The K Report

  Someone asked the question on Nextdoor: “ I was wondering why the residents were not informed Before this was sold to Mitch King,? I feel the residents really did not have much of a say or input into this deal. The small area where what is now to be our waste site was all wetland and swamp. Are you going to eventually move the compost and mulch over to our site? “ Here is my answer: You are correct. The public barely knew about this sale. Actually, it turned out that the Village Board didn't even know about it half as much as we thought we did at the time of the approval of the sale. This was due to key information that was withheld from the Village Board by the Village Administrator and Community Development Director. When Mr. Paul Jaeger complained to Community Development Director Randy Fifrick about the secrecy surrounding the sale, and why the piece wasn't made available for sale on the open market, Mr. Fifrick's response was basically “because l

  The short answer to that question is this: The Village Board found little value in those many thousands of yards of compost on the Village Yard Waste Site property, and in 2021 they basically gave it all to Mr. King as part of a leaseback deal in which the Village needed to rent back from Mr. King part of the property that they just sold to him. I argued that at a minimum, the mountains of compost there was worth $20,000. I also argued in favor of the residents' having compost available for their own free use, and managed to get this included in the 5 year least agreement. Here is the longer story – Community Development Director Randy Fifrick, under Mr. Downey's supervision, advocated to the Board for the sale of the 38 acre yard waste site to Mr. King, who offered to buy the parcel in 2014. Negotiations went back and forth from 2014 to 2018, when the Board voted to sell about 30 acres to King, and keep about 7-8 acres to use as the new village Yard Waste