3/2/07 Cinquanti outlines role in land deal

(As published by Cortland Standard, Corey Preston reporting)

Real estate agent Steve Cinquanti on Thursday laid out a timeline of his company’s involvement in the county’s aborted purchase of property on south Main Street, stressing that from his vantage point the deal was handled appropriately.
“Whether the communication may have broke down, I wouldn’t know — our involvement, very simply, was to bind nine properties at a price that (the county) could count on,” Cinquanti said Thursday after a meeting with a special legislative committee looking into the county’s failed $894,000 land deal. Cinquanti and Susan Briggs, an associate broker with Cinquanti Real Estate who handled much of the deal for the county, walked the committee through a process that began in February 2006 — when Briggs first suggested the Moose Lodge property to county officials — and was completed in early December, when options were signed on the last of the properties involved in the deal.
Property owners are threatening to sue the county, saying the purchase options represent a binding agreement. A lawsuit has yet to be filed.
The Legislature voted to annul the deal in January after voting in favor of it a month earlier.
The committee has agreed to look both at what the county’s options are moving forward and at how the deal to purchase the land was arranged.
Both Cinquanti and Briggs told the committee the methods used to secure options on the properties — Briggs worked as a buyer’s agent representing an anonymous buyer to solicit the best possible prices — were sound.
“I feel that the anonymous approach was wise,” Briggs said, noting that the asking prices for the properties could have gone up significantly, had property owners been aware the county was interested.
Briggs added that the property owners she dealt with seemed to be trusting of her despite her anonymous client, and, because of the vagaries involved in the deal, most seemed to realize that their house would likely be torn down for a larger project.
“This was really the only way it could have worked,” Cinquanti said of the initial secrecy involved in the acquisitions.
Committee member Dan Tagliente (D-7th Ward), who was one of the first legislators aware of the project, said that, despite the secrecy, there was nothing incorrect about how the deal was arranged.
“This didn’t happen behind closed doors, it was all above board,” Tagliente said.
Still some legislators voiced an oft-raised concern that, during the three months that options were being secured, many legislators were left out of the loop.
“I think Mr. Cinquanti did a very professional job — my problem is still with our communication,” said Minority Leader Danny Ross (R-Cortlandville), who was one of a handful of legislators not on the committee who attended Thursday’s meeting.
“A project this size, we should all be informed,” Ross said, noting that he didn’t hear about the project until December. “I would have liked to have brought this back to my caucus sometime before then.”
Legislator Newell Willcox (R-Homer) agreed, saying that the Buildings and Grounds Committee (now the General Services Committee), aside from Tagliente, who is vice-chair of the committee, had not been informed of the project.
County Administrator Scott Schrader said he would also be presenting a timeline of all discussion during committee meetings about property acquisitions and specifically about the south Main Street project at the committee’s next meeting, scheduled for Monday.
“We have a committee system in place in this county and that’s what I used,” Schrader said. “(The timeline) should dispel the forgetfulness of some legislators, in regards to them not being informed or aware of this project.”
Also at Monday’s meeting — no further meeting dates have yet been scheduled — the committee will hear from county Maintenance Supervisor Brian Parker regarding the space needs of the county’s Health and Mental Health departments.
At Thursday’s meeting, Cinquanti and Briggs were asked about a handful of other issues, including the fact there had been no written contract between the real estate agents and the county. Cinquanti said it is not uncommon for real estate agents to not have a written agreement, and, when asked about the size of this particular deal, Cinquanti said he had no reason not to trust the county.
Cinquanti also reiterated that, after working as a buyer’s agent for a number of months, Cinquanti Real Estate’s receipt of a $33,000 payment — or 6 percent of the price of the nine properties — was appropriate because the real estate agents had acted as a buyer’s agent, and had done the work requested.