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Rowe's
Sultan Basin Road Trucking Co. Headquarters (14424 Sultan Basin Road)
Rowe's Rt. 2 Property on tax-exempt Native American
Indian Trust Land Jointly Owned by Ex-mayor of Sultan, Larry Koehler
SULTAN
BASIN ROAD PROPERTY
Mayor Rowe attempted in 1999/2000 to develop his 5-acre property where
his corporate trucking headquarters is located, as a nine-pad senior-only
mobile home park. One problem: Wagley's Creek horseshoes the property,
entering from the east border, it travels north, then west, then south,
then east again. After then-city planner Christi Amrine decided a DNS
(Determination of Non-significance) was not appropriate due to the proximity
of the Creek, she initiated an MDNS (Mitigated Determination of Non-significance),
which was then appealed by Washington Trout (with Roger Kluck acting as
their attorney). The City (mayor) withdrew this MDNS on the day of the
meeting/hearing with John Galt, rendering the decision moot. No action
has occurred since. Below are most of the documents related to this project,
in Acrobat format.
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HIGHWAY
2 LID-97-1 INDUSTRIAL TAX-EXEMPT PROPERTY:
The
Rowe-owned Route 2 property on which EAST
TEAK sits is owned by Mayor Rowe and ex-mayor Larry Koehler. It is
tax-exempt Bureau of Indian Affairs trust land. Several significant land
use actions have been granted by the City on this property during Mayor
Rowe's term, the most notable of which is construction of the LID 97-1.
It's our understanding that Rowe has recently sold at least a portion
of this property to an unknown purchaser.
This
9.62-acre property was purchased in 1994 by Koehler/Rowe from BIA. County
records indicate a building permit was issued for a structure -- an almost
20,000 s.f. building that houses East Teak, who apparently leases the
land (and perhaps the building itself) from Rowe/Koehler. Another structure
-- a mobile home -- sits on the eastern portion of the property. But somehow
this 9.62-acre parcel has been "split" into two parcels -- a
6.45-acre parcel which is the subject of the short plat action below,
and a 3.17-acre parcel that still remains BIA land. It confounds us how
this occurred. We have published a MATRIX OF OWNERSHIP
of these various tax parcels and leave it to better minds than ours to
figure out what happened here.
Boundary
Line Adjustment:
- In
February, 2002, Rowe applied
for a BLA (Boundary Line Adjustment) between the property he jointly
owned with ex-Sultan mayor Larry Koehler, and the Koenig Family (father-in-law
of City Clerk Laura Koenig). If you review the Master Land Use Application
form, you 'll notice two separate tax parcels ID reference, one of which
-- 280833-004-030-00 -- simply "appeared" without any paper
trail.
- Notice
of Application was given, but the property was not legally posted.
I know, because I tried to take a photograph of this non-existing posting
on several occasions during the legally-required posting period.
- City
Decision Issued 4-1-02: The
BLA was approved while Rowe was in office. Paul Inghram, designated
as the "City Planner," approved the BLA. Mr. Inghram is an
employee of Berryman & Henigar, a firm which everyone in Sultan
knows by now has been the de facto city engineering firm for many years,
without benefit of an RFP or other review process.
Short
Plat SP02-002:
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MATRIX
OF OWNERSHIP OF ROWE-KOEHLER'S BIA
9.62 ACRE PARCEL:
Affidavit
re BIA land
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