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Legislation Allowing Small Town EDA's to Skip Public Disclosure Moves Forward in Richmond

Lawmakers are debating a way to prevent disclosure of potential conflicts of interest in economic development boards.

After the General Assembly approved a bill last year requiring public disclosure of potential conflicts of interest for members of economic development authorities, many people decided they don't want to serve because they don't want to disclose their information. That prompted Republican Senate Leader Tommy Norment to propose a bill that excludes disclosure requirements for any jurisdiction that has fewer than 25,000 people. 

 

"Sometimes in these smaller jurisdictions, everyone knows one another and everyone would like to know everybody else's business and some of these individuals just are reticent to do that so there's nothing nefarious about that," he explains. 

 

Senator Mark Obenshain is a Republican from Rockingham County who says those smaller jurisdictions are particularly at risk of the kind of fraud that happened in Warren County, where an economic development authority got caught up in a $20 million embezzlement scheme. 

 

"These small counties, they have no staff or virtually no staff and they are less sophisticated," Obenshain says. "And when somebody has an opportunity to bring in a company, the opportunity for conflict is enormous, absolutely enormous." 

 

The bill passed the Senate in a vote that transcended partisan politics or regional loyalty. 14 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted in favor of the measure, sending it over to the House of Delegates.

 

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

Michael Pope is an author and journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria.