From Staff Reports

Verbal sparks are flying — along with fingerpointing — between two factions (splitting along party lines) on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners over just who is to blame for the March 22 decision by Deschutes Brewery to choose Roanoke, Va., instead of Asheville as the home for its East Coast facility. 

A key aspect of the deal, the purchase of property for Deschutes, also split down party lines, with the four Democrats on the commission favoring the move and the three Republicans opposing it.

After a seven-hour commissioners’ meeting April 5, Democratic Commissioner Holly Jones said, “I am really concerned about the (135) people in our commmunity that would have had a good job if we hadn’t of gone off half-cocked... Those people are really short-changed by folks having their own agendas.”

Moreover, Jones and her fellow Democratic commissioners charged that Republican Commissioner Miranda DeBruhl was partially — if not largely — to blame for Deschutes’ choosing Roanoke instead of Asheville for its new regional brewery site.

DeBruhl, who represents District 1 on the board and is running for commissioners’ chair, countered that the land purchase supporters were speculating with taxpayer money.  She also charged that the Democrats primarily wanted to “control” what happened with the deal’s property — and that her Democratic opponent for chair, Brownie Newman, had said “that he wanted to not allow (George Vanderbilt heir) Jack Cecil to build homes there.”

The Bend, Ore.-based brewery, offering up to 237 relatively high-paying jobs, made the decision in March after more than two years of mostly behind-the-scenes negotiations between company leaders, county officials and local economic developers connected to the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce. Deschutes is the sixth-largest American craft brewery.

More than 100 East Coast sites were proposed to the brewery, but the final cut came down to Asheville and Roanoke. To lure Deschutes, the two finalist cities proferred offers estimated at a combined $12 million to $25 million in taxpayer-funded incentives. While no exact figures are available, records show Asheville and Buncombe possibly offered as much as a combined $4.4 million to $6 million. Also, if the property had been given to Deschutes, the total would have been $12.8 million. 

In turn, the project would have included an investment by Deschutes of $135 million to $200 million, which would generate an estimated $1.3 million per year in local property taxes, county officials said.

As an incentive to Deschutes, the commissioners last year voted 4-3 (with the Democrats voting “yes” and the Republicans “no”) to purchase a $6.8 million parcel — and offer it as a brewery site —  in South Asheville’s Bent Creek area, along the west bank of the French Broad River and accessible by Ferry Road. 

After making the purchase from Henderson County, Buncombe was immediately reimbursed for the half the value ($3.4 million) by Asheville — owed because of a politically complex water deal in which Asheville was allowed to build a Mills River drinking water facility in 1999.

After the brewery deal fell through, the commissioners on April 7, voted 7-0 to sell the property purchased only to lure Deschutes.

In a separate motion at the April 7 meeting, DeBruhl and fellow Republican Joe Belcher asked that the minutes of a March 17, 2015 emergency closed session regarding the land purchase be amended to include more details about their opposition to the purchase. DeBruhl’s motion failed 3-4. 

She also argued that her problem with the minutes could be solved by recording the minutes, a move which Democrats have declined to do. Chairman David Gantt said it would hurt economic development deals where confidentiality is a critical factor.

When DeBruhl was asked several times by Gantt if she herself had recorded the minutes, she did not respond.

The Democratic commissioners eventually voted 4-3 to approve the minutes as they were written. However, that vote was preceded by almost an hour-long debate in which verbal sparks flew and commissioners spoke over and interrupted each other. Gantt had to assert himself to keep order.

Because the Deschutes deal involved the “beer and alcohol industry,” Belcher said he was not going to support it in any event. He also asked that the minutes “show I said I was not comfortable with speculating on a land purchase.”

DeBruhl then asserted that the minutes should include Newman’s comment about his fear of Asheville developer Jack Cecil gaining “control” of the property.

“Clearly, it was said (by Newman) that we’ve got to buy the property now,” DeBruhl said, adding that Newman said that “we need to control it. We need to control what goes there.”

While it was late (about 11 p.m.), Gantt said it was an appropriate time for all of the commissioners to express their feelings on the deal since there were no more concerns about confidentiality.

Gantt then said DeBruhl likely harmed the deal by publicly casting doubt on whether it would work, calling it “a fairy tale” and “a joke.” He also said DeBruhl called Deschutes’ president and asked “when they were going to make their mind up, right at a critical time … We were right in the middle of heavy negotiations.”

Gantt added that economic developer Ben Teague sent the commissioners an e-mail saying Deschutes was concerned that confidential aspects of the deal were being revealed.

DeBruhl said she called Deschutes President Michael Lalonde because a deadline it had given for making a decision had passed. “For seven months, multiple decision dates we were told came and went. For seven months, we discussed this,” she said. “Having something in writing, a letter of intent, a contract, something. There was nothing.”