On Sunday, the Danville Register & Bee ran a feature article about Norhurst, Inc. It was a trainwreck because Tim Norton lied to Vicky Morrison (the reporter) and she didn’t challenge him on it.
Let’s take a look at what went wrong.
First, this is the link to Sunday’s R&B article.
(Register & Bee article, paywall may apply unless you break through it)
Now, I want you to take a look at Norhurst’s contract with the Tobacco Commission.
Let’s start with the biggest lie of them all from the article…
Tim Norton, the veteran and local resident who owns Norhurst, said that hiring for his company was restricted to outside of a 120-mile radius around the company’s location.
“They wanted us to bring in people from outside the state,” Norton explained. “All of our employees are from outside the state.”
When Norton received the Tobacco Region Opportunity Fund grant agreement, he said the stipulation in his Tobacco Commission contract struck him as unusual. A 120-mile radius blacks out all of the Dan River Region as well as areas below the North Carolina border for hiring prospects.
There’s only one problem with that. That 120-mile radius doesn’t exist in the contract. At all. The reporter should have gotten and read this contract as preparation for this interview. The article reads out the language of the contract, but this bold-faced lie should have immediately rang as horsecrap during the interview. The Tobacco Commission’s function is to bring jobs to the Southside region. Why would the commission red-line a 120 mile radius around Danville?
For Norhurst, the funding announced in September 2012 was specified for building renovation costs. Norhurst agreed to create 108 new jobs and invest $2.3 million in capital. The tobacco grant amount was $625,000, which Norton disputes receiving.
“We never received any grant money. The grant money was given to the banks to purchase the property,” he said.
Seriously? If the money paid for the building that you now own, then you got the money. It may have been delivered directly into your hand, but you got the money. I don’t play the semantics game with somebody who has blatantly lied to me earlier.
Norton said that 78 employees were hired from outside of the Dan River Region to help craft SHELTR, a program in which Norton prides himself. While no local workers were involved, the discreet process drew leaders and stakeholders from all over the country and world to Danville, Norton said.
SHELTR, which stands for School Hazard Emergency Lethal Threat Response, provides both training and products to clients.
Based on Norton’s dishonesty, I simply don’t believe this at all either. When you look at the SHELTR website, you see two vague testimonials. One is from Pittsylvania County Sheriff Mike Taylor and it says nothing about the implementation of the program into Pittsylvania County Schools. The other is from Pittsylvania County School Superintendent James McDaniel saying that the program is a “good thing to consider”. That’s useless crap. If this SHELTR program was oh-so-good, I’d believe that they could have came up with much better testimonials than that. I couldn’t find any implementation nor consideration of this SHELTR system in any other school system in the USA. Again, I don’t believe anything Norton says on this.
“One thing we like about Danville is the quiet,” he said. “Nothing that we do is in secret. It’s just that it’s quiet.”
First of all, Norhurst isn’t doing anything in Danville. Nobody answers the phones, no messages are returned. Second, whatever is going on in their building is so secret that Norton said that he would only allow Danville City Council to tour that building two at a time, so that a “public meeting” wouldn’t have to be called. That would make it open to the public and to media. I don’t think you’ll be surprised to find out that this “tour” hasn’t happened yet.
If the reporter had done her preparation for this interview, she would have also discovered that Norhurst sold a portion of the Dan River Mills parking lot that they owned back to the Industrial Development Authority for $400,000. That’s an important supplementary detail that should have been part of the article.
I don’t believe a word that Tim Norton says in this article. Norhurst is a Job Bust.
Just saying…I’m seeing a DPS super contract above, instead of a Tobacco Commission Contract. Am I looking at the wrong link?
Well, maybe not.
Nothing new about rotten reporting at DRB. But why is Southside Central hiding the scam that ought to get someone jailed. After the original scandal of giving the goods to Norhurst, the city then paid Norhurst for a significant chunk of the property they just gave them. Is anyone EVER going to expose the repeated thievery of these thugs–including the handmaidens in city government who enable it.
This scam is just one of many. Danville City Council & City Manager must have RUBE tattooed on their foreheads. This happens over and over and over again. I noticed he said he never got the money. A professional reporter would have called BS on that one. When we had snow this winter and I drove past the building on Memorial Drive, there were no tracks and nobody had scraped the driveway. That is a good indication noting is going on there. I dare say any funds left is out of the country, just like GOK and WebParts. Once again the taxpayers are going to be forced to make this good. Somebody need to be arrested and the property needs to be seized.
