and he let Kevin Seabrooke know what he thought about it. Kevin apologized for the mistake. Portions of the proposed bill submitted by the EDA did not please any members of the board. To keep from adding to any burden to the tax payers, fearing that the EDA may have to sell any land it owns to cover their expenses, a motion was passed 5-1, JD on the no vote. The terms of the motion is that the EDA provides a proof of performance invoices to the board and Mark Belton and Mark Belton would itemize the bill and he would decide what needs to be paid. The total bill amount presented was $26,502. This also includes the $7000 owed for an appraisal that was started by the EDA after Philip Rainwater’s personal appraisal been done on the Clover property earlier this year in an attempt by the EDA to defunkt the certified appraisal, in addition to lawyer fees and $8771 (that was used to cover cost of expenditures) for an EDA fund that needs to be reimbursed.

Budget amendment was passed for the school board and the sheriffs office.

Patrick Embry of Valley Automation was awarded $6099 to replace backup equipment for the county and sheriffs department.

Valley Regional Transport asked for $35,277 funding from the county to continue operations of bus routes in the county. They were unaware that the county had removed them from the budget when the cuts were made earlier this year and had been operating for sometime with no funding.   Valley says they can continue until December 10th for now. Jeff Vaughn asked if they can continue to do so until the next years budget. Valley Regional Transport will let Mark Belton know. Jeff Vaughn asked if a census can be done to see who is really affected if the transit would be unable to operate in the county.

This week Discussions:

I would like to start off by saying make sure to thank a veteran today. Just realize that some things we have and or able to do would not be possible without them.

The hot topic debate this week seems to be the EDA. J.D. Cave pretty much voiced his displeasure on helping the EDA with their budget, citing they have land to sell. With that thought, how the EDA is recognized, visit here http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+15.2-4904 to understand more. There are some other groups in the county that do not depend, or not heavily if they do, funding from the County. Chamber of Commerce is one to come to mind.

Feel free to discuss more and or to add your thoughts.