Business Incubator Absolved of Debt
Clallam County Commissioners have passed a resolution absolving the Clallam Business Incubator of its debt. The Business Incubator received a $750,000 loan in 2004. The loan was funded by the state Department of Commerce.
posted by Tom Harper at 8:20 PM
18 Comments:
I wish that the news reports would name the people responsible for mismanaging the Incubator and not paying the Incubator's bills. The names of the guilty parties will sound very familiar: Karen Rogers, Mark Madsen, Jim Haguewood ....
Look up the names of the people who were on the Incubator Board of Directors (or the name of the Director) in the years before it became known that it was sinking into insolvency. All the same little tight knit group that exploits the public for personal gain. They've gotta be laughing at how easy it is to scam the locals.
Who was the primary guy? Wasn't he a member of a prominent local family?
Here's the facts folks:
1. School district ran out of money to finish the lincoln center
2. Dr. Cohen asked the state for a loan
3. State said no, becuase it could not loan the school district money without a vote by the people
4. State said we can loan it to county if county secures loan with opportunity fund
5. County say ok, but we cannot loan to School district either
6. County & school district cook up a deal and put the loan on the incubators books.
7. School district gets the money
8. Incubator gets the debt
9. Incubator fails because of debt
10. County transfers debt to school District (where it belonged in the 1st place)
11. County forgives the debt
12. Opportunity fund pays back the state
13. School district gets the asset
14. Taxpayers foot the bill
And what do all of these local "loan" losses have in common? Private businessmen (and women) talked local governments into entrusting them with taxpayer funds, then told the governments to get out of their way, because "only private businesses know how to create jobs". It is a lot easier to take risks with "free" government money than it is with your own.
Incubator Director = Jim Haguewood, who was, incidentally, the first Director of HarborWorks during the same time period. Jim's dad, Sam, was a former mayor.
Here's the facts folks:
-Once again, NOT quite true-
1. School district ran out of money to finish the lincoln center
-Completely untrue. The school district had all the money it needed to build the Skills Center, it wasn't until the "partnership" asked the district to include space for an incubator, and promissed to come up with the money needed to increase the size, that a shortage occurred-
2. Dr. Cohen asked the state for a loan
-Again, totally false, Dr. Cohn didn't ask the state for a loan, the CBI asked the state for a GRANT to build the extra space-
3. State said no, becuase it could not loan the school district money without a vote by the people
-Later, when the state turned down the incubator request for a GRANT, but offered them a loan (but then discovered they couldn't loan money to a non-profit) they also discovered that they couldn't loan money to a school district either-
4. State said we can loan it to county if county secures loan with opportunity fund
-this part is true-
5. County say ok, but we cannot loan to School district either
-Mostly true, but not because the County couldn't loan the money, but because the School couldn't borrow it without a vote of the people-
6. County & school district cook up a deal and put the loan on the incubators books.
-Again, completely untrue. The Incubator board came to the County and asked them to borrow the money from the state, and pass it through with a loan to the CBI-
7. School district gets the money
-True, but only to pay for the cost of the change order with the contractor to finish off the Incubator space-
8. Incubator gets the debt
-True, as their board agreed-
9. Incubator fails because of debt
- Bad economy was the real reason it failed, but having to pay the debt contributed, for sure-
10. County transfers debt to school District (where it belonged in the 1st place)
11. County forgives the debt
12. Opportunity fund pays back the state
13. School district gets the asset
14. Taxpayers foot the bill
-All the rest is true-
Things are never quite so simple as
"everyone" believes!
Anon 2:37
Thanks for your input but you left out some very important facts:
1. this is not true at all, the office space west of the entrance could never have been finished with out the additional money. Incubator or not, the school district did not want it unfinished and had no more money or this would have never been a loan.
2. The CBI did not ask for the loan, Dr. Cohen was on the BOD of the CBI it was his doing to get the Lincoln center finished.
