Developer Ken Belchi made one of the most striking statements of the morning during public comment, telling commissioners he had been approached by three separate people urging him to tear up the settlement agreement the county had reached with him just weeks ago — and that he told all of them no.
“I emphatically said, no. I will not do that. And I’m telling you here today, I will not do that because we have a deal,” Belchi told the board. “It would be unreasonable. It would be unfair on my part, and it would be, I feel, unethical on my part to do that. So I will not do that.” The agreement in question commits him to a financial contribution for John Anderson Highway impacts and additional time on environmental land preservation as part of the settlement of the first Chapter 164 proceedings.
Belchi then made a bombshell announcement: he is currently under a non-disclosure agreement with a major but unnamed national development company that has verbally agreed to bring significant commercial development to the Summertown portion of the project. He said the deal could create 150 full-time jobs and additional part-time positions, and that the company had also discussed bringing in additional firms from France, Italy, and Puerto Rico.
However, Belchi warned that the unnamed company made one thing clear: it will not sign on the dotted line while the county’s legal disputes remain unresolved. “They said, ‘We cannot and will not get involved in this until you resolve all these issues with the county,'” he told the board. Economic development professional Cornelia Downing Manfrey, of One Sotheby’s International Realty, appeared alongside Belchi to confirm she is actively working on the deal and has been for roughly a year.
Commissioner Carney fired back, drawing a sharp line between what any individual negotiator might promise and what the full board can be held to. “No one can speak for this board at any negotiations at any time,” she said. “Whoever gave you full capacity or full knowledge that we couldn’t do this today — shame on them, because they can’t do that. This board is the one that directs what we do next.”
