Kenai City Council members are scheduled to reconsider an offer to buy a centrally located, airport owned parcel of Kenai land at Wednesday night’s meeting.
Kenai Mayor Pat Porter voted with the majority of councilors opposing the sale at the last meeting in order to request reconsideration to put the issue back before council…
Mayor Porter: “I initially voted no because I could sort of tell how that vote was going and I would like to see a full council here when councilman Gabriel is back and so I exercised the option to do that. He didn’t think it would be controversial or he would have called in.”
Ronald and Shirley Smith offered the city close to $170,000 for the .66 acre lot which sits on the corner of the Spur Highway and Main St Loop, which was appraised at $142,600 last year.
The issue of airport-owned land sales has been contentious in recent months as local businessmen have sought to purchase the properties for new development or because they now want to own the land they’ve been leasing for decades.
Porter says in general she’s in favor of selling…
Mayor Porter: “It’s difficult to lease or to buy airport lands, it’s complicated and time consuming and I don’t think it’s very friendly to the business district that might want to come and do business in our community, particularly on those lands. A lot of those lands are actually lining very heavy traffic areas, which most people want to come and build their business on, so that’s a concern for me. I think if you’re going to be open for business, you have to be business friendly and make those transactions happen fairly easily.”
Council members at the last meeting asked
