THE GUARDIAN attended the special city council meeting today regarding an offer on property for the "downtown catalyst project". The site is the old car dealership at 6th and Blaine in downtown Caldwell.
Mayor Nancolas called the meeting to order and immediately made a motion to go into Executive Session to discuss the terms of the offer with Caldwell City Attorney Mark Hilty. Everyone else, (that would be me and a student from Greenleaf Friends Academy) were excused from the meeting room. It appeared to be a simple straight forward real estate transaction and why the public was excused was explained by Mayor Nancolas as attorney client privilege.
Councilmen Rob Oates and Bob Sobba were not in attendance for this meeting. However, the ones who were there wisely did not approve this transaction. The purchase offer was $435,000 with an additional $129,000 due at closing. The total offer was $564,000 for the land,improvements and additional amount at closing as stated in the contract.
It would appear the Oppenheimer Group is negotiating purchase prices for property and the Mayor and City Council are the principals in the actual real estate purchase agreements. According to sources The Guardian knows and respects this is common practice all over the state.
If and when the land purchase deals are finally approved the block for the new city hall and retail complex will be well over $1 million just to acquire the land for this project unless falling real estate market prices take hold in downtown.
Something is clearly up with the downtown catalyst project, just exactly what remains a mystery to unfold with the passage of time. A city councilor I called gave me assurances that the Oppenheimer Group has not pulled out of the project for downtown Caldwell.
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