Landowner says Condodemetraky's petition will sink deal

Belmont voters may well never have a chance to vote on buying former bank building

Lifelong resident Tony Brown says that if former selectmen George Condodemetraky is successful in his attempt to force a Town Meeting vote on the Selectboard’s plan to buy the bank building property in the heart of the village, there may never be a vote on the issue.

Brown, who owns the .69-acre lot and the small brick office building on it that town leaders want to buy, said Saturday he may have to sell the lot before the annual Town Meeting in March. He said he and his wife Loretta, who co-owns the land with him, “may hope to hold it until the March meeting” if Condodemetraky presents a petition holding off the municipal sale, but the property owner pointed out he has no guarantee voters will support the purchase idea. That could lead him to sell the land sooner to another prospective buyer — for as little as $300,000, the same price town leaders have agreed to pay.

Brown is considering the option because he said he’s now losing money on the property, paying for a mortgage, utilities, plowing and other cost. He said he has not sought a new lessee for the main office space in the building, which was a Northway Bank branch until recently, because he expected the town to complete the deal before the end of the year.

“There is someone interested in the building,” Brown said, indicating the prospective buyer is a business.

The landowner said he first brought the idea of selling his lot to the town several months ago, partly because he’s familiar with ongoing problems at the current Town Hall building. “I’m in electrical contact work and the amount of money this town has spent on the (current) Town Hall is just ridiculous,” he said. “The second floor is already condemned and there are air quality issues in that building… I love this town and would love nothing more to get rid of that embarrassing Town Hall.”

(The second floor of the current Town Hall is not useable because of what town leaders call structural problems. Some town leaders have been pushing for a new Town Hall for years now because of limited space and other problems with the current facility.)

What’s particularly bothersome to him however is what he calls insinuations Condodemetraky made at the last selectmen’s meeting that the landowner was trying to make a profit at the town’s expense.

“I don’t feel like we’re screwing the town,” he said. “That was my retirement piece. I wish I could give it to them (town officials) but I can’t. I’ve had kids in college for the last seven years and I have no money left. We’d just as soon sell out and take things a little bit easier.”

In fact, Brown said he’s willing to sell the property to the town for below its market value. “We had a fair market analysis done on it recently and it was listed as $348,000,” he said. “It’s assessed at $329,000.” (Brown said he would be able to take a partial tax deduction if the town were to buy the land because it would be paying a below-market price.)

On Friday, Town Administrator Jeanne Beaudin said it would be “a shame” if the town was to lose the opportunity to purchase the office building land because of Condodemetraky's petition. “If Mr. Condodemetraky brings in a petition there won’t be a (article) petition on the Town Meeting warrant to purchase the land because Mr. Brown has indicated he intends to move forward with a sale as quickly as possible,” she said.

“It’s a shame because this is a very, very viable plan,” she added. “The town had an opportunity years and years ago to buy that land and I think ever since then they’ve been kicking themselves for not doing it.”

Several weeks ago the selectmen announced their desire to purchase the lot for $300,000. The buy would be funded partially by $250,0000 in the Capital Reserve Fund for Municipal Facilities; the remaining $50,000 would come out of the town’s surplus funds so there would be no immediate impact on taxes, officials say.

The board’s tentative plan calls for demolishing the brick structure and incorporating the land into adjacent town-owned property to create a “municipal campus” in the middle of the village. The space would include the Belmont Library, the bandstand park, the Belmont Mill, a portion of the shoreline of the Tioga River — and, someday perhaps, a Town Hall and/or a Police Station.

At the Selectboard’s meeting last Monday, Condodemetraky said the land purchase was a bad idea and the town was overpaying for it. He said he’d spoken to the property owner several times over the last 20 years and the land could be bought for much less than what the Selectboard was offering.

But Brown, who was sitting behind Condodemetraky, said he’d never spoken to the former selectman about his land.

Later Condodemetraky said he was referring to Brown’s father, but on Saturday Brown said his father never owned a stake in the property, which he and his wife bought 13 years ago.

Ironically voters only approved a measure allowing the Selectboard to buy or sell town-owned land at the last Town Meeting earlier this year. State statute RSA 41:14, which was okayed in March, states, “The selectmen shall have the authority to acquire or sell land, buildings, or both.” The statute also calls for reviews by both the Planning Board and the Conservation Commission. (Late last week Selectboard Chairman Ron Cormier said the board originally sought the legal permission to buy and sell property because it hoped to sell off some town-owned land in order to get the properties back on the tax roll.)

Beaudin noted the local selectmen have done all the state statute recommends — and more. “(The idea) has the support of the Conservation Commission, the Planning Board, the Budget Committee, the Capital Improvement Program committee… and a significant number of residents,” she said.

Condodemetraky hopes to take advantage of another clause in the statute that would halt the purchase — at least for the moment. “Upon the written petition of 50 registered voters presented to the selectmen… the proposed acquisition or sale shall be inserted as an article in the warrant for the Town Meeting,” it reads.

After last week’s meeting, the former selectmen indicated he planned to circulate a petition that would force the question onto the Town Meeting ballot.

But he does not have much time. The board is planning to hold the second of two required public hearing on the proposal at its weekly meeting in the Corner Meeting House tonight at 5 p.m. A formal vote on the idea is scheduled for the following Monday, Dec. 10.

Selectboard Chairman Cormier said Thursday he does not understand Condodemetraky’s opposition to the plan.

“I don’t know what his problem is,” the chairman said. “Everyone I’ve spoken to is for it.”

Brown would plainly like to see the municipal campus idea developed and a new Town Hall building someday on the property he now owns. “We’re going to need the Town Hall and it’s going to be in Belmont,” he said. “It makes sense for it to go in that location.”

If the town lets the opportunity to buy the land go by, Brown said it would be just another example of the shortsightedness of some residents that has plagued Belmont for many years, costing it a significant amount of money.

“I’ve lived in Belmont since I was two-days old, all my life. This town means a lot to me,” he said. “My thing with the town of Belmont is not that it’s had bad past management (as some people claim). We’ve had some good people in there. We vote good people in, they put their hearts and souls into what they’re doing, they make recommendations — and the people vote against it. It happened with (Belmont) High School, seven times (it was voted on before passing). And by the time we get anything (approved) we’re spent too much money and we’ve only got half of what we needed.”

“It’s sad, but the same thing is going to happen here,” Brown said.

The landowner said he has “nothing against George" . . . “But I have something against ignorant people coming in and voting ‘no’ on something when they don’t know the whole story,” Brown said. “And then the same people complain because we have the fourteenth highest tax rate in the state — and it’s really their fault. They didn’t buy things right, we didn’t do things right… I’m not saying every (affirmative) vote would have been right but they would have been the majority of times.”