Someone described insanity as trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
The town first offered this land for sale in 2005, but dawdled around dickering over the $6M bid for a part of the land and the deal fell through in 2009 by which time the real estate market had collapsed.
Its now 2014. If history holds true, the next deal wont fall through until 2019.
I am telling you guys we would be better off calling this the "Useless Triangle". Right up there with the Bermuda Triangle. Maybe we can pass it off as a tourist attraction. Perhaps we can start reporting missing bicycles, cats, teenagers? Wow, a money maker for sure! It isn't funny. People think there is something seriously wrong in this town. It has to change.
As one who has followed this project for some time it goes with out saying that the path was not clear in my opinion and once again we sit here with no possible commercial growth or increased potential tax base and those who want to keep Sandwich in the horse and buggy day won another victory. Every time the developer got down inside the five yard line, the goal post was changed.
What ever happened to those who we gave $50,000 tax dollars to assist in the permitting process?
The Sandwich Economic Initiative Corporation that was pushed upon us by some of the sitting members of this selectmen's board, forced upon the taxpayers promises they never kept, while not only allowing them to sign a contract for $50,000 before they had any play money and are in debt to the this same consulting group for well over $80,000 and the bill keeps climbing every day.
It goes with out saying the rapid Personal change of the SEIC at the beginning of the year, brought to bear another whole story to tell as far as how serious or not these people were in regards to providing our town With Economic Development.
Who will get to pay the bills for this failure by the SEIC to provide the leadership they told every one they would provide to bringing economic here to our fair town. Where is all the leadership they told every one they provided to the Golden Triangle in a recent article they put out in the local paper?
Where are the expert opinions now going to come from when it comes to obtaining permits for future commercial growth, surely not the SEIC a non functional, non productive body since it was approved at town meeting, how many years ago?
Once again we the taxpayers are being given a whole lot of rhetoric by some skilled self serving politicians and we the people have to bear another burden.
In my humble opinion it should not have come to this ending, but given a lack of a team approach and that is what is needed to obtain such a project in todays world, a mans vision of the future here in Sandwich is gone.
I just finished watching the board meeting with Tsakalos Realty Trust, Cape Cod Commission etc.
At the end of the meeting, those six individuals, as Mr. Dunham referred to them, want to know every minute detail of the project. They want to be the project designers; they want to tell Mr. Tsakalos who is an acceptable financial partner, basically someone can only be his partner if it meets their personal standards; they want, they want, they want; and then say we're doing it for the good of the town.
Well they just threw the good of the town down the drain! They're going to come at us with override requests up the.... because they just shot tax revenue in the foot because it didn't meet their six personal standards.
I am completely disgusted with the board of selectmen. I am completely disgusted with a school committee, that can't even respect the budget increase they were asked to work to and just went for more.
I am not retired, I am not self-employed, there is no time left in my day to run for or be on any board, so I am left continuously being ticked off at the incompetency of the folks that run this town!
I hope they're happy and as an aside Mr. Pierce should take his marbles and go play elsewhere!
Fear of the unknown often causes decision making processes to grind to a halt. In the private sector, decision makers establish risk measures and the unknown gets calibrated and calculated and accepted as one of many risks considered as a part of a robust, reasonable decision making process. The failure to advance this project is the direct result of decision makers to failure to establish reasonable measures of unknown risk. And, by extension, their inability to accept risk. A fair criticism of the Board and our Town Manager is that neither has created, documented and implemented a robust, reasonable decision making process with reasonable measures of unknown risk. Nobody can come to a decision because the decision making process is broken NOT because development plans were unclear or lacked detail.
Today’s Cape Cod Times editorial on this project seems pretty silly. It says: “In recent years, Sandwich has become one of the most business-friendly towns on the Cape. Town officials have gone out of their way to attract more business to town.” Maybe I missed it, but can someone tell me just what business has been developed in town recently? The Times also quotes James Pierce as saying that “the town does not think Tsakalos has the financial means to proceed with the project.” Does this mean that after years of negotiating with Tsakalos the town doesn’t know EXACTLY what Mr. Tsakalos’ financial ability is? Does this mean that the Town has not yet inquired about financing? Really? Like I said: both the Times and Mr. Pierce seem pretty silly.
