Without having access to the underlying lease, the Airport
Advisory Board rubberstamped the sub-lease and sent it to council, this
according to Moore at Tuesday's meeting. Moore stated that the Airport Advisory
Board didn't know the amounts that they were dealing with.
That's not exactly true, according to Airport Advisory
Board member Jim Leis. Leis stated that he had all of the rent amounts at the
advisory board meeting, but Leis stated that he had to
gather the information on his own prior to the meeting. Leis
stated that he informed the advisory board during the meeting as to exactly how much the
airport would be getting and how much Purdy Enterprises would be making off of
the deal. Leis said that he discovered later that his comments and objections
about the Purdy lease were inexplicably absent from the minutes of the meeting,
thus making it appear that the advisory board was not fully informed.
Leis acknowledged that the city, the airport, and the
applicant had not provided the board members with copies of the underlying
lease, so the board would truly have been flying blind on the matter if he had
not done his research prior to the meeting.
CQG's Dan Boone: Marriott would save the airport, Purdy
lease is a fair deal
Attorney E.G. 'Dan' Boone argued at the council meeting that the airport was
getting a fair amount of rent from Purdy. Boone was speaking as the attorney for
Purdy Enterprises.
Boone is also the attorney for the Venice Golf
Association. The VGA had inked a lease transfer deal with representatives of
Aris Mardirossian for the purpose of building a Marriott. The pitch to citizens
was that a Marriott would save the economically failing airport. One of the
reasons given for the airport's economic woes in support of airport development
was, strangely enough, because the airport wasn't making enough money from
existing rents.
Boone is also the founder and one of the primary forces
behind the Citizens for Quality Government, a PAC that has successfully
supported all current sitting members of council and is pushing to get Bill
Willson re-elected and political appointees Jim Woods and Fred Hammett elected.
Meanwhile, Mardirossian representatives Ed Taylor and Tom
Creech have been prominent at at CQG candidate campaign appearances with Taylor
sporting a Hammett for Mayor button.
Which, of course, is all purely an innocent coincidence.
Johnson: Math is hard and will only confuse the public
As noted above, Thurman Randall Greene had opened up this can of worms with a couple of emails to council.
These were sent after he stumbled upon
the information. In his first email of October 1, 2007, Greene asked if the
lease amount of $8,000 per year and the sub-lease amount of $6,000 a month were accurate
figures (they were).
Greene was dumfounded: he could not understand why the city would knowingly give
away such an obscenely huge amount of profit to a third party.
The
city never responded to Greene's inquiry. A week later, Greene then fired off a second email to the
city's propaganda minister, Pam Johnson. Greene again specifically asked if what
he had heard about the amounts of the lease and the sub-lease were true.
Johnson responded by politely avoiding answering the
question. Instead, she stated that the issues involved could be
confusing to the general public. Johnson gave a brief history of the leased
property and how the lease had been transferred to the present leaseholder --
which means Johnson actually did go and look up the information. Some of her
history is wrong, this according to Moore. In council, Moore stated that the
building was already in existence when the lease was first initiated, whereas
Johnson states that the leaseholder built the building. That's anything but a
minor issue.
However when it
came to the actual dollar amounts involved, which was Greene's question,
Johnson's answer can be boiled down to three words:
Math is hard.
From: Thurman R Greene
To: City Council, Airport Advisory Chair Paul Hollowell
Sent: 10/01/07
Subject: Hona Luana Lease
There is a rumor that the lease holder of the Hona Luana Island Grill has
sub-let the restaurant lease for $6000/ month, but the airport fund receives
only $8000/year. Is this true and does the Advisory Board and Council have to
approve the sub-lease? When was the Hona Luana lease negotiated and by whom?
Thanks for any information you can provide. I'd like to inform
the residents of Golden Beach.
-- Randall Greene, GBAI [Golden
Beach Asociation] Airport Contact
-----
From: Thurman R Greene
To: Pam Johnson
Sent: 10/06/07
Subject: Re: Hona Luana Lease
Ms Johnson,
Please see the message forwarded [above]. To date,
I've received no answers from either addressee. I've also looked for Advisory
Board minutes which apparently have not been recorded lately. As public
Information officer, would you please respond to my questions?
Randall Greene
-----
From: Pam Johnson
To: thurmangreene@msn.com
CC: Fred Hammett, John Simmonds, Jim Woods, Linda Depew, Lori Stelzer, Bill
Willson, Betsteiner@aol.com, Rick Tacy, Vicki Taylor, Frederick Watts, John
Moore, turboc@comcast.net, randerson@hall-anderson.com, Martin Black
Date: Monday - October 8, 2007
Subject: Re: Hona Luana Lease
Dear Mr. Greene: As I understand it, Paul Hostetler, owner of Purdy Inc., built
and owns the building on this parcel. He leases the land parcel from the
airport. Mr. Hostetler is approximately halfway into his lease, meaning he has
about 11 years to go - at which time, the building will revert to airport
ownership. In the meantime, he is allowed to sublet the building, which he has
most recently done in a sublease to Dave and Valerie Thompson, who owned and
operated Hona Luana restaurant. The Thompsons sold their business to the Westrom
family. In accordance with the original land lease still in use, the lessee
(Hostetler) must submit a request for permission to transfer the sublease from
one party to another. The request came before the Airport Advisory Board at
their last meeting and that board recommended to city council that the request
be approved. The city council will consider the approval at tomorrow's city
council meeting.
While I am not certain of the exact amount the Airport Enterprise Fund receives
from this lease, whatever the amount in the lease agreement is what it gets.
It must be remembered that the airport leases land, not the businesses
themselves. That seems to get a little confusing to some people. Thanks for
asking. If you have other questions, please feel free to contact me. - Pam
Pam Johnson
Public Information Officer
City of Venice
