(Editor’s note: This is an update to a story that was posted on Tuesday, May 4, 2010)

BY ANDY TAYLOR

chronicle@taylornews.org

CHERRYVALE — City taxpayers have become owners of one of downtown Cherryvale’s more structurally unsound buildings in a turn of events that Mayor John Wright admitted “was a mistake.”

At Monday’s semi-monthly meeting, councilors revealed for the first time that in October 2007, then-city administrator Trey Cocking purchased the former Eagles Lodge building at 115 N. Neosho at a tax sale for $100. City funds were used to buy the property, and Cocking was within his $5,000 expenditure limit to buy the property without prior council knowledge or approval.

Councilors on Monday said Cocking bought the property on behalf of another party with the intention of the other second party reimbursing the City of Cherryvale for that purchase.

However, and for an unexplained reason, the second party never came through with the reimbursement, thereby leaving the City of Cherryvale as the owner of the building.

“It was a mistake,” said Mayor John Wright.
Read more