St. Louis County’s initial response to a legitimate purchase proposal for the historic St. Louis County Jail showed the county’s attempts to sell the building insincere (“County gets serious offer on old jail building,” Jan. 29).

By: Tony Dierckins, Duluth News Tribune

St. Louis County’s initial response to a legitimate purchase proposal for the historic St. Louis County Jail showed the county’s attempts to sell the building insincere (“County gets serious offer on old jail building,” Jan. 29).

One reason county officials gave for possibly rejecting the offer was the prospective buyer’s request that the property be exempt from property taxes for 20 years. If that’s unacceptable due to the loss of property taxes, county officials can remember that the jail property, acquired in 1912, never has contributed taxes. And if the jail is demolished for a county-owned parking lot, as planned, the property still won’t contribute to the tax rolls. However, with a temporary tax break, the jail, in time, could become a tax-contributing property.

Duluth made a similar concession with A&L Development’s Wieland Block project, and those buildings had been contributing taxes since property taxes began.

The county also balked at the prospective buyer’s request that the county repair the jail’s roof and façade prior to a sale. This seemed reasonable and customary. Think of homeowners making essential repairs before trying to sell their house. The county has known about the roof issue for decades and has done nothing to fix it, consequently resulting in terra cotta damage. The county created those problems by willful, negligent stewardship. It should fix them.

Since the county’s estimated repair cost exceeds the building’s appraised value of $60,000, and since the county is required by law to sell the property for at least 90 percent of that appraised value, the county could offer the buyer a limited, tax-free period that would allow the investors to recover their purchase price and the cost of those specific repairs.

The deal is a winner: It would rid the county of the jail, bring a Duluth landmark and architectural gem back into functional use, and, in time, result in the property contributing to, rather than drawing from, county coffers — for the first time ever. Seems like a much better deal for taxpayers than spending a few hundred thousand dollars on a parking lot.

County officials have argued for the building’s destruction, stating that taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for the upkeep of a building no one wants badly enough to buy.

Well, now someone does want to buy it, and its sale would relieve taxpayers of the burden of upkeep, demolition and construction and maintenance of a parking lot.

And the county responds with a list of reasons that could prevent a sale? Why would the county make public statements outlining reasons not to accept the proposal before it even prepared a counteroffer? And why has St. Louis County ignored the building’s problems, creating the very issues that restrain its sale? Is it because the county really doesn’t want the building sold and saved?

Keep in mind that much of the county’s material used to market the jail appears to have been created to convince Duluth city councilors that the building, despite its legally protected status as a Duluth landmark property, should be demolished. That material misrepresents the building’s actual condition and historic relevance; its continued use seems a blatant attempt to dissuade potential buyers.

And remember that upon his retirement, former St. Louis County official Alan Mitchell indicated to the News Tribune that one of his few regrets was that efforts to demolish the jail had been blocked. He said he “really believe[s] that building should come down.”

Oddly, city councilors seem all too willing to side with the county, even though demolishing this landmark-protected building would break Duluth law and potentially expose Duluth and St. Louis County to lawsuits that could cost taxpayers millions.

Let’s not lose another important symbol of our community’s heritage — and risk expensive lawsuits — especially if the reason is that a few county officials have made it their personal goal to destroy the jail.

TONY DIERCKINS is the publisher of X-Communication, which produces books celebrating historic Duluth (x-communication.org).