Documents obtained from a recent Public Information Act request indicate that Chestertown Town Manager Bill Ingersoll kept dialogue with the Sultana Education Foundation — over the possible purchase of the shipyard on Cannon and Mill Streets — confidential from the Town Council for six months.
Sultana President Drew McMullen expressed an interest in the shipyard in an email to Ingersoll on April 24, 2019. The email included a memo McMullen wrote to SEF’s executive committee, expressing a desire to close a deal by the end of 2019.
“…I think the timing is right to tackle this in 2019 before the Lawrence Preserve gets up and running,” McMullen said in his memo to the executive committee.
Ingersoll and McMullen met that day. The Town Council would not learn of SEF’s interest in the shipyard until October and the public would not learn about it until December.
“As an elected council member, I would like to have known about this, especially because any decisions would have affected my ward,” said former Ward 2 Councilwoman Linda Kuiper in a brief interview on Monday. “We weren’t told about this until late October–and then we were told the matter was confidential until the newly elected council was sworn in in January.”
In September, SEF ordered a boundary survey of the property and then made an official offer in late October. Ingersoll then sent an email to council members indicating that the offer was “confidential” and that the future of the shipyard would be decided by the new council in January following the results of the fall election.
Kuiper said she found it problematic that “an appointed official can decide when issues are worthy for the residents’ elected representatives to consider at any given time.”
“Was there an assumption I would be against it?” Kuiper asked. “My issue is that it wasn’t brought to the council or the public for consideration for eight months.”
She said it shouldn’t be the decision of the Town Manager to “schedule the public’s business around elections.”
Kuiper said the council could have used the eight months from April to December 2019 to partner with Sultana on a “shared vision for the property…or to determine some other future for it that would best serve Ward 2 and the Town.”
Ingersoll also told council members in his October email to respond to only him regarding SEF’s offer and not to themselves–to avoid a violation of the Maryland Open Meetings Act. Discussions between a majority of an elected body become public business whether it be in person, by email or phone.
Mayor Chris Cerino, also the vice president of SEF, was mentioned in McMullen’s memo to the executive team where he and two others proposed major changes to the shipyard property.
In a previous story, Ingersoll justified moving the SEF’s offer for the shipyard to the new council in January.
“The matter of a prospective buyer’s interest in part of the shipyard was deferred, by me, to a matter to be addressed by the new Town Council,” Ingersoll said in an email to the Spy on Dec. 27, explaining why SEF’s offer was not brought to the council in the remaining eight weeks of 2019. “This is planned for the earliest possible agenda in the new year, following the swearing-in of the new council members.”
“[Sultana’s] letter of interest in late October was received at the time of the election and I deferred it for one main reason: the sale of any property by the Town cannot start until the property is declared surplus or excess by Ordinance,” Ingersoll wrote. “This process is a two meeting process, with a comment period and rarely can be accomplished in less than 6 weeks.”
Correction: Ingersoll contacted the two newly elected council members three weeks before their swearing-in January to share an email he sent to council members in October, asking them to determine if they would like to start the process to declare the parcel surplus and transfer the property to SEF.
“Please read this over and let me know if you would like to process with this offer,” Ingersoll wrote in his original email to the council in October. “If you wish to proceed, the property would be declared surplus in an ordinance with a condition that the sale be to the present lessee.”
Gren Whitman says
Am I missing something?
What’s the problem?
Has anyone involved done anything wrong?
Bill Arrowood says
While it no laws were broken, it is less than ideal that it appears that a town employee made an executive decision to withhold an offer and information from Town Council, (one that presumably the Mayor knew about, based on his dual role), for an several months, announcing it only weeks before an election in the ward it was impacting and setting it up to be punted until after the new council was in place.
While certainly not on the same scale, it could be compared to the senate’s choice to hold a supreme court appointment up until after an election, in hopes of getting a more favorable outcome.
The upshot is that the SEF is most likely only potential buyer for this property, (and as the current tenant and good community member, perhaps the best use), but how this is playing out smells of a less than transparent and public process and that is problematic.
Going forward, I hope this sort of thing will to be made very public and there will be more accountability on the Town Manager, I also expect, however, that SEF will get the property with little actual debate on the subject.
chris kelsch says
nothing to see here…C’mon people, The Sultana group has UPGRADED Chestertown in a dramatic way…don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill.Focus energy on moving forward…please
Michael McConnell says
I take issue with the manner in which town property is transferred to non-profit entities as if there were no other alternative.
Under no circumstances should public property be sold without a transparent process that concludes in a sealed competitive bid. In just the last several years we have seen several of the town’s properties, some of them prime high-value waterfront locations, transferred to Washington College and the Sultana Foundation at non-market prices.
Whether or not redevelopment by non-profits is the best use of a public property, the town’s taxpayers are left to shoulder the increasing cost of providing services to the entire community. At the very least this fact should be included in discussions by our public officials.
PAULA B REEDER says
The manner in which our Town Manager , Mayor and SEF have handled this matter is just too slippery for words….
Take note. If this transaction comes to pass, it will result in yet another of too many Chestertown properties permanently removed from the property tax roles. Wake up residents!