MORGANTOWN — Morgantown City Council unanimously approved the financing behind the purchase of a 12,000 square-foot building and surrounding property at 430 Spruce Street during Tuesday’s regular meeting.
The property, which will be the first acquisition of the Morgantown Land Reuse and Preservation Agency, is being financed through a private placement between the LRPA and Community Bank.
The building will be split between the basement and first floor — which will be leased to the city for additional office space — and the second floor, which will be rented out by the LRPA to generate an estimated $72,000 in annual revenue for future acquisitions.
Rob Steptoe of Cruise & Associates, the city’s placement agent on the project, said Community Bank presented the preferred bid of the nine received, offering a $1,661,507 loan over 15 years with a fixed 3.11% interest rate.
The financing will cover the cost of the building and surrounding property ($1,250,000); needed renovations ($176,000) and a pocket park ($115,000) as well as $13,500 in rent for the Morgantown Police Department’s use of the building during renovations on the Morgantown Public Safety Building, and administrative expenses including appraisal
Based on the terms of the financing, the city’s annual payment to the LRPA for use of the space will be $138,000, which will be used by the agency to pay down the debt service on the property.
City Attorney Ryan Simonton previously said the city has the option to acquire the property outright at any point by paying off the outstanding debt.
Steptoe explained that the financing package through Community Bank includes the ability to prepay or refinance in whole or in part without premium or penalty.
In other city news, Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston explained that his department did not participate in or assist with operations conducted in and around the city last week by federal law enforcement agents with U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Preston said the department was contacted on Aug. 9 by ICE as a courtesy ahead of operations conducted locally on Aug. 12 and 13.
Other than that, Preston said he had little information, explaining that ICE has more than 20,000 agents with concurrent jurisdiction to operate anywhere within the United States or its territories.
“The department does not know where they were nor why there were in any particular areas. We don’t know who was taken, if anyone, or for what purpose they were taken,” Preston said, explaining that ICE’s authority is covers a wide swath of both criminal and administrative violations that stretch far beyond immigration.
Monongalia County Sheriff Perry Palmer previously told The Dominion Post that ICE detained people in Sabraton on Aug. 15, but his department did not assist.
ICE officials told The Dominion Post late last week that no large-scale operations were occurring in Morgantown, but targeted enforcement is conducted every day in West Virginia and across the nation.
In responding to questions raised by members of council and comments from a pair of public speakers on Tuesday, Simonton said Morgantown City Council has no authority to limit or prevent the operations of federal law enforcement within the city.
“Council’s inability, just based on how it is set up as a governing body, to prevent those operations from occurring shouldn’t be viewed as some sort of tacit support by council members, or as a policy decision,” Simonton said.
Referencing a request made during public comment, Councilor Dave Harshbarger asked what steps the city council could take if it wanted to make a statement.
Simonton said he was aware anecdotally of actions take elsewhere and would be willing to look into how other communities expressed their stance on ICE operations and present that information to council.
