FAIRMONT– The Martin County Board of Commissioners held a heated discussion on Tuesday regarding issues with the land purchase agreement for the proposed Martin County Justice Center.

While not originally on the agenda, Commissioner Joe Loughmiller said he wanted to discuss the matter because he wanted to hear from the County Attorney, Taylor McGowan, about his opinion regarding the purchase contract.

“Both parties have acted in good faith to this point. I understand the issues that have prevented compliance with the original agreement but we’ve asked for revisions and allowances. To my understanding, those have been addressed and shared with the county attorney,” Loughmiller said. “His opinion seems to be that we are still under contract for that purchase and I worry that making a motion before we have this discussion increases our liability on this issue and harms the trust between ourselves as a board and our business partners who acted in good faith with Martin County and with the board of commissioners.”

At the Dec. 17, 2024 meeting, the board approved the option to purchase land– called the Siems Site– to construct the new Justice Center on. Since then, three new members have been added to the board and it’s held a few closed sessions to discuss language in the agreement.

At a Feb. 19, 2025 meeting, the board passed a motion direct the county attorney to reach out to the current land owner to have new restrictions placed on the billboard contracts for the companies that restricts political ads including social issues and bail bonds and that if McGowan is invited to draft the agreement from the land owner, that he bill them for his time to draft such an agreement.

County Coordinator Scott Higgins on Tuesday said that the restrictions have been submitted and met and that the title and abstract for the land have been received. He said that May 8 is the new date for project bids to come in.

County Commissioner Billeye Rabbe claimed that the amendments have not been formally received by the board.

“The amendments of the lease agreement are between the present property owner and Summit. They are consistent with what the direction was for the property owner, given by the board at the February 4th (19th) meeting,” McGowan said.

Rabbe said she believed there was also direction given to negotiate a reduced price, which was not obtained.

McGowan said that while it was discussed, it was not believed to be an option. Loughmiller said that the board never declared it had to have a reduced price.

He again said he did not want the board to be in a position where it’s increasing the risk of negotiating in bad faith.

“Can you help clarify where we’re at and what our risk is?” Loughmiller asked McGowan.

McGowan said that when the option (to purchase) is exercised, the option agreement turns into a purchase agreement.

“There were certain conditions in the purchase agreement about the delivery of the abstract, etc., that Siems Investments did not timely comply with. At that time, they were in breach of agreement of the timetables as outlined,” McGowan said.

He said the board then indicated at a meeting in February that it would give the land owner an opportunity to remedy the issues, both the delivery of the abstract and the encumbrances on the property in the form of sign leases.

McGowan said that he received the abstract and reviewed it along with the property owner’s attorney.

“The potential issues with the title have been addressed. We also touched base with both Summit and Mr. (Steve) Frick about creating an amendment for the Summit sign which was the sign of issue following our discussions and they worked out an addendum that appears to meet the dictates of the board and that was finalized last week,” McGowan said.

He recapped by saying that while there were issues, actions directed by the board at its meeting in February have been taken and that now the ball is back in the county’s court to hold up its end of the deal.

Loughmiller asked for clarification on whether the purchase agreement is still in force and McGowan said yes.

County Commissioner Richard Koons chimed in and said that the former board was never made aware of the breach of contract and that the current board wasn’t notified until sometime in late January. He claimed that the contract was ‘null and void’

Rabbe said, “Never in that motion did anyone say, ‘this motion means that we will continue with the purchase of this property.’ To your fault Taylor, you didn’t advise us that if we make this motion, that means we’re continuing on with the purchase of the property. That’s your job to advise us. Not to advise the people that are selling the land.”

McGowan said that he did inform the board that if it was going to exercise the option to purchase, the option contract becomes a purchase agreement.

“I mentioned at the time that they were in breach. If the board wanted to indicate that it wanted to leave the agreement at that time, it certainly could have,” McGowan said. “That was not the decision that was made. The board decided to move forward and work with the property owners.”

Rabbe said she believed all of the details should have been brought back to the full board to discuss.

“The original motion was to advise the county attorney and county coordinator to go back to the land owner and attempt to negotiate a lower price in consideration of these problems occurring with the title and to instruct them to come back with a clean abstract. Then the 19th is when I made the motion that passed to put the revisions in about the Summit sign,” Loughmiller said.

He said that he believed the board should move forward in order to remain in good faith with the land owner, otherwise it would be violating the trust put into it.

Commissioner Kevin Kristenson asked what the ramifications were of not meeting terms in the agreement in a timely manner.

“Just because it wasn’t done timely doesn’t mean that the whole contract gets thrown out,” McGowan said. “The county decided to move forward and the abstract was provided.”

Commissioner Jaime Bleess spoke up and said that a civil agreement was in place and that nothing was null and void. He also took issue with language of former board and present board and said it’s the county board.

“When we’ve made decisions, there has to be a level of respect with that. There should be. It’s never been null and void because we’ve perpetuated the discussion and the negotiation and as far as I’m concerned, we are in a purchase agreement already so we should move forward and make wise decisions as property owners,” Bleess said.

He said he felt like some board members were making emotional and knee-jerk decisions and that he didn’t want that to affect the design.

“We already have a $1.4 and a $1.7 million design going on. This property is approximately 1 percent of the entire project. I want to make sure that we don’t put ourselves in a position where we have to spend more money on redesign fees,” Bleess said.

He said he felt like some board members had a fear of moving forward with the purchase agreement because they believed it would obligate them to do the whole building project. However, he said he had fear of not moving forward with this land purchase as the county has looked for years for property in Fairmont, the county seat, where a new jail/law enforcement center will have to be built.

“This was the original number one property going way back and we’ve had struggles trying to locate other properties. It is my option that we will be okay purchasing this land,” Bleess said.

Rabbe indicated that she wanted to talk and said that the cost of the building could be higher than expected now with tariffs put on certain building materials.

“We don’t need land if we’re not going to build a building. If it comes back at $70 million, are we still building this? We need to find out what the bids are before we move forward with the land. Doesn’t that just make sense?” Rabbe said.

Kristenson made a suggestion that the board continue the conversation during a special meeting to discuss the proposed Justice Center Project on March 25.

“Let’s think about this a little bit and cool off…. Today we’re not in the right frame of mind to make a decision,” Kristenson said.

He added that he believed the county and some of its staff should have done a better job of following up on issues in a timely manner.

“There’s so much that went wrong in this whole deal starting last April,” Koons said.

McGowan again said that he never got any indication from the board that it wanted to wash its hands of the project or the property.

“At some point in time, I feel that you should have said, ‘if you guys aren’t comfortable, you need to tell me,’ but we kept floating along and here we are today,” Koons said.

Higgins chimed in and said that the board never made a decision to kill the contract but has been holding discussions and moving forward.

Kristenson said that the past can’t be fixed, but said it would have been helpful to know some more details, especially as a new board member.

“Were mistakes made, yes. There’s not doubts mistakes were made. Can we fix them? I don’t know if we can fix them but we can’t fix the past,” Kristenson said.

While there was no action to be taken, the board did express a collective desire to discuss the topic further at its March 25 meeting.