Maybe, "If You Build It, They Will Come".
$6 million building for tiny town
By John Cheves
INEZ — Martin County is spending $6 million in coal severance taxes to erect a large office building meant to attract high-tech companies and other private-sector employers to this tiny, dilapidated town of fewer than 500 people.
But so far, no business has emerged to sign a lease in the new Martin County Business Center, set to open next year.
Instead, the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services will move its local welfare office into the building from a few hundred feet away and pay $133,192 a year, or triple its current rent.
The Business Center is the latest in a series of build-it-and-jobs-might-come projects in Eastern Kentucky funded by coal severance taxes. Officials in Martin County — one of Kentucky's poorest places — said they're hopeful that this one will make a difference.
"We see it as an opportunity to clean up our downtown and get some rent from the state," said Martin County Judge-Executive Kelly Callaham. "And if we could get someone in there who could create a job or two, that would be great."
The Cabinet for Health and Family Services said its local welfare office needed more space. It will expand by 53 percent to 12,685 square feet. The cabinet said the higher rent seems reasonable compared to what it pays in other parts of the state.
Although Martin County's population of 11,600 is dwindling — down 7 percent since 2000 — the state keeps offering more aid programs, which means more welfare employees, desks and parking spaces at the local offices, the cabinet said.
"It's just the way of our business," said Commissioner Patricia Wilson of the cabinet's Department for Community Based Services.
And Martin County increasingly relies on welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and other public benefits to survive, drawing larger crowds to the welfare office on Main Street. One-third of local people live in poverty — twice the state average.
However, Wilson said, the cabinet does not plan to hire more employees in Inez when it moves into its new digs next year.
So the Business Center thus far has attracted no business and created no jobs. Instead, for $6 million, it took several hundred thousand dollars of land off the local property tax rolls, since county-owned land is exempt, at an additional cost to the state of $87,000 a year in higher rent.
Hoping for jobs
The state legislature created coal severance taxes in the 1970s to compensate coal-producing counties for the loss of a natural resource. The taxes were to be used for economic development, to diversify local economies, given the cyclical nature of coal mining.
Three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars later, coal-severance money is spent for all sorts of things, some of which have little to do with economic development. Knott County, for instance, in a project the state auditor said was plagued with financial irregularities, sank $1.2 million into digging a small public swimming pool only 4 feet deep.
In Inez, the Martin County Economic Development Authority spent $1.2 million in coal severance taxes five years ago on a "speculative" factory building in hopes of luring an industrial employer. But nobody came; it remains vacant today.
Among the challenges facing Martin County: Its labor pool is about as shallow as Knott County's swimming pool.
Barely half of the adults have graduated from high school; more than one-third claim to be disabled; and 40 percent get federal benefits checks, according to the Census Bureau.
After its unsuccessful factory attempt, the Martin County Economic Development Authority decided in 2005 to try something different. It aimed for white-collar office jobs rather than blue-collar factory jobs.
The authority agreed to spend $4 million (eventually $6 million) to erect a 30,000-square-foot office building (eventually 34,058 square feet) by fall 2008 (eventually summer 2009). The project would breathe new life into downtown Inez, which holds the Martin County courthouse, the Inez Deposit Bank and a row of crumbling, abandoned storefronts.
Preferred tenants would be technology companies or professionals such as doctors and lawyers. To drive the point home, the authority said, the building would be called the Martin County Business Center. "I'm kind of in the entrepreneurial side of things in Inez," said Jim Booth, the authority's chairman and owner of Booth Energy, a coal operation, and other businesses.
A questionable plan
As of last week, the only planned tenant was the local welfare office, which is claiming more than one-third of the building.
"We were fortunate enough to land them as our first client," Booth said. "I'd love to have more clients ready, but we're OK where we are now. We just have to be patient and keep working at it."
It seems questionable to just drop an office building into Inez and expect new jobs to bloom, said Justin Maxson, president of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development in Berea.
Martin County ought to strengthen the technical and financial aid it offers its existing businesses, educate its work force and invest in broadband technology and other infrastructure improvements, Maxson said.
"Spending $6 million on an office building unattached to larger economic development strategies isn't likely to create jobs, and it isn't the best use of public money," Maxson said.
In Frankfort, the state Department for Local Government is responsible for distributing coal-severance money to the counties and monitoring how they spend it.
Commissioner Tony Wilder is quick to note that his predecessors under previous Gov. Ernie Fletcher approved the Martin County Business Center — although he said it's not clear what power the state has to block county projects unless tax money clearly is being misused.
"I could tell you that if it had been started under our watch, we would have looked at it with a little more scrutiny, sure," Wilder said. "But it has been our policy to honor the previously approved contracts, particularly those that have moved beyond a certain stage."
