What smells at City Hall? We’ve criticized Cadd and Jones in the past for their stubborn refusals to work on compromises with their fellow council members. But this time they were right on two counts. Editorial: Turtle Bay letter should have been released Redding councilmen Patrick Jones and Gary Cadd have fought a series of losing battles with their council colleagues for a number of years, so it might be tempting to chalk up Tuesday night’s dust-up over holding a public discussion about “the letter” as a couple of cranky guys flailing at their opposition again. But the letter the city received from the U.S. Department of Commerce in late April is more than that. Had more than a handful of people known it existed, who knows what the impact would have been on Measure B, which asked voters to approve the city’s proposed Turtle Bay Exploration Park land sale to the McConnell foundation. The letter was a response to the city’s query about a 1995 federal Economic Development Administration grant of $1.6 million used for improvements on the land where the Turtle Bay was built. It informed the city that if the land is sold before next June 26, a 20-year clawback clause would go into effect. That clawback clause would require the city to reimburse the federal agency 74 percent of the fair market value on the land. The city had three appraisals on the 14 acres it wanted to sell to McConnell, ranging from $75,000 to $443,000. McConnell offered $600,000. Unions opposing the sale screamed, saying the city was giving McConnell a sweetheart deal. That prompted the initiative drive that put Measure B on the ballot. Apparently the city staff, including City Attorney Rick Duvernay, knew about the letter. The folks at Turtle Bay knew. The McConnell Foundation knew. And Tuesday night Mayor Rick Bosetti said he knew. But nobody told the full council and the public. And when Duvernay wrote the required impartial analysis of Measure B for the ballot, the possibility that some portion of McConnell’s payment for the land would be grabbed by the feds wasn’t mentioned. Duvernay said he didn’t bring it up because it was a “minor issue” and didn’t rise to the level of needing to be revealed to the council. He said the grant could be transferred to the McConnell Foundation as a “qualifying nonprofit,” which would prevent the clawback from coming into play. And that, he said, is why he was bringing up the letter now. Jones wanted to discuss, in closed session, why the city had failed to respond to a $1 million offer on the property from Alan Shufelberger in the last days before the Nov. 4 election. Duvernay said one of the reasons the city ignored that offer was because Shufelberger couldn’t provide that nonprofit protection from the clawback. In arguing for a public discussion for the entire issue Tuesday night, Cadd contended that Duvernay was using Shufelberger’s offer, which expired last week, as a cover to discuss the EDA grant. We’ve criticized Cadd and Jones in the past for their stubborn refusals to work on compromises with their fellow council members. But this time they were right on two counts. The letter should have been made public early on, when it could have been part of all the other issues that were discussed and weighed by voters. And once the letter surfaced, presumably as part of the background information distributed to council members before closed door sessions, the council majority should have joined their motion to discuss the issue in public. True, that discussion might have led to some uncomfortable questions for Duvernay and City Manager Kurt Starman. So be it. Now it appears there will be no discussion at all, closed doors or not. This entire imbroglio is a perfect example of what happens when public officials withhold information from the public. Maybe Duvernay is correct when he says the restriction won’t impede the land sale to McConnell. Maybe not. He, like all of us, has been wrong before. When this kind of behavior surfaces, especially involving an issue as touchy as the Turtle Bay vote, the public — the voters — can’t be blamed for their suspicions.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 03:54:51 +0000
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