North Central Board approves loans for multiple businesses
RIDGWAY- The North Central Pennsylvania Regional Planning and Development Commission (North Central) approved two significant loan requests for businesses in Elk and Potter County.
The first was for Friday Oil & Gas located in Weedville owned 100% by Jeff Friday. This business does freight trucking for fuel for his affiliated company that is also located in Weedville.
The request was for $125,000 and North Central will be funding this from their ARC (Appalachian Regional Commission) Revolving Loan Fund for a period of five years at an interest rate of four percent (4%).
The funds will be used to purchase equipment, specifically a 2024 gas fuel tank trailer. CNB Bank is the participating lender in this project, as they are providing $139,000 for the purchase of a 2017 Peterbilt truck.
Friday will be putting in $81,820 in equity, and the security for the loan for North Central will be the title to the gas fuel tank trailer that they will be financing, the corporate guarantee of Friday Gas & Oil, and a personal guarantee of Friday.
The board shared that Friday Oil & Gas currently has ten full time jobs and expects to create one full time job for a driver within the next three years.
A loan of $35,000 for a repayment term of five years was approved for Kaytee’s Family Restaurant in Coudersport, owned 100% by Wendy Brown. The interest rate for this loan stands at five percent (5%).
This loan request was to finance working capital for payroll and inventory. Unfortunately, this business had experienced a fire in April 2021 that devastated their business. After long delays, the restaurant opened back up in September.
The financial collateral for this loan will be the mortgage on the business real estate, a mortgage on Brown’s personal residence, and a UCC-1 (Uniform Commercial Code) filing on all business assets.
This is all subject to the mortgages and filings of First Citizens Community Bank, and also the personal guarantee of Brown. This measure will help Brown retain 11 full time jobs for her business.
William Seymour of SB & Company was in attendance virtually for this meeting to share an audit presentation on North Central, and reported that there was a clean opinion on the financial statements of the organization. SB & Company is a certified public accounting and business advisory firm located in Owings Mills, Maryland.
Seymour said his team discovered no material weaknesses from the single audit and also received the full cooperation of management at North Central.
Executive Director of North Central, Jim Chorney, praised his organization’s accounting department for “a great job” on the work that they did through this process. The audit of North Central for FY (Fiscal Year) 2022 was approved by the board.
Financial statements from January through
February were approved by the board.
The RFP (Request for Proposal) for the North Central’s regional electric vehicle charging implementation plans was approved by the board. North Central received additional funds within their programs to look at a special project such as this.
The organization advertised and distributed this RFP to a number of different firms, and the internal and external staff at North Central scored each firm, and the recommended firm decided amongst staff was Michael Baker International to be the consultant to complete the study for the project.
Sara Andrews was approved by the board to serve on their Loan Review Committee. This appointment comes after Shane Oschman resigned from his position as the executive director at the Bradford OECD (Office of Economic and Community Development), and had been a member of this particular committee.
Andrews was appointed the interim Bradford OECD executive director following Oschman’s departure, and North Central had asked Andrews to serve on the Loan Review Committee in place of Oschman. Andrews had served on this commit
tee for a number of years prior to her retirement in 2020.
State Representative Mike Armanini (R-Elk/Clearfield) was also on hand for this meeting and commended the efforts of North Central for making funding and grants coming from the state and federal government available for the area businesses and entities that occupy the 75th District he represents.
Representative Armanini commented that the plans for the electrical vehicle charging stations is a good thing for the area, but raised concerns about not having the infrastructure for the electric to move this forward.
“I think we need to start educating people on how many resources will be needed to generate the electricity that will be required,” Armanini said.
Armanini continued by saying he is “all for ‘’ cleaner air, but also wants to help revamp and re-tool the heavy automotive industry base in the area if this push continues.
A virtual meeting will be held by North Central on April 26 at 9:30 a.m. to approve any loans that they may have.
The next North Central Board meeting will be held on May 24 at 9:30 a.m. at 49 Ridgmont Drive in Ridgway. This meeting will be conducted in both a virtual and in person format.