Property assessed by city at $4,279,500 was purchased at a premium on the assessment by the city for a cool $5-million. The transaction closed on December 12, 2023, and became official with Mayor Sisitisky’s chicken scratch.
We are sure there will be some big announcement on the purchase in the next city council meeting. It’s for the long planned Bruce Freeman Rail Trail. What city councilors should ask the mayor…. why pay more than the assessed amount? A number that far off assessment isn’t the increase on value of land over the course of a year. That’s poor assessing.
The city did have the money set aside, in fact in 2022 they voted to allocate up to $6,000,000 to purchase the land. But just because you can… doesn’t mean that you should. And just because we didn’t spend every cent we had available…. doesn’t make it right.
