Members of the Sumpter Township Board of Trustees rejected the original bids on three properties owned by the township following professional appraisals of the sites.
Trustees approved a seven-day deadline from the March 8 meeting for bidders on the sites on Arkona Road and Martinsville Road to submit revised bids on the properties.
Township Trustee Matt Oddy, a member of the Bid Committee, explained that while 10 bids were received for the land on Arkona Road and five bids were submitted for the property on Martinsville Road, recently received appraisals of the sites were considerably higher than the bids received. Bidders offered $86,000 while the appraisals valued the land at $140,000 and $160,000.
A lone, $42,000 bid was received for the property on Sumpter Road while the appraisal of that site valued it at $80,000. Board members will allow open bidding on that site and not limit it to those who bid previously.
Oddy said that the properties have been a liability for the township for years. He explained that the appraisals of the sites came late, after the bids had been received.
Township Supervisor Tim Bowman said the township should auction the properties with a minimum bid of $80,000. “How much to we want to get these properties off our books? We can hire a company and they do the advertising. They bring people and they get the word out. We are spending too much time and money. We bought signs we advertised,” he said. Bowman was critical, too of the process. “We should have had appraisals before we bid. This was backwards.”
Trustee Peggy Morgan suggested during the discussion of the re-bidding that the process for all the properties be open to the public, not limited to seven days for just those who bid previously. “Let's be fair to everybody,” she said.
The sale of the Sumpter Road property remains unpopular with neighbors in the area, including Trustee Don LaPorte, who lives close to the site. During the public comment portion of the meeting, resident Cory Blue told the board members that he and six of his neighbors do not want a commercial development on the site. The Sumpter Road property is behind a former medical clinic and is in a commercially zoned area.
“Country Living at it's Finest. That's your motto. That's why I moved here. We should keep it that way,” Blue said. He said the property is landlocked and in his neighbors' backyards. “This is not right. Several families will be affected. It makes no sense to make it commercial,” he said. He added that when neighbors attempted to split the property to buy the site, they were refused and told they needed a plan to begin commercial building on the property. He said as an engineer, he could have prepared a plan, and that lone bidder stipulated that construction would not begin for years.
“It's just all about the money,” Blue said and left the meeting.
LaPorte cast the lone no vote on re-bidding the Sumpter Township site with an $80,000 minimum while he and Morgan each voted no on the seven-day re-bid deadline for the Arkona and Martinsville sites.
Township attorney Rob Young reminded the board members that they have the right to reject any and all bids submitted.
