RALEIGH – While it didn’t fulfill the $10 million promise in state money that disgraced former House Speaker Jim Black committed in 2002, the General Assembly gave Johnson & Wales University another $2 million in this year’s budget, which nudges the culinary school more than halfway toward its goal.

Officials of the private, nonprofit college decided to consolidate its two campuses in Norfolk, Va., and Charleston, S.C., into one and relocate to Charlotte in 2002. The school based its decision to merge and move largely because of promises made by Black and Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, both Democrats. In late May and early June of that year, the legislative leaders pledged to get $10 million in state money to university president Jack Yena, as an incentive for resettling in Charlotte.

Black characterized his financial promise as a “personal commitment of support … over the next five years by the State of North Carolina….” Basnight’s less-concrete assurance offered “to make our best efforts to secure $1 million immediately … and the remaining $9 million over the next five years by the state of North Carolina….” No official incentives offer was made, nor has been extended since, by the N.C. Department of Commerce, which oversees the recruitment of private industry and business to the state.

Some political opponents of Black and Basnight objected to their deals, saying that legislators should not make their own guarantees to private business. It is not within their powers or responsibilities to make such assurances, they said.

“It was not a promise by the state,” said House Minority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake. “It was a private promise made by Jim Black and Marc Basnight. As far as I’m concerned they can take it out of their own pockets.”

Basnight is serving his eighth two-year term as Senate leader. Black is serving a 63-month sentence in a Pennsylvania federal prison for accepting bribes, after serving four terms as House Speaker. State Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, said the problem isn’t because it was Black who made the promise, but because for “one or two people … to bind the State of North Carolina to a spending priority is wrong.”

Nine senators, led by Mecklenburg County Democrat Charlie Dannelly, sponsored a bill earlier in this year’s legislative session that would have appropriated $6 million to Johnson & Wales. A parallel bill, sponsored by Rep. Drew Saunders, D-Mecklenburg, was also filed in the House. The General Assembly has appropriated $1 million for the school in each of the last four years. With the $2 million in the current budget, only $4 million would remain if lawmakers in future sessions decided to fulfill the promises of Black and Basnight.

Dannelly said he did not request the Johnson & Wales money because of the promises, but because local leaders from his district asked him to do so.

“The business community in Charlotte was interested in that,” he said. “(The state) provide[s] incentives here and there, and from what I gathered that was a pretty good investment.”

Dannelly addressed the situation in light of his own position of power in the Senate, which he characterized as “limited.” He is in his seventh term and is a vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

“I don’t know what’s appropriate or not appropriate,” he said of the promises made by Black and Basnight. “Let me say it this way: I wouldn’t make that kind of promise. But I certainly can make a promise to a businessman to do what I can. And it’s a very viable entity.”

Dannelly said Johnson & Wales has helped improve Charlotte’s economy, calling the area around the school “bustling.” He pointed to a positive economic impact from the university that, according to an economic impact study written last May by North Carolina State University business professor Art Padilla, includes an investment of “over $100 million” by the school and the generation of “over $100 million annually in the state’s economy.”

Dennis Wicker, a lawyer and lobbyist for Johnson & Wales, distributed a fact sheet that said enrollment would reach 2,500 this year and 250 new jobs would be created by the school.

“It has truly been a success story,” Wicker said. “When you look at what the university has achieved, it has met or exceeded all expectations.”

Dannelly expressed disappointment from two years ago, when the legislature approved a plan to sell a state-owned building in Charlotte to Johnson & Wales for $1. Gov. Mike Easley and other state elected leaders, however, thwarted that plan by selling the structure to a private developer instead for $5.25 million.

“It would have been a great investment,” Dannelly said. “I think we would have gotten more out of it if they let it go to Johnson & Wales.”

The senator said the last time he saw the structure, named for former U.S. President James K. Polk, it was in poor condition. He said Johnson & Wales planned to invest millions of dollars in the property “to make it blend into the university.”

According to the 1.85-acre property’s current developer, plans are to demolish the Polk building and replace it with a mixed-use development that would include 600 residential units and 40,000 square feet of retail space.

Although the building plan didn’t work out and the balance of the legislative leaders’ promise didn’t come through, Wicker said he was glad the General Assembly supports the school and that almost the entire Mecklenburg delegation signed on to legislation that essentially backs the $10 million promise.

“Obviously you’d rather receive $6 million rather than $2 million,” he said, “but we’re pleased the General Assembly recognized that the university has been an educational and economic success.”

Berger recognized Johnson & Wales as “a feather in the cap” for North Carolina, but in light of other demands upon the state budget, he believed it not to be a top priority.

“Because there is no end to the list of good ideas that are begging for state money, you’ve got to exercise some discipline in your spending,” he said. The new $20.7 billion budget increases spending by 9.5 percent over last year.

“I would say (the majority’s) priorities are misplaced,” Stam said. “There are a lot higher priorities.”

Dannelly said the importance of projects is in the eyes of the beholder.

“Any time you fund something that’s not somebody else’s priority, you can always raise that issue,” he said. “That’s politics.”

Paul Chesser ([email protected]) is associate editor of Carolina Journal. Jeff Taylor contributed reporting for this article.