Casper Council Agrees To Sell Two Properties; Put Two Back On The Market
Casper City Council says you must turn in all of your homework on time.
Otherwise, it will reject your bids for city-owned properties.
"If we establish a criteria and we don't follow it, what's the point of a criteria," Councilmember Chris Walsh said during a work session Tuesday.
"We either remove them or we stick to them," Walsh said.
Council stuck to the criteria during its review of seven bids for four properties opened at a special meeting on April 17.
The bids required the name of the bidder, legal documents if the bidder was a corporation, and a valid government-issued photo identification. The city would sell the property "as is, where is" to the highest bidder who followed the requirements.
City Planner Craig Collins outlined the properties, their appraised values, the bids, and where some of them fell short.
- Fire Station No. 6 in Paradise Valley -- $230,000.
- 777 Bernadine Street -- $145,000.
- 334 Lark Street -- $30,000.
- Wolf Creek Cemetery -- $345,000.
The city received three bids for the fire station: Z-Holdings offered $182,000; Cameron Wagner offered $180,000; and O'Quinn Enterprises Limited Partnership offered $130,000.
Wagner, however, didn't submit an email with a photo identification until three days after the deadline, hoping the City Council would accept it, according to the agenda for Tuesday's work session.
City council members tentatively awarded the sale to Z-Holdings.
The Bernadine Street property received a $70,000 from Wagner, and a $60,000 bid from River Valley Builders.
Wagner did not submit his photo identification for this bid, either.
Wagner offered the only bid, $5,000, for the Lark Street property, but again submitted his identification late.
So council decided to not sell that property, nor Wolf Creek Cemetery
Finally, the city received one bid for the cemetery lot -- a $379,500 offer from Endeavor Enterprises, LLC -- with the contingency that the city would provide water for 30 single-family households.
But the company's authorized buyer, Kevin James Miller, didn't provide identification. The company provided a resolution from its board of directors authorizing the purchase, but the signatures were illegible and it wasn't notarized, Collins said.
City engineer Andrew Beamer told council the cost of providing water would exceed the value of the offer.
Jesse Morgan said he didn't like selling any of the properties for less than the appraised values, didn't like people not following the rules, and didn't appreciate people expressing interest and wanting to bid after the deadline.
Charlie Powell said selling the fire station and Bernardine Street properties, even at less than their appraise values, would put them back into use and pump some cash into the city coffers.
"But I agree with Jesse that if people can't follow a very simple set of guidelines," Powell said, they shouldn't get any consideration.
Councilmembers agreed to put the Lark Street and Wolf Creek Cemetery properties up for bid again.