Update: The Davie Land Deal
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The reason behind the rush to buy 25 acres from powerbroker Austin Forman can be boiled down to one word: Taxes.
Forman’s offer to sell his land was contingent on the deal closing before the end of 2009 because it would create less of a capital gain tax burden for him.
The word was passed down to the town that if the deal was not completed in 2009, it would have to be renegotiated. The land’s price tag would be increased after Dec. 31, 2009 to cover $100,000s in additional taxes.
The Town council agreed to buy the land on Dec. 16. The land was purchased two days later.
There was another two weeks to close the deal, but then town officials and the Forman Group would have run into the Holidays.
It is interesting that there is all this controversy about the $500,000 per acre purchase from the Formans for prime property when there is little discussion about buying land from the University of Florida for $475,000 per acre.
The town has reportedly spent $100,000s on the UF deal, according to a commissioner, but hasn’t closed yet. Two sources say the property is mired problems over easements.
Does the purchase of the Forman property indicate that Davie officials are beholden to the powerbroker?
No.
Forman owns much of the undeveloped property left in Davie, so the town has to deal with him.
Commissioner Susan Starkey has been an outspoken voice against the land purchase. I have no reason to believe that Starkey honestly did not like this deal.
She voted against it, after earlier voting to negotiate with the Formans. She told me she didn’t like the price.
But anybody who knows Davie politics knows that Starkey also has a political reason to oppose any deal with the Formans. She and Austin are…….this………far………apart. They really don’t like each other.
Maybe its because the Formans have supported her opponents in past elections.
Also, make no mistake. This issue is being ginned up by District 4 Council candidate Ellis Traub to further his own candidacy and disguise his pro-development stand.
My pal Mike Mayo wrote a good overview of the Davie land purchase in today’s Sun-Sentinel. Read it here.
February 21st, 2010 at 2:46 pm
upon reflection, wisdom, talking to the elders and avoiding talking to Christian Chiara, the mythical legendary round table of
Gulp/Introspection/Deliberation/Delving/Yo,
otherwise known as “GIDDY”, has come to the following inevitable conclusions:
1) Mr. Traub is a true hypocrite, pretender, and deflector of the truth, whose dual stances on the Commons and the Forman deals make as much sense as anything Glen Beck says
2) comments made by Councilmember Starkey on this and other issues, should be weighed and evaluated in conjunction with the record of her elected tenure i.e. the emails she claims to not have known anything about which came from her Husband’s place of work which besmirched current and then Councilmember Judy Paul ie. her very aggressive support of GL Homes in the past and her interactions with GL Homes …..and decisions, relationships of a similar mode and theme
February 21st, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Thank you, Buddy, for exposing the past record of Mr. Faker, Ellis Traub.
February 21st, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Mr. Traub, were you put up to run by the Commons people?
please be honest and come clean.
did you take money years ago, as reported?
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:48 am
Anything Ellis Traub now says should be considered in the light that he once took money from a developer to lobby his neighbors and that he worked for the Commons.
You say you didn’t get paid by The Commons. Can voters believe you?
February 24th, 2010 at 9:26 am
It is amazing to me that out of that whole article the comments are all about Ellis Traub because you have an opinion that he is bringing it up the topic. The comments make no sense at all, unless of course they are all written by proponants of his opponent, which I’d be willing to bet is the case.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:43 am
…just came back to see if there were anything new. Nope! Same old stuff!
Buddy says he didn’t get any info from Marlon Luis; but he didn’t say he didn’t get anything from Dave Brown, his “handler.â€
And, last evening, Dave Brown bragged that he already knew all about the rebuttal that all of the civic leaders in my community had written to the Herald when he put out the nonsense about my alleged perfidy. No surprise there!
As a matter of fact, I’ve been displaying that rebuttal on my Web site from the beginning of the campaign because I was very proud of my work at the Country Club of Miami and still am.
Y’know, I really think Marlin’s a decent fella. I thought we were friends and still do think we were. I just think the poor guy fell into bad company and got in over his head. Tha’s all.
Ellis Traub