Ira Cohen recently stated that county legislators have the right to determine who will purchase choice pieces of property from the county. The county may choose to have the “right” developer, rather than the highest bidder, buy property and forego large profits on the sale, if they feel that the property will offer greater potential benefit to the taxpayers. Mr. Cohen used, as an example, a recent legislative decision to disallow a tax exempt organization to purchase a property at a higher bid because it would not be in the taxpayers’ best interest to turn that property over to tax exempt status. Our legislators are making sound investments on our behalf.

Which brings us to the issue of THE SULLIVAN COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DORMITORY project.

The First Problem

A community college is designed to serve the community. The only way our community college could become financially sound was to aggressively recruit from outside the community, a practice frowned upon by the State University of New York which operates four-year colleges for that purpose.

The First Solution

Seeking to fulfill the need came landowners who built housing units on their private property, near the college, to rent to non-resident college students during the academic season. Supplementary income was possible during the summer tourist season.

The Second Problem

Over time, it became apparent to the college that running student housing themselves would increase their revenue. However, the issue of a community college running a dormitory was still not doable unless...a separate nonprofit corporation was established, apart from the community college, to enable this.

As this premise became more obvious, so too was it obvious that private dormitory owners, once the vehicle for this machination, were now in the way.

Not only were they competition to the college, but they owned some of the prime property needed for the project.

The Second Solution

In 1997, without public notice and despite public protest, the legislators passed a resolution, with less than the necessary two-thirds vote, thereby disregarding County Law s.215(5) which states that “any county real property which is no longer necessary for public use, by resolution adopted by two thirds vote, may sell property to the highest bidder.” Only five legislators voted in favor of the transfer.

The Sullivan County Community College Dormitory Corporation, a newly created tax exempt organization, received approximately 20 acres of vacant land, at an appraised value of $66,000, for the purpose of building a 320-bed dormitory.

According to an opinion issued by the State Comptrollers office in December 1997, “the county governing board and not the community college board of trustees may authorize the issuance of indebtedness to finance the cost of construction of a dormitory.” The Board of Trustees of the Dormitory Corporation is identical to the Board of Trustees of the college, although they claim to be separate and distinct entities.

The Dormitory Corporation has applied to the Industrial Development Agency for bonding. According to Walter Garigliano, attorney for the IDA, this machination allows the corporation financing options to which they would not otherwise be entitled. The county would, as usual, take title of the property as part of the IDA agreement, thereby satisfying the state comptroller’s opinion.

Mr. Theodore Drew, attorney for the college, wrote a response stating that the comptroller’s opinion had no relevance to this activity. Under the circumstances, I agree.

There will be a public hearing on this subject on Tuesday, April 18, at 10 a.m. at the College dining hall.

PLEASE ATTEND!

To be continued Friday, April 14 . . .