The Land Deal Continues

Kudos to O’Malley Watch for following this brazen attempt by the O’Malley administration to aid and abet their cronies in dipping into our pockets.

Now on Wednesday Langenfelder is going to go for the hat-trick of schemes to get taxpayer dollars. The Board of Public Works is going to vote on the purchase of an industrial site for $7.2 million. The price equates out to $97,000 an acre and is the higher of two appraisals done for the property. The property, owned by Atchafalaya Holdings, will be sold by the State for the $7.2 million, but then the State is going to lease a waterfront portion of this land to CJ Langenfelder & Sons for $215,000. The interesting thing is that Jim Matters is the president of CJ Langenfelder & Sons and also the managing partner of Atchafalaya Holdings. Hmmm, so they are selling it to the State, and leasing it back from the State at a substantial profit to them.

Jim Matter’s defense of the deal is that he doesn’t want to see another housing development on the Eastern Shore. But the rules in Queen Anne’s county states that on this property, only 1 – 2 houses MAX could be built there. And these houses would cost between $800K to $1.1 million. In reality, Mr. Matters and CJ Langenfelder & Sons knows that the only way to profit out of this deal is to sell the land to the State where they make they make at least $5 million more than if a private developer bought the land.

Be sure to read it all. If they are this bold in their first months in office, then by the end of two terms they’ll be taking the change out of your car’s ashtray.