OCR Text |
Show Land purchase challenged j By GARY R. BLODGETT FARMINGTON Despite anger an-ger from county employees and opposition from a few county residents, resi-dents, Davis County Commission has finalized the purchase of 57 acres of land adjacent to the proposed prop-osed jail and public safety complex in West Farmington. The commission agreed to a sale price of $645,000 for the undeveloped unde-veloped property. The decision has prompted a former for-mer Davis County attorney to publicly pub-licly criticize the Commission for "illegally" using county funds for purchase of the property. Salt Lake Attorney Loren D. Martin, who lives in Bountiful, and was employed in the County Attorney's Attor-ney's Office at the time of the bond sale, said the use of the money for other than building new hospitals is "inappropriate at this time." O CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Land purchased challenged come from an old hospital bond which the county sold about 10 years ago but did not use for hospital hospit-al construction. After the bonds were sold, a private organization stepped in and built two hospitals to serve the county, one in Layton and the other in Bountiful. Although there are no definite plans for development of the 57-acre 57-acre site, there is speculation that the land will be used to accommodate accommo-date the county fair and related uses. . The county previously purchased purch-ased a 143-acre site for future development de-velopment into a fair complex, but this piece of property along with 10 acres adjacent to the Davis County Golf Course, are presently up for sale. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 O "That bond money belongs to the public it is not county funds," stressed Atty. Martin. "The money was authorized through a special service district for the purpose of constructing two hospitals within the county and that is where the money belongs until the public approves it for another purpose." He cited State Statute 11-23-12 and 11-23-14 for his reasoning. "Government should be managed by rules and laws and in this case the law was violated," Atty. Martin Mar-tin explained. Asked what can be done now that the land has been purchased, Atty. Martin said, "At this time the county owes the Hospital Special Service District for that money spent and the funds should be repaid re-paid by the county." The Murray-Nord property is located lo-cated at 1 100 West Clark Lane and is adjacent to 45 acres previously purchased by Davis County for the development of the Davis County Jail and Public Safety Complex. Commission Chairman Harold Tippetts said he thought it would be wise to purchase the additional land now that it is available and before it skyrockets in price after the public safety complex is developed. de-veloped. He emphasized that the additional addi-tional land is not planned for immediate im-mediate development but the county coun-ty is buying the property for future expansion as needed. Meanwhile, announcement of intended purchase of the additional property brought protests from the Davis County Employees' Association Asso-ciation (DCEA). Employees were told that "the county budget is extremely tight and there is no money for merit raises," according to DCEA President Presi-dent Tami Timothy. The DCEA had asked for a 3.8 percent raise but instead the employees were given one-time payments of up to $500. This amounted to a difference differ-ence of $200,000 and $500,000, it was explained. Timothy also complained that the county paid too much for the undeveloped land and that there was no immediate need for the property. Earlier, the DCEA complained com-plained that they had been "shortchanged" "short-changed" because they were told that no money was available for raises they had asked for but the county officials were able to come up with more than $600,000 for purchase pur-chase of the additional land. I Money for the land purchase will |