In the last couple of posts I mentioned a letter that was recently sent to the Page County Board of Supervisors by attorneys for Charles Rainwater, a Page County resident who apparently owns property near Project Clover. I thought I might take a moment to outline Rainwater’s four concerns as discussed in this letter.
His first issue is a fear that Project Clover will have a negative financial impact on the County. This is due to an “excessive price” of $7.5 million for the acreage. I posted on this topic yesterday – apparently the EDA is going to commission its own appraisal to address this concern. Unfortunately, that will be the fourth appraisal…they are getting to be quite the subjective topic at this point, so how would you reconcile them? Take an average?
Coupled with concerns about the price are concerns about the process that was used to secure the land. I have friends who tell me this is a done deal and it is time to move on. I have also heard that Lowell Baughan has provided a lengthy but curious explanation in the PN&C this week, but I’ll have to wait for my copy.
With reference to the debt obligation, or whatever we should call it, which finances the Project Clover purchase, the County documents say the instrument is not a debt or pledge on the part of the County or even EDA. Who the hell is it a pledge by then? And who really would be foreclosing if it weren’t paid?
As a common citizen, this is very confusing to me, the manipulation that has apparently gone into this situation to get us here. How hard would it have been to have put this to a vote? I’ve heard that this may be partially answered in a PN&C article this week, but I have to wait for my copy.
The attorney argues that the Virginia Constitution requires a public vote on a public obligation of this sort – assuming there really is a public obligation at the heart of this transaction, there is some legal wrangling ahead to figure it all out. In short, this puts the County in deep kimche, whether laws were broken or not. The taxpaying public is going to pay for all of this at the end of the day.
The second concern the letter goes into is the process used to get to this point. The letter discusses frequent closed sessions that were part of the process for negotiating the Project Clover purchase, highlighting the legal procedures that justify these closed sessions – and allegedly were not followed here. The attorney closes this discussion with examples of where the law was supposedly violated, and the recourse and penalties available should Rainwater pursue the matter further.
The third concern is also about closed EDA/Board sessions, except this time, after the purchase was negotiated. The fourth concern is about a possible conflict of interest – maybe several of them – involving the parties involved. The attorney’s letter closes with a request for clarification, a request that the Board of Supervisors take steps to stop the controversial aspects of this situation; it then advises that there may be a recourse to civil action.
So what to make of a letter like this? In truth, the choices to be made about what to do and the roads ahead on this matter are difficult ones. The taxpayers of Page County are going to be stuck with the expenses for Project Clover no matter what happens at this point. And the whole debacle is going to keep any kind of economic recovery away from there for years.
No comments:
Post a Comment