Horner’s Rural Route
Rural Route is authored by veteran journalist Bill Horner. He will focus on key issues in less populated parts of the state.
If you’re curious why economically distressed Bladen County owns a quartet of new airplanes, acquired during a three-day, $2.5 million buying spree last August, buckle up.
That’s part of a larger story with as much turbulence as a willow in a hurricane.
Chuck Huestess, who leads Bladen’s development efforts and orchestrated the purchase of the planes for its nonprofit economic development organization, describes what’s transpiring there as “absolute insanity.” He alleges a litany of misdeeds, broken promises and outright falsehoods — most attributed to the municipal administration of Elizabethtown, Bladen’s county seat.
Dane Rideout, a former West Point garrison commander who serves as Elizabethtown’s town manager, is the prime target of Heustess’ angst. He seems unfazed. “We’re going to come out on the end and fix this, and we’re all going to get back on each other’s Christmas cards lists,” Rideout says. “We’re gonna get past this and
move forward.”
He blames “the divorce” on a lack of foresight on the county’s part.
Heustess scoffs at that. On a visit to his office within the 300-acre Elizabethtown Industrial Park, Heustess outlined why. He is director of both the Bladen County Economic Development Commission and its wonderfully named nonprofit real estate developer, Bladen’s Bloomin’ Agri-Industrial Inc. He walked me through a catalogued, three-ring binder of documents, consisting of letters, signed (and unsigned) agreements, correspondence, town and county board minutes and more, annotated and checkered with color-coded sticky notes.
While examining the 4-inch-thick amalgamation, I asked whether Heustess had numbered the grievances that collectively contribute to the fissures between the county (N.C.’s fourth largest in acreage, but a population of just under 30,000) and its seat, which has 3,265 residents.
“It was 70 something,” he says, “but we consolidated and got it down to 44.”
Rideout counters that his team has done nothing wrong. “So we’re gonna keep working,” the town manager says. “We’re being positive. We’re keeping our heads down, right? We’re doing things legally, ethically and morally correct.”
Taking the gloves off
In recent years, Bladen County has received praise for its rural economic development efforts, buoyed by a strong relationship between the county and Elizabethtown. But Charles Ray Peterson, the county commission board chairman and acting county manager since the end of 2023, characterizes it differently.
“There is no relationship,” says Peterson, a commissioner since 2002. “They’ve been dragging, they’ve been putting us off on things, and we’re not waiting another day. I took the gloves off on this one.”
On March 28, Bladen’s Bloomin’ filed a civil suit against the town of Elizabethtown for failing to comply with an Oct. 18 public records request. The same day, Elizabethtown issued a press release blaming the county and Bladen’s Bloomin’ with “misinformation” and “divergent views” that have stymied projects.
A day later, Bladen County and Bloomin’ released a 2,700 word statement classifying some of Elizabethtown’s claims as “blatantly false.” It cited the town administration’s “ineptitude,” raised questions about development strategies that impacted the town and county adversely, and examined discrepancies between town board meeting minutes and the wording found in published agreements.
The county and Bladen’s Bloomin’ plan a public hearing to share documentation of their claims, inviting the Elizabethtown City Council and the public.
Housing quarrel
The disconnect began with Elizabethtown’s plan to develop a “live, work, play” community within the industrial park. In 2023, the county gave $100,000 to the town to help fund a master plan for the proposed 33-acre residential and commercial project, which had a primary goal of providing much-needed housing for Bladen’s workforce.
That includes about 5,000 employees at Smithfield Foods’ meat packing plant in Tar Heel (only 6% of whom live in the county, says Rideout) and a burgeoning aerospace industry.
There was shared enthusiasm for the new plan, now being called “The Estuary.” But after the $100,000 check was cashed, the town’s vision for the project suddenly veered from Bladen’s understanding. Among the dozens of problematic issues mentioned by Heustess were revised plans for housing. The parties had agreed to 30 or so “for sale” housing units, while the town’s new plan called for as many as 500 rental homes. (The Estuary’s current vision now calls for construction of 284 units.)
Aghast at the many revisions, Bladen officials asked for repayment
of the $100,000. Then, other projects began sputtering over even newer disagreements.
“There’s been a trend of the town giving us inaccurate information or backing out on commitments they’ve made,” Heustess says.
The town hasn’t returned that $100,000. Communication has broken down. Mediation has failed. On April 15, the county filed a lawsuit asking for the money back, citing misappropriation by town officials.
“For over a year we have been asking the town to meet, and they will not agree to even meet to discuss the issues,” Heustess says. “What’s mind boggling is that millions of dollars have been lost, projects can’t move forward, and they won’t even meet with us.”
Rideout says the ongoing friction and the “strong personalities” involved would make sitting down right now “very unhealthy.”
Disagreements have grown personal. “A lot of it are things that have been said by the town administrators about me, the county manager, and the Bladen’s Bloomin’ organization that are not true,” Heustess says. “And we consider them malicious.”
Rideout, a 30-year military veteran, did meet with Heutess last year. At that confab, Heustess says Rideout’s “choice words were, on multiple occasions, ‘stay the [expletive] out of it.”’
Rideout admits that “the colonel in me came out” during their talk. Still, he says, state officials and agencies have tacitly signed off on Elizabethtown’s preferred version of the project. The vision for housing changed chiefly because more lower-priced, energy-efficient rental homes would better meet Bladen’s needs, he says.
While attorneys now largely drive communication between the entities, Heustess outlines the grievances in detail. Complicated, nuanced elements of the mixed-use development are just one area. Others involve disagreements over infrastructure funding and control over projects within the park, grant monies lost or threatened by the town’s errors, and fears that ongoing and potential development projects could be at risk. The highest profile is the Vulcanair project, a key part of Bladen’s effort to create an aerospace sector.
Limbo time?
Some of the more egregious concerns for Heustess are $15 million in state DEQ grants that Peterson says are in limbo; $1.3 million in lost Golden LEAF funding, and another $1 million in road, water and sewer funds from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and Golden LEAF that were lost because, as Heustess says, “Elizabethtown just didn’t do what they said they were going to do.”
That helped lead to the airplane purchases.
In early 2024, the county announced Vulcanair North America would use a 36,000-square-foot building at the Elizabethtown airport to manufacture its four-seat Vulcanair S.p.A-Model V1.0 trainer aircraft. Bladen’s Bloomin’ planned to invest $3 million to build the facility, but Heustess says the town decided it would handle construction instead.
Subsequent delays threatened the project’s viability, he says. The company says the plant will open in September, though no construction had started as of mid-April.
Based on Elizabethtown’s promise to build the facility, Bladen’s Bloomin’ agreed to acquire four Vulcanair aircraft. The price tag: about $515,000 each, plus fees and delivery costs.
What might sound like a Hail Mary purchase will prove to be a great investment, Heustess says.
“We made the right decision because from the information that we got, it was the only way to save the project,” he says. “If we didn’t buy the four planes, we were told that the project was going to die … We bought these planes at their cost. There are a number of flight schools waiting to lease these planes. So we do feel like it was a safe investment because of the value of the planes.”
Once they’re delivered and the Vulcanair plant gets going, Heustess says they’ll be easy to offload, at a profit, he adds.
Putting the relationship between Bladen’s economic development entities and Elizabethtown back in the black will be a tougher sell.
“They’ve dug their feet in the sand, and we know we’ve dug ours in the sand, too,” Peterson says. ■
