By David S.
I note this from the council packet for tomorrow's Ogden Redevelopment Agency meeting:
• Redevelopment Agency Agenda PacketThe Administration is seeking authorization for the Executive Director of the Redevelopment Agency to purchase property located at 153 18th Street,commonly referred to as Ogden Chrome & Bumper.
Acquisition of the property is vital to the success of the (ever-languishing taxpayer sinkhole known as the) Ogden River Restoration Project and for future development along the river. The property is also located along Wall Avenue, which has been targeted for redevelopment.
Purchase price and relocation costs total $242,000 which will be drawn from FY2010 funds. (Pay no attention to this - - the mayor will claim it's not really real money.)
PURCHASE PRICE: $192,000, the MAI appraised value established by Free and Associates, on October 6, 2009. $50,000 relocation costs. Total $242,000.
(With no provision for environmental cleanup so the mayor can preserve his reputation for being cavalier and irresponsible.)
In addition to the current purchase, staff have obtained options to purchase the two other Ogden Chrome parcels located at 145 18th Street for $235,000, and at 1802 Wall Avenue for $175,000.
Options run through August 31, 2012. At a future date, the consideration of these acquisitions will be brought to the RDA Board.
It is proposed that the Board authorize and approve the Executive Director to execute and take all actions necessary to effectuate an Agreement of Purchase and Sale with MCK5 LLC regarding the purchase of the parcel of real property located at 153 18th Street, Ogden, Utah.
So in summary, another long-time Ogden manufacturing business will soon be shown the door at taxpayer expense, joining Big Bubba's, Superior Welding, Bloom's and many other functioning, taxpaying businesses driven out of town because they didn't fit the boutique image of Ogden's elites and their toady mayor. In their place will be more new Class A property with "Available" signs, and vacant lots filled with weeds, together with more debt, more money wasted.
I suppose we should be grateful that our mayor is at least creating so much downtown "open space".
Heaven help us when the bill for all this spending comes due.
19 comments:
Rudi:
Oh ye of little faith. I have it on good authority that importers of Chinese jewelry and of Mexican "high-end" goods are ready to swoop in and snap up the property as soon as it becomes available, provided only that the city build parking garages for them. Saw it written twice on a men's room wall at City Hall. Must be true.
Try to look on the bright side, David. If the RDA Board goes through with this, yet another long-suffering Ogden City business will have been freed from Godfrey's "Joe Stalin style Gulag."
Rudi:
Has the necessary testing been done pre-purchase to determine that extensive environmental clean up will not be necessary on the sites? I know from Hill AFB experience that relatively small spills of toxic pollutants [various solvents, etc] if they soak down to groundwater levels and begin moving can generate huge clean-up bills. There may be no significant cleanup required at the sites involved, the geology may be such that out-migration of pollutants is not likely, etc. but I'd sure want to make sure the sampling was done before purchase. Do you know if it has?
The entire area that abuts the rail yard has high levels of toxins.
Check it, a 150 year old rail junction is nothing but.
Dig anywhere in the immediate area and you will find unmapped tanks, pipes, dumped industrial wastes...
Can someone please explain why the city has to own this property?
Also, where exactly is the money coming from?
Where else?
When the hell is this horseshit going to end?
I wish the hell I could get Godfrey and the taxpayers to help me out with some properties I own, but the most I get is harrassed by code enforcement for petty infractions. Sheesh!
Dan:
You wrote: "Can someone please explain why the city has to own this property?"
Good question. Damn good question.
There's a simple solution to your problem, monopoly!
Join the Godfrey campaign donors list!
Godfrey Campaign Contributors, 2007
If you're not on the list, you'll definitely get screwed.
And if you are on the list... there will be no more aggravating "red tape" for you!
