New City of Salem "corporate welfare" giveaway to Mountain West Investment

Tonight the Salem City Council, in its Urban Renewal Agency guise, is going to decide whether to spend $200,000 to investigate possible pollution on private property that might affect a planned expansion of Riverfront Park.
Download New environmental tests loom for Riverfront park land

During environmental investigations related to the city's planned purchase of 3.8 acres at the former Boise Cascade site, a long-forgotten pipeline was found. The pipe, a remnant of a paper manufacturing operation's bleach plant, has raised environmental questions. Those questions will need to be answered before the city attempts to expand Riverfront Park.

John Wales, the city's urban development director, said the discovery of the buried pipe "was a surprise to everybody." The pipe isn't on the property the city intends to buy, but located nearby along railroad tracks above Pringle Creek, he said.

Here's how I see this situation.

Mountain West Investment bought the downtown riverfront property from Boise Cascade, which had an industrial operation there for a long time.

Mountain West thus bought the pollution that came with it. Mountain West should have gotten a guarantee from Boise Cascade that the folks who produced the pollution had to deal with it whenever and wherever it was found.

I guess this didn’t happen.

So now Mountain West owns the pollution along with the property. Mountain West also didn’t think ahead and realize it would be really tough, if not impossible, to develop the portion of the property on the west side of the railroad tracks, since that area doesn’t have a RR crossing.

Oh, no problem, Mountain West thinks.

We’ll just get the City of Salem to approve access through Riverfront Park. Except a bunch of people, including me, show that this requires National Park Service approval and it could take years to process an application to convert land from a public to a private use.

Oh, also no problem for Mountain West.

Because the City of Salem agrees to buy that undevelopable land, arguably for way more than it is worth, to add to Riverfront Park. This, after the City gives Mountain West $750,000 or thereabouts in tax breaks for private development on the east side of the RR tracks.

But now, oops, a pipe that may be oozing dioxin or other contaminants is found on the Mountain West property east of the tracks, on what will remain private property, the property Mountain West plans to develop after buying it from Boise Cascade.

The pollution might affect the property on the west side of the tracks that the City wants to buy for a park. So a reasonable person would think, “Hey, the pipe is on Mountain West property. Mountain West should be responsible for investigating and cleaning up pollution on its own property.”

But once again, no problem.

The City of Salem wants to spend $200,000 in urban renewal funds to do testing on Mountain West private property so the sweetheart deal with Mountain West can go forward.

It’s like me wanting to buy a lot owned by someone who also has an adjacent abandoned gas station with a possibly leaking old storage tank. The guy wants ME to do the testing on the tank to make sure it isn’t releasing contaminants into the lot I want to buy.

My reaction would be, “Hey, dude, it’s your gas station. It’s your problem. Deal with it. Then we can talk about going ahead with the lot sale once you assure me you’ve taken care of the mess on your own property.”

Like so much else going on at City Hall these days, this stinks of corporate welfare cronyism. The staff report does nothing to dispel that smell.

http://www.cityofsalem.net/CouncilMeetingAgenda/Documents/306/URA%204.3a.pdf

I left a comment along this same line on the Statesman Journal story. Here's what other people have commented.

— We know who really runs Salem and he's getting his way again. Thank you for questioning this. Shared.

— Why it is the Chamber of Commerce way. It is called "socialized losses". Any profits made off of the city, Mountain West keeps it all. Any losses related to their privately owned land, the city pays for it. These people are the true socialist in America.

— It is common knowledge that the land down there and the slough are toxic laden soups. From the old Coal Tar factory to Boise Cascade it has been a dump for more than a century. Why isn't Boise Cascade being forced to clean this up as well? You know…..I need to get one of my friends elected to the city council/mayor's office so the city will pay my bills as well.

— When the city makes land purchases over market value and continues to invest in property that is not useful to the city, how do they think the city tax payers (You and I) are likely to approve upgrading city hall and police station? At this point I hope it all falls down around them. Let's not forget the possible $500,000 pay out to the owners of the River Eyesore Paddlewheeler over the next ten years.

– Leaking dioxin into the river! Yikes! Did the City know this? Why haven't they done something about it a long time ago? And why didn't someone report this to the ODEQ long ago?

– The Salem City Council paid a highly inflated price for the Mountain West parcel, and given Mountain West a free grant of $750,000? Now why do the citizens of Salem owe Mountain West a free environmental assessment on their property. Haven't we done enough?

– Do you all remember back before the park was even built, all the discussion about the thousands of yards of soil that was going to have to be remediated before anything could go forward? Well, between you and me, I don't remember seeing any remediation effort going on long term or short and shazam! there was this cool new park and all this green grass separating us from all this bad and nasty stuff. Just saying…..