More….. In the same editorial Mr. Pierce is quoted as saying: Tsakalos “was childish” and “decided to take his marbles and go home and that's his prerogative." So, according to the CCT, Mr. Pierce, doesn’t think Tsakalos has the money to do this deal; but, it was Tsakalos and not Pierce who chose to call the deal off. This seems to suggest that Mr. Pierce and the Board were prepared to keep negotiating with someone without “financial means.” Does this make any sense? Like I said: pretty silly.
I never said Mr. Tsakalos was childish. That word was used by the CCT editorial staff. Quite the contrary, I believe Mr. Tsakalos is a very smart business man. He did, however, decide to quit rather than address the concerns of the board of selectmen. We do know, not exactly, but with sufficient confidence, that TRT does NOT have the financial resources to support the full project. I am hopeful that Mr. Tsakalos will recognize that his normally excellent business judgement was clouded by "legacy" thinking. I expect with time Mr. Tsakalos will reconsider proceeding with a project for which he has the financial muscle.
The saga continues: Once again James Pierce talks to the media (this time the Enterprise) and the results seem, well, silly. In this afternoon’s paper Pierce is quoted as saying: “the Town has not closed the door to a future deal with Tsakalos” Again, I wonder: why, if as Pierce is quoted as saying, the guy (Tsakalos) doesn't have the money and supposedly submitted a “non-responsive bid” are Pierce and the Selectmen still willing to do business? Another observation: as this development deal now appears to be just about a “break even” proposition – meaning tax revenues no more than equaling municipal expenses incurred by the development - isn't it fair to ask why develop the land at all?
Mr. Guerin, with all due respect, the BOS has asked Mr. Tsakalos to show him who investors might be and he has not given them. This is a typical request, at least, in municipal endeavors. There has been an audit of the books etc. I do know how much Mr. Tsakalos has, but I would guess that it insufficient for this project and that he will need investors.
The problem is not how the Selectmen have worked with Mr. Tsakalos, but rather, why have they been unable to find and or draw anyone to the 50 acres.
Richard , what you say may be true, however given that we the Taxpayers were sold a bill of goods in regards to what the Sandwich Economic Initiative Corporation would put in place with our recent tax dollars to provide the expertise to Sheppard any project dealing with Economic development here . A lot of rhetoric thus far has not produced one finished project for our town. What it has done is to give our town an outstanding bill , and gets to pay that bill? It sure is a great society when you have elected officials, The past two chairs self promoting this Corporation and allowing deals to be made, when they had no money in hand to make any deals with any one. Where was there public concern in safe guarding the tax payers hard earned dollars? Why to this day have they not submitted all of the executive session meeting minutes to our town clerks office for public scrutiny? One needs to take the time to review the minutes that have been given to our clerks office and look at how many times they actually went into closed meetings and the reasons they used. One would be amazed at this abuse in my opinion of why under Mass Law you can legally go into Executive Session and how it was not followed. Closed door meetings held for a period of 4 years have yet to be revealed, yet in the paper the SEIC is quoted, countless times that they are working toward economic projects, one of which was Mr. Tsakalos and the South Sandwich Village project. No where do you see the SEIC in this picture and so much for any creditability they profess to have in enabling our town to obtain future development, at least from the view point of the Sandwich Residents. They in my estimation as a corporation, have not and can not provide our town with any worthwhile endeavors and should be disbanded, along with hiring another planner and grant writer, that works cohesively and openly with our present Town Administrator.
Lowes, mcdonalds, jc penny.....we cant find actual retail stores that want this land. I find it hard to believe. Country jim and bud need replacing. No more spending. Cut some wasteful jobs and save the taxpayers some money. Enough is enough. I blame the same "TIRED" faces in town government for the tax problems in this town. I could think of 600,000 in savings tomorrow. Why are we always asked to spend more? Find some actual commercial businesses.
They've been talking about selling this land for almost 15 years. They've actually made it to market twice. It's been a ridiculous waste of time.
I also find it hard to believe they have a local business owner who has a huge vested interest in developing the property because he owns all the surrounding land -- and they still can't make it work.
If he really has no financial horsepower, why are we just determining that now?
I think a more likely explanation is that his investors and tenants are waiting to see if this hick town is actually going to let him build anything before they commit the time and money to put together a serious deal.
