ACHTUNG: The following is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

Anyone who knows me understands that I hate like hell to agree with anything written by Ranger Rick. But as the Good Book says in Ecclesiastes, there is a time and a place for everything.

Rick in this week’s column opined, “After the brouhaha about the commercial land sale involving Josh Otto, Keith Nickels, Mayor Bala and the City Council — What is going on with the land? It was supposed to start development within two years of consummating the deal. Where are the plans, what is proposed, when will dirt be moved and building commence?

“Since the buyers got a great deal on the land, when is something going to be started?

Then Rick, as is his custom, challenged me to do some digging and investigative reporting, which I will not.

However, Rick is right to call out Otto, Nickels and city officials about the lack of transparency and lack of progress on just what is going in at an odd-shaped parcel in the industrial park that was purchased four years ago for the paltry sum of $20,000.

City officials rightly explained that had tried to peddle the property for 19 years with no takers. So, they reasoned, the $20,000 was better than nothing and they were looking forward to future tax revenue.

I agreed with city officials when the controversy arose then and even penned an editorial saying so:

“At first glance, there is good reason for outrage over the City Council agreeing to an offer of only $20,000 from Josh Otto and Keith Nickels… Indeed, that’s less than $800 an acre, far less than other businesses have paid in the Reno business district for their properties. It just doesn’t seem fair.

“However, closer examination reveals that the city has tried to unload that site for almost 20 years with no success. When it was learned that 25 acres of property has serious issues with wetlands, potential buyers lost interest because they were told it could cost as much as a million dollars to handle the problem.”

“The city earlier had offered that parcel to a valve manufacturer from Portage for $1 and even tossed in a 50% tax abatement for 12 years to sweeten the pot. The Portage firm promised between 150 and 200 jobs with an average annual wage of $48,000 over the next 10 to 15 years.

“Eventually, the Portage firm said no thanks to a deal that was even sweeter than what Otto and Nickels are getting.”

They maintained there was too much site work that needed to be done to avoid problems with wetlands.

Over the past four years I have come to regret my editorial, especially after a friend told me the city could have taken the $20,000 offer from Nickels and Otto and then put the parcel up for bids to see if anybody was willing to pay more. They could have used the $20,000 as the opening bid.

Now that it’s been four years and that property has sat idle with no announcement of plans for what to with it, I’ve switched sides and stand with my old nemesis Ranger Rick.

Trouble is, it’s too late, the deal has been made. But I’d like to have Otto and Nickels tell the city and the public what’s going on, if anything.