By John Cheves
INEZ — Martin County is spending $6 million in coal severance taxes to erect a large office building meant to attract high-tech companies and other private-sector employers to this tiny, dilapidated town of fewer than 500 people.
But so far, no business has emerged to sign a lease in the new Martin County Business Center, set to open next year.
Instead, the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services will move its local welfare office into the building from a few hundred feet away and pay $133,192 a year, or triple its current rent.
The Business Center is the latest in a series of build-it-and-jobs-might-come projects in Eastern Kentucky funded by coal severance taxes. Officials in Martin County — one of Kentucky's poorest places — said they're hopeful that this one will make a difference.
"We see it as an opportunity to clean up our downtown and get some rent from the state," said Martin County Judge-Executive Kelly Callaham. "And if we could get someone in there who could create a job or two, that would be great."
The Cabinet for Health and Family Services said its local welfare office needed more space. It will expand by 53 percent to 12,685 square feet. The cabinet said the higher rent seems reasonable compared to what it pays in other parts of the state.
Although Martin County's population of 11,600 is dwindling — down 7 percent since 2000 — the state keeps offering more aid programs, which means more welfare employees, desks and parking spaces at the local offices, the cabinet said.
"It's just the way of our business," said Commissioner Patricia Wilson of the cabinet's Department for Community Based Services.
And Martin County increasingly relies on welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and other public benefits to survive, drawing larger crowds to the welfare office on Main Street. One-third of local people live in poverty — twice the state average.
However, Wilson said, the cabinet does not plan to hire more employees in Inez when it moves into its new digs next year.
So the Business Center thus far has attracted no business and created no jobs. Instead, for $6 million, it took several hundred thousand dollars of land off the local property tax rolls, since county-owned land is exempt, at an additional cost to the state of $87,000 a year in higher rent.
Hoping for jobs
The state legislature created coal severance taxes in the 1970s to compensate coal-producing counties for the loss of a natural resource. The taxes were to be used for economic development, to diversify local economies, given the cyclical nature of coal mining.
Three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars later, coal-severance money is spent for all sorts of things, some of which have little to do with economic development. Knott County, for instance, in a project the state auditor said was plagued with financial irregularities, sank $1.2 million into digging a small public swimming pool only 4 feet deep.
In Inez, the Martin County Economic Development Authority spent $1.2 million in coal severance taxes five years ago on a "speculative" factory building in hopes of luring an industrial employer. But nobody came; it remains vacant today.
Among the challenges facing Martin County: Its labor pool is about as shallow as Knott County's swimming pool.
Barely half of the adults have graduated from high school; more than one-third claim to be disabled; and 40 percent get federal benefits checks, according to the Census Bureau.
After its unsuccessful factory attempt, the Martin County Economic Development Authority decided in 2005 to try something different. It aimed for white-collar office jobs rather than blue-collar factory jobs.
The authority agreed to spend $4 million (eventually $6 million) to erect a 30,000-square-foot office building (eventually 34,058 square feet) by fall 2008 (eventually summer 2009). The project would breathe new life into downtown Inez, which holds the Martin County courthouse, the Inez Deposit Bank and a row of crumbling, abandoned storefronts.
Preferred tenants would be technology companies or professionals such as doctors and lawyers. To drive the point home, the authority said, the building would be called the Martin County Business Center. "I'm kind of in the entrepreneurial side of things in Inez," said Jim Booth, the authority's chairman and owner of Booth Energy, a coal operation, and other businesses.
A questionable plan
As of last week, the only planned tenant was the local welfare office, which is claiming more than one-third of the building.
"We were fortunate enough to land them as our first client," Booth said. "I'd love to have more clients ready, but we're OK where we are now. We just have to be patient and keep working at it."
It seems questionable to just drop an office building into Inez and expect new jobs to bloom, said Justin Maxson, president of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development in Berea.
Martin County ought to strengthen the technical and financial aid it offers its existing businesses, educate its work force and invest in broadband technology and other infrastructure improvements, Maxson said.
"Spending $6 million on an office building unattached to larger economic development strategies isn't likely to create jobs, and it isn't the best use of public money," Maxson said.
In Frankfort, the state Department for Local Government is responsible for distributing coal-severance money to the counties and monitoring how they spend it.
Commissioner Tony Wilder is quick to note that his predecessors under previous Gov. Ernie Fletcher approved the Martin County Business Center — although he said it's not clear what power the state has to block county projects unless tax money clearly is being misused.
"I could tell you that if it had been started under our watch, we would have looked at it with a little more scrutiny, sure," Wilder said. "But it has been our policy to honor the previously approved contracts, particularly those that have moved beyond a certain stage."
Labels: Kentucky politics
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 5:25 PM
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