Foxfire Village may well wind up with 156 acres of undeveloped land, rather than $1.4 million it needs to pay for the recently completed Woodland Circle Extension project.
Quietly reading from a letter addressed to the Village Council during a Tuesday, February 1 public hearing on the project assesment, Mayor George Erickson reported that John McKeon’s legal trust has offered to give the Village its 156 acres rather than pay its $1.4 milion share of the cost.
In January, McKeon notified the Council, through his attorney, that it was not economically appropriate for him to pay the assessment using the methodology the Council had selected for allocating the cost of the project among affected property owners.
The Council’s plan called for assessing owners based on the total acreage they owned, rather than on a their proprtionate share of actual road frontage.
McKeon asked the Council to reconsider the methodology; however, the Council expressed concern that reversing course on the already approved preliminary assessment could completely negate the original petition that allowed the project to move forward.
Foxfire Village attorney Michael Brough explained that McKeon’s offer to donate the land would, in effect, provide a shorter and quicker process to reach where the Council would eventually end up if the landowner failed to pay his share: foreclosure.
Following a public hearing, the Council approved the assessment roll, including the fourteen affected property owners along the recently completed 1.5 mile roadway. With properties assessed using an equal pro-rata methodology of .20782 per square foot, McKeon’s large tract garnered nearly 75% of the total project cost of $1,996,667.
Councilman Ed Lauer was not in attendance; and, with a limited agenda in place for the public hearing, Brough recommended the Council take no immediate action on McKeon’s offer.
“It would be preferable to wait until your next meeting to decide whether to accept this gift,” cautioned Brough.
There were no other public comments; and, immediately following the hearing, the Council went into Closed Meeting to discuss McKeon’s offer.
