Town ponders CARES Act money for new EDA’s work on business retention

During the August 24^th open town council work session discussion of its options in creating a new unilateral Front Royal Economic Development Authority (FR-EDA) to work toward business retention, the matter of using set-aside funds earmarked for other specific commercial uses was raised.

After Councilwoman Letasha Thompson observed that not all derelict buildings impacted by a new Blighted Building ordinance were residential, but commercial as well, Interim Town Manager Matt Tederick commented on Town Contingency funds set aside for Blighted Building enforcement efforts.

“If you remember, we do have money in our budget that’s sitting in Contingency right now for blighted buildings. It wasn’t specifically for residential blighted buildings,” Tederick began. Vice-Mayor Bill Sealock, chairing the evening’s meeting and work session for vacationing Mayor Tewalt, interrupted to question the process for redirection of such funds.

Council and Interim Town Manager Tederick discuss strategies and funding in moving forward with economic development and business retention during these trying pandemic times which have seen numerous small business closings and nearly 180,000 American deaths in seven months. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini – Royal Examiner Video by Mark Williams

“We’d have to discuss that at a different meeting, pull it out (of Contingency) and re-focus it, re-purpose it,” the interim town manager replied to the chair’s inquiry.

Councilman Jacob Meza then lobbed a potential bombshell into the discussion: “What about the CARES Act funding?” he asked of Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act grant money. That funding has been coming to the Town through Warren County’s qualifying for the federal funding through a state government application and distribution process. The Town received approximately $1.2 million of $3.5 million in first-round CARES Act grant money based on a County-Town population split. The County is in the process of applying for a second-round $3.5 million grant from the $2 trillion in federal CARES Act funding committed to local business and economic recoveries nationwide.

“Um Yes,” Tederick began to respond before pausing hesitantly for a few seconds before gathering himself to say, “CARES Act funding would most likely be allowed to be used. I have to hedge that statement because the County basically needs to approve how we spend the funds.”

“Oh, it might be a little contentious,” Meza observed of the involved municipal dynamics surrounding the Town, County and existing EDA. Those dynamics involve, not only the Town’s move toward a second EDA, but also the Town’s litigation against the existing, half-century-old joint Town-County EDA the County is having to pick up the EDA’s legal defense tab on; as well as council’s refusal to assume its debt service obligation on the EDA-financed $9-million police station and two other capital improvement projects estimated to total around $12 million dollars.

‘It might be a little contentious,’ Jacob Meza, pictured during earlier Aug. 24 meeting, observed of Town use of County-distributed CARES Act money in propping up a new Town EDA’s business retention activities – Contentious, you think?

“It might be,” Tederick acknowledged, adding, “I think if you look at the CARES Act grant I believe you could definitely say it’s for – that if the businesses are leaving, closing down because of the Coronavirus, it’s no different than the grant we’re giving businesses now. So, I think for the first few months until December some of the funding is most likely, but I have to qualify and hedge that statement.”

The conversation then veered back to Councilmen Gillespie and Holloway’s statements of support of funding an independent Town EDA cited in our lead story on council’s August 24^th work session discussion of its EDA options. The CARES funding discussion occurs about six to seven minutes into the work session’s EDA options conversation in the exclusive Royal Examiner video: