11/30/07 - Settlements lower for South Main parcels

2 property owners drop $10,000 from claims over failed public health building project

(As published by Cortland Standard, Evan Geibel reporting)

The settlements for two failed residential property purchases on William and Randall streets in connection with the county’s aborted public health building proposal could be about $30,000, roughly $10,000 less than the property owners had originally requested.

County Attorney Ric Van Donsel requested approval Thursday from the Legislature’s Budget and Finance Committee to settle the claims, but the committee decided to table the matter until its Dec. 13 meeting.

Settlement with a third property owner involved in the original December 2006 purchase offer for nine properties along south Main Street is still in dispute, Van Donsel said.

The former owner of 6 Randall St. has agreed to accept $17,433.40 in damages, Van Donsel said. Steve Lissberger originally requested $19,857.96 from the county.

The property was sold at the beginning of August for $72,500, according to the County Clerk’s office. The county had originally planned to purchase the property for $73,000.

James and Yvonne Cole, who still own the property at 11 William St., would accept $12,475 in damages, Van Donsel told the committee. They had originally sought $20,000 from the county, which had agreed to buy their house for $90,000.

Van Donsel said the county should not offer a settlement to the former owner of a third property at 8 Randall St. Annamaria Maniaci wants a $4,000 settlement, but Van Donsel said he did not agree with what Maniaci purported to be the costs she accumulated between the county’s backing out of the contract and the property’s sale to a third party.

The county originally agreed to pay $96,000 for the property. Maniaci sold her home for $9,000 more than the county had agreed to pay and claimed in a lawsuit that the county’s retreat from the original deal cost her $13,000 in various expenditures, seeking to make up the difference. An attorney with Maniaci’s law firm, Riehlman, Shafer & Shafer, was unavailable for comment this morning.

Budget and Finance Committee member Dan Tagliente (D-7th Ward) said he would be in favor of trying to purchase the Lissberger and Cole properties, but Van Donsel and County Administrator Scott Schrader pointed out that the Lissberger property has been sold.