Downtown Lot - what's is worth?

On December 16 the sole bid for the parking lot just north of the Woodstock movie theater was opened at the Woodstock City Council meeting. Either the City had decided to unload that piece of vacant real estate or somebody had expressed interest in buying it, and so bids had been solicited. Only one bid was received.

The bid? $178,400. From the owner of the movie theater. No surprise. Quite logical. Nothing wrong with that. And at least he offered what looks like a substantial sum of money for it, rather than guessing he might be the only bidder and then low-balling it.

Of course, that's risky because, if someone had slipped in just above him and had gotten it, then the price would go up, up, up.OK, so what's the beef here?

At the City Council meeting Councilman RB Thompson asked whether the bid of $178,400 had been compared with the assessed valuation of the property.

City Manager Tim Clifton responded, somewhat definitively, "Yes." It sounded more to me like, "Yes!"

And..... ? Was more to be said? Was more to be asked? To me this was a classic "pregnant pause.

The City Manager did not elaborate. He could have explained in what way or to what extent the bid compared to the assessed valuation. But he didn't. He answered RB's question, and that was that.

And there was no follow-up from RB. RB didn't ask what the comparison was. The silence was deafening, although brief.

An inquiry to the City Manager's administrative assistant on December 18 for the PIN and the Assessed Valuation went unanswered.

When I followed up with Tim, he responded promptly and referred me to the Assessor's office. It took two calls to get the PIN (1305-355-038), but I got it.

Then I called the Dorr Township Assessor to learn the Assessed Valuation. That was an easy one. Zero. Zilch. No dollars and no cents. $0.00 Why? Because property owned by a municipality is tax-exempt.

This was surely known at the City Council meeting.

Wouldn't a better answer to RB's question have been, "Yes, the bid has been compared to the Assessed Valuation. The Assessed Valuation is zero, because the property is owned by the City and is recorded as Zero in the County records, because it is tax-exempt. An Assessed Valuation will appear in County records when the property is owned by a non-tax-exempt business or person."

Wouldn't that have been a full, fair and transparent answer? Or he could have said, "The one bid received was $178,400 more than the Assessed Valuation." heh-heh. And that would have been true. But ...