As the Grand Junction city manager, I take fiscal responsibility and public trust very seriously. Last Saturday, the Daily Sentinel ran a front-page Gary Harmon article that I feel called both into question. The article was titled, “City hammers on repairs,” and it portrayed the city as heavy handed and out to take advantage of the homeowner, which is inaccurate.

The first line of the article read, “Grand Junction city officials are demanding that the owner of a home they want to acquire to complete Matchett Park make an estimated $100,000 in repairs to seal the deal.” The following are the facts:

1. The potential sale of the home at 2856 Patterson Road was initiated by the owner, Chris Walter.

2. Mr. Walter moved out of the home because he purchased a new home.

3. The city has no specific timeline by which to complete Matchett Park. Purchasing Mr. Walter’s property now rather than risk the property becoming significantly more expensive in the future when the park is completed makes good sense. The property, if purchased, will likely be rented, not demolished, with the proceeds going toward offsetting the purchase price.

4. Upon entering purchase negotiations with Mr. Walter, the city had an inspection performed. That action is standard procedure for a real estate transaction and is fiscally prudent.

5. There was no letter “demanding repairs” as is indicated in the article. The inspection of the property identified items that are in disrepair – the very reason you conduct a real estate inspection. A letter was sent to Mr. Walter detailing the inspection results, requesting a meeting with him to discuss the results and to work toward a mutually satisfactory agreement. The letter did not include a cost estimate.

6. We are currently negotiating with Mr. Walter and are nearing an agreement that is acceptable to both parties.

I want to reiterate how seriously I take the stewardship of the taxpayers’ money. Our organization is working extremely hard right now to go above and beyond what is traditionally expected and for that reason I wanted to set the record straight.

LAURIE KADRICH
City Manager
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.