Mark Barrett

mbarrett@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE – A company considering bringing 500 well-paid technical jobs to Buncombe County says it won't do so unless changes are made to HB2, the president of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce said Friday.

Chamber President and CEO Kit Cramer said she does not yet know what changes would be required to satisfy the company. She declined to name the company behind the project and that not getting the jobs "would be incredibly hard to swallow."

"The site selectors called us yesterday to say that while they loved Asheville, they loved our team, and loved their last visit here, the company's CEO has said that they will not invest another dime in North Carolina until HB2 is addressed," Cramer said.

"Any hint of discrimination should be scrubbed from the law," she said in remarks to about 140 people at a lunch meeting on the Biltmore Estate with area state legislators. Cramer said the chamber will work with legislators on possible changes.

The primary purposes of HB2 are to strike down an ordinance passed by Charlotte City Council that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people in employment and public accommodations and to keep other local governments from passing similar rules. The state General Assembly passed the law in a one-day special session March 23 and Gov. Pat McCrory signed it that night.

Cramer implied that Buncombe was a strong possibility for the company's expansion and said afterward that Buncombe is "not completely out of the running" for the project.

Removing "any hint of discrimination" in the sense that Cramer described it would represent almost a 180-degree turn by the General Assembly.

HB2 does touch on other subjects, like preventing local governments from adopting minimum wages or imposing special requirements on contractors, but legislative backers of the law have emphasized overruling the Charlotte ordinance and preventing others like it in the state. They say a major concern is keeping men from having access to women's bathrooms and dressing rooms.

The Charlotte ordinance called for allowing people to use the restroom of the gender they identify with.

Legislative leaders so far have said it is possible minor changes could be made in the law when the Republican-dominated General Assembly returns for a regular session April 25, but its main provisions will remain in place.

“We have been told by attorneys ... not to get into specifics since it’s in the courts,” Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Henderson County Republican who is the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said later Friday.

PayPal announced Tuesday that it was dropping plans to put a 400-job operations center in Charlotte and more than 120 companies have publicly condemned the law.

After PayPal's announcement, Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore issued a statement that gave no hint of any changes to HB2. They blamed PayPal's decision on Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Roy Cooper "and the far-left Political Correctness Mob" that Berger and Moore said are spreading "misinformation" about HB2.

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer said it appeared that local officials had been on the cusp of landing the project before HB2 emerged as an issue.

"We've been hearing about this potential economic development for Asheville for a long time and it was looking really good," she said.

Manheimer said her understanding was that the company had decided to come here "barring anything catastrophic" before HB2 passed.

Cramer said after the lunch meeting that she had been less certain of the outcome.

Apodaca said he and his office have been in contact with the company for months, as recently as Friday, and North Carolina remains in play as a possible location for the project.

Should a deal materialize, an announcement would likely not come for months or a year, he said, and the company has said it is possible they may not expand at all.

“It’s a long road to go and we’ve been talking with their representatives for a few months now. HB2 is really not a huge factor in this. There are other issues we are dealing with,” he said. “Any company looks at what incentives they can get, what infrastructure they can receive ... There’s a lot more to it other than one thing.”

Buncombe legislators condemned HB2. But all are Democrats and their ability to sway the Republican majority in Raleigh is usually limited.

Rep. Brian Turner, D-Buncombe, voted against HB2 last month and said he favors repealing it.

“Unfortunately, at this point ideology seems to be trumping economics. But I don’t know how many more examples we need that this bill is bad for North Carolina before people will sit up and notice that this is going to negatively impact our reputation for a long time," he said.

Cramer said in an interview she could not be specific about what changes to HB2 might satisfy the company "and I'm not sure they know yet either. They have simply shared their concern and we'll be sharing their concern with legislators. ... There are so many layers to this bill, we all need to take a look at the language ourselves."

"We are opposed to any whiff of discrimination and think that any General Assembly members need to look at that legislation through that lens," Cramer said.

She said the chamber has seen other negative impacts and that she was hearing similar concerns from people at chambers of commerce around the state.

"We've received comments from a number of individuals who have cancelled (leisure) trips here," she said. "We've also been told we're on the bubble for a number of meetings that would have come to Asheville" but for HB2.

Many potential visitors the chamber has heard from "are adopting a wait-and-see attitude," hoping that changes are made to HB2, Cramer said.

She drew applause when told the crowd of business leaders at Friday's luncheon that, "Discrimination, in any form, is not acceptable, and it’s bad for business.

"It’s not acceptable in Asheville. It’s not acceptable in Western North Carolina and it’s not acceptable in our state," she said.

Staff writers Tonya Maxwell and Emily Patrick contributed to this report.

Cramer remarks

Here are the portion of Kit Cramer's remarks at an Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce event Friday that dealt with HB2:

I want to address the elephant in the room: House Bill 2.

The Chamber is a membership organization with a focus on business, and building community through business. We have over 1,800 member organizations that represent a broad cross section of industry. Earlier this week the Citizen-Times reported on a poll that showed North Carolinians are almost evenly divided on this law.

But there is one element of HB2 that we should all agree upon: Discrimination, in any form, is not acceptable, and it’s bad for business. It’s not acceptable in Asheville. It’s not acceptable in Western North Carolina and it’s not acceptable in our state. Any hint of discrimination should be scrubbed from the law. The very fabric of who we are in Asheville and Buncombe County is tolerant.

That being said, HB2 is not a simple law. It touches on a number of issues that impact business. And it is our role as an organization to delve into those issues, understand their implications, share that information with our members and elected officials and advocate for improvements in the law. And by the way, that’s not a fun role to play.

We have members with diverse views, but our common desire is to help make Asheville and Buncombe County great places to live and work. Just as a reminder, we are a non-partisan organization. We are not going to get embroiled in political rhetoric, but instead, do the work to enable us to effectively address important issues for our business community.

So that’s what we’re going to do. The General Assembly goes back into short session on April 25th. We are working with members who have subject matter expertise on elements of the law to understand the … impact on business and our business environment.

We’re also monitoring reaction to HB2 and its impact on business and will share those results with our own delegation as well as with legislators around the state.

In fact, I’ll share one right now. We’ve been working on a project that would bring 500 good-paying technology jobs to Buncombe County. The site selectors called us yesterday to say that while they loved Asheville, they loved our team, and loved their last visit here, the company’s CEO has said that they will not invest another dime in North Carolina until HB2 is addressed. I’m sure many of you heard about PayPal and their decision in Charlotte. They lost 400 jobs. Well this is 100 jobs larger than that in Buncombe County. And we are not the size of Charlotte. That’s a loss that would be incredibly hard to swallow.

So just in case I have not been clear enough: We are against discrimination in any form and want to see it eradicated from the law.