Secretary of Department of Natural and Cultural Resources visits
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 27, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Susan Kluttz smiles at a remark during Tuesday's reception at the Lane Tree Golf Club.
Last spring Goldsboro was one of the first stops on a statewide awareness tour to rally grassroots support for restoring the state's historic preservation tax credits.
Tuesday afternoon Goldsboro was the start of a second tour by Susan Kluttz, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, who first thanked the community for its support of the tax credits and then asked for support for the $2 billion bond issue on the March 15 ballot.
Saving the historic tax credits program shows how successful a grassroots effort can be, Mrs. Kluttz told Goldsboro Rotarians at their meeting held at the Lane Tree Golf Club.
"So the first thing I want to do here is to say thank you to Goldsboro because without you I am sure it just could not have happened," she said. "Your advocacy was wonderful. We held a rally here in April. It was very important to make our citizens aware of the crisis in Raleigh.
"I am so excited to say now that we can save our rich history. I do want to share with you, too, for your information I am very proud that the governor recognized that as part of his vision that we very much need a bond referendum in this state."
The state can borrow this money with no tax increase, she said.
"I am very proud of the fact that he choose two parts of my new department to benefit from them," Mrs. Kluttz said.
The first is the state parks that would receive $75 million and the second is the N.C. Zoo that would get $25 million, she said.
"The bond referendum is important because it touches all of the state with our education, community colleges, with our university system, agriculture in so many different ways," Mrs. Kluttz said. "But I am most excited about this because it is part of quality of life like our historic preservation and our historic buildings as well.
"I am starting yet another tour of North Carolina, and you are the very first. I am particularly thrilled to be here for one big reason, and that is the historic preservation tax credits, and the fact that they were successful had a lot to do with Goldsboro, and the fact that you were kind enough to have the governor and me here when we were on our quest to do the impossible."
Ms. Kluttz said when Gov. Pat McCrory appointed her she had been proud that he had made restoring the historic preservation tax credits, which were about to expire, a priority.
"I was actually horrified when I got to Raleigh and found out that the Legislature absolutely said they would not do it (restore the tax)," she said. "I was told things from the Legislature like, 'We will not have tax credits no matter what you do. You are wasting your time. We will kill them in the end.'
"So I knew it was something that was impossible, but we still believed, like you do in Goldsboro, and I had learned in Salisbury (as mayor) that they were so critical to our downtowns."
Mrs. Kluttz said she had started all of her comments about the tax credits by referring to the crisis in Raleigh.
One legislator complained to McCrory and said that the governor had to stop her.
The governor did not do that, she said.
"Now I have to say that I start my remarks with a miracle happened in Raleigh because that is what happened," she said. "We ended up making 73 stops in 52 cities and towns."
The stops including celebrating successes and talking about potential, she said.
"We found no city or town in North Carolina that said we don't have anything left that needs to be done," she said. "Everybody had potential. Goldsboro was a great partner, and I was so proud to also get a chance to visit the Arts Council here."
The stops also included visits with the media to explain what they were doing, plead the case for restoring the tax credits and educating the public, she said.
"We realized that what we really needed to do was to have an awareness tour -- that the people in North Carolina really weren't aware of what they (tax credits) were," she said. "It is so important not only for citizens like you to rally with us and to understand it and talk to your legislators, but we were singing to the choir with our supporters.
"We had to get the word out beyond the people who understood why downtown redevelopment is important, why saving our history is important. We had to get to a wider group of people, and that is exactly what the media was able to do."
Mrs. Kluttz said supporters realized they were fighting a philosophy in Raleigh of no tax credit.
"If people believe very strongly in a philosophy they have, it is very hard to change their minds and that is why we needed you," she said.
Other options were explored, but nothing would work better than the tax credit, and a more efficient program was created that had lower percentages, caps on large projects, reduced residential, Mrs. Kluttz said.
But supporters knew it was important to retain residential because the oldest residential areas normally surround a downtown, she said.
"So if you leave that boarded up, empty and rundown, you are never going to be able to truly renovate your entire downtown," she said.
The efforts were successful last March when the House voted 98-15 to restore the credits. But it was short lived when Senate leadership said the bill was "graveyard dead" and had been sent to a committee that never meets, she said.
It was then that the awareness tour kicked, she said.
"We had no idea we would end up traveling for six months," she said.
Mrs. Kluttz said she found out 10 minutes before the budget was made public in October that it restored the tax credits.
A number of projects had been in limbo prior to that, and some developers called and said they could not wait on the state any longer and went to states that wanted the projects, she said.
Since it passed development has started back up, she said.
"It still amazes me to say it," Mrs. Kluttz said. "I still can't believe the whole things exactly like we wanted it with the residential survived.
"We lost a year. We still have four years left. It does not expire until 2020. So we will be back on the road and back to see you again when it gets closer."