Our mayor and council recently sold a valuable piece of property off for approximately half the real value to some investment guy who “intended” to build a hockey school dormitory. This guy started prepping the site even before the deal went through, which riled folks.
This guy had agreed to balloon payments. He missed the first one, came back with some excuse, then missed it again. Seems his financing has fallen through now.
Meanwhile back at the site, the sub-trades have been busy little beavers, pouring foundations, etc. Racking up more bills owed from the investment guy, say about $1.6 million worth.
All the while our mayor and council is letting him ride. It turns out the investment guy is facing a number of legal claims, and that he allegedly misused more than $100,000 paid to him by a group of hockey parents.
And this is all in the past.
I’m no investment banker, but you’d think that the mayor would have done his “due diligence” and checked into this guy a bit. You know, to make sure he actually had the cash.
So now there are small companies, sub-trades in a small town, one of whom is owed $300,000, and left in the lurch. That could break a small company. It is very quiet in the mayor’s corner at the moment. Guess looks really are deceiving, aren’t they?
Lois Linds
Penticton
