News

Board unseals closed meeting minutes

By Bill Moss, Published: December 15, 2014

When Henderson County commissioners first talked about partnering with Wingate University, elected leaders considered Blue Ridge Community College an "ideal location" for the university.

Things would change over the next five months. The discussion on Oct. 16, 2013, was the first time the board had talked about partnering with Wingate, which had outgrown its leased space in two office buildings on North King Street. At the time, commissioners considered using BRCC property to erect a 30,000-square-foot building that would be shared by BRCC and Wingate. Those early talks started a six-month negotiation that grew to five parties and greatly enlarged the scope of the project. The city of Hendersonville, which did not want to lose the Wingate campus, agreed to buy an acre of land next to Pardee Hospital for the project. Pardee, which wanted the ground floor for a new a cancer treatment center, agreed to donate land for parking.
Although details of the talks had been confirmed in interviews, minutes of closed sessions unsealed this month by the Board of Commissioners opened the official record on behind-the-scenes talks that led to the landmark agreement last spring. The five parties committed to a joint medical education facility expected to open in the summer of 2016 on U.S. 64 at North Oak Street.
Negotiations on the real estate acquisition and details of other matters later made public or abandoned are described in the previously sealed minutes. Under North Carolina law, local bodies are obligated to unseal closed session minutes "upon a finding that unsealing the information would not frustrate the purpose of the closed session." Among the reasons a board can meet outside the public eye are to discuss personnel, land acquisition, business location or expansion and contract negotiations.
After the October 2013 meeting, negotiations on the joint medical building stretched over the holidays and gained the last two players — the city and Pardee.
Wyatt reported to the board on Feb. 19 that he and Assistant County Manager Amy Brantley had met with Pardee CEO Jay Kirby, BRCC President Molly Parkhill, City Manager John Connet and Wingate President Jerry McGee to hammer out a letter of intent outlining the five-party agreement for what the minutes called a Health Science Institute. Hendersonville would buy the land, Henderson County would build the building and BRCC, Wingate and Pardee would collaborate on design. The cost was put then at $10 million. Since then square footage has risen to 95,000 square feet and the total cost has ballooned to more than $30 million. Henderson County committed to borrowing $28 million for construction and Wingate agreed to house its Hendersonville undergraduate and post-graduate programs in the facility for at least 20 years. A month later, on March 17, the Board of Commissioners again talked about the pending deal in a closed session. County Attorney Russ Burrell told the commissioners that he had not yet received a signed document from the city on the purchase of the land. "We still have the BRCC property for consideration," the minutes said. "Steve Wyatt suggested he tell them 1 week or the deal's off with the city of Hendersonville."
(In an interview last April, both Wyatt and Connet confirmed the last-minute negotiations and a concession by Henderson County to repay the city part of the purchase price.)
The five-party agreement was announced with great fanfare on April 3.
The unsealed minutes of closed sessions provided details on these other topics as well:

• In October 2012, Henderson County Agribusiness Executive Director Mark Williams first reported to the Board of Commissioners about a partnership of American, Italian and Israeli companies called Tri-Hishtil, which was searching for a site for its first American-based plant-grafting operation. The company ended up buying a 42-acre site on N.C. 191 from Van Wingerden International. It announced plans to build greenhouses and employ 125 people in agricultural, marketing and management jobs. The partnership's decision to locate in Mills River was announced in August of this year. Two months later, in another closed session, commissioners agreed to invest in a $250,000 sewer line extension for the Tri-Hishtil. The sewer line would be part of the Cane Creek Water and Sewer District. Williams told commissioners that Henderson County Agribusiness was pursuing a $200,000 Gold Leaf Foundation grant to cover the cost.
• In a long-running dispute with Henderson County over property taxes, Blue Ridge Mall agreed in May 2013 to accept the county's valuation. The mall's owner had appealed the county's 2011 and 2012 valuation of $9.43 million for the mall (except for the Belk store) and a $100,000 valuation for a retention pond. Mall owner Hull Storey Gibson had insisted on a tax value of $6 million until May 27, 2013, when it suddenly signaled "a willingness to settle for the value set by the appraiser." The commissioners directed Tax Assessor Stan Duncan to enter into the settlement for the value of $9.53 million.