County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry has released a detailed defense to a supervisorβs criticism last week that the county paid too much for property owned by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church.
The 360-page memo he sent to the Pima County Board of Supervisors is 40 pages longer than the first Harry Potter novel.
Huckelberry is critical of a September 2014 appraisal done for St. Demetrios, saying it relied on a handful of nearby residential sales and the sale of one parcel to a charter school.
The appraisal should have looked at more sales to determine a fair market value, he says.
βIn essence, the appraisals were commissioned at the same time, for different purposes,β Huckelberry wrote.
βThe appraisal by the church,β he continued, βwas to gain an independent understanding of the church propertyβs value, as the church was considering retaining the property as well as putting the property on the market.β
The firm used by the church, Southwest Appraisal Associates, assessed the property it owned was worth $650,000 roughly 14 months ago.
This is $281,000 less than the $931,000 the Pima County Board of Supervisors agreed to pay for the land earlier this month.
The county also asked the appraisal firm it initially used β Baker, Peterson, Baker & Associates β to update its August 2014 valuation.
The new report from the firm suggested the property was worth $890,000, Huckelberry wrote.
During negotiations with the church, the county offered $850,000 for the land but the offer was rejected. St. Demetrios paid $1.25 million for the property in 2008.
Supervisor Ally Miller, who questioned the sale price of the land and voted against the purchase, did not respond to a request for comment.
