Business
Boise Public Land Deals Have Dubious History
May 8, 2015 
Latest revelation from CWI is the apparent fact they are attempting to pay 35 times more per acre for land in Boise than land they just purchased adjacent to the Nampa campus. They will close next week on 32 acres for less than they are paying for a single acre in Boise.
The recent fiasco over the purchase of 10 acres of land along the Boise River by the College of Western Idaho at more than double the assessed value with no appraisal is nothing new for the area.
Boise’s West End in the area of 25th to Whitewater in the Fairview-Main corridor has a history of bad decisions when it comes to land purchases by government agencies.
The decline of the area came with completion of the “Broadway-Chinden Connector (I-184). When the traffic jams were eliminated, the car dealers moved out to Fairview and Maple Grove.
When the Courthouse on Front Street was built (under a questionable financing scheme itself) critics complained about parking issues. Boise’s urban renewal agency purchased land at 25th and Fairview for a “shuttle parking lot.” The idea was to run shuttles from 25th to and from the courthouse on Front Street. That purchase was illegal because urban renewal funds cannot be used outside the urban renewal district.
City Councilors scrambled around and came up with about $2 million to purchase the land from CCDC. They said it was an ideal spot for a police station. Before they could get started on the police station, the land at 2900 Fairview (former Larry Barnes Chevy) became available. Boise purchased that “ideal” land and planned to use revenues from the sale of the shuttle lot for part of the purchase. They never sold the parking lot.
The court ruled the police station was an illegal purchase without a bond election approved by voters. Boise lost a court trial on that issue.
Then, a few years later the city entered into a complex three way trade with a group of doctors who sought to build a private hospital. Part of the deal included purchase of land in the military reserve for a shooting range, but since it was owned by a couple of coppers, the city laundered the purchase through the doctors because it was illegal to deal with city employees for land purchases.
GUARDIAN editor Dave Frazier questioned the deal, but councilors said they really wanted a private hospital and needed the shooting range. Sure enough, St. Luke’s, the big hospital gorilla, came along and bought out the doctors. St. Luke’s owns most of the land in the area of 25th-27th and Fairview which kept private hospital from happening.
Internal memos at CWI indicate officials there knew a member of the CWI foundation had a conflict of interest with the current purchase since he is attorney of record for the Bob Rice Trust which owns the 10 acres in question. Gregory Byron resigned from the foundation Feb. 4 and the purchase was signed April 1 by his client.
Here is the text: “Greg Byron- spoke on phone, needs to step down off board effective immediately. Again, not for bad. In fact…hopefully for the Best.
Meaning – has a conflict of interest with a piece of property that he represents the client and cannot represent the client and CWI at the same time. The property is in consideration for future CWI master plan. Details TBD.
Please trust and support decision. (Greg did the right thing, and is still big supporter of CWI) Again… more details to follow.”
As we see it today, the cleanest deal to be found would be for the city of Boise to either sell or donate the land at 2900 Fairview to CWI for a fraction of the $8.8 million the school has agreed to pay. The city land is about the same size, has great access and is already off the tax rolls. It is across the street from the CWI parcel which has a 180 day escape clause in the contract.
Somewhere along the line the officials who entered into all these questionable transactions should admit they are wrong and get on with serving the best interests of students and taxpayers. Digging in their heels will only prolong the agony and increase the distrust they have created among the citizens of both the city and the CWI district.
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Comments & Discussion
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May 8, 2015, 4:16 pm
How is Davy Bieter ever going to build a trophy downtown for the rich folks, paid for by the poor folks, if you keep shining a light on his shady good-old-boy deals? If the puppet masters of Bieter Boy and the Back-Slapper City Council had their way, they’d fire up all the bulldozers, and unleash the skyscraper assembly machine to efficiently turn Boise into a clone of Los Angeles. Local corruption in Boise is as bad on a mini-me scale as corruption is at the national level, and the made for TV Public relations methods are just as sanitized and slick. The time has definitely arrived for patriots to protect our country from its government, as you are so capably doing David Frazier. Thank you!
May 9, 2015, 1:19 pm
Edit for you Guardian, it is 2901 W. Main the city owns and the adjacent parcels of 2800 W Fairview, & 2811 Main.
And here is an example of the problem I have mentioned previously- what is the assessed value for those two parcel? We don’t know, because the Assessor doesn’t bother with listing the values as a matter of public record. Dear Assessor, ….
May 9, 2015, 1:20 pm
A good summary and conclusion of the situation. Unless of course a certified appraisal comes in at 9 million. 😉
Everyone is accusing CWI of being bad, and no one is asking if the county assessment was low, or more importantly comparing the methodology of the assessment vs the FMV.
Kinda like farm land being valued based on “10 cows were sold last year”. Buy it, build 100 houses and all of a sudden that dirt is way more valuable.
I say there are LOTS of parcels way undervalued for tax purposes and thereby LOTS of people are getting the benefit on their county taxes.
May 9, 2015, 10:42 pm
But Dave, The CWI brain trust must have glorious river view offices to complement their superiority complexes. With money to burn, what’s the problem here??
May 11, 2015, 4:10 pm
@ Easterner
Agree tax vales are often low, I have seen development occur where the appraised value was 25-50% higher than tax value, but have never seen nor heard of double. I would not be surprised to see this property appraise at $5M.