And, so far, true to history, they are killing the deal.
Just for the heck of it, I looked up silly in my dictionary. The primary definition was: Showing a lack of good sense. Further down in the list were: voting to hire an unqualified Superintendent of Schools, a ham fisted approach to the SEA, focusing on a %50K pool while ignoring the million dollar declining enrollment problem, a tens of millions of dollar deteriorating Wing school building and a hundreds of thousands of dollar per year money hemorrhage due to student out-migration, forcing a contract renewal through a lame-duck School Committee. Now that IS silly.
Well why not make the hard dicision to cut some jobs from the education sector as well as some municipal fat? You admit that enrollment is way down. Why croak the citizens of the town and continue to ask for millions added to the budget? Thats the tough decision we need made in order to move forward as a town
I don't disagree at all. Tough decisions need to be made on both sides of the budget. The schools definitely need a dose of realism --- and i think they will get it if they try for an override.
One forgets that only the Board Of selectmen get to place an override before the people other then that it would take a citizens petition to accomplish the same thing.
Then once passed at town meeting it must come before the whole town for a vote.
One can look forward to much discussion in attempting to sell any override at this time to the citizens of Sandwich.
The sports center complex money for the most part will be coming out of CPA money, Each time money is attached to the CPA , given to what ever cause , only extends the life of the three percent CPA Tax further down the road. At some point it will come before the taxpayers to continue this practice or let it ride off into the sunset
Some details seem to get out after the facts are stated and in the case of an audit by an independent auditor who spent less then an hour on site and from what was indicated to me none at the banks. What kind of an evaluation do you think one would get from such a less then stellar approach to evaluating any one from a financial view point? He only revealed what was already known before they began the conversations in purchasing this property over two years ago.
Can someone place the private auditors report here for all to see and what he billed the town to do this report. ?
21 comments:
Let's cut off our nose to spite our face, huh, Town Boards that have waited for almost 20 years...
Good luck with a "better offer"
Someone described insanity as trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
The town first offered this land for sale in 2005, but dawdled around dickering over the $6M bid for a part of the land and the deal fell through in 2009 by which time the real estate market had collapsed.
Its now 2014. If history holds true, the next deal wont fall through until 2019.
I am telling you guys we would be better off calling this the "Useless Triangle". Right up there with the Bermuda Triangle. Maybe we can pass it off as a tourist attraction. Perhaps we can start reporting missing bicycles, cats, teenagers? Wow, a money maker for sure! It isn't funny. People think there is something seriously wrong in this town. It has to change.
As one who has followed this project for some time it goes with out saying that the path was not clear in my opinion and once again we sit here with no possible commercial growth or increased potential tax base and those who want to keep Sandwich in the horse and buggy day won another victory. Every time the developer got down inside the five yard line, the goal post was changed.
What ever happened to those who we gave $50,000 tax dollars to assist in the permitting process?
The Sandwich Economic Initiative Corporation that was pushed upon us by some of the sitting members of this selectmen's board, forced upon the taxpayers promises they never kept, while not only allowing them to sign a contract for $50,000 before they had any play money and are in debt to the this same consulting group for well over $80,000 and the bill keeps climbing every day.
It goes with out saying the rapid Personal change of the SEIC at the beginning of the year, brought to bear another whole story to tell as far as how serious or not these people were in regards to providing our town With Economic Development.
Who will get to pay the bills for this failure by the SEIC to provide the leadership they told every one they would provide to bringing economic here to our fair town. Where is all the leadership they told every one they provided to the Golden Triangle in a recent article they put out in the local paper?
Where are the expert opinions now going to come from when it comes to obtaining permits for future commercial growth, surely not the SEIC a non functional, non productive body since it was approved at town meeting, how many years ago?
Once again we the taxpayers are being given a whole lot of rhetoric by some skilled self serving politicians and we the people have to bear another burden.
In my humble opinion it should not have come to this ending, but given a lack of a team approach and that is what is needed to obtain such a project in todays world, a mans vision of the future here in Sandwich is gone.
More to come
I just finished watching the board meeting with Tsakalos Realty Trust, Cape Cod Commission etc.
