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Dispute over consent agreement
DAVENPORT—A month after the city settled a lawsuit with Greg’s Crop-Care Company regarding a hangar issue at the airport, more legal action may be on the way…though the would-be plaintiff insists he has no desire of suing the city.
Capital Rivers Commercial, a Sacramento-based real estate agency developing the new AirLift Northwest hangar and living quarters at the airport, reached out to The Record-Times this week and accused the city of refusing to help the company secure financing for the project by not agreeing to sign a new consent agreement wanted by the company’s bank, FiveStar Bank.
The city, meanwhile, said the consent agreement Capital Rivers wants signed would change the original lease agreement signed between the two parties. That’s a move the city has been advised not to make by its attorney, David Bingaman.
“They want to refinance the project (but) we said in our lease agreement they can’t have the property as a lean since they’re only leasing the property,” city administrator Steve Goemmel said. “Their bank wants a consent agreement that would trump our original agreement. Our attorney said we shouldn’t do that.”
Capital Rivers CEO Greg Aguirre sees it differently.
“We’re telling them to make reasonable changes to the document,” Aguirre said. “We’re not asking for anything unreasonable.”
Aguirre said his company is simply asking the city to work with him to help them secure financing and accused the city of wanting him to pay their legal fees in the matter.
Goemmel didn’t deny that the city wants their legal fees reimbursed, saying the city presented corrections on the consent agreement that Capital Rivers didn’t like.
“We’d like to be reimbursed for attorney fees,” Goemmel said.
City council told Aguirre to consider finding a new bank that wouldn’t require a new consent agreement to finance the project, Goemmel added.
Aguirre wants the city to find a new attorney to work with, saying Bingaman is the largest hurdle in preventing the city from signing the consent agreement that would help him finance the project.
“That is probably true,” Aguirre said when asked if his biggest issue was the city’s legal advice it received on the matter.
“We’re not going to fire our guy because he read the contract and gave us advice,” Goemmel said in response.
Council went to executive session Wednesday, Oct. 12 to discuss possible litigation. Legal action, however, is not a move Aguirre wants to make…it’s a move he said he considers a “last resort.”
“We’re trying to be reasonable and professional to get through this,” Aguirre said. “It is not my goal or desire to sue.”
The city plans to send Capital Rivers a letter this week saying it will consent to “anything that doesn’t circumvent our original agreement,” Goemmel said.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
Reader Comments(1)
gaguirre3345 writes:
The last thing we want is an adversarial relationship with the City and I’m really shocked we are at this point, but we are quite literally being pushed into a corner with very few options available. We are simply trying to construct a facility that provides a lifesaving service and we are asking the City to be nothing more than reasonable by following the terms of our ground lease. The project is now in serious jeopardy as a result. This is a very standard and customary request and something anyone financing improvements at the airport (or anywhere else there is a ground lease for that matter) is going to need. We aren’t asking for anything that liens the City property or causes any harm to the City and have always been open to reasonable modifications or edits. I truly hope we can all be professionals and work together so we don’t have to resort to filing a lawsuit and waste tax payers dollars over something so silly.
10/22/2022, 9:26 pm