On October 12, 2009 Shirley Phillips made the claim to the assembled Sac City Council that she received a phone call from one Bill Nolan, from California. Bill Nolan had originally purchased the property where Bauer Built is now located. That initial purchase included the property across Audubon Street to the South. He also purchased the property that was referred to at the meeting as “The Old Pizza Hut”. In recent weeks, this “Old Pizza Hut” property has also been referred to as the “The Old Schultz’s Standard” by the Sac County Supervisors while discussing the action being taken on that property as a result of its formerly high levels of benzene concentrations.
According to Ms. Phillips, Mr. Nolan said “Shirley, I’m getting older, my children are all located someplace out west, I have no idea why I have property in Sac City, and I would be willing to give up the property to the City of Sac City if you thought you could do something with it.”
….Maybe she wasn’t quoting exactly.
She went on to say that there has been some interest shown in one of the properties, though she did not say which of the properties and she did not say for what purpose. This was marginally expanded upon later in the meeting.
Ms. Phillips then suggested that the property located in the residential area in the vicinity of Bauer Built would be a good place to park semis. Chief of Police John Thomsen who was present at that Council meeting said that the Sac City Police Department gets “a lot’ of calls from that neighborhood about trucks running. Shirley asked “Oh, idling up there behind Bauer Built?” Then, seemingly both trying to move forward and backtracking at the same time said, “Well, you see? They park up in that area anyway, which they’re going to have to quit that anyway, soon... “
According to Ms. Phillips, Mr. Nolan isn’t taking care of the properties, so it isn’t doing “us” any good, saying, “We can’t turn anything over and have it become part of the tax rolls until we get control of the property.” She went on to compare Mr. Nolan’s properties to Nobles manufacturing plant saying “unless we have control of it, there’s no way to resell it to anybody and have anything built and put on the tax rolls.”
Ms. Phillips concluded the (sort of) official part of the presentation by saying “I hate to turn down somebody-“then she cut herself off and changed course, saying that it is a matter of back-taxes and that City Administrator Adam Ledford has the figures on the back taxes.
Then she sat down.
According to City Administrator Adam Ledford, to pay the back taxes on the property on Audubon Street across from Bauer Built, it will take roughly $500.00. The old Pizza hut would take roughly $1000. Both of the properties were sold at a tax sale about 15 months ago. Mr. Ledford said that he contacted the “entities” that now own the properties, (he did not say who they are,) and confirmed that one of the owners would be willing to release it.
Mr. Ledford pointed out that there would be an issue in regards to how the process would work. According to Mr. Ledford, for the City to claim the property, the city would want clear title to the property, so the back taxes would have to be resolved prior to the transfer of that land to the city.
Mr. Ledford asked the council if they wanted him to move forward on claiming those properties and, (presumably,) paying those back taxes.
It was reported in the Sac Sun on October 20, 2009 that Sac County Supervisor Rick Hecht said that the county would be “willing to discuss those back taxes to help get the property back on the tax rolls.” The Sac Sun also reported that Adam Ledford was asked to continue to research this issue. What was not reported was the following conversation:
Councilman Bill Brenny said, “Certainly, if there’s a private party interested in purchasing, I think, that would certainly worth… know about. I think it would be better to have private ownership as opposed to the city.”
Shirley spoke to Mr. Brenny saying that at one time the property was for sale for $20,000. Said Shirley, “I’m not sure that either of the privately interested individuals are willing to pay that amount of money for that piece.”
At this point in the conversation I thought to myself, as I’m sure did many of the people listening, if Mr. Nolan has two potentially interested buyers, at ANY price, why would he be willing to give the property to the city?
Mayor Barb Powell asked Ms. Phillips, “How certain are you that [somebody is] really interested in buying it?”
Shirley said, “Adam’s had some interest- “
Mr. Ledford cut her off saying, “I’ve received… I had heard of two different parties, and I had confirmed with both parties that they were interested in the property if it …is available for sale.”
Councilman Jim Frederick asked, “Can’t we get him talked into giving it to the (Sac) Development Corporation? “
Ms. Phillips paused and stammered a little saying, “the… Sac Development, I don’t know. He offered to give it to the city; I wasn’t going to push him at that point, so. I guess I can call him.” At this point she recovered her cool a bit and said, “First you have to ask Sac Development if they would be willing to accept it, and then …we could call him back and talk to him about that.”
Mayor Powell said, “I think that would be something to check into.”
Mr. Frederick said, “I don’t like the idea of the city getting involved in real estate, personally. I hope he gets this done, somehow.”
Ms. Phillips pulled up the Noble manufacturing argument again saying, “You always hate to… muddy the waters when you have opportunity to do it because we’d have been sitting here with that Nobles Manufacturing empty yet today if we hadn’t moved on that, so. There are some opportunities.”
