The Henderson-Vance Economic Partnership cleared the last major hurdle to its creation Monday night, but the Vance County Board of Commissioners sent a couple of pointed messages to the economic development group while providing an endorsement on a 5-2 vote.
That vote gave the board’s backing to the concept of the partnership, a private, nonprofit group composed of a 27-member board of directors, an executive director and other professional staff. Two-thirds of the board members will gain their seats as official representatives of other organizations, including the county Board of Commissioners, the Henderson City Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Development Commission, the Tourism Development Authority, the school system and the community college.
The same motion, made by Danny Wright and seconded by Eddie Wright, appointed Danny Wright, Terry Garrison and Tommy Hester as the county board’s three representatives on the partnership board.
Also on a 5-2 vote, the board backed a motion from Wilbur Boyd, seconded by Hester, to direct those three representatives to request four changes to the partnership’s still-unfinished bylaws:
* To include a provision similar to the state open-meetings law to ensure that the partnership’s meetings are public events except for circumstances that warrant privacy, particularly discussions of incentives for specific business prospects.
* To require written notification of meetings to the Board of Commissioners and City Council.
* To mandate that those governing bodies receive advance notice of any planned changes to the partnership’s bylaws.
* To enact a policy that forces partnership board members to sign a strict conflict-of-interest statement
Chairman Tim Pegram and Deborah Brown formed the opposition on both votes.
Pegram explained his views last month when the commissioners’ General Government Committee discussed the partnership and backed it on a 2-1 vote. Pegram has no problem with a private group bringing specific proposals for economic development initiatives before the board, but he opposes handing the public’s business over to a private group.
The partnership will have a relationship with the county’s economic development and tourism agencies, but it’s not clear exactly what the partnership will do or how it will work with the county agencies.
Brown, however, seemed certain that the partnership sooner or later will control those agencies and their budgets. In response to the passage of Boyd’s motion, with its suggestions for how the partnership should govern itself, Brown offered her own ironic suggestions.
“I suggest … when you start talking about funds for certain departments that we oversee, such as tourism and the economic development, that you also consider throwing into that pitcher other departments, such as our Sheriff’s Department, the Board of Education and Social Services, because all of those affect economic development,” Brown said. “So if we’re going to start playing with funds here in this county for certain departments, then let’s play with all of the funds. Let’s go ahead and give this partnership the right to go out and seek and/or spend funds on behalf of the other departments as well.
“I have some grave concerns about setting up a partnership that’s going to take control over two departments that we oversee and leave out some other departments.”
She said that if the partnership is expected to be so successful at advising two government agencies and bringing in additional money for them, the group might be equally good at managing operations and winning funds for other departments.
In the audience at the time was Bob Fleming, the Barnett Properties lawyer and former Board of Education chairman whom the partnership’s steering committee has tapped to be chairman of the nonprofit group’s board. Others involved in the partnership, including Economic Development Commission Chairman Sam Watkins, missed Brown’s speech because they left after the board’s 5-2 vote to endorse the concept.
Watkins and the others also missed most of the debate surrounding Boyd’s motion.
After the Wright’s made the initial motion to back the partnership, Boyd read a statement including his four suggested bylaw changes, and he offered what he hoped would be a friendly amendment to urge the partnership to take those steps.
Boyd said the changes would put to rest many of the public’s concerns about the partnership. He said no one opposes the overriding goal of the partnership: to bring more jobs to Vance County.
With the possible exception of Boyd’s fourth suggestion, the partnership already is discussing bylaw changes that would address those concerns, if not eliminate them.
“You can’t structure any (bylaws) that I will feel good about,” Brown said. “I can tell you that upfront.”
Brown objected to Boyd’s motion on the basis that the commissioners weren’t considering the bylaws. An appeal to County Attorney Stubbs Hight favored Brown’s position, and the board proceeded to pass the motion without any amendment. Danny Wright promised to bring Boyd’s suggestions to the partnership.
Despite Wright and Garrison’s promise to propose Boyd’s suggestions to the partnership, and his acknowledgment that the partnership already is moving to do what he advises, Boyd reintroduced his motion as a stand-alone measure to instruct the three commissioners on the partnership board.
Eddie Wright said the motion was unnecessary because Danny Wright and Garrison had pledged to bring Boyd’s suggestions to the partnership, and they are honorable men.
“When I make a motion, I’m always making it to honorable people,” Boyd said. He pushed ahead with his motion, seconded by Hester, and the board approved it 5-2.
Having resisted the endorsement of the partnership, Pegram and Brown said they certainly didn’t want the county to play any role in creating the group’s bylaws. The General Government Committee dropped the bylaws from its endorsement recommendation to avoid such involvement in running a private group.
The partnership’s steering committee asked for an endorsement of the bylaws last month, but Fleming told the General Government Committee that the backing for the bylaws was unimportant.
The City Council included the bylaws in its endorsement of the partnership last month. Elissa Yount cast the lone vote against the partnership because of the bylaws, not because of opposition to the concept.
The partnership should be able to move to formal existence with the county’s endorsement, added to the backing of the city and appointed membership from the Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce, the Henderson-Vance Downtown Development Commission, the Vance tourism board and the Vance Economic Development Commission. The partnership’s steering committee is meeting this week.