Incredible. Isn’t anybody paying attention?
Thanks Bruce for providing additional information. The R&B article left so many questions and things just did not seem to mesh. You pointed out about him saying he did not receive any money it went to the bank. The building was in bad shape-fixed in 3-4 months and spent thousands on landscaping. Did not register with VEC, can only hire from outside of 120 mile radius. When Norton was quoted as saying “…challenging for Danvillians to be aware of the company’s activity.” Alarms going off in my head! Boom. The stuff on SHELTR did not make sense. Other things in the article : ” Despite the lack of jobs, Norhurst received a $105,000 advance on the local Enterprise Zone Jobs grant from Danville when the property sale closed in a separate agreement with the city” “Since use of the tobacco grants is not stipulated in agreements, the Tobacco Commission’s Stephenson stated that the company’s spending of grant funds hasn’t been tracked” “… As far as we know they haven’t done anything.” Commissioner of Revenue James Gillie Norton said he is pleased with his companies performance and praises the city “city has assisted greatly with the company’s success” and more “They deserve all the praise. They built this,” he said of the economic development department. “I think that they’ve done a great job trying to bring business into Danville”. Yes it is challenging at this point to be aware of their activities as it relates to success in being in business in Danville. I believe we will be reading more about this, will be happy with further news? I guess time will tell.
They did put up a new mailbox at the gate to receive their checks.
Best quote in the entire R&B story: Norton says, “I don’t know where else we could have done this.” Yup. Danville. Nowhere else would taxpayers be on the hook for economic debacle after debacle.
Southside Central,
Great reporting. Whoever owns the R&B should really be ashamed…that was the sloppiest article I think I’ve ever seen in a daily paper. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, as the narrative was jumbled. You do a good job of putting flesh on the bones of a story.
Also…any update on the old Dan River Research Building or the White Mill? Thanks.
I echo : “” Also…any update on the old Dan River Research Building or the White Mill?”” I have wondered the same. and that long trailer looking extension above the dan river too??
Some interesting failures have taken place in Danville and Pittsylvania County in the last few years. One wonders WHY!!!
Failure is due to the pitiful leadership at all levels, starting in the private sector. The gifted people left long ago, and only second-rate types looking for handouts are willing to live here. It’s hopeless and the professional people hired to fix things all know it but the pay is nice and absolutely nobody pays attention to what they’re doing. All the horrible things we’ve watched go back to that. Just saying….
Its painful to watch Danville decay like it has, for too long people saw textiles leaving and tobacco dying and nobody thought at the time to make any changes while there was still time to do so. Now after everything has been gutted, and the best minds and talents have either left or are leaving, some are trying to put on a fresh coat of paint. Never mind that it is the core that is rotten
If this is indeed true, City MUST take every penny back from these thugs. Shameless act that must be punished! Lets make sure that the Tobacco Commission and City act on this matter,
That’s already happening. USGE made Payment #1. They’re broke, so the city has made Payment #2. Two payments down, two to go.
[…] Remember, this is the company that has promised to create 108 new jobs in exchange for a Tobacco Com…. […]
Did Norhurst the hire “108 employees” or does it want the City to provide more grants
They haven’t hit their target number and they haven’t asked for anything else (and they won’t ask).
So will Danville City pay the Tobacco Commission as Norhurst did not meet their target number? Will someone be held accountable? How many employees did Norhurst hire in reality. Probably Vicky Morrision needs to do another article and get the facts for the public.
The clock hasn’t ran out on Norhurst. I believe that Norhurst has the money to pay back the grants.
I’ll let the “Vicky Morrison” and “the facts” remark slide, because this article has got them out there already.
[…] In another article, SouthsideCentral went over the lies that Tim Norton told to Register & Bee r…. One of the big ones was that Norhurst was red-lined from hiring people within a 120-mile radius of Danville. That was a clear lie. […]
Carl Timothy Norton is a ███ ████ ███ ███ ███ █████ and if the City of Danville lets him get away with this they should foot the bill not the taxpayers of this city. One time maybe but six? Wake up Danville city council!
Editor’s Note: I’ve removed potentially defamatory language here.
Danville City Council can’t do anything about this now. If Norton pays back the Tobacco Commission debt, there’s no “loss” to the city and that means no potential of fraud.
TC is wasting tax payers money by allowing Norhurst to do this scam. For the 2.2M investment, where are the receipts and what investment was done? If Norhurst cannot provide the receipts, shouldn’t entire $625,000 be paid back?