Prince Edward County, which sold county land in 2003 to a ‘friend’ of the chair of the Board of Supervisors for roughly 1/20th of what it was worth, is at it again. This time, they want to sell county land for $4,000 an acre, roughly 10 percent of it’s true value as a commercial property.
To make matters worse, this new development proposal is headed up by one of the original developers of the ‘Poplar Hill Resort and Golf Course’, a millstone around the neck of the county. Poplar Hill started as a CDA project, used Tobacco Commission money for a $700,000 water line to be built specifically for that development, and has been a complete failure even to this day. Clubhouse/Golf facilities and a Conference Center, were all planned at that location, and all the residents of Price Edward County heard about was the benefits to the county and the community at large. None of the drawbacks.
Many years later, the ‘Manor Resort’ is not the same project that was envisioned ten years ago. Nothing other than the golf course has been built, and there doesn’t seem to be any housing units or lots that have sold either.
So now here comes Robert Fowler, who wants to develop something called ‘Granite Falls Inn and Conference Center’. Since the stage has been set by other earlier catastrophic lack of success at the Manor, this group would like to buy 95 acres of county land that would then be used for development.
The price offered by Fowler? $4,000 per acre, or roughly 10 percent of the value of the land near the US 460 interchange if it were to be zoned commercial by the county in stead of agricultural use, which it presently is zoned as. It is also less than the county paid for the land when it bought it. No current appraisal of this land is available.
This is clearly a non-competitive process that favors only a few people, namely the group that wants to develop the land. If you or I wanted to buy that 95 acres, or even a portion of it, the price would likely be a lot higher.
In 2003, the Board sold land to Clayton Bryant for $225,000 that later listed for $3.75m. The county even paid a realtor, Sherry Hunneycut, $25,000 out of county funds for something, which no one seems to be able to figure out. The county owned the land, there was no need for a realtor, yet, this ‘commission’ was paid to someone who did nothing discernible to earn it. After the sale, even though various Supervisors asked about the transaction, the paperwork was put into hiding for over two years.
This sparked a Grand Jury proceeding, in which the County was represented by Jim Ennis, and the Grand Jury was instructed and led on its path by… Jim Ennis, acting in his capacity of Commonwealth’s Attorney. Ennis claimed to have recused himself, put no public record of that recusal has ever been seen.
Of course, the Grand Jury made some recommendations that have been ignored, and Buckie Fore and Howard Simpson and Jim Ennis all pretended everything was above board. I wrote about the response from one of the Supervisors here.
Will Prince Edward County give away some more land, and with it, the financial future of the county? Will they continue to develop a public drinking water supply from a reservoir which has a dump underneath it?
My guess is that yes, they will do these things until someone stops them. And that is exactly what is needed here, someone to step in and stop their destructive ways for the benefit of a few ’special friends’ of the powers-that-be.
