By Andie Foley
andie.foley@salisburypost.com

Jim Sides, a candidate for Rowan County’s Board of Commissioners, has finally addressed a hard push against his election.

The push came from political action committee Rowan Alliance, a group that outspent nearly every other committee during the 2014 primary.

Rowan Alliance’s tactics haven’t changed much: they’re a slew of negative digital and print ads and mailers touting “Vote no to Jim Sides’ petty politics.”

Sides joked about the 2014 ads as he considered running during the 2016 election, saying he hoped a change to his locally-renowned van inspired Jake Alexander to start saving his money. Alexander is the registered agent behind Rowan Alliance, according to the North Carolina Secretary of State website.

But a recent postcard that said Sides “votes no to jobs … (and) puts up petty roadblocks for new business” proved to be enough for the candidate, running for his fourth nonconsecutive term on the board.

“I have never voted ‘no’ to jobs in Rowan County,” he said in an email sent to members of the Rowan Republican Party. “I welcomed every employer who wanted to come to Rowan County with open arms. … However, I did vote against incentive packages to get them to come here.”

He said he had worked to ensure “claw-back provisions” were written into incentives when a company did not meet requirements of the package being offered.

Referenced in the postcard were Sides’ responses to incentive grant requests from Gildan Yarns and Toyota Racing Development.

According to the minutes from the Jan. 16, 2007, meeting of the Board of Commissioners, Sides directly addressed representatives of Toyota.

He said that he would be thrilled if Toyota located to Rowan County, but that he was displeased at having to “pay” such a large and successful company to come here.

Speaking in contrast to his recent email, Sides said the county should focus its investment grant policy on jobs that would be created for Rowan County residents. He was one of two commissioners to vote against the grant.

His 2013 response to a proposal from Gildan Yarns was similar. According to minutes from the Oct. 7, 2013, meeting, Sides said that he thought incentives were designed to put unemployed people back to work.

He said the company’s recruitment of “key people” from existing Rowan County businesses distressed him, though representatives from Gildan “respectfully disagreed with statistics that Commissioner Sides had provided,” according to the minutes.

Chuck Ward, president of Gildan, said anyone was welcome to apply for employment and the company would hire the best-qualified candidates.

Sides was the only commissioner to vote against the project.

“If you own or run a business in Rowan County, you should be incensed by the amount of money your commissioners give away to already very successful companies who come here,” said Sides in his recent email. “When the county agrees to give every business the same consideration they give to these big corporations, then I will be less opposed to incentives.”

The postcard also said Sides was prone to bickering and bullying during his prior terms. Sides denied such in his email, with no mention of a tense working relationship with the Board of Education as the school system sought a new central office.

In 2011, Sides also publicly criticized then rescue squad chief Coyt Karriker for “underhanded behavior.”

This behavior? Talking to individual commissioners about a funding for the squad and asking the county attorney to look over a draft contract, something then-Chairman Chad Mitchell said “wasn’t unusual.”

“We all talk to staff, and we all ask staff to do things,” Mitchell said in Karriker’s defense.

Sides addressed his proposed-confrontational nature in a small fraction of his email. Much more space was dedicated to jobs and his accomplishments as commissioner.

“I fought to protect the property rights of Rowan County citizens and to reduce the burden of property taxes on them,” he said. “If I was guilty of poor performance, it is only in the eyes of the beholder.”