An option allowing the Port of Coos Bay to purchase 1,300 acres on the North Spit from Weyerhaeuser for $25 million in 2007 was pitched as a critical opportunity to control industrial development land surrounding the proposed Jordan Cove LNG terminal. The Port felt is was important enough to control this land that it secured $25 million in financing and prepaid the full purchase price of the option to Weyerhaeuser who kept the money for three years with no transfer of title. Weyco eventually returned the money but continued to receive $450,000 quarterly option payments passed through the Port from Jordan Cove Energy Partners which in turn would lease roughly 150 of the 1,300 acres for the LNG terminal.
In January, possibly in response to public criticism of the deal and questions surrounding the legality or ethics of the transaction, Port director Jeff Bishop presented another explanation of the now heavily modified Weyerhaeuser option. Within the presentation, (Commissioner Caddy McKeown regarded it as “very clarifying”), Bishop indicates that the option agreement can be triggered at any time but neither the Port nor Jordan Cove may terminate the agreement before June 2011.
The Option can be triggered at any time, but not terminated by the Port before its expiration. The same condition applies to Jordan Cove.
The termination is obviously by mutual agreement of buyer and seller, if the above statement is correct, but would it have been initiated Weyco if the buyers had no rights to terminate early? If so, what type of “option” allows the seller to terminate? Additionally, we learned in January that in addition to the interest free use of $25 million of publicly guaranteed loan funds, the Seller had a right to ‘additional compensation’.
Seller’s right to additional compensation for the “undevelopable land” if developed by the Port will be deleted from the Option.
A provision will be added that would provide Seller with 1/2 of any compensation related to electrical production wind turbines on the property.
During the same presentation Bishop indicates, “If the Port does not trigger the Option before its expiration on June 30, 2011, the $900K payments made in 2011 shall be deemed earned by Seller”. Funds paid to Weyco are passed through the Port from Jordan Cove and presumably the Port has netted $2 million from $11 million paid by Jordan Cove for the option and used that money for feasibility studies and consulting fees.
From the money paid to the Port on just the real estate portion of the business deal, Weyerhaeuser, the State of Oregon and Umpqua Bank have made nearly $3 million each.
In January, Bishop indicated the Port may assign its option rights to a private party that may or may not be Jordan Cove. He also indicated that no taxpayer funds had been used to secure this option, however, this is technically untrue. The Port borrowed $10 million from Umpqua Bank and $15 million from the State of Oregon thereby putting the public at risk in the event Jordan Cove defaulted on the agreement. According to Bishop in January, ten lawyers including the Oregon Attorney General vetted this transaction.
No explanation was given for terminating the Weyco option. Bishop did offer a redundant and blase, …”There is a saying that all things that cannot go on forever, must come to an end. It is time for the property option in its form to come to its end”.
There is an “old saying” that when people tell you stuff you already know there is something they aren’t telling you. (Actually I just made that up, but is a lesson I’ve learned over the years). A realtor has informed me that in the real estate world the slow dissemination of curiously selective emerging facts is known as an ‘evolving story’. Buyer beware, caveat emptor or in this case publicus caveo…
I still want to know the legality of that commission refusing to answer to the public, in public. And if you request it in writing, they make you pay for it. Does anyone out there know if this is even legal? And his “big” secrets he can’t tell US about? The people who pay for his slop? And how without ANY discussion this commission votes YES unanomously every time regarding millions and millions of dollars? How exactly does that work?
Up til now many of us have given Bishop the benefit of the doubt and assumed he actually knows what he is talking about and just holds a different view. However, these two ads reveal he has serious technical deficiencies regarding both energy and federal permit process. He clearly has not kept up with either the industry or the details of the Jordan Cove project but continues to spout off like he has some secret knowledge the rest of us don’t… these ads reveal a lot of smoke and mirrors and while it is sad that public money is being used to pay for them they have provided useful ammunition for local opponents of LNG
Once again – interestink! Mr. Bishop did not hesitate to be a tad loose with facts in his recent advertisments in the local paper – advertisments that the people of North Bend and Coos Bay paid for – that were intended for his pals, for those who he considers to be local NIMBY’s, and for folks on the fence like me. Perhaps he recalls that Winston Churchill once said “men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened”. Or he may recall what Mark Twain once stated “get your facts first, and then you are free to distort them as much as you please”. Or perhaps he lives by the motto of Malcolm X – “by any means necessary”. Or it’s possible that he read “All warfare is based on deception” as stated by Sun Tzu in his The Art of War. Or maybe he is a student of Stonewall Jackson who stated that to win we should “mystify, mislead, and surprise”. Perhaps he has forgotten what Dale Carnegie stated “Any fool can criticize, condem, and complain – and most fools do”. Perhaps he has forgotten that one should never assume that the other fellow has intelligence to match yours, he may have more. Certainly he is learning that nothing is as frustrating as arguing with someone who knows what they are speaking about. I am among the many tired of being bamboozled by this fellow who was – and may still be – seeking employment elsewhere.