At the end of the meeting, those six individuals, as Mr. Dunham referred to them, want to know every minute detail of the project. They want to be the project designers; they want to tell Mr. Tsakalos who is an acceptable financial partner, basically someone can only be his partner if it meets their personal standards; they want, they want, they want; and then say we're doing it for the good of the town.
Well they just threw the good of the town down the drain! They're going to come at us with override requests up the.... because they just shot tax revenue in the foot because it didn't meet their six personal standards.
I am completely disgusted with the board of selectmen. I am completely disgusted with a school committee, that can't even respect the budget increase they were asked to work to and just went for more.
I am not retired, I am not self-employed, there is no time left in my day to run for or be on any board, so I am left continuously being ticked off at the incompetency of the folks that run this town!
I hope they're happy and as an aside Mr. Pierce should take his marbles and go play elsewhere!
Revised to fix typo.
Fear of the unknown often causes decision making processes to grind to a halt.
In the private sector, decision makers establish risk measures and the unknown gets calibrated and calculated and accepted as one of many risks considered as a part of a robust, reasonable decision making process.
The failure to advance this project is the direct result of decision makers to failure to establish reasonable measures of unknown risk. And, by extension, their inability to accept risk.
A fair criticism of the Board and our Town Manager is that neither has created, documented and implemented a robust, reasonable decision making process with reasonable measures of unknown risk. Nobody can come to a decision because the decision making process is broken NOT because development plans were unclear or lacked detail.
Today’s Cape Cod Times editorial on this project seems pretty silly.
It says: “In recent years, Sandwich has become one of the most business-friendly towns on the Cape. Town officials have gone out of their way to attract more business to town.” Maybe I missed it, but can someone tell me just what business has been developed in town recently?
The Times also quotes James Pierce as saying that “the town does not think Tsakalos has the financial means to proceed with the project.” Does this mean that after years of negotiating with Tsakalos the town doesn’t know EXACTLY what Mr. Tsakalos’ financial ability is? Does this mean that the Town has not yet inquired about financing? Really?
Like I said: both the Times and Mr. Pierce seem pretty silly.
More…..
In the same editorial Mr. Pierce is quoted as saying: Tsakalos “was childish” and “decided to take his marbles and go home and that's his prerogative."
So, according to the CCT, Mr. Pierce, doesn’t think Tsakalos has the money to do this deal; but, it was Tsakalos and not Pierce who chose to call the deal off. This seems to suggest that Mr. Pierce and the Board were prepared to keep negotiating with someone without “financial means.” Does this make any sense?
Like I said: pretty silly.
Just once I would like to hear from a Selectman other than James Pierce!
I never said Mr. Tsakalos was childish. That word was used by the CCT editorial staff. Quite the contrary, I believe Mr. Tsakalos is a very smart business man. He did, however, decide to quit rather than address the concerns of the board of selectmen. We do know, not exactly, but with sufficient confidence, that TRT does NOT have the financial resources to support the full project. I am hopeful that Mr. Tsakalos will recognize that his normally excellent business judgement was clouded by "legacy" thinking. I expect with time Mr. Tsakalos will reconsider proceeding with a project for which he has the financial muscle.
The saga continues:
Once again James Pierce talks to the media (this time the Enterprise) and the results seem, well, silly. In this afternoon’s paper Pierce is quoted as saying: “the Town has not closed the door to a future deal with Tsakalos”
Again, I wonder: why, if as Pierce is quoted as saying, the guy (Tsakalos) doesn't have the money and supposedly submitted a “non-responsive bid” are Pierce and the Selectmen still willing to do business?
Another observation: as this development deal now appears to be just about a “break even” proposition – meaning tax revenues no more than equaling municipal expenses incurred by the development - isn't it fair to ask why develop the land at all?
Mr. Guerin, with all due respect, the BOS has asked Mr. Tsakalos to show him who investors might be and he has not given them. This is a typical request, at least, in municipal endeavors. There has been an audit of the books etc. I do know how much Mr. Tsakalos has, but I would guess that it insufficient for this project and that he will need investors.
The problem is not how the Selectmen have worked with Mr. Tsakalos, but rather, why have they been unable to find and or draw anyone to the 50 acres.
