The Pampa Economic Development Corporation held a meeting on Thursday afternoon.
As part of the meeting, there was a public hearing regarding the $250,000 forgivable loan/grant to the Lonestar Gin.
Resident Earl Smith addressed the Board about the grant/loan they are considering.
“I’m having a real problem just seeing where the taxpayer is benefiting from the quarter of a million dollars we are giving away,” Smith said. “The gin is here and it’s not changed their employment. All they are wanting us to do is to pay for their lack of planning as to what it costs them to actually be ready and up and running.”
Smith said he wouldn’t have an issue if the gin was short on operating capital, but he didn’t see why the public had to “bail them out” for their additional expenses they incurred.
“I just can’t see rewarding bad planning on their part,” Smith said. “And them going after more than they needed expecting the taxpayer to pick up the difference.”
Resident and local financial advisor Ben Watson pointed out the gin added to the tax-base to the tune of $296,000-plus.
“That’ll be revenue to this county that is built and ready to go,” Watson said. “My understanding is the air quality improvements is above and beyond what was required. It was for the good of Gray County.”
Lonestar Gin general manager Carey McKinney was present to respond to Smith’s inquiries about the loan/grant.
“We didn’t have to spend the money on air pollution but we did it because of our location and the prevailing winds,” McKinney said.
“Although we’re three-quarters of a mile from the nearest house, which put us in standard on the permit, after city commission meetings, meeting with the public and a few trips to our cousin gin to the north (in Spearman), we decided at both plants to put the additional air pollution control in.
“We did it because of the concerns of the local citizens to be good neighbors. We decided we would invest this money and do it.”
McKinney added the Gin also incurred expenses of $250,000 in legal fees to increase the air quality. As of Thursday, Lonestar Gin had 20 on the payroll with all but two living in Pampa.
Board president clarified that the loan was forgivable simply based on employment.
“It’s no different than some of the other grants that we’ve given,” Sutherland said. “We’ve done that for new businesses coming to Pampa. That would be my statement. What we did is no different than a lot of deals we’ve done.”
Pampa baseball booster club president Shawn Boyd also addressed the Board asking for a grant of $41,855 to improve the seating at Pampa High School’s baseball field.
“If you come to a game, you’ll see 15-20 people standing on the visitor side and 30 to 40 people on the home side. If you look in the parking lot on right field, you’ll see 20-30 people sitting in lawn-chairs simply because there isn’t any seating,” Boyd said. “But there are those ‘crazy sports parents’ and when they are side by side, there can be some issues that arise with verbal altercations. It hasn’t happened too often, but it does happen.”
Boyd added there are stairs on the bleachers right now, but with the new proposal there will be a ramp to allow for disability access. Boyd added Pampa Independent School District has told the booster club there is no money for capital projects, but this project has been approved because there isn’t any upkeep or maintenance.
Boyd talked about how the bleachers could affect playoff hosting.
“For the past two out of three years. we have played Lubbock-Estacado in the playoffs,” Boyd said. “You have two options: You can have a home-home or a neutral site. Both teams both years wanted a home-home so that’s a Thursday game and then a double-header on Saturday if needed. But they wanted our home site to be Stinnett. They wanted us in Pampa to go to a town of 1,500 because they had places to sit that we don’t.
“Because of that, we had to go with a neutral site and we lose parents and grandparents coming in, hotels, people going to restaurants and browsing our stores.”
Boyd also said Pampa loses the smaller area school districts possibly hosting their playoff games. The new bleachers would hold 174 at max capacity.
Board member Cay Warner did remind Boyd to check with the contractor to ensure there is an engineer and licensed contractor to sign off on the project and meet all of the requirements a school district would need to meet.
During the treasurers report, treasurer Glennette Goode mentioned sales tax revenue is still down 2.2 percent from last year, but will still eclipse $1.1 million in revenue.
