Disturbing Rumors

When I was appointed to the County’s Economic Development Advisory Board in 2009 we worked as a Board to develop a business-like investment strategy methodology the County could use to assess investment options. The Commissioners at the time were briefed and approved the approach for use by County Management. This was successfully applied several times over the next couple of years to inform Commissioners on pay back of investments to attract new businesses, or to help existing business to expand. It was even used to assess a proposed purchase of a privately owned waste water treatment facility.

However, the business-like investment approach was not applied to the then on-going investments of more than $3 million to build the Maple Commerce Park or several other investments championed by the County manager. The inconvenient truth of “running the numbers” ran afoul of what management was trying to accomplish, too many questions were asked. This happened often enough that the EDAB was suspended for a time in 2013 or so - allegedly to save money by merging the group with the Airport Advisory Board.

In several publications the County Manager has touted the importance of a strategy to build a mainland tourism business to offset any losses that might occur as Currituck’s beach appeal wanes, or as a result of a disruptive storm disaster. The idea of building stronger commercial presence in the County that does not directly depend on the tourism industry is a good one. The idea to sacrifice investments in beach tourism to do so only helps kill the Golden Egg.

An even more troublesome rumor is that in County management has been siphoning Occupancy Tax dollars, not to grow the tourism business, but to keep the general property tax rate low. Low property tax rates are seen correctly as a symbol of good management, especially in a County with a reasonable quality of service. However, good management does this by making the cost-to-serve more efficient; not by shifting millions in general costs to Occupancy Tax and Special Tax Districts. Special tax districts are good when used efficiently to address unique local needs that are requested by and over-seen by the locals. They are a bad idea when used to hide cost growth elsewhere, or to build a management empire, as seems to be happening with our Fire and EMS services.