EDA authorizes escrow fund use to help cover FY-21 debt service

Following a multi-faceted hour-and-a-half closed session Friday morning the 26th at its regular board meeting of March, the Warren County-Front Royal Economic Development Authority Board of Directors authorized use of a portion of the $158,598.31 balance of an escrow account related to the Leach Run Parkway loan to make regularly scheduled loan payments for the Avtex loan and the Leach Run Parkway loan for April, May and June 2021. It was pointed out this will provide some relief to the County’s financial burden in covering the EDA’s debts for the remainder of Fiscal Year-2021 in the wake of the EDA financial scandal predating the current board and staff.

EDA attorney Sharon Pandak prefaced the motion by reviewing circumstances surrounding the Leach Run Parkway Loan escrow account, which also predates the current board and executive director’s tenure, and its recent reimbursement in part by United Bank following the bank’s finally closing with the Town of Front Royal on the assumption of responsibility for a loan to pay off the balance of the $8,440,797 FRPD headquarters construction project.|

The clouds have begun to clear from the FPRD headquarters financing situation – but about that $640k in previously paid interest … – Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

Contacted later, EDA Executive Director Doug Parsons explained the original balance of the Leach Run Parkway Loan escrow account was $250,000 that had never been accessed. However, United Bank elected to draw on that Leach Run Parkway Loan escrow account for the interest and principal payments on the FRPD construction loan during the four months – November 2020 to February 2021 – it was awaiting finalization of the Town’s FRPD loan. The delay, as explained by both Town and EDA officials, was due to the discovery of a needed partial release of the deed of trust of the former Avtex Superfund site, for the 5.24-acre parcel upon which the FRPD headquarters is situated at 900 Monroe Avenue, had never been realized.

The Warren County Board of Supervisors chose to stop covering the EDA’s original FRPD loan payments that the Front Royal Town Council refused to accept moral responsibility for in the wake of the EDA financial scandal during the tenure of former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald, after the October 2020 payment. That was when the EDA FRPD loan payments went from 3% interest-only in the $21,000 monthly range to over $50,000 in principal and interest monthly payments.

Parsons cited the United Bank Leach Run Parkway Loan reimbursed escrow account amount based on fluctuating monthly principal payments at $116,246.84, as noted above bringing the escrow account balance to $158,598.31. With a virtual ZOOM meeting torrent of numbers dancing through our heads, we asked Parsons for a rundown of exactly what was approved regarding the use of the escrow funds.

File photo of Doug Parsons, speaking center, dating to Feb. 2020, pre-pandemic and virtual ZOOM meeting world days.

“In an effort to help the County service our debt, the Board of Directors voted this morning to apply $53,953.29 toward the loan payments of the Leach Run Parkway loan and the Avtex loan for the remaining three months of FY-21 – April, May, June 2021,” he began, breaking that number down further: Avtex loan monthly payments of $14,021.80 and Leach Run monthly of $3,962.63 totals $17,984.43 x 3 = $53,953.29.

With the FRPD loan future principal and interest payments finally assumed by the Town, as had always been anticipated by the EDA upon completion of the project it financed for the Town, the lone remaining sticking point on the FRPD financing situation between the Town and EDA appears to be reimbursement of the approximately $640,000 of construction loan interest previously covered by the EDA and the County. And it is likely that number was part of a closed session discussion of the EDA’s countersuit against the Town, the second of three closed session topics adjourned from open session to at 8:06 a.m. Friday.