County needs to explain Herlong property sale error

Lassen County’s Board of Supervisors never intended to sell Building 170 in Herlong — the building that houses the chapel, the Family Resource Center and the county-run One Stop  — when it issued a request for proposal to sell most of the excess property in the Herlong town center it had received from the U.S. Army a decade or so ago. The board said it intended to keep that building for county use. The board also intended to retain the site of a cell phone tower that generated income through a long-term lease.

The county has already disposed of other properties in the area — the Gas Light Deli property was sold, the Veterans of Foreign Wars received the building it had occupied for many years as well as the adjacent tennis courts, the theatre building was donated to the local school district and some property along the road leading to Sierra Army Depot was transferred to the local utility district.

Twice the county issued a request for proposal regarding the remaining county-owned property in the town center always with the board’s intention to retain both Building 170 and the cell tower site.

Lassen County District 3 Supervisor Larry Wosick put in the highest bid in the first round of proposals, but he later withdrew his bid when he learned it constituted a conflict of interest.

The county then issued a second request for proposal and eventually accepted an offer from Pezzullo and Smith, LLC, to purchase the property for $39,000.

As inexplicable as it might seem, somehow Building 170 was included as part of the purchase. When asked for comment, Pezzullo told the newspaper he simply purchased what the county had put up for sale.

During public comment at the board’s Tuesday, Nov. 12 meeting, Larry Johnson, one of the bidders in the second request for proposal, said despite the description of the property included as part of the bid process, the county notified him Building 170 was not to be sold. He said he would have placed a higher bid had he known Building 170 was included in the sale.

Johnson said he has filed a complaint with the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office, and he asked the board of supervisors to initiate an investigation into the matter by an independent, outside agency such as the California Attorney General’s Office. He also questions the involvement of two members of the board of supervisors in the bidding process.

Several county officials have declined to comment for the record regarding the request for proposal process and the apparently erroneous sale of Building 170, but apparently county staff made an error and did not follow the board’s direction.

The county needs to conclude its investigation and publicly reveal all the details surrounding the sale of the Herlong property sooner rather than later.

The public’s questions regarding the whys and wherefores of this sale need to be answered as quickly as possible.

The process surrounding the sale of public property by a public agency should be transparent, open and completely free of concerns. Given the information presently available, the public’s view of this process is murky at best.

It’s time for our county officials to stand up and address the peoples’ concerns.