CUMBERLAND — A local business owner asked Allegany County Commissioners Bill Atkinson, Creade Brodie, and Dave Caporale why he was “shut out” of a deal to buy adjoining county property.
John Smith, owner of Smittys Tire and Truck Service in Frostburg, said he purchased the business roughly six years ago and more recently wanted to buy neighboring county land.
“I’d like to put a fuel stop in there,” he said at a recent county commissioner meeting. “We went through all the proceedings to try to get it … it didn’t happen.”
Smith said he had asked Economic and Community Development Department Director Jeff Barclay if county funding was available to help him with the project, and added that other local businesses had received financial aid.
But the county sold the land to someone else, he said.
“I already had a contract on it,” Smith said and added that although the deal with the county “was confidential,” he lost a downpayment in the process.
“I spent about $90,000 improving my property to put an entrance in to get tractor-trailers in and out of it,” Smith said. “Now … I can’t use it.”
Barclay told Smith he had a different recollection of events.
“Originally … you were just gonna try to do it on your own property,” Barclay said. “And then we talked about the property next door because the county was trying to see if we could sell the property.”
The county land would have provided Smith adequate space for truck traffic, but included a 20,000 square-foot building, he said.
“Your bank wasn’t gonna give you a loan unless you had tenants in the building,” Barclay said. “The time ran out even with the extensions of trying to get a leased tenant in there to satisfy the bank loan.”
After the county gave Smith the option to buy the land, the deal became “public knowledge,” he said. “That’s where we had multiple inquiries.”
Property buy options, “because we’re the government, aren’t confidential,” Barclay said. “I’m still willing to work to help you in your current location.”
Frostburg resident Kit Pepper Lescallette — who filed a declaration of intent to run for county commissioner — said the county’s agreement with Smith over the property “is one of the many, many contracts and deals that have not been made public.”
Allegany County commissioners failed to follow the law when they sold and leased various real estate parcels.
In an attempt to correct the situation, the commissioners plan to retroactively comply with a hearing process, which includes public notices, required under Maryland law.
Additionally, commissioners “voluntarily took a second position to that private mortgage” for a buyer that came after Smith, she said.
“Mr. Smith was gonna pay $1.2 million and when he couldn’t, you turned around and gave somebody one heck of a sweetheart deal,” Lescallette told the commissioners.
“You three have the opportunity right now to vote to open up the minutes of all those closed meetings that represent the part of your process that the public is supposed to be allowed to see,” she said.
The commissioners did not call for a vote to produce the records, and Caporale adjourned the meeting.