According to the City this week: “The Industrial Park agreement is still alive and should be finalized soon“.
My bad. I figured that after a year AND after the City agreed to blow around $40,000 removing old concrete to “make it more marketable” that the deal was dead. Maybe it still is, but something smells funny about “the agreement”….
That would be the “agreement” that was first mentioned in November of 2021 – a year ago. It has been “in the possession of Mr. Martin and his attorney” for QUITE a while now…
March 21, 2021: “No the agreement is not quite finalized. It is under review by attorneys. We anticipate it being completed soon. I will get you a copy as soon as it has been finalized”
April 13, 2022: “No the agreement is still being reviewed by his attorney.”
June 9th, 2022: “Staff actually followed up this week and it is still in the possession of Mr. Martin and his attorney. We are hopeful that it will be finalized soon.”
I got the same answer in August and September.
[Apparently “soon” means the same thing here as it meant when City council assured us that “large companies” would soon move into the Business Park back in April of 2017.]
BUT here’s the rub: if the agreement has been sitting on the desk of and “in the possession” of Mr. Martin and his attorney for the last seven months, then why is the City suddenly unilaterally spending almost $40,000 to “make it more marketable”?
Or did we not get the entire truth? Is the truth maybe “Martin demanded we pay to have to concrete removed or he won’t go forward”? If that is the case, then THAT should have been mentioned at the City council meeting.
If that is the case, then the story about “making it more marketable” is bullshit. Then the truth would be that the “agreement” that has supposedly been in their possession and waiting for them to sign or not sign is ACTUALLY still an ongoing negotiation and the Martin side is squeezing the City’s nut sack – which has historically been the case.
It wouldn’t be the first time Finley’s nut sack was used as a punching bag.
So either the deal actually IS dead and they are lying about that – and the expenditure really IS to “make it more marketable” to some future as-of-yet-unknown tenant out there somewhere who might come along….
….OR (more likely) Martin demanded the concrete be removed (at great expense to the taxpayer) and the City lied and said they did it to “make it more marketable” – and conveniently omitted the part about who was actually demanding it be done.
One or the other has to be true.