County officials unanimously argue that the corporation will act as a watchdog to protect the county's interests and ensure that any transactions and contracts are fair, even if they don't have to be competitively bid. When McCord flips his land to the corporation, says County Attorney Mike Fleming, "The board will have to determine if the price they're paying for the 400 acres is reasonable."
But that price has already been set by McCord and agreed to in principle by Light's group, as has most of the prepackaged deal. It's highly unlikely that the board, which consists of staff members and friends of Eckels's and Lee's, will challenge the sale terms with McCord, or the appointment of Huff, or the contract with Light, or the agreements with the football and baseball alumni associations, all of which have been set in stone but would allegedly be in the board's purview.
"Allinfavor?Opposed?Motioncarries."
Eckels now agrees that the Court was perhaps too hasty in approving the creation of the corporation before some of the pertinent questions had been answered. It wasn't clear whether the project could have been developed privately, nor did the Court consider any guidelines by which such a deal should be measured (including the tax history of the principals -- Warwick, Trull and corporation board member Travis Cooper have been sued in the past for delinquent property taxes).
"You want to have a set of rules," Eckels says. "What we did not have in this case was a set of rules."
Eckels and Steve Radack say that ultimately the decision came down to the fact that El Franco Lee wanted the project passed.
"El Franco said it would be good for his precinct and all that," Radack says.
Lee refuses to shoulder the responsibility by himself, however.
"I don't know how this became my deal," he says, though he handled the arguments on its behalf during the August 5 meeting.
The project and means of financing it have countywide implications, Lee correctly points out, and besides, any of the commissioners could have delayed a vote for a week or two until some of the issues had been further studied. None did. "I have not heard them say shit since then, either," says Lee.
Eckels plans to push for a more formal process to evaluate other similar proposals, should others come before the Court in the future. And others will come. As Dennis Ohlweiler of PPC underwriter Cumberland Securities notes, "This concept is the one that has the greatest payback."
But having already set the standard, it will be difficult for the Court to pull back from the line drawn for PPC.
Unless, of course, the applicant doesn't know the right folks.
