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Joines to return Prim's donation
Dash owner gave smaller sums to 2 on city council
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Related Links
- Prim's contributions to Joines, 2005 (pg 36)
- Prim's contributions to Besse, 2005 (pg 5)
- Prim's contributions to Burke, 2005 (pg 5)
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Published: June 25, 2009
Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines said he intends to return a $1,000 campaign contribution given to him in 2005 by Billy Prim, the owner of the city's minor-league baseball team.
Joines has been a vocal supporter of Prim's plans to build a new, $40.7 million ballpark for the Winston-Salem Dash near the city's downtown, continuously encouraging the city council to approve funding for construction. The council voted unanimously last week to contribute another $15.7 in additional financial help to build the stadium. The city initially gave $12 million in 2007 to build the ballpark.
Prim also gave smaller donations to two members of the council, Dan Besse and Vivian Burke.
Besse, who represents the city's Southwest Ward, received $200 from Prim in 2005 during Besse's campaign for city council. Besse also received $150 from Prim in 2007, when Besse ran for lieutenant governor of North Carolina, according to campaign-finance reports.
Burke, who represents the Northeast Ward, received $200 from Prim during the 2005 council campaign.
Besse said that the treasurers for both of his campaigns have mailed checks refunding the money to Prim. Burke said she has not decided whether to return the money. She said she plans to talk to her campaign managers before she decides.
Joines, Besse and Burke said in separate interviews that they were unaware that Prim had donated to their campaigns.
"I've had probably four or five hundred individual campaign contributions," Joines said. "And I'd forgotten that I'd gotten one from him back in '05 … just to clear all the issues, we decided to go back and return it."
Nathan Tabor, the chairman of the Forsyth County Republican Party, said that Joines and the council should be aware of who is donating to their campaigns.
"If any business comes up in front of the city council, especially of this magnitude, they need to look at who's contributing to them," Tabor said. "I think this is just the tip of the iceberg of conflict of interest that exists within the city council."
Joines, Besse and Burke all said they support the city's additional financial involvement with the stadium because they believe that it will benefit the city, not because of Prim's contributions to their campaigns.
The three are all Democrats and are all running for re-election. Joines and Burke, so far, are running unopposed.
Ted Shipley, a Republican who is running against Besse, sent e-mails to media outlets around the city this week pointing out Prim's campaign contribution to Besse.
"I'm glad Dan Besse returned the large contributions," Shipley wrote in an e-mail yesterday. "But we must note that he and Vivian Burke did so only after the media confronted them with these serious conflicts of interest."
Besse said he asked his campaign treasurers to review donations to his campaign after the council approved the additional financial help for the stadium last week, and said he told the treasurers that if Prim or any of the other main people involved in the stadium had donated to his campaigns, the money would be refunded.
Besse said he asked the treasurers also to search for contributions from Andrew "Flip" Filipowski, Prim's former business partner, and from Kevin Terry and Joe Bellisimo. Terry is president of the Winston-Salem Dash. Bellisimo is Prim's son-in-law and the vice president of Primo Properties, another company owned by Prim that is involved in building the stadium.
The council's decision last week means that crews can resume building the ballpark. Construction has been stopped for months because Prim has been buying out Filipowski, which froze financing from banks and blocked contractors from being paid.
Prim has said in recent weeks that banks will not lend him any more money to finish the ballpark. He said he spent months looking for additional investors and has been unable to find enough to finish construction.
■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wsjournal.com.
■ Journal reporter Wesley Young contributed to this article.
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