County Commissioners Defend Local Effort to Save VPI Deal

Commissioner Patricia Kirkpatrick reacted to a comment made in a recent article about local politicians' lack of effort to close the deal on the old Eljer plant in Ford City.

by Nathan Lasher

During a meeting of the Armstrong County Commissioners, yesterday, Commissioner Patricia Kirkpatrick voiced some concern over a comment that was made  in a newspaper article regarding a lack of local politicians’ efforts to help a deal along which would have sold a portion of the old Eljer plant in Ford City.

The deal was to be made with Jim Young, President and CEO of Vision Inc. It was planned to possibly create approximately 300 jobs for the area. After the bank turned Young down for a loan because of environmental issues, property owner Tom Sipes decided to call the deal off. After the deal fell through, Young made some comments in a local news article. County Commissioner Kirkpatrick addressed those comments.“This board of commissioners has responsibility and oversight,” she said. “Sometimes I think that we don’t convey it enough to the public It is quite challenging on any day, but definitely quite diverse. The only way that we do the work that we do is by the skilled staff that we have; department heads and elected officials come together and act on behalf of the public and the taxpayers. One of the areas that I know the public understands is that the board of commissioners is responsible for economic development in this county.  Yes, there are significant assets that the taxpayers are invested in where there is staff that has responsibility. Two of those staff members are sitting here. Mike Coonley is the Executive Business Manager and Justin Nolder is the Assistant Business Manager. What I read in the [another] newspaper, and I’m going to read this to you because then I want our director to comment, this is regarding a manufacturer that is not going to move to Ford City, and there has been extensive work going into this project by this County’s staff. Sometimes it disturbs me when I know the work that they put forth working with our state officials, working with local officials, and working with the business community. Maybe this is taken out of context. I don’t know. I can only read the words here before me. This was a comment. ‘Where are the state and county politicians at? I was being told that everyone knew about this project and wanted it to succeed, but the project still failed. I’m not saying that any one person could have made a difference, but I believe that some intervention by the right group possibly might have saved this deal.’”

After reading the quote to everyone in attendance, Kirkpatrick went on to say, “From every intention of this board of commissioners, working with the staff and the state elected officials and the local officials, and there are many at various positions that tried to make this deal happen. I can ask the staff here today to comment because I don’t see any comments regarding the County’s perspective regarding all of the work. If I could ask Mike Coonley, could you tell me how many hours that you and your staff put in to trying to make this project actually happen, so jobs are brought to Ford City?”  

Coonley replied, “We invested north of 50 hours just on this part of the project. I think, in the article, Jim Young, the person who was interested in purchasing the property, was very frustrated. I’ve spoken to him again several times this morning. I think he was just verbalizing that. He had indicated that financing was in place, and it was, due to a tremendous effort, actually Justin did most of the work piecing together that financing package. There was approximately $1.5 million of federal and state financing there. I actually believe that you were sitting on the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) board that approved $200 thousand worth of small business first funding. Ultimately, what it came down to, there were some environmental issues. The environmental issues were minor, by all accounts of the consultants, but they were present. After speaking with the State Senator’s office, he thought we could take the information that was contained within the phase 1 and phase 2 environmental studies and take that to the DEP and ask for what was termed as a comfort letter because there really wasn’t enough time to go through an entire remediation program. They felt that the majority of the environmental issues could be addressed simply by a deed caveat stating that no water would be used for consumption. They wouldn’t use any of the water there for that purpose. They thought that they could move forward with this, but Mr. Sipes, the owner of the property, declined to release that information to the DEP. We explained to him that the issue wouldn’t go away, and that any future sale of the property would probably have to address this situation in the future. Unfortunately, this is an issue of a private property owner and a potential seller being unable to come to terms.”

Later in the discussion, Coonley went on to explain the missed opportunity now that this deal has supposedly fallen through. “There’s a significant potential for job creation with this company. In fact, I believe he said that he’s had the best two quarters that he’s ever had. So, I think we were all very excited to move forward with the project. The banks indicated that they needed some type of environmental release. Certainly, in today’s economy, the banks are being very conservative. Unfortunately, when the property was purchased, there was never an environmental assessment completed.”

Commissioner Kirkpatrick went further to reinforce the amount of work that local officials went into to help the deal along, “As County Officials and County Staff, we know the work that has gone into this. In fact, this Board of Commissioners met with Mr. Young in Senator White’s office on October 20 of 2009 with our staff. That’s when the process began in working with the people of Ford City in trying to say ‘this would be a great project for that site bringing those jobs and expanding jobs.’” Kirkpatrick went further to say, “I will say, on behalf of the Board of Commissioners, there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, and a lot of people in the public don’t realize it. I sit on the executive board of the SPC, and I can recall the meeting when a small business first loan was reviewed by the loan committee. It came before the executive board for a vote, and there were bankers who were not in favor of that project. I personally spoke on behalf of Mr. Young and on behalf of the Board of Commissioners that this would be a great project for the site, and that was a $200 thousand loan. It was part of the $1.5 million project. So, we were actively pursuing to get funding.”

At the end of the discussion, Coonley said that Nolder and himself were still trying to find a place for Young’s business to locate. “We hope it is in Armstrong County,” said Kirkpatrick.