At this point, probably out of either kindness or more likely in the spirit of wanting to move on, nobody pointed out to Ms. Phillips that the geniuses behind “moving” on Nobles brought… you know, that camper making place.
Mr. Frederick said, “We’ll check with Collin [McCullough, the City Attorney] and see if we have to do it this way. That we can quickly give it to somebody, that we can give it back to the development company and let them handle all the real estate transactions … ‘Cause if we get into it then we have to do bidding…”
Mr. Ledford answered saying, “If he’s offering to sell it to us-“ Ms. Phillips and Mr. Frederick both jumped in correcting Mr. Ledford saying that Mr. Nolan was offering to give the properties to the city, to which Mr. Ledford answered, “Well, it’s kind of hard to call it a gift where we’re going to have to pay off the back taxes in some manner to obtain the property …there is… some fee associated with this, but I kind of get what you’re saying, Jim, there’s a little bit of question about what our process in all this will be.”
Continuing, Mr. Ledford said, “The bigger concern I have, and what would be, probably the significant stumbling block here, would be Mr. Nolan understanding what process would need to be gone through to clear the title first before any type of transfer could occur, whether it’s us or SDC. No one’s going to want to take ownership of the property until the title of transfer is cleared on the back taxes.”
At this point in the conversation, Shirley Phillips, interrupted the flow of the conversation and contributed nothing saying that some of the other communities in the county have been able to take possession of these types of properties in order to clean them up and put them back on the tax rolls. She seemed to be trying to either downplay or ignore the fact that the Sac City Council was attempting to have a conversation whereby they explore ways of making this happen without having to burden Sac City taxpayers with yet more property that is owned by the government.
When Ms. Phillips was done with the what seemed to be an attempted sidetrack of the conversation, Mayor Powell got things back on track and turned to Mr. Ledford and asked if either of the people interested in buying the properties were interested in locating a business on those properties that would return actual tax money to the city. Mr. Ledford said that he only asked if the parties had an interest in the properties, suggesting that he did not ask them if they intended to start businesses.
Ms. Phillips then said, “…One particular party had told me that they wanted to obtain it to make kind of a green space, some really nice space downtown, it would be attractive. Another person indicated that they would like to put up a building and have a going business there, so.”
Mr. Brenny asked Ms. Phillips if the issue of the submerged gas tank on the old Pizza Hut property had been resolved. Shirley Phillips nodded, saying, “That’s gone.”
According to Mr. Ledford, he has left a couple of messages with Mr. Nolan, but has not received a return call. Shirley Phillips said, “He might not call you back because he doesn’t know who you are.” She then laughed and said, “But he might call me.”
Mr. Ledford was directed to research the issue further and the council moved on to other business with a sort of consensus by the three that bothered to show up that they would like to see something positive happen with those properties and with at least two of the members being in favor of letting the Sac Development Corporation handle the real estate.
Some thoughts I’m left with:
1. Isn’t it interesting that Shirley Phillips seems to be discouraging the guy who the city council hired to run Sac City from contacting the guy who wants to unload the property?
2. Isn’t it exciting that yet another business would like to build in Sac City? That’s two in one year!
3. I find it disturbing that the readers of the Sac Sun are left with the impression that the city council is standing in the way of progress if they don’t themselves (meaning on the taxpayers dime,) take possession of the properties in question. If there is truly a business out there that is in such a huge hurry to do business in that area of town, then the matter of paying $500 plus a few transfer fees to get possession of a half a block long lot, can’t be that much of an issue.
4. If Shirley Phillips actually has a business on the hook, and is the only actual person in contact with the owner of the land, then I would think that it’s almost her responsibility as the director of the SETD to get the buyer hooked up with the owner, ASAP. Of course I have to admit that the devilish side of me admires this attempt on the part of this supposed prospective business owner to get the city to not only acquire the land, but to get the city taxpayers to pay the back taxes to boot.
For the record, I recently heard tell of a small filter making company that has decided to build on only half the land at the industrial park. With the city on the verge putting in a very expensive sewer system, (100K+!!), at the industrial park to accommodate them, wouldn’t it make more sense to encourage this “going business” to build on the land that PSF now isn’t going to build on? Aren’t we already set up to give away land to businesses out there?
4. The one thing I learned very early on in this life is that when someone approaches you with a hard sell, the way Shirley Phillips has approached the Sac City taxpayers in this instance, it’s best to take a step back and spend a little time gathering your thoughts. Find out why they are so fired up and in a hurry to get the deal done. Thank you city council, (the 60% of you that bothered to show up that night,) for taking that step back. We the public expect, in the very least, to hear you tell us how much in new taxes and revenue this new business is estimated to bring into the community that it wouldn’t otherwise be able to get… if you intend to spend our money, that is.
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