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02/26/2010: "Town Backs Out Of Ag Group & Land Bank Proposal For Farmer’s Market"

( Erickson property in Friday Harbor)

By a split vote of 3 to 2, the Town Council on Thursday night backed away from the “Town providing Three Hundred Seventy-Five Thousand Dollars toward payment of the purchase price“ of the Erickson property in downtown Friday Harbor.

Town Attorney Don Eaton has been at work on attempting to find a way that would give the Town a guarantee that Town involvement in the project would meet state requirements on “the appropriateness of using hotel/motel funds for acquisition of the Erickson property.” ( past story )

Eaton had held conference calls with Senator Ranker -a strong backer of the proposal- and Keith Bucalls, the legal council for the State Senators, as well as Karen Vedder of the SJC Prosecutors office, in an attempt to obtain a formal Attorney General opinion on the legally of using tax money to the purchase of the property.

Bottom line: there is not enough time to receive and okay from the State to proceed and use the hotel/motel funds for that purchase of the property, as required by one of the contingencies in the agreement between the Town, The Land Bank and the SJI Agricultural Guild that “the Town shall have received confirmation form the State” that the use of the tax fund is a legal use of those funds.

Eaton sent a letter to the Town Council that in subsequent conversations with Lovel Pratt, who in addition to being a County Council member is also the paid executive director of the SJ Ag Guild, he believed” it is realistic to think that the Town and the Ag Guild can agree upon terms for a long term lease that would include provision that will satisfy the SAO [State Auditor’s Office -ed] that the property is intended for and will be used as a tourism-related facility.”

But what is the Town goes forward and the State objects, or what if something unexpected happens and the they do not satisfy the conditions necessary to have used the hotel/motel tax money, what then?

For Councilmember Menjivar, the issue was the risks involved of moving forward without knowing how the State would rule. Councilmember Brooks said she additional concerns, and she too was not in favor continuation to move forward, citing her concerns for the lack of the Ag groups track record, and the fact the Land Bank has not received an appraisal of the value of the property.

Councilmember de Freitas continued to support the Town’s involvement, because there was a lack of information sufficient for her to withdraw support, and she wanted to give the Land Bank & the Ag group more time.

Councilmember Hushebeck said he saw valid points from both sides of the argument, but for him the issue was the potential to “revitalize” the Town center.

After all of the months of discussion, and at the end of Eaton’s formal presentation and response to questions and answers, the majority on the town council did what Eaton said in his final written report, that “The best we can do.. is to draw our own conclusions as whether or not we feel the risks are sufficiently minimized that you are prepared to authorize use of hotel/motel funds as a part of acquiring the Erickson property.”

The answer was “No.”