Beaufort County hears sharp public criticism of BCEDC as agency outlines strategic plan and site purchases

Beaufort County Council’s economic development workshop on May 12 opened with a burst of public criticism aimed at the Beaufort County Economic Development Corporation, followed by a BCEDC presentation of its history, recent land purchases and strategic plan, and a briefing from the Southern Carolina Alliance on regional marketing and workforce programs.

Public commenters told the council the BCEDC has failed to produce verifiable long-term results and has misled citizens about incentives and outcomes. “Based on how the BCEDC has behaved towards you and us taxpayers, I believe you should defund them,” resident Felice LaMarca said during the public-comment period. Paul Trask and another commenter identifying themself as “Grama Trask” presented numeric critiques alleging about $6.1 million in BCEDC payouts and disputed BCEDC claims about property-value impact and job creation.

Those criticisms were met by BCEDC staff in the meeting. A public commenter, John O’Toole, disputed one specific claim about Glassworks incentives and said the county did not provide direct cash to that company but approved a FILO agreement. BCEDC representatives acknowledged businesses sometimes fail but said their role is to encourage investment that keeps activity and buildings in the county.

BCEDC’s presentation, led by its senior project manager Kelly Brunson and a lead presenter identified in the briefing as BCEDC’s director, set out three core activities—product development, industry recruitment and business retention/expansion—and described recent property acquisitions. Brunson told the council the organization purchased a 14.77-acre parcel on Parker Drive (acquired in April 2025) and a 117-acre site at La Beco/Labeco, described as one of few industrially zoned parcels in the county. She said the Parker Drive parcel was acquired through the state palmetto sites program with $13,800 in due-diligence funding and that the Labeco parcel was acquired for about $1.5 million.

Council members pressed staff on price, ownership, contamination risk and prospects for tenants. BCEDC staff said a phase 1 environmental study found no contamination on the portion the agency bought and that a phase 2 study and a voluntary cleanup contract may be pursued; staff said where contamination exists on adjacent properties, responsible parties or EPA funds would be avenues to address remediation so the county would not necessarily bear the full cleanup cost. Council members requested copies of the environmental reports; BCEDC agreed to provide them to council.

BCEDC also described how state and local incentives operate and emphasized performance agreements and clawback provisions. The agency said agreements include yearly reporting against Exhibit A and that, if companies fail to meet capital or job commitments, clawback formulas can recover some funds; the BCEDC said it recovered about $47,000 last year from companies that missed expectations.

On results, BCEDC presented a ‘scorecard’ it said tracks capital investment, jobs and estimated tax revenue. The presenter said cumulative capital invested on BCEDC-served projects approaches $1 billion and projected county tax revenue flowing from that base could be more than $13 million per year going forward. Several council members pressed for clarity on how those numbers were calculated, what portion of announced jobs have been filled, and whether values attributed to BCEDC activity were overstated in presentation slides.

The Southern Carolina Alliance (SCA) followed with an overview of regional marketing, recruitment and workforce programs. Jason Semple, SCA’s director of business development, described SCA’s role as a 7-county regional partner, noted Beaufort County joined SCA in 2017, and offered to run targeted marketing missions, lead generation and product-development support for county sites. SCA also reviewed workforce training efforts—apprenticeship-style training, an Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center and training incentives including up to $6,000 per employee during training periods—and a state-focused marine-transportation/ferry study intended to reduce highway congestion and expand regional worker mobility.

Council members repeatedly sought specifics: which parcels are ready to develop, the schedule and conditions for announced projects, the number of jobs actually filled versus announced, and the precise dollar flows from incentives and grants. BCEDC staff said many announced projects involve multi-year ramp-ups and that state and local incentive packages are tied to multi-year project profiles and written agreements that stage investment and hiring over five-year windows.

After the presentations, the council briefly reopened public comment; a returning commenter challenged BCEDC slides that claim a large property-value multiplier and repeated assertions about inadequate transparency and possible conflicts of interest. The meeting ended with council members asking staff for the requested environmental reports, additional documentation on grant and rent payments raised by commenters, and clarification of the scorecard calculations.

The council approved both the earlier agenda amendment to add public comment and a later motion to reopen public comment; no formal council vote on BCEDC governance, funding or a move to bring economic development in-house occurred during this session. Council members requested follow-up materials and said further deliberation will continue in subsequent meetings.