BC 1991 09 16 - Laserfiche WebLink

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306 The judge granted Concord's injunction, but did not declare the contracts valid or order Cabarrus to pay Concord's legal fees. The Judge denied the County's injunction, but granted the County a lien on the property. This held the status quo until a trial could be held. In fact, the Attorneys were here Friday and held a pre-trial conference with Judge Long. It permits Concord to continue working on an airport so Concord Will not be delayed and will lose nothing if Concord wins its lawsuit against Cabarrus County. If Concord loses its suit against the County, all improvements made to the airport property become property of Cabarrus County because of the lis pendens lien that is filed against the land and granted by the judge. According to the Tribune, Concord has spent $81,215 on suing Cabarrus County. This was spent in an effort to keep County taxpayers $4.5 million in land and money. The County has spent approximately $102,000 on its defense and counterclaim against Concord's lawsuit trying to get the $4.5 million back, not the $148,000 reported by the Tribune. Some of that $102,000 has been spent trying to work out a settlement agreement over the past few weeks. The $148,000 reported by the Tribune included about $46,000 spent by the former commissioners trying to get the environmental assessment approved and the project transferred to Concord before they left office, as well as for other airport related legal work. We informed the Tribune reporter of this error, but the paper never reported the correction. The media's collective reporting has left the impression with some people that Cabarrus initiated a lawsuit against Concord and that somehow County taxpayers are paying for a personal lawsuit initiated by the commissioners on a personal basis. Neither is true and the reporters covering the commissioners meetings have been told so. Recent examples are the Friday the 13th edition of the Concord Tribune which stated, "...Commissioners Jeff Barnhart, Simmons, Ken Payne and Carolyn Carpenter are suing as taxpayers for the return of county assets...". The Charlotte Observer on Saturday the 14th stated, "...The agreement at issue would clear the way for Gabarrus County to drop its lawsuit against Concord .... ". Both of the statements are not true. I have personally corrected the reporters on both of these issues on several occasions. Many people feel the continuing misrepresentation of facts is an effort by some of the local media management that strongly supports the airport project to undermine the credibility of the County Commissioners by not getting the facts straight even after they have been corrected. The purpose of my comments, today is to share with those in the audience and those who are watching what is really happening, and to make the facts public record and to inform each member of the media on those facts via a certified letter. I trust that in the future that this issue will be correctly reported to the public. If it is not, I can only assume that it is their intent to libel the County Commission and future attacks are politically motivated. The message that I am summarizing is clear. Concord sued Cabarrus County and it is Concord's lawsuit that is responsible for the approximately $180,000 in legal fees. Cabarrus has spent money defending itself against Concord's suit. Individual commissioners on this Board have never sued Concord and there has never been any County tax dollars spent on any such effort. That concludes the summary of my certified letter to the media. Chairman Simmons reported that the County's legal fees in defending taxpayers property have amounted to about $2.00 in property taxes for the average homeowner. In comparison, he stated that same average homeowner could save up to $142.00 in County property taxes if Concord loses its lawsuit against Cabarrus. Chairman Simmons commented in his opinion the message was clear in November that County taxpayers did not want tax dollars spent on the airport project. He stated the Board was standing behind that mandate.