BECKLEY, WV (LOOTPRESS) – Fruits of Labor, Inc. has announced plans to remove its program from the organization’s current Neville Street location in Downtown Beckley, with Friday, August 23, 2024, having been announced as the Beckley location’s final day of operation.
The decision comes after months of scrutiny from members of the public as well members of the City of Beckley Common Council, with discourse generally surrounding the lease arrangements – or lack thereof – with regard to the location.
“Fruits of Labor has decided to remove our training program from the Neville Street location in Beckley,” said Fruits of Labor President, Tammy Jordan. “This will free up the building for Beckley City Council to find a tenant that will meet their lease needs.”
One remaining member of council from the former common council lineup, At-Large Representative, Cody Reedy has long been adamant that the issue of a Fruits of Labor lease should have been addressed years ago.
“We’ve got to get this Fruits of Labor lease finalized one way or the other. Whatever decision the council decides, we’ve got to get that taken care of,” Reedy said last month of the organization, which set up shop Downtown in August of 2022. “Two years is way too long for somebody to be in a building with no lease. I’ve stated that no one should have ever gotten a key to the door without signing a contract.”
Many questions have been raised in recent months regarding the lack of a lease for the location, with some suspecting a lack of transparency on the part of Fruits of Labor, while some have asserted that the City of Beckley had not been forthright with information pertaining to the matter.
New River Gorge Regional Development Authority Executive Director, Jina Belcher, since the news of the location’s closure, has suggested that the prior City of Beckley administration had been intentional with said lack of transparency, stating, “the use of opioid funds was an attempt by the city leadership (at the time) to backfill their budget by using [Tammy Jordan] as a scapegoat. She never asked for a dollar of it.”
Sources indicate the former City of Beckley Mayor Rob Rappold, who appeared reluctant to address the Fruits of Labor issue directly, has expressed dismay at the development.
