The two primary negotiators of the Airport Hotel Lease are gone – Frank Miller and Robert Payne. In December 2008, IN paid $187.16 to get copies of the city emails concerning the deal.
The second appraisal and the appraisal review came to light when Bob Kerrigan made a public records request the day after the Enterprise Operations Committee meeting.
At that meeting, Miller, Payne and Julian MacQueen (the developer) defended the deal and the exclusivity agreement. Miller and MacQueen defended the Asmar appraisal and tried to justify that it was fair to value the land nearly $500K less than the Asmar appraisal. Donovan made the motion to set the value at the Asmar appraisal – which he had been told was the only appraisal.
MacQueen voiced no objection to having to pay more. The Kerrigan public records request led to Miller finding another appraisal by Charles Sherrill, Jr for $7,150,000 and a review by Shawn Brantley that set the value at $7 million.
Miller, Payne, MacQueen and now City Manager Al Coby (who took the heat for the others) revised the lease for $7 million…ignoring all their representations two days earlier about how fair the $6 million valuation was. City Attorney Rusty Wells was not included in any the emails about renegotiating the lease. MacQueen agreed to the new valuation — which had gone up $1 million in two days.
One other thing that has been forgotten is that all city council got personal presentations on the Airport Hotel Lease in the days leading up to the meeting.
Here is my analysis of the process that I did on Dec. 4, 2008: Tale of two appraisals .
Here is my analysis on the exclusivity agreement also done then:
How the exclusivity agreement came about
We followed up this investigation with a cover story (Pensacola Roulette) on how inconsistent the City was in dealing with land leases. Eventually when the new City Council took office, they ordered that an audit be done of the Airport Hotel Lease.
Before the audit report is released, Robert Payne retires and Frank Miller leaves for San Antonio.