Dan:
Just ploughed through the packet the Council got regarding the purchase. Seems the rationale being offered is that the property abuts the Ogden River and includes part of the riparian repair zone necessary for the River's rehabilitation. Working from memory here, but as I recall it, the Administration assured us all that it was "confident" that easements could be worked out with the owners of riverfront property that had not yet agreed to grant easements on their riverfront property to permit bank and stream rehabilitation. Seems the Administration's "confidence" was, as usual, misplaced, and the only agreement it could reach was one to buy the entire property outright.
I notice too that the purchase agreement provides that the city is buying the property "as is" including any "environmental" defects the property may have at the time of purchase. The term "including environmental" is repeated several times in the purchase agreement when discussing things the seller shall not be responsible for. Unless I misread the legalese in other portions of the agreement, which is possible.
So, the Administration's rationale, or part of it at least, may be in plain English, "we couldn't get the owners to agree to the conservation easements for Ogden River rehab we assured everyone we were confident we could get, and so we've got no choice but to buy the entire property. Sorry 'bout that...."
Curm: Thanks for ploughing through the packet. Did you confirm that the money would come from BDO lease revenue, or find anything else about the source of funds?
Curm,
I missed the part about the taxpayers buying the land "as is" including any environmental issues.
It's another Godfrey "eyes closed" transaction. He does what he wants, then hopes all will be well. (And he asks the city council to do the same.)
It's only other people's money anyway. And it generates campaign cash. It's a win-win for Godfrey and his cement slinging buddies.
One wishes Godfrey would simply resort to old fashioned corruption rather than bilking taxpaying fools out of their money like he does.
David S:
If you have access to the packet, look at the purchase agreement, page 2, long paragraph starting I think about 1/3 of the way down the page.
Dan:
Didn't, but I wasn't looking specifically for source of funds, was looking for who'd be responsible for environmental clean up, and whether testing had been done/would be done prior to sale.
Any news on tonight's council meeting?
Nobody wanted to make a motion. After a long silence Garner made a motion to adopt the resolution. Blair seconded it. All voted yes except Wicks who voted no and mentioned agreement with moving project forward and cleaning up the Ogden River but was still uncomfotable with environmental cleanup and city involvement with the parcel.
"As Is" is a very common term used in todays commercial real estate market, as are "relocation costs." There's really nothing nefarious goin on here, just the business of one party getting the best bang for its buck that it can. Here, the owner gets a lot of money and the City gets an intregal part that's need to make the River Project move forward.
Both the best interests of buyer and seller are served. My guess is that any of you who might own land down thereabouts would do the same as the chrome plant--demand the highest and best price possible and if you were the developer you'd probably pay it if it penciled in.
Again, the WCF has been calling for action for years down there and here's maybe the start. Let's see what materializes before going ballistic. Relax and hope that all the future votes that might give old Ogden a financial boost, like WynnCo (remember) run 6 to 1.
When one reads through the words of these posts, one can find some fairly astute agrgument. It's too bad that thjis is laced with so much personal vindictivness toward Godfrey, because it does take away fro a resoanble debate that now falls on deaf ears escept for those ears of the WCF who applaud such inane ramblings.
Watching
Those might be common words in agreements, but the bottom line in this case is the clean up of any potential pollution could end up costing the city a lot more than what they paid for the property to begin with. Without testing the ground in question there is no way to tell what it will cost. A chrome plant could easily polluted the ground in a major way over the last 50 years, yet the city (the mayor) has apparently, without much thought about it, committed the city tax payers to covering those costs regardless. (perhaps the city has studied what nastiness might lurk in that dirt, do you know?)
It seems to me that the mayor has negotiated a deal for this land where the tax payers cough up the maximum amount for the land and takes on all the considerable down side risk of a clean up to boot! Very poor biz sense in my opinion. Of course poor biz sense is what Godfrey is really all about anyway!
I think that once again Godfrey has been out foxed, out thought and out maneuvered by those he is dealing with.
Being a Godfreyite apologist must be a tough job, I don't envy you. By the way, I don't think your position on these matters makes you a bad guy, hell - I actually have some good friends in that bizarre cult!
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