Beaudoin: City's flawed purchase and sale agreement 'tied council's hands'

City Councilor Steven Beaudoin, right, says the process by which City Manager Blaine Cox and the city negotiated to buy the land hamstrung a council trying to do its job and can't happen again. (Courtesy photos)

ROCHESTER - A City Councilor is furious over the process by which the city of Rochester acquired a $300,000 parcel of land for a third fire station, first for not doing its due diligence on the property, and then by using a flawed purchase and sale agreement that made the sale, in effect, a done deal, missteps that put the city's interests first and taxpayers last.
"The way the purchase and sale agreement was written tied the hands of the council," City Councilor Steven Beaudoin said on Wednesday.
Specifically, Beaudoin complained that the document should have said the sale would go through only if the City Council authorized the funds and that the seller would have to hold harmless - promise not to sue - if the council decided against the purchase.
He said by not having that verbiage in the purchase and sale, it meant the city would have most assuredly been sued, a fact that was backed up by longtime local real estate agent and former city councilor Doug Lachance. Lachance, in an article published in The Rochester Voice on July 8, said if he were representing the seller, he would have urged them to sue the city of Rochester.
"I'd be advising the seller to sue for $100,000 if I were his agent," Lachance said. "That's an appropriate amount in this market."
Beaudoin added that by reading a Right to Know packet that both he and The Rochester Voice had obtained it was clear "this was not done correctly."
Some of the many missteps the city made were not conducting soil samples and not doing test borings, Beaudoin noted.
Soil borings are done to investigate and determine soil composition and conditions of a site where construction is planned.
"That should have been done," Beaudoin said on Tuesday. "I mean this is not what you call nice dry land."

So the city can't be certain how much site preparation work they're going to have to do and how much it will cost taxpayers, according to Beuadoin, who along with Councilors Jim Gray and Skip Gilman were the only ones to vote against the purchase following a so-called nonmeeting called by City Attorney Terence O'Rourke during the now-notorious July 5 City Council meeting.
At that meeting, the council voted down the land purchase after multiple residents voiced their objections to the city's proposal during a public hearing prior to the vote.
Then at the end of the meeting just before Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan was about to gavel it closed, O'Rourke motioned to Callaghan to hold up.
After some confusion, including curious breaks in the audio, Callaghan and council retired to a secret eight-minute meeting before coming out again and approving the purchase.
During a Feb. 1 nonpublic session the City Council unanimously authorized City Manager Blaine Cox to begin negotiations to purchase either the 181 Highland St. parcel or the former VFW property on Highland Street a short distance east on Route 202, according to minutes recently approved to be released following a Rochester Voice request they be unsealed.
During that nonpublic meeting it was clear the fire department preferred the 181 Highland St. parcel over the VFW.
In a subsequent nonpublic on April 5 interim fire chief Perry Plummer told councilors the city was conducting a wetlands survey on the parcel, but nowhere in any of the 91A packet is there mention of such a survey, only a survey to see if there were any environmental concerns on the property.
The council at the April meeting voted unanimously to let the city negotiate a Letter of Intent and purchase and sale agreement, but this time, instead of putting it in the hands of Cox the minutes say they authorized "staff" to negotiate both instruments.
At the final nonpublic meeting concerning the parcel on June 7 Plummer says the soil scientist gave the land "a clean bill of health," regarding any hazmat concerns, but nothing about the wetlands survey he mentioned at the April meeting.
The minutes to this final nonpublic comprise less than 100 words, despite the meeting lasting some 50 minutes.
City documents listed in the 91A mention that the city will also have to spend about $80,000 to tunnel water and sewer under Route 202, so there are a lot of costs preconstruction that city taxpayers will have to bear.
"We have no idea how much this is going to cost to finish," Beaudoin said. "Maybe as much as $8 million by the time the station is built."
Meanwhile, Cox refused to answer any questions on Thursday and Friday regarding the city's handling of the land purchase, including the flawed purchase and sale, the lack of a thorough property analysis and estimates on preconstruction costs.