By Heather Graves
Correspondent
BROWN COUNTY – Supervisors voted Wednesday, Sept. 18 to place six parcels of Brown County Golf Course land for sale, in addition to the four parcels they previously voted to place on the market back in April.
The county will entertain offers to purchase all 10 under-utilized golf course parcels on or after Oct. 17.
Any potential offers will be brought back to the board.
“This (resolution) just makes those parcels available for purchase similar to the other four parcels, but any offers would come back before this board,” said David Hemery, corporation counsel.
Chad Weininger, director of administration, echoed Hemery’s remarks.
“It’s the intention to, before we would sell, to bring an offer back for your consideration – the full board,” Weininger said. “It would first go to the Education and Recreation Committee, then it would go to the Executive Committee and then it would go to the full County Board – and there would be a closed session on each of those agendas.”
District 9 Supervisor Patrick Evans is the only supervisor who voted against the resolution, saying he thinks the closed session discussions should take place before the board votes on making the parcels available.
“We probably already have people interested in this property and now we have to approve it so that we can sell it,” Evans said. “But what’s happening is we haven’t made the decision to say ‘Yeah, we should sell this additional property,’ and then go out and put out a bid and have people come out back in. It’s all being done in the reverse way. There is probably an organization, or group of people, or a builder or whoever that wants to get this property and has contacted the county and now we are saying ‘Oh, now we are going to put it up for sale.’ This is funny business to me.”
Hemery said at this time the county doesn’t have any offers on the properties in question.
District 7 Supervisor John Van Dyck, said the additional six parcels are less desirable than the previous four parcels placed for sale in April.
“If you were in support of selling the other property – this is a bigger no-brainer,” Van Dyck said. “The parcels identified here are completely land-locked, you have to cross a river to get to them and you can’t get to them from the other side. All we are doing tonight is offering them up for sale. Nobody said we are selling them tonight. We haven’t taken any offers to sell them. So you’ll have ample opportunity to either to vote to sell them or not sell them depending on if we even get an offer.”
District 24 Supervisor Richard Schadewald noted the board has rules regarding selling property.
“Under our county code we have rules about how we sell, or approve or disapprove property,” Schadewald said. “First, you have to have the resolution, then it goes to committee. This is the right path.”
The Education and Recreation Committee met Thursday, Sept. 26, to discuss the issue in closed session.
The Executive Committee will discuss the item in early October before it will be brought to the full board at its meeting Wednesday, Oct. 16.