Last October, Finley came to City council asking for $38,300 to demolish all the concrete at the 5.6 acre Industrial Park plot (on east 580 across from Martin’s Rod and Custom) and to haul away approximately 420 tons of said concrete.
His reasoning? [see page 71]
Staff has identified the need to remove surplus, excess, damaged, and unusable concrete work at the City’s Industrial Park to make the property more marketable. Council to consider a motion to award contract for concrete removal in the amount of $38,300 to WT Excavation.
I was highly suspicious of this reason at the time. That was the SAME piece of property that was supposedly being negotiated over with Martin Rod & Custom. It made no sense that this was to “make it more marketable” generally when Martin was looking to “make a deal” on that same piece of land specifically.
What made sense to ME was that Martin demanded the City pay $38,300 to fix it up for him before he would agree to anything. But Finley presented this in a deceptive way – neglecting to inform us this was essentially a gift to Martin Rod and Custom:
Is Finley Getting Nut-Punched Yet Again?
As I wrote at the time:
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.
… maybe 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.
Turns out I was right. This is directly from the newly-released details of the agreement:
ARTICLE IX: City’s Contribution
9.01 – “City agrees to provide and pay for the initial clearing of the property.”
Also in ARTICLE VIII: ACTIONS PRECEDENT TO PHASE II
8.02 – “City commences clearing of concrete structures at the site, leveling with road base material”
So the taxpayer paid to “make it more marketable”, all right. But not more marketable for the CITY in terms of finding a tenant! It was to make it more marketable for MARTIN’s ROD & CUSTOM when they start their “PHASE I” of the agreement – which involves Martin getting paid by people to store their boats and RVs there. Finley just left that part out.