Boeing insists on secrecy

Charleston County officials are poised to approve millions of dollars of tax breaks and grants promised to Boeing Co., but County Council members learned Thursday that the details of what they've been asked to approve may not be publicly released for up to a year.

That request for secrecy came from Boeing itself, which has asked that county officials keep incentive details quiet until well after the elected officials vote on them. Despite having signed Boeing's non-disclosure agreement, county officials previously said they expected to release the details after the incentives were approved.

County Council is scheduled to take a final vote on the incentives Tuesday evening.

The secretive nature of the incentives -- local and state incentives worth an estimated $450 million -- has concerned some council members. At a committee meeting Thursday, Councilman Paul Thurmond reiterated his complaint that council had held a public hearing on the incentives without telling people what the incentives were.

No one spoke at that hearing.

Thurmond said the hearing had been foolish and disingenuous. He suggested that on Tuesday the council should disclose what the incentives are and have a public hearing before County Council votes, and that's when county attorney Joe Dawson said the incentives would not all be made public even after they are approved.

"My hope is that we will be in a position to release some, but not all, of the details," he said.

Council Chairman Teddie Pryor said the county would never get anything done if they had to have a hearing on every big decision. Councilman Elliott Summey said disclosing the Boeing incentives could help the aircraft maker's competitors, or influence the trading of Boeing's stock.

As the argument about government transparency continued and voices were raised, County Council decided to go into a closed-door meeting to sort things out.

Despite Boeing's request for privacy, some of the details of their $450 million incentive package have trickled out.

When council members reconvened from executive session, they voted to recommend accepting a $100,000 grant from Berkeley Electric Cooperative Inc., which it could spend on public improvements on Boeing's roughly 400-acre campus at the Charleston airport.

Even though the utility won't provide power for the assembly plant, the Moncks Corner-based power company said in a statement that "the Boeing project will provide jobs for the entire Lowcountry, and the spin-off effect will increase all kinds of economic activities."

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County officials also have lined up a $5.1 million grant through the state Commerce Department, also for site improvements. That grant money, which came from a pool of tax money collected from utility companies, is the largest of its kind for Charleston County, said county economic development director Steve Dykes.

County officials have also asked for $150,000 to pay for a traffic study for the region around Boeing's site.

In October, state lawmakers reconvened to pass legislation that doesn't name Boeing specifically, but it makes certain incentives available to companies that generate more than 3,800 jobs and invest more than $750 million during a seven-year span. Boeing has said it plans to achieve those levels of investment.

Some of the state law tweaks involved tax breaks for jet fuel purchases, and they exempted some computer equipment purchases. They also allow a qualifying company to immediately pay no sales tax on construction materials, rather than wait for a 2011 phase-in.

Companies that request economic incentives, which typically come in the form of property tax breaks, tax credits for jobs and development-related grants, can ask for several levels of privacy.

As a result, some in-the-works deals are given code names. And in some cases, companies ask for that details be kept private until after they're approved.

Reach Katy Stech at kstech@postandcourier.com or 937-5549. Reach David Slade at 937-5552 or dslade@postandcourier.com.