Marseilles City Council votes to continue negotiations for IV Cellular building

After a lengthy discussion covering a myriad of concerns voiced by the standing room-only crowd, the Marseilles City Council voted 3-2 to continue discussions to possibly acquire the Illinois Valley Cellular building, located at 200 Riverfront Drive.

Mayor Jim Hollenbeck along with Commissioners Bobby Kaminski and Melissa Small voted in favor of continuing negotiations with MTCO Communications, while Commissioners Jim Buckingham and Mike Scheib voted against moving forward.

MTCO Communications is currently the owner of the 6-acre property, building and grounds, which has been discussed as a potential new home for City Hall, its offices and the Marseilles Police Department.

Small said that she voted yes because she felt a no would stop the purchase dead in its tracks, and she believes there is some potential that could come out of the building but she wanted and needed to know more.

One of her questions was whether the price could possibly be negotiated down as time goes on, given the current state of the economy.

“I want to get as much information as I can,” Small said. “I’ve vowed to make informed votes, and if I shoot down the opportunity to move forward with this process, then I’m not going to get that information.

“It’s 50-50 with the voting, and I need the answers because I’m getting the questions. How much will this cost, will that cost? I want to see those numbers and present them to the public because this is a huge investment for the city, and the price tag is a lot of money right now. Transparency needs to be out there for everybody.”

Small said that for her, transparency is something that the city needs to maintain as it continues to gather more information.

“There were a lot of opinions expressed here tonight, some for and some against, but I feel everyone needs a little more clarification for them to decide if they want to back this idea,” Small said. “If we’re not able to [make the purchase], we’re not able to, but we have to try to be as informed as possible.”

Scheib, who said that he was just as frustrated with the pros as with the cons, said he believes that the city should obtain at least three appraisals of the property, not just the one in hand declaring it was worth $1.6 million.

“My mindset is that we have been doing things very haphazardly in the city of Marseilles,” Scheib said. “It’s been going along to get along, and the status quo is OK. So for me, if it’s not an emphatic yes, it would be a no. Moving forward is not an emphatic yes, so it was a no.”

Scheib said the 2½ hour meeting is something that was needed in order to get the pros and cons of the decision laid out to the public.

“I want there to be an exhaustive consideration of the things that make it a good idea and a bad idea so the public can see we have deliberated on absolutely everything, and there seems to be a bias against that,” Scheib said.

One major concern to the audience was the fate of the Middle East Conflicts Memorial should the city not make the purchase. The city currently has a 99-year lease with MTCO for the wall area.

Marseilles would take control of the wall site if it were to buy the property, but there is no guarantee the lease would be honored by any other purchaser, which could demand the wall be moved if it didn’t fall into its plan for the area.

Although that remains a possibility, breaking the lease would have to be decided in the courts.

Wednesday’s debate included discussion of the additional cost of renovations for the inside to accommodate police operations; possibly leasing other parts of the building that exceed city and police needs; and the city’s downtown beautification program, which could draw other potential buyers to the IV Cellular property.