A few things never made sense in the original narrative we were fed when it came to the potential sale of Lakeshore Golf Course to the Oshkosh Corporation for a new world headquarters. Why would Oshkosh Corp–long a good neighbor here in the city–out of the blue ask officials if they could buy the site? And why would city leaders consider selling parkland–when no such action has been taken in recent years?
But, as always happens, the real story was revealed to all last week in a couple of events. A budget workshop session of the Common Council included comments from auditors expressing their concerns about the City’s ability to repay the 13-million dollars it owes on improvements to tax incremental financing districts, other city projects and Lakeshore’s own renovation years ago. Suddenly, it became clear why those at City Hall would be willing to sell off what is likely the most valuable piece of land we own–with water frontage and easy access to Interstate 41. A couple million dollars from a quick sale of Lakeshore could cover several more years of TIF district payments–and rid the city of Lakeshore’s debt as well.
Meanwhile, later that week, an email that Oshkosh Corp CEO Wilson Jones sent out to his employees–some of whom I have golfed with at Lakeshore who couldn’t understand why their bosses would try to strong-arm a deal for the course–revealed that it was not him that started this process, but rather City Manager Mark Rohloff that asked them to consider buying that property. That set in motion the DNR wetlands delineation study and the review of deeds and titles to make sure the city could actually sell the property.
So in the course of just a week, we went from a story featuring a city that appeared ready to carefully weigh options of quality of life versus retaining the headquarters of a major employer to a city desperate to make a deal to fix financial woes created years ago. And there is a big difference there, because dealing from a position of desperation make you weak. What incentive is there for the Oshkosh Corporation to “sweeten the deal” if the city doesn’t take its initial offer for Lakeshore? Will “we are in a really tight spot here, can you find it in your heart to help us out and toss in an extra couple of million on your offer?” be an effective bargaining strategy for the city? And there are no other lifelines to be tossed to the Common Council–since it appears the Winnebago County Board has no interest in building the taxiway needed to make the Aviation Business Park inviting to any businesses involved in aviation to buy property in that debt-laden site.
As a shareholder in the Oshkosh Corporation, I would like to see them spend as little as possible on land acquisition and construction of a new headquarters. As a golfer that frequents Lakeshore, I would prefer they spend that money on a site along I-41 on the southern outskirts of the city. But as a taxpaying resident of Oshkosh, I’m forced to hope that they overpay for Lakeshore–and overbuild on the site to boost their property tax bill–just so City officials can cover the bad bets they made in the past.
Let’s hope that desperate times at City Hall don’t lead to desperate measures.
