01/18/2000 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes 1/18/2000 ~ land acquisition. She is open to hearing a new proposal, but would also like to ~,,, respectfully request that Council be kept informed so that they are not hearing of these issues from a resident. It concerns her that she had no knowledge of the appraisals. Mr. Gareau said that, if Council is going to be presented with the issue of land acquisition, he would like to know what it would cost, projected into the future, to do whatever it is we want to do with the land. If the ultimate cost is way beyond our means, we may be wasting our time. He will give consideration to the comments made by the Mayor and Mr. O'Grady. But we also need to keep in mind that we have extremely large problems with the rest of our recreational facilities. We also have to fix what we have. Mr. O'Grady said it was not his intent to look exclusively at land acquisition at the expense of all else. We need to keep an open mind. We need to keep a vision for the future of where we want to be. If we don't, we will continue to degrade as a city and degrade in our resources. Tina Hadsell, 30840 Bradley Road, (Mrs. Schooley's neighbor), also received an appraisal letter and is very upset. She said that people came and took pictures of her property even though she told them she was not interested in selling. She is not planning on making her home into a housing development. She has lived there for over thirty years and wants to continue to live there. Mrs. Hadsell does not want her home and her livelihood taken away. She has an open mind, but feels the city should have contacted her first before going to an outside appraiser. President Saringer asked Mrs. Hadsell to please understand that Council had no knowledge of this, and she is glad that Mrs. Hadsell has brought it to their attention. Service Director Bohlmann came forward and said that he was the person who had the appraisals done on the properties. The city had a letter sent to Mrs. Schooley and Mrs. Hadsell indicating the city was interested in perhaps purchasing their land. They did not say they were going to purchase, or that that were going to take an option. The city was looking to the future and what would it take to package all of that property together. The city has talked about the Farber property for the last several years. If the city is ever going to develop on the Farber property, the Hadsell property and the Schooley property would have to be acquired. The city simply got an appraisal to have some kind of an idea of what the properties would cost if the city wanted to put these parcels together. He does not feel the city needed to personally send a letter to Mrs. Schooley and Mrs. Hadsell. He can agree with Mr. Gareau when he talks about taking care of what we have, and he agrees with Mr. O'Grady when he says we have to look to the future. Mr. O'Grady addressed Mrs. Hadsell and said it is clear to him that she is very upset by this. Mrs. Hadsell replied that she had missed surgery because she was so upset about this issue. Mr. O'Grady said she must keep in mind that the conversation that was occurring here with Council was a conversation on how to best use the limited resources of the city towards our immediate needs and to keep our future in mind too. It was not targeted at her property or Mrs. Schooley's property, but kind of a generic question in general. Council was not involved in this particular issue of the appraisals. He recommended that she and the Mayor make arrangements to sit down and talk this out. Mayor Musial said he had indicated to Mrs. Hadsell when she had visited City Hall that there was no intent to take any property by eminent domain. He is opposed to taking any property by eminent domain. The difficulty, from his point of view, is the city wants to be sure that there is an opportunity to have the first right of purchase on the 9 ,_... .......... .. ... ~x,,. ~ ~ ~ .~ ~. _.,F