Badrose Explains It All

For the best commentary to date on the Virgil Goode/MZM/Martinsville non-controversy, go read Badrose's thoughts on the matter.

Very well done, Ms.Rose! I applaud you.

The Truth Of The MZM Martinsville Deal

Once again Waldo is off in his Virgil Goode Bizarroworld. In this, his most recent foray into the unreal, he would have his readers believe that Virgil Goode somehow manipulated the MZM/Martinsville deal that brought the defense contractor to the Clearview Business Park.

In an article replete with links to sources, most of which are earlier posts of his own, he puts forth as his own the completely ridiculous idea that Virgil is morally obligated to repay the (roughly) $145,000 that Martinsville is liable for. If this truly is Waldo's idea, then he should be aware that fellow Charlottesville liberal Al Weed plagiarized it way back in August of last year. You remember, this was also about the time Al Weed was trying to set up a contest to see who could write the nastiest letter to the editor with Virgil Goode as the subject and lunch with Barnie Day as the prize. But I digress.

Go read Waldo's latest slam on Virgil, I'll wait here until you return.

Did you find that enlightening? I really didn't think you would. As I'm sure you noticed, Waldo's last sentence once again drives his point that Virgil Goode was solely responsible for the MZM/Martinsville decision. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me tell you the truth of the matter. A truth that is easily discovered if one only looks for it, rather than merely wishing for future Al Weed campaign slogans, lies, and half-truths.

In late October of 2003 rumors began circulating throughout Henry County about a possible new employer, some said it would be a defense contractor. On October 30th Ginny Wray of the Martinsville Bulletin wrote a story confirming the rumors and naming MZM as the new employer, citing Virgil Goode as her source.

At this time MZM already had a presence in the 5th District so Virgil was familiar with the firm. He also was familiar with a shell building that Martinsville had to offer in the Clearview Business Park. According to Ms. Wray, Virgil urged MZM to take a look at Martinsville and their facility.

The following day a story by Mickey Powell of the Bulletin adds a few more details, with some quotes from Mitchell Wade, President and CEO of MZM at the time. Powell found it difficult to get much more information, such as the selling price of the shell building from either Wade or Tom Harned, Martinsville's Economic Development Director.

All we knew at that time was that the City had sold its $945,000 shell building to MZM for an undisclosed sum, and that Virgil Goode had introduced the two parties.

The following Tuesday, at an announcement ceremony attended by then Governor Mark Warner, it was disclosed that the City of Martinsville had received $1.027 million for the facility. $400,000 from MZM, $500,000 split equally between The Governor's Opportunity Fund and the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, and $127,000 in private funds from the Chamber's Partnership for Economic Growth, a partnership affiliated with the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce.

According to Mickey Powell of the Martinsville Bulletin;

Information from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that MZM is Goode's top financial contributor, donating more than $37,000 to him during the current election cycle. That money was given either through a political action committee, people associated with the firm or their family members, a Web site indicates.

Goode admitted those contributions. He said, though, that he would have given information about the shell building to any firm, regardless of whether it financially backed him.

He received MZM's money "before I knew they were interested" in the building, he said.

This clearly refutes Waldo's insinuation of any "quid pro quo".

Now, let's look at what we know of the background negotiation that went on before this deal was announced.

• Martinsville had a shell building that had been on the
  market for 3 years with no takers.


• Martinsville owed $940,000 on this shell building and
  desperately needed both a buyer and the employment that a buyer would
  bring to the area.


• A firm with a presence in Virgil's 5th District was
  searching for a facility in order to expand part of its business.


• Virgil introduced the two parties and negotiation began
  for the purchase of the building. MZM offered $400,000 for the
  building, knowing that it would require another several million dollars
  in renovations to make the building suitable for its purposes.


• Tom Harned, Martinsville's Economic Development Director
  at that time asked Virgil to request a better offer from MZM.


• That request for a better offer was turned down by MZM.


• Tom Harned then asked Wade to apply for state incentives
  to make up the difference.


• Virgil Goode was not a party to these negotiations,
  though he was copied on most, if not all, of the correspondence between
  Harned and Wade.


• At a stalemate point in the negotiations, Virgil
  suggested that Martinsville apply for two $250,000 grants from The
  Governor’s Opportunity Fund and the Tobacco Indemnification
  and Community Revitalization Commission to help retire the debt on the
  building.


• At that point MZM refused to cooperate, insisting that it
  wanted a simple cash real estate deal, leaving Martinsville with the
  option of dropping negotiations or signing the performance agreement
  obligating it to repay the forgivable loans if the company did not meet
  its projections.


• At the time, John Sternlicht, general counsel to the
  Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the state agency that
  drafted the performance agreement, expressed concern about the unusual
  nature of the City's request.


• Earl Reynolds, City Manager at the time responded to
  Sternlicht, “The city understands that this is outside the
  normal procedures,” indicating the City's eagerness to
  complete the deal.


• Sternlicht's reply, from a Dec. 11, 2005 story by
  Lawrence Hammock in the Roanoke Times, “The company is
  usually on the hook. But in this instance, based on
  [Martinsville’s] urgent request, this is what we did,"
  further indicates that the deal was pushed through to completion by
  Martinsville officials.


