Mayor loses Ocean State deal
By Steve Collins, The Bristol Press
03/02/2007
BRISTOL - For months, Mayor William Stortz has haggled with the last remaining tenant in the downtown mall in hopes of working out a deal that would persuade Ocean State Job Lot to get out.
He finally put the finishing touches on a $507,000 deal with the discount retailer last week that he believed he could convince the City Council and Board of Finance to support.
But the mayor blew it.
When it came up for a vote Thursday, city councilors uniformly opposed the proposed settlement. Stortz cast the sole vote in favor.
"I'll be the Lone Ranger in this particular case," Stortz declared.
It was a stunning political defeat for the Republican mayor, with even Councilor Mike Rimcoski, the only GOP councilor, lining up with the Democrats who shot down the plan.
Ocean State's lawyer, Bridget Gallagher, expressed disappointment that the deal went down in flames.
It wasn't clear that there would even be a vote on the issue because councilors told Stortz during a half-hour, closed-door executive session that they would rather take their chances in court against Ocean State. Most of them figured the mayor would simply adjourn the meeting without a public vote after they returned to public session.
But Stortz instead announced there had been "an interesting discussion" in executive session and asked the council if anyone would read the motion to accept the deal, which offered to pay the Rhode Island-based retailer $225,000 in relocation costs and $47,000 a year for six years to reimburse it for higher rents it would pay elsewhere in town. In return for the money, Ocean State would leave the city-owned mall by May.
Stortz argued that the $507,000 payoff was the safe bet, ending a legal dispute that the city could still lose and hastening redevelopment of the 17-acre mall site that officials hope can be the centerpiece of a new downtown.
City Councilor Frank Nicastro, a Democrat and former mayor, wasted no time in declaring his opposition.
"What we're doing here is truly wrong," Nicastro said, arguing the deal would hurt the city and cost taxpayers too much.He said it "turns my stomach" to think of giving Ocean State so much after defeating the store in court already.
But what sealed the deal's fate was Nicastro's announcement that the state Supreme Court plans to hear Ocean State's appeal of its first-round legal loss by April 20. A decision could be handed down before summer.
With the case likely to end so soon, said Councilor Craig Minor, "it just doesn't make sense financially" to settle for so much now.
"It's worth gambling" that the city will win the final round of the legal case, said Councilor Ellen Zoppo, rather than cutting a deal.
Stortz said he didn't know the court date was coming up so quickly. He said the early date "caught a few of us by surprise."
Councilor Art Ward, a Democrat running for mayor, said a settlement might have made sense but the early court date "sheds another light."
He said the bottom line is that in the deal Stortz negotiated "the concessions are all being given by us" and all Ocean State is doing in return is moving out a little sooner.Rimcoski expressed doubt, too.
"We're gambling, no matter how you cut it," Rimcoski said. "I feel like I'm at a blackjack table wondering whether to hit a 17."
Rimcoski decided to play it safe.
Stortz, though, went for broke, and lost big.
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
17 comments:
Is this really unbiased journalism to say that "Stortz blew it" ???
As a matter of fact, yes. It's a simple statement of fact.
What's interesting about the whole thing now is that as long as the case wasn't finished, Stortz looked pretty good for pushing for a settlement. If Ocean State won the case, the mayor would look positively golden for trying to resolve it long ago. But with a strong ruling for the city -- and little indication that the pace of the mall project was slowed by rejecting the deal -- the Democrats who stopped the settlement appear to gain politically. Nicastro in particular comes out of this looking good, since he did more than anyone to prevent Stortz's proposed settlement from taking place.
That's what happens when the Mayor doesn't follow Ellen's script.
Collins, how can you say he blew it, when the ones who caused the problem were Couture, Diamantis, Zoppo, Minor, Levigne, and Ward? I'd say you were biased against Republican candidates. Now they're trying to cover for themselves by standing with Nicastro who was the only one who opposed purchasing the mall in the first place.
Please, think before you write.
Were you thinking before you wrote he, "blew it"? That tells me you looked positively on the city buying out OSJL and that you felt it was a good idea. Perhaps you should have stated more factually that the Dems voted against his proposal because they thought Stortz's offer was too high?
Here's a helpful sample for next time: "Dems turn Conservative for Once". How's that hit you? Or maybe "Once in a Blue Moon the Dopes Got It Right". I like those headlines better Steve.
A simple statement of the facts is "Stortz failed to garner enough votes to win acceptance of the compromise with Ocean State". "Stortz Blew it" seems highly highly prejudicial to me.
You really have to take a good hard look at the figures before you can declare this to be a victory for the dems. (For the record, I think its a victory for the entire CITY of Bristol, but that's just one man's opinion). Keeping the mall open is costing us at least $ 1,000.00 a day. ...Ocean State could have been out about 200 days ago, no ?
"Stortz blew it" is a fact. Whether it would have been good for him to win is obviously a fair question for debate. In any case, writing dull sentences isn't going to get people to read.
Before you can say the Dems look good don't you have to add all the costs together?
For example: How much do we have too pay them to get out?
How much did we pay in legal fees to prep the case and argue it before the court?
How much did we have to pay in additional insurance costs to keep the building standing.
Remember, Nicastro said we would have a decision in two weeks, Minor said before the summer, its almost fall, and Zoppo was willing to gamble.
Lastly, we need to remember that these are our tax dollars that they were "gambling with"
Dosen't that scare anyone?
It's worth remembering that Stortz made a case for the deal that was strong enough to convince the Board of Finance. He lost the council's backing because he didn't tell them the Supreme Court was going to hear the case soon. Had he told them, the backlash wouldn't have been so strong and the outcome may have differed.
I don't think that it's either fair or "true" to say that the people from the Couture administration got us in this "mess". I think that it was a good idea in the beginning that didn't follow through well because people were apprehensive, there was confusion over costs to taxpayers, and concern over long term issues.
If you go back to the VERY beginning, buying the mall was so that City could control it's downtown's destiny and to stop the deterioration there. There was a bi-partisan group that discussed the possibilities that could go there, they produced a preliminary plan to Gov. Roland who loved it, and then it fell apart when the public said no. Then we were back to the drawing board.
The City during Stortz could have sold it off as is if they wanted out from under the "mess". There were interested buyers.
It was all with good intention - now the Downtown Board has control. OSJL can leave and we can start seeing some progress.
Frank Nicastro was the biggest complainer when the City bought the mall.
He sat in his office for 10 years watching that mall property deteriorate more and more every day and never did a thing about it.
Then the City buys it so that they can try and turn the damage around somehow, and he got all high and mighty.
Did someone say it was a good idea to purchase the mall? I’ll have what they are having, because it must make your mind a bit foggy to the fact that this fiasco will cost the city of Bristol millions of dollars. You must be comfortably numb not to see that the spending is not over and, at the rate of which we are progressing, there will be malls in space before there is a direction by the city as to how to develop the property. Let’s cut our losses sell it to a developer (without development restrictions) so we can move on.
I think that buying the mall was a good idea. Leaving it in the hands of the out of town private owners that didn't care that it was deteriorating was hurting us. We had no control of what it was turning into as long as it was in the hands of the Gatto family.
You folks who think this was so biased notice that Rimcoski also voted against it? He described it as deciding whether to take a hit while you're holding a 17 in blackjack. Stortz took the chance while everyone else played it safe. When Stortz went bust, he surely "blew it." Doesn't make him wrong on the issue. Just a bad bet.
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