Accusations, blame follow Deschutes loss
A grueling seven-hour Buncombe County government meeting ended with accusations and blame over a lost deal to lure a brewery offering 135 jobs.
County commissioners who voted for a deal, which included buying a $6.8 million parcel to lure Deschutes Brewery, said Republican Commissioner Miranda DeBruhl was partially or even largely to blame for the Oregon-based company choosing Roanoke instead of Asheville as the home for its new East Coast facility.
"I am really concerned about the (135) people in our community that would have had a good job if we hadn’t of gone off half-cocked," said Commissioner Holly Jones, an Asheville Democrat representing District 1. "Those people are really short-changed by folks having their own agendas."
Conflicts over the deal in the past and at Tuesday's Board of Commissioners meeting split down party lines with Democrats supporting the property purchase and Republicans opposing it.
DeBruhl and other Republicans said land purchase supporters were speculating with taxpayer money. DeBruhl, who is from Leicester and represents District 3 and who is also running for chair, said a primary motivation of Democrats was to "control" what happened on the property, which is located in South Asheville on the west bank of the French Broad River off Ferry Road.
She said her Democratic opponent for chair, Brownie Newman, specifically referenced one of the region's highest profile home builders, George Vanderbilt heir Jack Cecil.
"There was a comment made about controlling what would go there … and that we wanted to not allow Jack Cecil to build homes there," she said.
Deshutes announced March 22 the decision to go to Virginia after more than two years of mostly behind-scenes talks between company representatives, county officials and local economic developers attached to the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce.
The issues came up at Tuesday's meeting with two items related to Deschutes. Commissioners voted 7-0 to begin the process of actively selling the property the brewery had named as key to the now-failed deal. Buncombe bought the property last year from Henderson County and was immediately reimbursed for half the value, $3.4 million by Asheville. That was because of a convoluted water deal in which Asheville was allowed to build a Mills River drinking water facility in 1999.
In the second item, DeBruhl and fellow Republican Joe Belcher asked that minutes of a March 17, 2015, emergency closed session about the purchase be amended to include more details about their opposition. The minutes are brief, giving some details about the reasons for the purchase, but little about the opposition.
"The potential for the brewery to locate here was good but they were considering other sites and if the property was purchased by Buncombe and the brewery did not chose to locate here, the county would own the property," part of the minutes said.
DeBruhl's motion failed 3-4. She argued the problem could be solved by changing the county's practice and recording the minutes, something Democrats have declined to do with Chairman David Gantt saying it would hurt economic development deals that use confidentiality. He asked DeBruhl several times if she recorded the minutes. She did not answer.
Democrats passed a motion 4-3 to approve the minutes as they were written — but not before almost an hour of heated debate in which tempers flared and commissioners spoke over and interrupted each other, leaving Gantt struggling to keep order.
Belcher said he was not going to support the deal anyway because it involved the "beer and alcohol industry" but asked that the minutes "show I said I was not comfortable with speculating on a land purchase."
DeBruhl said the minutes should include Newman's comment about Cecil.
"Clearly, it was said that we’ve got to buy the property now. We need to control it. We need to control what goes there," she said.
Board Clerk Kathy Hughes said commissioners were free to make those changes because "they are your minutes" but that she could not attest to that being said.
"If it’s not in my handwritten record, I won’t sign them," Hughes said.
Gantt said though it was about 11 p.m. it was an appropriate time for all commissioners to air feelings on the deal since there were no more concerns about confidentiality.
The chairman said DeBruhl likely harmed the deal by publicly casting doubt on whether it would work, calling it "a fairy tale" and "a joke."
"And in fact called the president of the company and asked when they were going to make their mind up, right at a critical time … We were right in the middle of heavy negotiations."
Economic developer Ben Teague sent commissioners an e-mail saying Deschutes was concerned that things were being revealed, Gantt said.
DeBruhl said she called Deschutes President Michael Lalonde because the company had gone past a timeline it had given for making a decision.
"For seven months, multiple decision dates we were told came and went. For seven months, we discussed this," she said. "Having something in writing, a letter of intent, a contract, something. There was nothing."
She said Lalonde had talked openly to the media at that point. After the decision was made, the president stated publicly her statements and contact with him had no effect, DeBruhl said.
Newman said the company was likely being polite by saying the conflict on the board and public questioning about the deal had no effect.
"If we had treated any of the other county economic development prospects in the way that Deschutes was treated, we wouldn’t have won any other of these big deals either with GE, Linamar or others," the vice chairman said.
Newman said he couldn't remember if a year ago he had used Cecil's name but said the homebuilder and other people involved in economic development would likely agree that industry and not a subdivision is the best use for the property.