(Tap your heels three times and say I want it cheap!)

The continuing drama of the “Outstanding Wayland Land Deal” reminds me of the Chicken Man radio series popular in the 1960s when the announcer would start the show with and exasperating “Weelll, what will the caped crusader do now.”

Let’s examine the facts as they are becoming excruciatingly slow to develop and be known.

The “developers” offered the City of Wayland $20,000 for 25.11 acres of land bordering Reno Drive and 133^rd Avenue.

The City Council voted in the affirmative to sell the land to the “developers”.

The “developers” in question are businessmen Josh Otto, owner of the Wayland Hotel, and Keith Nickels, an owner of a commercial building and several properties in the city.

As of now, there are no concrete plans given as to what will be done with the property.

After it was known the land sale was approved by the City Council, several business owners came forward at the next meeting and asked questions about the sale and whether the selling price would affect the value of their properties and resulting tax reduction. This publication, M-Live and the Allegan County News reported the meeting highlights.

Next came the TV8 interview of several neighboring business owners questioning the method and price of the land sale. Both Bob Genther and Ben Frigmanski questioned the process of the sale and the excessively low offered price for the land.

The most telling part of the interview was when one of the developers, Josh Otto, was on camera and said he and his partner were looking for property in Wayland for some time, so he went the city and asked what it would take for the parcel on 133^rd. They explained it would be in the 20 range. “Fair enough,” Otto said.

Some people would say Mr. Otto and Mr. Nickels on their own initiative got a great deal. I would say they got a stupendous deal – property that was priced at $50,000 per acre down to less than $800 per acre. I can understand why the other folks already doing business on the original property are upset, since they paid considerably more and probably pay a large amount in property taxes.

But most telling in this whole thing is the one question that remains:

Who is the “they” in City Hall who told them what they would take for the property?

And to the taxpayers in the city, you are the ones being taken for a ride in this whole process. From the asking price of $50,000 per acre ($1,255,500) to less than $797 an acre ($20,000) = $1,235,500 difference if sold for original asking price. Another $1.2-plus million for the city revenue to spend for city improvements.

But let’s get serious, shall we?

The city asks for three bids to buy and sell city assets (police cars, fire trucks, hand tools, etc.), but the city doesn’t ask in a public announcement it is taking bids for city property or sell it at auction? Seems pretty elementary to me in understanding these are city assets that have high intrinsic value (much more than $800 per acre) and someone at City Hall encouraged a selling price to one party? I’ll go out on a limb here and say this could be construed as government malfeasance. Or is it something more?

Now there will be contrarians that will say “Well, the city wanted to sell the property at one time for $1” – very true! But with one difference, they had a plan and existing business – they were expanding and Wayland seemed like a good fit until they found out there were wetlands on the property, high property tax rates, etc – maybe other drawbacks. They were going to bring not only a large tax base, but jobs, sorely needed jobs.

With Mr. Otto and Mr. Nickels, there is verbal hot air “trust us, you’ll like it” rhetoric. Maybe they will be true to their word (I certainly hope so) – but I know what talks and what walks and it looks like they are striding and strutting to me. It’s been said Mr. Otto asked the Council if they could keep knowledge of this sale out of the public record – is that conjecture or truth? – only the council knows.

Who’s zooming who in this deal?

And whoever “they” are in City Hall, shame on you. You just lost a ton of confidence in city government.

And City Council members, shame on you for not asking more questions about the low price and the intentions of the “developers.” The “they” that brought the offer to your attention is smearing all of you that voted in the affirmative.

What a shameful chapter in irresponsible city government!