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ST. CLAIR SHORES — The St. Clair Shores City Council voted 6-0 May 1 to table a purchase agreement in relation to the sale of a parcel of vacant city-owned land on Jefferson Avenue, south of Masonic Boulevard.
Councilwoman Candice Rusie was excused from the meeting.
This property had a previous offer, but the arrangements fell through, City Attorney Robert Ihrie said. According to the agenda, the plan was to sell the land to the new purchaser, Triangle Land, for $850,000.
The contract caused worry among a few council members and the mayor due to changes that were made at the last minute by the agent. The new changes were emailed to Ihrie the week before the Monday meeting, on Friday, and he said he immediately emailed that to City Manager Dustin Lent.
One of these changes included a paragraph in the contract that was supposed to mean the opposite of what was originally stated. The original contract, before the changes, was presented as a hard copy in front of council the night of the council meeting.
“In the event the purchaser does not send initial notice to proceed on or prior to the expiration in the initial contingency period, this agreement shall terminate and the initial deposit shall be returned to the purchaser,” Councilman John Caron read from the original contract.
Ihrie said the language of the contract had already been changed prior to the council meeting.
“I don’t have it directly in front of me, but essentially, it says that if they complete their 90-day initial contingency period and there are no material difficulties but they fail to send their notice to proceed or present to us a proposal, they lose their earnest money,” Ihrie said.
Ihrie also said there was pressure to get it out to the council to get the project moving.
“We could have put it over a couple of weeks, but we wanted to get it addressed at this council meeting so we could get the project moving,” Ihrie said.
Caron said he wanted a correct contract to vote on that has the correct language written in.
“This has been going on for so long with this property and to get a contract that has a paragraph that where you’re saying it should say the exact opposite is not acceptable,” Caron said.
Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman Chris Vitale said that, though it came through the prior architect and it is indicative that it’s the same project, there’s nothing that states that.
“I think maybe part of the problem with this contract is that it’s kind of assuming a lot of things that we’ve already seen are going to carry on,” Vitale said. “And, you know, I read through this contract, too, and I don’t really see anything that states that.”
Lent said this purchaser already knows a lot about doing their due diligence and they don’t expect this to take the full 90 days. He said they were very clear that they don’t want the agent to submit something that they know is going to fail just to get their money back.
“So, it has to be as like (the) project that has already been submitted to council and has already been vetted at one point,” Lent said.
Lent also said they were very strict on this purchaser probably because of the previous four years where they kept getting burned on the project, and they don’t want that to happen again.
“This purchaser, I can tell you, is so far in my conversations with him, for what that’s worth, is wanting to move and move fast,” Lent said. “So, he wants to get this process started, hence why he would like this to be put through to council.”
Councilman Ronald Frederick asked if they could include the language in the motion at the table, and Ihrie said if the motion passed, he could go in his emails and find everything.
Mayor Kip Walby said he appreciates the idea of trying to move it forward and that they have passed things in the past that needed a word or two, but changing a substantial line at the meeting wouldn’t be prudent.
“We’ve waited a long time, I think, and I know we want to move forward, but I think two more weeks is what we should wait for to make sure that we have everything done,” Walby said.
Councilman Dave Rubello made the motion to table the project, and it was supported by Caron.