5,6, 7 & 8. the school district did ask for the loan, and when they were told no, they cooked up the deal to put it on the CBI books, look at who was on the BOD when this all took place. The CBI did not even exist when all this took place. It was the city, the school district and the college.
On another note, everyone needs to stop blaming Haguewood, he was not involved at all, Bill Peach was the executive director and he was Dr. Cohen's minion.
Did you notice Norm Dicks supporting a bill because he is concerned PYTHONS are going to over-run Washington state by 2100, because of global warming.
Hey, Norm, why don't you work on stopping global warming? If things get so bad that Washington state's climate is like Florida's, pythons will be the least of our problems!
The comments by Anonymous 3:38 PM, February 16, 2012 are not only out of date (the story about this came out weeks ago), but also just plain wrong.
Dicks is behind legislation that attempts to address importing potentially invasive species (not just pythons) into the United States (not just Washington State).
When you see all the harm and havok that invasive species (Asian carp anyone?) are causing throughout the country, you can see that this is a very real problem. I'm NOT a fan of Norm Dicks, but this time, on this issue, he's pretty spot on.
And all this has WHAT to do with the Incubator..?
It looks to me as if some of the people posting here have themselves had quite a bit to do with sticking the taxpayers with the Incubator debt. Well, at least they read this blog and know that they haven't been able to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
"IF YOU WANT TO DISCUSS SOMETHING THAT'S NOT RELATED TO ONE OF THE CURRENT POSTS, GO AHEAD AND LEAVE YOUR COMMENT ANYWHERE, AT ANY ONE OF THE POSTS."
Copied from the header on this blog. FYI
Question. Are we making any progress with Scotch Broom control around here?
Also, speaking of snakes in or city - I was at my neighbors and the "tap" water stinks today. Horrible smell of a mix of chemicals. Can't even smell the chlorine it's overpowered by everything else. I'm not talking flouride, either. Not something I would wash my body with. The house I rent has a filter system and I wouldn't live in PA otherwise. I feel sorry for my neighbors. No wonder they have skin problems. All of them.
"The comments by Anonymous 3:38 PM, February 16, 2012 are not only out of date (the story about this came out weeks ago), but also just plain wrong."
Really? You might want to look at the front page of the Peninsula Daily News, earlier this week. Feb.13th edition. Headline: "Rep. Dicks in forefront of effort to bar giant pythons nationwide".
If you read that same article, it says "..if global temperatures continue to rise, pythons would be established in roughly one-third of the country by 2100, including Washington state.."
So, please re-read my original post, and show me where I'm "just plain wrong."
Hey Anon 10:29 PM, February 17, 2012, here's where you're wrong. As the headline you cite states, this is a "nationwide" problem, not just here, and not just pythons, and not just having it happen by 2100.
Florida has a huge problem with this RIGHT NOW. And there are plenty of other examples of invasive species (some brought in as pets, others just found their way here in ballast tanks and through other means) that are causing problems, uh, nationwide.
Again, I don't think much of Dicks, but to portray this as him worrying about Washington State being overrun with pythons is not accurate.
As for leaving the "good" name of Jim Haguewood out of this Incubator discussion...I guess I just have to ask how Haguewood suddenly has a "good" name? Seems like he's clearly part of the corrupt, you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours good ol' boy crowd that have held this town back for decades. And he's still out there poisoning the well, fighting the fact that this is actually the 21st century, not 1957.
the "old boys" in this town can all be blamed for the pathetic shape its in. Every dollar that went into someone's pocket instead of being invested in the community has damaged it. This town won't be able to find its way and turn around until they all die, or move away.
"everyone needs to stop blaming Haguewood" yeah, he's a weak follower, right? His family has done just as much as the other "connected" old families to destroy this town. The town fathers in this town are all a bunch of egocentric, greedy individuals who have never had the future of this town in their hearts or minds.
And here we are.
"And here we are."
Where ever we go, there we are.
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