- November 16, 2024
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Flagler Beach is moving forward with plans to make the vacant, city-owned Ocean Palm Golf Club property back into a golf course, directing staff at a July 9 City Commission meeting to negotiate the city’s purchase of a small piece of land that juts out into the course and may be crucial for returning it to golf use.
The commission voted unanimously to direct City Manager Bruce Campbell and City Attorney Drew Smith to begin negotiations with current owner Stephen Cejner, with a requirement that Cejner reply within two weeks.
The commission had initially voted 3-1, with Commissioner Kim Carney dissenting, to direct Campbell and Smith to negotiate with current Cejner to buy the land for no more than $235,000, the value determined in an appraisal performed by Ormond Beach-based Cooksey and Associates Real Estate Appraisers. But the commission withdrew that motion after Smith warned that its phrasing may be legally problematic.
Commissioner Joy McGrew was absent for the meeting, but sent an email — read aloud by Commissioner Marshall Shupe during the commission’s discussion — writing that she believed it would be in the city’s best interest to buy the parcel “so we can finally be done with this purchase and start moving forward.”
“Please vote tonight to move forward with an opportunity to restore a piece of Flagler’s history,” she wrote.
The city has long discussed what to do with the vacant land.
The city own the 34-acres former course, bought for $490,000 in a foreclosure sale in 2013, and the City Commission created a citizen committee to study the possibility of returning the course to golf and to analyze proposals by three companies interested in leasing and managing the course.
Two of those companies, including the one Campbell was most interested in — Indigo Lakes Golf Club — considered the missing 2.9-acre parcel essential.
The committee held its final meeting June 25.
It had requested an appraisal from Cooksey, Alternative Use Committee Chairman Michael Flank told the commission at the July 9 meeting, and was dismayed by the $235,000 figure produced, which was based on the land’s best, highest use: residential.
But the city had in 2010 refused to allow a Comprehensive Plan change that would have allowed residential use of the land — a court upheld the city’s decision when Cejner, who wanted to build homes there, sued —and that made the idea of a return to residential use “a moot point,” and Cooksey’s figure unrealistically high, Flank said. The Flagler County Property Appraiser’s office, appraising the land based on recreational use, had valued it at $75,000.
“We feel that based on those two figures, our recommendation is that an offer be made to the current owner, and that it be a blend of those two figures,” Flank said in presentation to the commission.
“When your committee made a recommendation to go blended, was their any blended amount?” Carney said. “I mean, did you blend it?”
“We were all over the map,” Flank said. “Everybody shot figures much lower than ($235,000).”
He asked the commissioner to appoint someone to negotiate with Cejner.
Commissioners discussed the possibility of making an offer contingent on a deal with one of the golf management companies, or negotiating with Cejner and a management company at the same time.
But Mayor Linda Provencher said that would mean asking the management companies to come up with proposals for how they’d manage the land both with and without the 2.9 acres, something Flank said Indigo didn’t want to do.
“I think we’re best off you purchase it or attempt to purchase it,” she said. “Otherwise, if we can’t purchase it for whatever reason, then we have to go back to what we have.”
Shupe suggested negotiating a price on the land first, then negotiating with a management company. “We need to own that dog-leg that sits in the middle of it,” he said. “I’d like to buy it for 75,000, or give them 80,000.”
Settle suggested making an offer and having Cejner make a counteroffer.
Shupe warned against giving a maximum price.
“It’s like, ‘Well let’s print it right across the front of the building how much money we’re going to spend,’ he said. “Especially because we’re going from $75,000 to $235,000, I think whoever’s going to do the negotiations … I think that it’s not totally unconventional to have the two sides sit down and come up with a price.”
Carney said she had no problem sending Campbell out “to see if we’re in the ballpark. And if we’re not in the ballpark, then we’re done. …If the owner doesn’t see the paperwork like we see it, then we’re not going to go anywhere anyway. And if he wants to sell it, now’s his magical moment.”
No residents spoke for or against purchasing the land during the meeting’s public comment period, and Mealy motioned to have Campbell and Smith negotiate with Cejner with a maximum possible price of $235,000, saying after the 3-1 vote that she’d included the number to keep Cejner from asking for more.
The commission moved through the rest of its agenda, but as the meeting was about to end, Flagler Beach City Attorney Drew Smith warned commissioners that he’d realized the earlier vote may have been improper.
“In an abundance of caution, something caught my ear tonight, so I wanted to bring it to your attention and revisit it,” he said. “When someone is given the power to discuss various contract proposals and then bring that to the board, what puts it into the purview of the Sunshine Law is when there’s an actual delegation of power. … When an individual who has the power to bring back proposals to the board is told they cannot and there’s a limitation and they cannot bring that back to the board, in certain cases that can be a ‘delegation,’ so in an abundance of caution, just because we don’t want to have any kind of Sunshine Law problems, I would advise you remove the limitation — $235,000. I think that Bruce and they know where the council wants to go, but just the wording of that motion causes me a little bit of concern.”
“Is it too late to change it now?” Mealy asked.
Smith said it wasn’t.
Mealy withdrew her motion, and Settle asked Smith if the commission could include a time limit in it.
Smith said it could, as long as there was nothing in the motion that would cause a proposal to be summarily rejected.
Mealy suggested a two month time limit, Settle suggested two weeks, and Carney motioned to have Campbell and Smith negotiate the purchase of the 2.9 acres with a requirement that the city receive a reply from Cejner within two weeks. It passed unanimously.
