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Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Thursday, July 03, 2008

City’s deep pockets help negotiate sale

By Jim Galewski | Just Jim

As the city of Winona buys property for future development, it has a plan and knows what it wants. It doesn’t seem intimidated by other buyers.

No one can accuse the city of being a shrewd negotiator — especially on the last property purchased by the Winona Port Authority at 127 W. 4th St.

The Port bought the old Charter building at 4th and Johnson streets for $185,000. The property had an assessed value of $256,300. That’s the number the city made public when the Port considered the purchase.

A less known fact was the asking price for the property. The listing price for the building was just $119,000. We’ve been through some “seller market” conditions in the real-estate business. Most sellers will tell you that time has passed.

So why did the city pay $66,000 more than the asking price for this property? That’s what I asked Winona City Manager Eric Sorensen. The Winona Port Authority approved the purchase unanimously in February so it took some “memory jogging” by Sorensen to come up with a quotable answer.

I’m sure the owner — a St. Louis businessman — was pleased with the $66,000 bump he got for his property. The city has made it no secret that it is trying to acquire the entire block the Charter building rests on. That

makes it ripe property for speculators, and Sorensen said the Port members and staff were aware some investors might try to buy the building and make a tidy profit off the city.

The city used its deep pockets to end the negotiation and take the property off the market.

Could the city have spent less than $66,000 to make the competition go away? I’m guessing the city didn’t want to find out.

Now the city has one property left on that block to buy — the Hardees’ property. You can imagine the numbers running through the head of this property owner holding the last property on a block the city wants to own.

The city will fix this problem with its checkbook and the Hardees owner won’t have to eat hamburger anymore.

Winona Online Democracy offers more than talk

In the computer world, the Winona community has a discussion group called Winona Online Democracy. It’s a loosely run group of people who discuss issues. I’m part of the group, but I’m mostly a lurker. That’s a person who gets the e-mails and reads them, but seldom joins in the discussion.

The group has a moderator, but for the most part this group is polite to each other and the simple rules seldom get broken. For people who love discussion, it’s a haven of ideas.

For the most part, I find the discussion mildly entertaining and I seldom learn anything.

For the past week, WOD has been discussing solutions and possibilities to replacing the Winona Interstate Bridge. I’ve always found the discussions mildly enlightening, but this bridge discussion is producing some very good ideas. Ideas I hope will be presented to Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Our bridge made national news this month when MnDOT closed it in a dramatic show of power. We are still marveling at what little logic MnDOT is using to find a temporary solution. MnDOT only considers closure and prohibiting traffic as a short-term answer.

Folks on WOD have brought out some old ideas and have discussed some new ideas. I hope someone enlightens MnDOT about the discussion. MnDOT engineers may find an answer that doesn’t rip the city and the Winona State University campus in half.

Bob Sebo, chairman of the Winona Historic Preservation Commission, posted a thought on WOD about saving the Windom Park area. Sebo said, “If we want to preserve the Huff Street corridor, we should consider creating a historic district around Windom Park. Federal dollars (generally) cannot be used to damage local historic districts.”

One WOD participant

very artfully stated, “Winona has historically been a pain in MnDOT’s backside.” It’s a fact that has to be acknowledged so we can pressure

this state agency to work with us.

Les Hittner has added some drawings to the discussion. The drawings give us a chance to poke holes at the idea and spark new ideas.

I can’t help but think MnDOT would find a lot of its work done if the engineers just visited the site. You can view the site if you have a computer and Internet access. The address is: http://forums.e-democracy.

org/groups/winona.

You don’t have to join to read the discussions. If you

do join, you can have the discussions e-mailed to you as the author writes them. If

the topic doesn’t interest

you, simply hit the delete

key. This discussion of the bridge relocation may be the answer to how we create a community forum to create change.

WOD has been around for years. So have many of its members. I think you’ll find some good ideas and interesting solutions to a common problem.

Galewski is the retired editor and Opinion page editor of the Winona Daily News. His views don’t necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper. If you have an idea or tip about a Winona issue, call Jim at (507) 452-3960. His e-mail is editor@luminet.net.