4/11/07 County land deal options down to two

(As published by Cortland Standard, Corey Preston reporting)

Committee says the county should reject buying any property, or purchase only two commercial sites on Main St.

Wearied by four months of uncertainty and oftentimes heated discussion, a majority of a special legislative committee agreed Tuesday that the county should not, at this point, purchase any of the properties involved in the controversial south Main Street land deal.
However, unable to agree on a unified recommendation for the rest of the Legislature, the committee settled on allowing the county a bit of “wiggle room,” narrowing a list of six possible options for dealing with the annulled property purchases down to two:
* Stand by its January vote to annul its initial decision to purchase the properties, with the hope that the county attorney can negotiate an “amicable agreement” with the sellers who have challenged the legality of that decision.
* Consider purchasing just the two commercial properties — the Moose Lodge and Robbins Vending buildings — and attempting to negotiate out of agreements with the other sellers.
Committee Chairwoman Carol Tytler (D-3rd Ward) said the two recommendations are fairly similar, but the latter gives the county some room to “hang on to the two commercial properties,” if it wishes to attempt some sort of scaled-down project on the site.
The county voted in December to purchase nine parcels for $894,000, with the intent of building an estimated $5.5 million combined Health and Mental Health facility.
Of the six committee members in attendance, four — Tytler, John Daniels (D-Cortlandville), Mike McKee (R-Cincinnatus, Freetown, Taylor and Willet) and Tom Williams (R-Homer) — said that at this point they felt the county should not purchase any of the properties.
Tytler said she did not want to see any residential properties purchased by the county, and suggested the two commercial properties would not be large enough for the desired facility.
“I don’t think just the two commercial properties would be enough to build the facility we need,” Tytler said. “Given the very clear directive we were given by (Legislature Chairman Marilyn Brown), I would, at this point lean towards not purchasing any of them.”
Brown had asked Tytler to focus only on the properties currently involved in the deal and not consider other available properties, such as the site of the former Wickwire building farther south on Main Street, that are being discussed.
Tytler added that if the county opted to buy the commercial properties or was ordered to buy any or all of the properties by a judge, she would be interested in discussing putting a motor vehicles office there.
However, she said, the county should not let itself be pigeonholed into building on the south Main Street site.
“I’d be glad to consider it, but I think we should take a look at all the possible options,” she said.
This sentiment was echoed by Williams, who continued to insist that the county should have a master plan for all of its space needs — including the health departments, motor vehicles office and a county jail — before proceeding with any plans to purchase property.
“I don’t feel that we, as a group (the full Legislature), have done enough of the big picture stuff, and, for my comfort level, I need to have some of those questions answered before we purchase anything,” Williams said.
Committee member Dan Tagliente (D-7th Ward) responded by saying that the General Services Committee had looked extensively at the county’s space needs, and that taking on a mental health/health facility was a logical first step.
Tagliente acknowledged that, with all of the public opposition to the project, a public health facility was probably not a good fit for the properties in question.
But, Tagliente said, the county had a responsibility to the sellers to go through with the purchases, and he hoped that some sort of project could be salvaged on the site. Come on, what about the rest of the County? He had an obligation to do what's best for 50,000 people, not the 9 property owners. Salvaging 'some sort of project' is a poor use of taxpayer dollars.

Stay tuned for workups on areas of the remaining properties and what "might fit".