This vacant lot at 519 Ninth Ave. S.E. is one of three the Albany council may sell next week.
The Albany City Council will hold a public hearing on June 25 before possibly selling three surplus properties near the corner of Ninth Avenue and Jackson Street, close to the Helping Hands homeless shelter and the Pacific Boulevard overpass.
The city has invited potential buyers to submit sealed bids for the vacant lots by noon on June 24. The lots are at 817 Jackson and at 503 and 519 Ninth S.E.
The hearing, part of the council’s Wednesday night meeting, is intended to “receive presentations from prospective purchasers and accept public testimony.”
Then, in an unusual move, the city staff recommends that the council send the public out of the room and hold an “executive session to open the sealed bids and deliberate.”
It’s not clear why the city wants to open bids in a confidential meeting, or why deliberations about the sale of public property should be done in private.
Oregon public meetings law allows closed meetings to discuss real estate transactions, but the intent was to protect the public interest in getting a good deal when a government wants to buy property, not when it wants to sell it.
At least two parties, the homeless shelter on Ninth and the Van Vleet Meat and Food Service company across Jackson Street, have publicly expressed an interest in acquiring one or more of the lots. The meat company wants to expand, and Helping Hands wants to build apartments.
The lot on Jackson and the corner lot at Jackson and Ninth served as the city’s official homeless camping spots for a year until they were shut down last July because of too many problems.
The City of Albany bought the three lots in the early 1990s for reasons that no one remembers clearly. If you want details, I reported what I could find out in this story last year.
That whole block is zoned for light industry, even though it has never been used for that. We’ll have to wait and see if the future use changes because of the zoning, or if the zoning is changed to allow something else. (hh)
The sign at 519 Ninth Ave. S.E. gives details on when and where to submit sealed bids.
Considering the property is next to Hwy 99 and the railroad tracks, Light Industrial makes far more sense than Residential. Keep this in mind before the personal attacks begin.
Marilyn Smith has questioned “what can anyone could do with such small parcels”, or words to that effect. IF BIDDERS show an interest, why would she even worry about it? I suspect her plans are to basically give it away to Helping Hands. One questions why HHands has different ownership mailing addresses for each parcel they own. One motive I suppose, is to represent themselves as different organizations by using different mailing address to dip deeper into the Govt. trough. Why else would they intentionally be inefficient by using multiple addresses for the Same Owner?
Thank you for exposing this insidious plot to defraud we, the people. Intentional insufficiency is the hallmark of imbecilic ineptitude. We see similar examples out of Washington DC on an hourly basis.
Multiple addresses cannot be tolerated now OR ever. If the Leftist Oregon Attorney General fails to investigate, it may be time to ratchet things up a bit – say Pam Bondi? Keep an eye on this column for updates as they occur.
“We see similar examples out of Washington DC on an hourly basis. ” OK, list 24 from yesterday or admit you’re full of feces.
“If the Leftist Oregon Attorney General fails to investigate, it may be time to ratchet things up a bit”. Actually I was thinking Feds.
If you’d bothered to read, I suggested Pam Bondi. Are you unaware that she’s the United States Attorney General? I realize that bootlickers and lickspittles like our current Cabinet leadership are remarkably unremarkable. Still, I would have thought you’d beaware of who Pam Bondi is. Too bad. Now we can’t have a helpful discussion.
So, you don’t think she’d be covered as a “Fed”? She has bigger fish to fry. One of her assistants will be adequate.
If the shelter gets any of the land it will cause a lot of grief. The Marvin’s garden should have been a wake up call for using it for mass habitation. Hopefully, the city decides to not make a big mess that they have to pay a massive amount of money to clean it up. A new “service fee” in our future, lol.
The city of Albany should stop with executive sessions. It makes it look like they have something to hide, even if they don”t. Abuse of exeutive sessions and the coverage of such won awards for the current editor of the DH in previous employment in California.
Why the secrecy? Sounds shady
100% agree with Anon… closed door meetings are pretty sketch!
Helping Hands blew it with Marvin’s Garden…personally I think VanVleet purchasing the lots would be a better investment in the community… local business expansion creates more jobs, and they have been long standing in our area.
City of Albany owned the 2 lots where Marvin’s Garden was. Who blew it? The City of Albany. Many hope that Van Vleet can invest in their business expansion.
“It’s not clear why the city wants to open bids in a confidential meeting”
Because they will be accepting the bids based on who is doing the bidding as opposed to accepting the highest bids.
If you build a slum, they will come! Seriously, if you wanted to start a SLUM, where would you put the first “Project Apartments”? How much of a pay raise would this be for the Helping Hands Head Honcho?
The anti housing sentiment in this town is so ignorant.
Is that why there are 100’s of dwellings currently under construction or in the planning stages that AREN’T BETWEEN A STATE HIGHWAY AND RAIL YARD?
The whole point is this CITY COUNCIL/MAYOR is trying to sneak another real estate fiasco by us.
So, speaking of ignorance…..