Building Bridges? Or A Cash Conduit for Cronies?
The county is set to hear citizen input regarding the proposed purchase of a 130 +/- acre parcel of land on Crooked Oak Lane for prospective use as a park, as time and money eventually permit its development. Another ‘investment’ of this sort downriver has lain fallow for around a decade, so who can tell?
The idea of additional parkland within the county has some sense to it. But this parcel? At this time? Under these circumstances? The logical answers are no, No and NO!
Why This Parcel?
Citizens living near the parcel have expressed unease about the traffic a park will draw to a rural area with unimproved roads. Legitimate concerns, and not yet credibly addressed by the advocates spinning for the purchase.
Often cities, counties and states will advertise their interest in purchasing land for parks so that they can gauge interest from all prospective sellers, and may then have a variety of parcels to choose from. If there are competing parcels for sale the decision makers can weigh a variety of factors, including size, natural features, location, improvements required, and price before choosing. Quaint concept called looking out for the public good. Nothing of this sort occurred regarding the land being selected here – a specific parcel magically was identified as being just the perfect solution – to a problem most folks didn’t consider to exist.
Why Now?
The droning mantra from the GOB is ‘the revenue cap is strangling us’.
Ostensibly, according to the spin, the parkland will basically be ‘free’ since a chunk of its purchase price will come from state funds. The state may recycle some of our dollars back to us after they pass through Annapolis, but spending money unnecessarily just because some other ‘coupon’ is available is not prudent shopping. There are costs associated with outfitting and maintaining a park, and O’Malleable Marty may not be ponying up for that part of the party.
Last week time and some money were found to appoint a commission head to round up some other enlightened souls to create a rationale to justify replacing the Youth & Civic Center with an edifice sufficiently grand to meet the aspirations of its Director.
Coincidentally, the same Director had the magic wand which divined that the parcel on Crooked Oak Lane was no longer suited for farming or home sites, but was now destined to be a park. How cool is that?
And speaking of coincidences, how truly surprising it was to discover the future parkland was owned, in the form of a LLC, called JABA Davis, by the wife of a politically well connected architectural firm partner. Who woulda thunk it?
The farm parcel in question was most recently purchased in 2006 with the ostensible plan of developing it as numerous single family home sites. When only a few of the planned lots passed the septic perc tests, the new owner/prospective developer was faced with a quandary since the remaining land would essentially be rendered useless for housing. Building houses was where the payoff would be. Tough break, especially since the resources of the architectural firm might have been able to evaluate the soils before the deal closed, if they’d been utilized. Maybe not. Don’t know if they were used; just speculation.
And then the local real estate market headed for the ICU as it caught a good dose of what was ailing real estate around the rest of the country. Prospects for the parcel were going from bad to worse. And having negotiated a pretty healthy loan (about $1M) to buy the land, the erstwhile owner (the LLC, recall?) was in a bind.
Thank goodness that mental telepathy really, truly works. While the anxious LLC owner was ringing their hands about the impending financial disaster, the Director’s magic wand must have picked up the vibes. In some yet incomprehensible fashion, his magic wand was impelled to seek out a parcel for a park and it landed on precisely the aptly named Crooked Oak site.
Under These Circumstances?
The property in question was conveyed on September 30, 2004 between two linked parties for $ 0 in declared value; the record does not state the reason. Transactions of this sort often happen as an offshoot of marriages and divorces when a spouse is added or deleted; perhaps also as part of estates. Other circumstances may qualify to be listed this way; knowledgeable readers may wish to supplement our information.
On April 07, 2006 the Humphreys entity sold for $667,000 or $ 5,106 per acre to the JABADavis LLC ½ Int & ….. entity. Eight months later, on December 22, 2006 the JABADavis LLC ½ Int & ……entity sold it to JABADavis LLC for $900,000 or $6,889 per acre.
The parcel, including an 1890 home, is currently assessed at $265,240 or $2,030 per acre, effective July 1, 2008.
The proposed purchase might even be marginally defensible at the current tax assessed price of $265, 240, or at a very modest premium to that sum, even if the rest of the case for its proposed use is still unsettled.
The numbers being bandied about from other assessment sources are suspect for reasons which are transparent. If a private purchaser was anywhere on the horizon, we would not be having this discussion.
This parcel is about 30% larger than the Potempkin Village at Drainage Ditch site (aka Salisbury Mall) which was supposed to build out to a value of $150 million or more. The Crooked Oak housing plan was not described as that dense, but would have generated a healthy return on investment. Would you relinquish such a bonanza? Selling to the county is not an act of public service, but of cutting their losses on a deal gone sour, and sticking the taxpayers with the bill, in the form of artificially ratcheted new land ‘values’.
Some Other Questions?
If the land won’t perc, how is the general public to enjoy the park after their cola and iced tea have headed south? Bet the lines for a restroom at the Valero station on Rte 50 will be memorable. Or will some other labor/cost intensive method be part of the ‘overhead’ required? Parks attract a lot more users than 4 bedroom houses.
It’s unclear exactly where on the Wicomico County website or where in the Wicomico County Charter the policy to bail out pals of the pols from bad business decisions is spelled out. But that is exactly what is afoot here.
The County Executive has been maneuvered into a spot where wetting his finger and checking the breeze won’t cut it. Will he Build a Bridge to public trust and confidence in his stewardship, or a Conduit to Cronies? His ancestors are watching, and so are we.
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