From: Malheur County Economic Development Sent: Monday, December 9, 2019 1:57 PM To: Les Zaitz Subject: Re: FACT CHECKING - FOR YOUR REVIEW Multiple, multiple errors. Please stop sensationalizing and report a balanced story. Greg Greg Smith Director of Economic Development On Dec 8, 2019, at 2:55 PM, Les Zaitz wrote: Greg, At the Enterprise, we strive for fairness and accuracy in our reports. I am sharing draft excerpts for our impending story about Malheur County's real estate financing efforts. Please review each statement for factual accuracy. If you see an error, please identify the error and provide what you believe to be the correct information. At this juncture, I am not seeking additional information or comments. To be considered, please provide your response by 3 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9. Thank you. Les Zaitz Editor & Publisher Malheur Enterprise office: (541) 473-3377 cell: (541) 620-0933 STATEMENTS TO VERIFY FOR ACCURACY: 1. A private appraiser hired by the county valued the 290-acre parcel at $2.050 million, not the $3.016 million the county has already agreed to pay. That means the county would pay 47% over the appraised value. 2. The state records obtained last week by the Malheur Enterprise show that the county now has to dip into its treasury for nearly $1 million to close the deal for that acreage. County officials have long represented that state money would cover land purchase. 3. The state records released to the Enterprise show the county also expects to use public money to pay at least $178,000 in interest on borrowed money it needs to pay the sellers. 4. County officials originally based their plan for the Nyssa industrial effort by assuming the state would put up the money for all the land. When that proved 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. not the case, county officials in recent weeks have scrambled to figure out how to pay for more than $3 million in real estate they had under contract Greg Smith, the county economic development director, publicly briefed the commissioners on Nov. 13 on the land financing. The minutes don’t record that he publicly disclosed that the financing required nearly a $1 million of county money. The key piece of land at the reload center site is the so-called Farmer property. County officials agreed in 2018 to pay $3,019,900 for 290 acres of farmland, expecting at the time that the state would write the check to cover the sale. The state Transportation Department has agreed to pay for 65 acres of the Farmer land since that will be used for the rail depot. The agency set aside up to $700,000 and that’s what county officials have assumed they would get. The plan, according to their state loan application, was to use the state money from the Transportation Department to repay part of the loan it was getting from BizOregon. That means Malheur County officials are short $241,000 they expected for repaying the loan Smith confirmed in a telephone interview that was the case and that in fact the county’s gap was even larger. He wouldn’t disclose the figure.