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Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
DAVENPORT—A civil suit filed against the city by Greg’s Crop-Care Company, a Wilbur-based agriculture business, claims that the city and airport failed to meet the terms of a hangar lease between the company and city during and after airport improvement construction in 2021.
The suit, filed in the Lincoln County Clerk’s Office Wednesday, July 13, is a petition for declaratory judgment asking Superior Court to judge that the lease is an effective contract that requires the city to relocate the company’s rented hangar and leased parcels at no cost to the company during airport construction.
The suit also says that term isn’t contingent on funding from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the city is contractually obligated to allow the company to agree to an appraiser and share in that payment, which the suit claims the city failed to do.
The city should have renewed the company’s lease for 2022 in the new FAA-approved location but refused, the suit claims.
Kevin Leyva, president of Greg’s Crop-Care, entered a hangar lease with the city retroactively effective Jan. 1, 2019, according to court filings. The suit claims that the lease contains language that the city would provide a compatible location and relocate the hangar if airport development required it. It then says city administrator Steve Goemmel told Leyva that the FAA wouldn’t allow removing and rebuilding the hangar in a Jan. 2021 email, documents state.
The suit claims that Leyva received a lease cancellation notice from city attorney David Bingaman effective June 1, 2021 and was offered a broker opinion of value by Goemmel setting the hangar value at $60,000 without Levya’s consultation.
It further claims Goemmel refused to renew Levya’s lease or accept payments by Dec. 2021. Then, it says the FAA told Goemmel it concurred with a second appraisal of $43,000 in June 2022, which Goemmel offered to pay Levya, according to the suit.
Attorney Benjamin Wyborney, representing Greg’s Crop-Care, didn’t return calls for comment by press time.
Goemmel declined comment, saying council will hold another executive session July 27 to discuss the matter further.
Council held a 75-minute executive session at its July 13 meeting on the suit, but didn’t discuss it in a public forum.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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