The Thousands Islands deal went through Tuesday, October 23, as had been planned a few weeks ago, but temporarily derailed by an accidental ‘no’ vote.  The seller threw in an extra $100,000, lowering the price to $3.1 million, only $2 million or so over the appraisals, so the ‘no’ votes could be flipped. Oddly enough, one justification was the taxpayer money to come from the State Florida Communities Trust, about $700,000, as if this was something new. It was not, of course, as the FCT money was just as available at the last meeting. The FCT money represents half of the total appraised values for the Crawford and Reynolds portions of the Thousand Islands. The State will pay half of the total appraised value ($1.4 million) for land and water Brevard County taxpayers ponied up $4.3 million.

If you get an opportunity please watch the October 23 meeting to see for yourself how the deal happened. Elementary students were brought in, and judging from the information they had been fed (i.e., the islands were in danger of being developed (not true), and all the trees and animals would be run off) someone neglected to let them know the environmental purists are going to do exactly with the islands what they feared - take out all the trees and run off all the critters. Prices for salt marsh riverfront were greatly exaggerated and every trick in the book used to bring this deal in at triple the appraised price.

After the Thousand Islands came the second seemingly overpriced property: the $25 million planned purchase of 2,400 acres, 30% uplands (uplands are areas of land of high elevation) west of Fox Lake in Titusville bought at the peak of the Housing Bubble for $15 million - minus 100 or so upland acres the developer/seller gets to keep.

Like every other EELS (Environmentally Endangered Lands Program) purchase the last few years, price is no object and the County Commissioners constantly are told 70% of the voters supported the EELS tax and bond. These purchases were no different and the blind-to-anything-else supporters dutifully came forward with “I support X and so do 70% of the voters”.

It is never noted, however, that 70% of the voters did not vote to give windfall profits to sellers of land that is not developable or home to projects no longer economically feasible. I also doubt they voted to have 85% of the money all spent in the north end of the county. I do have to admire the unusual alliance between the Eco Groups and certain developers when it comes to dividing up the real green: taxpayer dollars.

The Hunters Brooke purchase was the single largest county purchase of anything in Brevard history. No one on the EELS staff even took the time to read the appraisals. Had they done so they would have easily picked up that one of the supposed independent appraisers had plagiarized the other. Once again, you have to watch the meeting to believe what you are seeing.

It was not “similar appraisal language”, as reported, but exactly the same language. It’s a funny coincidence that on a $25 million appraisal each appraiser just happened to pick the same three comparable properties, two in Flagler County and one in Volusia, had the exact same descriptions, and even described their discussion with County and City staff as exactly the same. Each had the exact same verbiage about ‘their’ information from Brevard County and the City of Titusville, down to the same names and exact same language describing what they learned. After I pointed out the obvious copying and the comps being in other counties, the County staff went into overdrive to defend the appraisals they had never read.

Excuses were made about appraisers sharing data and the ‘difficulty’ of finding comparable properties for large purchases, which grew larger as the stories grew. This is all hokum. The subject property was about 2,400 acres, 30% uplands, no utilities, zoned 1 house to 2.5 acres. The three comparable properties were 700, 1,300, and 900 acres, comprised of uplands of 80%, 50%, and 67%. Two had utilities and two have Planned Unit Developments (PUD). All of these were smaller and had a higher percentage of uplands, yet we are told they are like some Holy Grail mirror images of the subject parcel and it was only logical that both ‘independent’ appraisers selected the exact same three parcels out of the allegedly tiny universe of other land sales. Engineering staff was brought in to try to salvage, but to their credit had to admit they had never seen a pair of appraisals come in with the exact same comparable sales parcels.

To rub more salt in the wound, one appraiser disqualified the purchase in 2005 of this very property, claiming the new seller told him the previous seller had to make a ‘distressed’ sale (an urgent sale of assets because of negative conditions). More appraisal hokum designed to throw out the $15 million already paid for the property at the peak of the bubble. The prior sellers were at the meeting and completely denied any duress on their part. In fact, the current seller paid them more than double what EELS had offered for the property in 2003.

It became very clear as the meeting progressed that no one had read the appraisals except the Clerk’s Office. One Commissioner tried to bring the deal to a vote, as did the Nature Conservancy, but Commissioners Voltz and Scarborough insisted on a delay while County Attorney Scott Knox clearly understood the risks of buying property if the two appraisals could be shown to not be independent of each other.

There you have it. This EELS purchase of $25 million is the single largest expenditure contract ever to be executed for Brevard County, and nobody bothered to read the appraisals, the foundation of the sales price, before pushing this item along. Even after I had exposed the appraisal plagiarism there were still EELS supporters coming to the podium to support the purchase.

Blind support of any program simply encourages those who operate the program to know they may work with all impunity and immunity. It certainly does the taxpayers of Brevard County no favor.

Florida Today heavily supported the purchase. I guess they never read the appraisals, either. No supporter of the EELS program is more loyal in its blind allegiance than the editors of the Florida Today, who absolutely refuse to turn any critical eye to the land buying practices going on in Brevard County. The fear of their self-imagined Growth-zilla leads them to push every opportunity for the government to buy land, regardless of the price the taxpayers pay, or who makes what on the transaction.

Now that is one heck of a watchdog.