WASHINGTON -- It was the $500,000 that Congress gave the Sparta Teapot Museum that made it a poster child for wasteful Washington spending. But North Carolina's notorious "pork barrel" project also illustrates other ways that earmarks influence lobbying, political contributions and spending. Looking for a way to help pay for the northwestern N.C. memorial to items with both a handle and a spout, the museum's backers decided in 2004 to team up with other area organizations, such as a local hospital, looking for federal aid. Working through the Alleghany County Economic Development Corp., together they hired a Washington lobbying firm, the Ferguson Group, with close ties to North Carolina. It was a good move for the museum, which ended up with a half-million dollar allocation from the 2005 Department of Housing and Urban Development budget. But it also received top billing in the 2006 "Pig Book," an annual publication issued by Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group that monitors federal spending. The lobbyists charged the Alleghany County group $260,000 between 2004 and 2006, Senate records show. The museum's project manager, Jonathan Halsey, says it no longer participates in the lobbying contract because the museum isn't seeking more federal money. Ferguson lobbyists have given thousands of dollars in recent years to the campaigns of N.C. lawmakers, including the three who helped secure the money for the teapot museum. Since 2005, when the museum got the money, the two lobbyists listed on the project, Leslie Mozingo and Debra Bryant, have given $3,500 to Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., of Banner Elk; $2,500 to Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., of Winston-Salem; and $2,000 to Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., of Salisbury. "This project will help to invigorate the local economies of Sparta and Alleghany County," Foxx said in a recent statement. The state also contributed to the museum. Former N.C. House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, was criticized for backing $400,000 in state money for the Sparta Teapot Museum after accepting political donations from the museum's supporters. Black pleaded guilty to political corruption charges in February in an unrelated matter. Halsey said the teapot museum is easy to pick on because of its name. "There's a giggle factor associated with that," he said. "(Critics) didn't really go past the surface," he said. "This was coming to a community that had lost one-third of its jobs to the manufacturing decline, that was looking at diversifying its economy where tourism had never really been developed." The Sparta Teapot Museum, still in the design phase, will display the personal collection of Sonny and Gloria Kamm of Los Angeles, who have been collecting typical and unusual teapots for more than 25 years. The Kamms were connected with Sparta by an art developer who knew the Blue Ridge Parkway community was looking for economic development. "It's not your grandmother's teapot," Halsey says of the collection. "The teapot is widely recognized as an art form in the art world." "We certainly asked for federal help and received it and are appreciative of it," Halsey said. "But we didn't invent the process and we're certainly not going to be able to change it here in Sparta."