• The final disposition is yet to be determined, but City
  Finance Director Wade Bartlett said in today's Martinsville Bulletin
  that any funds repaid will come from the City's fund balance, currently
  at $9.5million. The Bulletin article quotes Bartlett; "No matter how
  much of the $500,000 the city ends up paying, it will not impact our
  ability to provide services in the future to residents or bankrupt the
  city."

In summary, one can blame Earl Reynolds, Tom Harned, Gene Teague (then Mayor), Terry Roop (then Vice Mayor), and the rest of City Council for making the final decision to request the grants and taking the highly unusual step of signing the performance agreement. All Virgil Goode did was bring the two parties together.

UPDATE:
Let's do a little accounting exercise, shall we?

Cost of shell building to Martinsville	$945,000
From MZM	$400,000
From Governor's Opportunity Fund	$250,000
From Tobacco Commission	$250,000
From C-PEG (Local Chamber Econ. Dev. group)	$127,000
Total Sales Price	$1,027,000
Profit (sales price, less actual cost of building)	$82,000
Balance of tax and other revenues gained from MZM/Athena	$161,430
Profit Sub-total	$243,430
Refund of grants due to MZM non-performance (est)	($145,000)
Martinsville Final Balance	$98,430

The above balance sheet does not include revenues from utilities such as water, electric, and sewer. Also not included are local income and sales tax revenues from MZM/Athena employees. Obviously a $100,000 return on a $1 million dollar investment is not what one would hope for, especially since it ended after only a 4 year term, but it's not the catastrophic loss that Waldo would have you believe it is..

Who will actually repay those grant funds Waldo? Obviously MZM and Athena already have repaid them.

UPDATE II:
I have just been informed that the trackback I left at Waldo's earlier today had mysteriously disappeared. So I just left another. It will be interesting to see if this one is deleted as well, I took a screenshot of it this time, just in case Mr. Jaquith decides on another attempt to hide in the dark.

Virgil Goode's Letter

UPDATE:

I want to welcome Ben's readers who have come to stare at the spectacle. You will notice that I did indeed make the comment that Ben quoted to direct you here.

In a not so clever way, I was referring to the kerfuffle during the past year about the charges against our soldiers flushing the Koran down a toilet. Anyway, the person I was replying to understood what I meant.

But, whether it turned out like I wanted it to or not really doesn't matter to me. Besides, what else am I going to do with a Koran, display it lovingly on my coffee table? I don't think so.

Now you can go read the comment, but I would prefer that you read the post first.

You guys know me, I don't typically jump right on a story. I would rather look at it for a bit, gain some insight, and ponder the full implications first. Consequently a lot of interesting stuff passes off the radar screen before I ever comment on them. Ironically, the only time I've ever been first out of the box with something also concerned a letter. Even with that one I spent some time before making a comment, even going so far as to wait for e-mail and or telephone confirmation from the parties involved before stating my opinion.

I've done that with the Virgil Goode letter story as well. Except I've not corresponded with Virgil or Mr. Ellison. I've simply looked at all the knee jerk reactions and read the letter. An image of the letter can be found here.

I know Virgil. The Virgil I know is not a bigot, not a xenophobe, not a racist, and certainly not stupid. He has recently been described as such by myriad people who have never met him. Instead those people read a letter. A letter Virgil sent to certain constituents in reply to numerous e-mails he had received regarding the ceremonial swearing in of incoming Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).

Now, let me get this out of the way immediately. Unlike Dennis Prager, I don't care if Mr. Ellison wanted to place his hand on a half empty box of Frosty Flakes for the ceremonial photo-op, it would mean just as much. Or just as little. There is nothing in Virgil's letter to indicate that he feels any differently. But I do wonder what the reaction from the left would be toward some southern Senator-elect who wanted to be photographed with a confederate flag in the background for his swearing in ceremony.

Read the letter yourself. I know, you've read it already. But I want you to stretch your legs out, so as to stop the inevitable knee-jerk, and read it again. This time remember that this letter was Virgil's response to some of his constituents.

You've read it again and come back here? OK, then let me discuss what you just read.

I'll wager that very few, if any, of the intended recipients of that letter have ever read this blog. Don't get all uppity, they ain't likely to have read yours either. They do not eat politics all day long like you and I do. But they do read the paper. They do watch the news. They do know that Europe is having serious problems caused by Islamic radicals insistent upon Islamacizing France, The Netherlands, and England. They also have heard the founders of CAIR call for Sharia law to be imposed right here in America. They have heard the rhetoric of Louis Farrakhan, a former associate of Mr. Ellison's. They looked to Virgil for reassurance that he does not support any of this. His letter is forceful in assuring them he does not.

Was he too forceful in his assurances? Apparently so. Quite obviously so. He did go a bit far by not repeating the mantra that not all Muslims are Islamic radicals. But that was not the question he was answering. That was not what his e-mail constituents were concerned with. They've already heard that from every politician from the President on down. They haven't heard it forcefully enough from the Muslim community.

Do you still have the image of the letter open? If not, open it again and look at it with me. If I were to have written this letter I would have broken the first paragraph after the second use of the word "Koran". That simple edit would make it clear that there was no bigotry in the letter, just a sensible statement on our obviously flawed immigration policy. Unfortunately Virgil does not employ me as his editor.

I will assume no one has a problem with his final paragraph. If so you are merely showing your own bigotry and lack of tolerance.

Oh, and one other thing. I also admire the man for refusing to issue the standard Washington "if you were offended" non-apology.