Richard , what you say may be true, however given that we the Taxpayers were sold a bill of goods in regards to what the Sandwich Economic Initiative Corporation would put in place with our recent tax dollars to provide the expertise to Sheppard any project dealing with Economic development here . A lot of rhetoric thus far has not produced one finished project for our town. What it has done is to give our town an outstanding bill , and gets to pay that bill? It sure is a great society when you have elected officials, The past two chairs self promoting this Corporation and allowing deals to be made, when they had no money in hand to make any deals with any one. Where was there public concern in safe guarding the tax payers hard earned dollars? Why to this day have they not submitted all of the executive session meeting minutes to our town clerks office for public scrutiny? One needs to take the time to review the minutes that have been given to our clerks office and look at how many times they actually went into closed meetings and the reasons they used. One would be amazed at this abuse in my opinion of why under Mass Law you can legally go into Executive Session and how it was not followed. Closed door meetings held for a period of 4 years have yet to be revealed, yet in the paper the SEIC is quoted, countless times that they are working toward economic projects, one of which was Mr. Tsakalos and the South Sandwich Village project. No where do you see the SEIC in this picture and so much for any creditability they profess to have in enabling our town to obtain future development, at least from the view point of the Sandwich Residents. They in my estimation as a corporation, have not and can not provide our town with any worthwhile endeavors and should be disbanded, along with hiring another planner and grant writer, that works cohesively and openly with our present Town Administrator.
Lowes, mcdonalds, jc penny.....we cant find actual retail stores that want this land. I find it hard to believe. Country jim and bud need replacing. No more spending. Cut some wasteful jobs and save the taxpayers some money. Enough is enough. I blame the same "TIRED" faces in town government for the tax problems in this town. I could think of 600,000 in savings tomorrow. Why are we always asked to spend more? Find some actual commercial businesses.
They've been talking about selling this land for almost 15 years. They've actually made it to market twice. It's been a ridiculous waste of time.
I also find it hard to believe they have a local business owner who has a huge vested interest in developing the property because he owns all the surrounding land -- and they still can't make it work.
If he really has no financial horsepower, why are we just determining that now?
I think a more likely explanation is that his investors and tenants are waiting to see if this hick town is actually going to let him build anything before they commit the time and money to put together a serious deal.
And, so far, true to history, they are killing the deal.
Just for the heck of it, I looked up silly in my dictionary. The primary definition was: Showing a lack of good sense. Further down in the list were: voting to hire an unqualified Superintendent of Schools, a ham fisted approach to the SEA, focusing on a %50K pool while ignoring the million dollar declining enrollment problem, a tens of millions of dollar deteriorating Wing school building and a hundreds of thousands of dollar per year money hemorrhage due to student out-migration, forcing a contract renewal through a lame-duck School Committee. Now that IS silly.
Well why not make the hard dicision to cut some jobs from the education sector as well as some municipal fat? You admit that enrollment is way down. Why croak the citizens of the town and continue to ask for millions added to the budget? Thats the tough decision we need made in order to move forward as a town
I don't disagree at all. Tough decisions need to be made on both sides of the budget. The schools definitely need a dose of realism --- and i think they will get it if they try for an override.
One forgets that only the Board Of selectmen get to place an override before the people other then that it would take a citizens petition to accomplish the same thing.
Then once passed at town meeting it must come before the whole town for a vote.
One can look forward to much discussion in attempting to sell any override at this time to the citizens of Sandwich.
The sports center complex money for the most part will be coming out of CPA money, Each time money is attached to the CPA , given to what ever cause , only extends the life of the three percent CPA Tax further down the road.
At some point it will come before the taxpayers to continue this practice or let it ride off into the sunset
Wow!
I can't believe the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen would respond in that fashion. He sounds like a pissed-off 10 year old!
He seems to be having a bad media week -- he really needs to stay away from his phone, his computer, and anybody who looks like a reporter!
Some details seem to get out after the facts are stated and in the case of an audit by an independent auditor who spent less then an hour on site and from what was indicated to me none at the banks. What kind of an evaluation do you think one would get from such a less then stellar approach to evaluating any one from a financial view point?
He only revealed what was already known before they began the conversations in purchasing this property over two years ago.
Can someone place the private auditors report here for all to see and what he billed the town to do this report. ?
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