Rev. Moore seeks even more taxpayer bailouts for his failed project | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    While a block away the Beaufort County Commissioners were considered giving a taxpayer funded handout to a business man who had failed to live up to previous promises he had made to get a corporate welfare grant (which we will be reporting on later), the Washington City Council heard an appeal from the Rev. David Moore for more bailouts of a failed low income housing project he had previously secured a quarter-million dollars taxpayer funded grant that he too has not delivered on.

    The project is Keys Landing off Keysville Road. It goes back to 2005 when Rev. Moore's "non-profit" - the Metropolitan Housing Corporation - convinced the City to apply for a grant to subsidize the construction of 13 houses in the newly developed subdivision. The project has been plagued with problems since the beginning, but now, eight years later the state has pulled the plug on the grant, demanding that the City pay the state back for the quarter million grant that failed to build the subdivision as promised.

    While there are more crooks and turns in this saga than a worm on hot pavement, the bottom line at this point is that the City taxpayers are going to get stuck for a ton of money unless somebody can pull another rabbit out of the hat. Rev. Moore was asking that the City waive the utilities fees and taxes in the hopes that he will be able to build part of the fifteen house he originally committed to.

    The last turn is that the City Planning Director advised the Council that the grant has been canceled by the state and Rev. Moore was telling the Council that he "understood" that he would be given more dispensations by the state to at least build some of the houses, so he felt the taxpayers should give him some more money to bail him out.

    Bottom line: Another bad business deal made by politicians with other people's money.

    You can review the agenda background material on this issue by clicking here. It begins on Page 44.

    You can listen to Rev. Moore pitch and the Council's discussion and decision to not decide in the video below:



    We apologize if we sound disgusted...but we are and we can't help it. This is beginning to sound like a broken record. And we forgot to mention that another item on the Board of Commissioner's agenda was foreclosing on people who can't afford to pay their property taxes.

    Bless us and save us.