Carolina Journal’s Don Carrington reports on a failed North Carolina project funded by a federal “stimulus” grant — a project that leaves a lot of unanswered questions about how the money was spent and why this went forward in the first place.
Yancey County resident Melissa Graham’s stimulus-funded project converting a former blue jean factory into a mixed-use commercial facility failed, and Graham did not pay tens of thousands of dollars to a subcontractor, but a report from the N.C. Department of Commerce viewed the project as a success, and Commerce says it “met its responsibilities in evaluating the satisfactory completion of all projects and the awarding of the associated grant.”
Graham, who is in her late 30s and lives in a remote area of Yancey County, received the $378,000 stimulus award in 2011 to pay for wall insulation, skylights, a solar water-heating system, and a solar electric generating system at the 60,000-square-foot building in Micaville. She never has owned the facility — which she renamed the Mountain Heritage Expo Center — nor has Carolina Journal been able to locate any formal lease she has signed to occupy the building.
Graham was unable to secure permanent tenants for the center, and had refused to pay $60,000 to one contractor who worked on the building. Sometime in 2013, the building’s owner put the facility up for sale. Graham then tried to get rid of the solar panels, initially posting them for sale on Craigslist before donating some of them to a nearby private school.
Your federal tax dollars at work.
