EDITORIAL: Christian Academy sale should go forward

Editorials

April 4, 2007

Anonymous The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Wed Apr 04, 2007, 09:00 PM EDT

An annoying bit of news from Niagara County came down last week, though it went largely unnoticed.

The proposed buyer of the county’s old office space on Davison Road is the Christian Academy of Western New York. The school, currently on Main Street, is seeking room to expand and said the 16.5-acre Davison complex fits the bill.

The school was willing to pay $375,000 — more than two other offers the county received for the site — and everything seemed on the up-and-up.

But in Niagara County, nothing is ever easy. After the sale proposition was announced, Legislator Jason Murgia, D-Niagara Falls, chair of the Legislature’s Administration Committee, tabled its approval until representatives from the school were able to present their plans for the building to the committee.

In what world does the seller in a real estate transaction have the right to inquire as to the buyer’s future plans? Given the nature of the buyer, a private school, what possible nugget of information could be gleaned through a presentation by the academy so disturbing as to upset the sale? It’s a small private school that has existed on Main Street for several largely uneventful years. One would assume little would change, except perhaps the letterhead, after the move.

Murgia, who offered little by way to specifics on his concerns, made reference to the school’s method of financing the needed renovations to the site.

Unless there’s something we don’t know, Murgia’s request is simply baffling.

This page has long held that the county should sell that Davison Road property. That it would be going to a stable buyer should be good enough. While the academy’s not-for-profit status means the sale won’t generate future tax revenue for the county, it’s one less building to maintain and an extra $375,000 in the county’s coffers.

Asked about the decision to table the sale’s approval and send it to the full Legislature for ratification, Murgia said: “We want to see who we’re doing business with. We have to protect the county’s best interests.”

The county’s only interest should be in divesting itself of a complex it no longer needs. Let the folks at the Christian Academy worry about the rest.

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