The Spratt campaign went on the attack against Republican Mick Mulvaney this week, targeting a Lancaster County development and attempting to tie him into the failure of that project, alleging he put the taxpayers on the hook for personal gain.

As part of their ongoing negative campaign efforts, the Spratt campaign put a website up - EdenmoorFacts.com - which makes a number of claims, but its only supporting source of evidence was a letter to the editor written to the Lancaster News by a former Lancaster County Council member - not a news story - in which even he admits that the bonds were being paid back by residents of the development, as was the original intent. The rest of the claims presented are not supported by any evidence.

However, there are other places to look for more factual information on this matter, including a news story published in the same newspaper by Christopher Sardelli. In this story, he met with several Lancaster County officials, including the current Chair of County Council, as well as Mick Mulvaney. What he reported clearly contradicted the claims made in the Spratt ad.

MULVANEY WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR EDENMOOR'S FAILURE: The editorial that Spratt's campaign relies upon for its attacks claimed "He also didn’t tell us that Lawson’s Bend was already in deep financial trouble" is misleading, as the Lancaster News story reported that "Mulvaney’s company signed a contract to sell the property to GS Carolina in summer 2005", well before the development ran into trouble.  Sales transactions in this world generally don't require one to ascertain the financial ability of the buyers (as evidenced by the many home foreclosures), only that one have the cash to make the purchase, which GS Carolina did.

Once the development was sold, Mulvaney had no control over the development, with the Lancaster News reporting:

Between January and June 2006, GS Carolina changed several aspects of the project. Besides renaming it Edenmoor, GS Carolina changed the zoning specifics and the conditions of the tax district, including the amount of tax Edenmoor residents would be required to pay. The amount increased from $300 a year to $800 a year per house.



Under the Mulvaney Group, the development was to have 2,100 units, plus an apartment building, offices and smaller homes for first-time buyers. Under the GS Carolina agreement, the plan was to have larger, higher-end homes, that would start at $400,000 and up. The plans for apartments or an office building were scrapped.

COUNTY TAXPAYERS DID NOT LOSE $30 MILLION: While the Spratt attack website claimed that Mulvaney got "$30 Million from Lancaster County", the truth of the matter is that the bonds were sold on the private market, with Lancaster County acting as the middleman in the bond transaction, for which it received a fee.

In the Lancaster News story, Lancaster County Chair Rudy Carter and Lancaster County Administrator Steve Willis make it clear that taxpayers risked nothing, and lost nothing on the bond issue used to finance the development:

(T)axpayers would not be responsible for the $30 million in bonds on the Edenmoor development. He said the bonds were sold on the private market. This means only those bondholders will lose if payments are not made. The county is not one of the bondholders.

“That means if this thing went belly-up, then the bondholders would be out of luck, not the taxpayers,” Willis said.

Mulvaney says the only people paying for the bonds are Edenmoor homeowners. They pay a special assessment district tax of $800 a year per home.

Carter said the county’s only role was to approve the bonds and collect the assessments, for which it gets a small fee.

The county collects the taxes for the trustee, Wells Fargo Bank, which represents the bondholders. From there, the tax money goes to the county treasurer, who then pays it out to the bondholders.

While Spratt may be hoping that voters will assume the claims made in the ad are true, closer examination of the issues raises questions about their credibility. Voters would be wise to look beyond Spratt's flimsy attacks and the real facts about Edenmoor.