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Quack Off
by
Free
Market Duck
Ada County Commissioners
condemn own property through eminent domain...
Pay Cryptic Partners $3.2 million in fake "takings" - Part 1
(Aug 13, 2007)
How does
Ada County condemn its very own property, 4 times, and then take it back
from itself while paying subleasee Civic Partners $3.2 million for retail
space that Civic Partners has not been able to rent out for over 5 years?
The
reason it is important in the Boise Watergate mess to connect the dots
between the original flaky $100 million Ada County Courthouse Scam
(1996-2002) and the $136 million University Place fiasco (2002-now) as one
big crime spree against the taxpayers by the Boise lawyers, politicians, and
Cryptic Partners is precisely because Boise's Watergate is not over and the
same perps are now laundering over $3.2 million to Cryptic Partners in a
questionable mis-use of eminent domain.
Boise, ID – Listen up girl friends.
This con game gets very tricky.
According to current records at the
Ada County Courthouse, Ada County owns both the land and the Ada County
Courthouse building sitting on that land. Ada County purchased the
14-acre Courthouse Corridor property for $1.00 (ONE DOLLAR) after pretending
to "rent" the same property for $4 million ($1 million per year for 4 years)
from a group of prominent lawyers and judges who formed a tax-exempt
non-profit corporation called The Friends of the
Ada County Judicial System, Inc. The
Friends were created specifically to allow Ada County to pretend
to "rent" instead of "purchase" the 14 acres to avoid the 2/3 majority vote
requirement of the Idaho Constitution for a public agency to go into
multi-year debt. (An Advisory Vote taken after the fact is not an
authorization to go into multi-year debt.)
While
The Friends pretended to "purchase" the 14 acres from Union
Pacific Railroad, canceled checks from the Ada County Treasurer for $50,000
and $750,000 were made out to the UPRR with memos that state "for purchase
of UPRR property," not "rent to The Friends."
Clearly this was a scam to get around voter approval RE the Idaho
Constitution. The Friends
corporation was dissolved after Ada County "purchased" the property for
$1.00 (ONE DOLLAR) to end the charade.
In 1998, The Friends and Ada
County were sued for this fake lease-purchase fiasco but sudden intervention
and replacement of a judge (who was leaning toward the plaintiffs) by an
Idaho Supreme Court Justice in the Kangaroo Court trial resulted in an
acquittal for Ada County and, of course, the lawyers and judges comprising
The Friends.
Now that the Ada County
Commissioners questionably "obtained" the property, it was time to build a
new Ada County Courthouse for their buddies, the lawyers and judges who
helped them, and office space for themselves and their staff. Oh-oh,
the Commissioners were again faced with the same issue: how to go into
multi-year debt without a 2/3 vote of the voters.
Hesto presto! At first
the Ada County Commissioners decided to use the same fake lease-purchase
method to build the new Ada County Courthouse as they did to obtain the 14
acres. Namely, they wanted to allow Boise's Urban Renewal Agency (aka
the Capital City Development Corporation, CCDC) to "own" the building and
Ada County to "rent" the building. But the 1998 lawsuit, which they
almost lost, scared the heeby-jeebies out of the perps and they decided on a
slightly different tactic.
In a 116-page January 1999
Master Ground Lease, the Ada County Commissioners assigned Boise's Urban
Renewal Agency, the CCDC, the right to act as their agents, AT NO FEE, to
perform everything that the Ada County Commissioners were not allowed
to do by law such as (1) sell bonds and go into multi-year debt to build a
new Ada County Courthouse, (2) borrow financing from banks for various
multi-year debt, (3) sublease various Parcels of the new Courthouse back to
Ada County in 30 annual renewable leases so it would look like Ada County
was not unconstitutionally going into multi-year debt, (4) sublease retail
Parcels of the new Ada County Courthouse and Civic Plaza to California
developer Civic Partners (aka Cryptic Partners), and any other functions Ada
County deemed appropriate for their new "agent," the CCDC.
In this clever manner, Ada County was (and still is) playing two contradictory roles:
(1) retaining ownership of the new Ada County Courthouse and leasing it to
the CCDC for free, and (2) appearing NOT to retain ownership of the new Ada
County Courthouse by "renting" it back from the CCDC in 30 annual renewable
leases.
Meanwhile, the Master Ground
Lease allows Civic Partners (for 99 years) to also lease various retail
Parcels of the new Ada County Courthouse from the owners, Ada County,
through the CCDC and sublease these
Parcels to retailers to supposedly save taxpayers from the cost of building the
Courthouse (i.e., paying off the bondholders). But Civic Partners has
not been able to sublease virtually any of the retail Parcels in the new
Courthouse for over 5 years except for a now defunct Deli for a brief time.
In November of 2006, Ada County
decided it wanted more Ada County office space in the new Courthouse they
already own. The Commissioners wanted retail space leased to Civic Partners. Civic didn't respond. So, the Ada County
Commissioners invoked eminent domain to condemn their own property and take
various Parcels from Civic Partners, the subleasee.
But wait a minute.
What's wrong with this picture? Can a public agency condemn its own
property and take it back through eminent domain by claiming it is only
applying eminent domain to the alleged "valuation" of the subleasee's retail
Parcels? And then pay the subleasee millions of dollars for retail
Parcels in the Courthouse and Civic Plaza that the subleasee, Civic
Partners, has been unable to lease to any retailers at any price for over 5
years -- except a now defunct deli? -- Deep Throat II
End of Part 1...
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