JCIDA faces tension between money and jobs

The tension for board members at Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency on a request for CFM Food Distributors Inc. was clear – do what we can to keep the jobs local without seeming unfair to others who move into the Jefferson County Corporate Park.

The counter-proposal the loan review committee arrived at is to reduce the $322,600 purchase price a little, not to the $105,000 that CFM officials wanted. JCIDA has charged $20,000 per acre and the committee agreed to go down to $17,500 per acre in light of the amount of site work required for the slope on the lot.

Instead, JCIDA will offer to cover the rest with a low-interest loan that will convert to a grant if CFM reaches target employment numbers. In previous versions of the agreements between CFM and JCIDA, only interest rates on the $375,000 loan were tied to employment numbers, board members said.

CFM would like to close on the JCIDA financial package in the next month or two.

“Over the winter, the company will move forward to solidify construction plans and lenders,” said attorney Alfred W. Popkess of Mackenzie Hughes LLP, Syracuse. The goal is to begin building construction in the spring.

The loan/grant would come from the Community Development Fund, which board members are trying to decide how to use. At the committee meeting Tuesday, it sounded like members are honing in on using it for projects such as Great Lakes Cheese plant expansion and CFM, which have high job retention and creation possibilities. Previously, board members pretty much rejected infrastructure projects for the fund, which has about $2 million in it.

How could JCIDA best use the fund to retain and attract jobs?