County owes $900K
on possible jail site

By Dan Hust
MONTICELLO — June 4, 2010 — An Orange County arbitrator has ruled on a difference over how much Sullivan County should pay for the 40 acres on which it seeks to site the new jail.
Monticello attorneys Jack and Keith Ingber announced this week that arbitrator Stephen Hunter, a Goshen attorney, determined that the county owed their clients and former property owners Bill and Carol Lane, Alice Mapes and the Estate of Barth Mapes an additional $900,000.
The county acquired the land – located off Route 17’s Exit 104 in Monticello – in November in anticipation of building a new county jail, but it paid $1,075,000, the county-determined value, to the owners.
Those owners had considered a $5.4 million pricetag, so the sale came with the proviso that any additional amount over the county’s offer would have to be determined through binding arbitration.
The arbitrator determined the final sale price should be $1,975,000.
In the interim, however, the county has backed off of plans to immediately begin construction due to the financial crisis and is also reviewing another site near Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg.
Still, the Monticello site is favored by Sheriff Michael Schiff and other county officials, and County Manager David Fanslau said this process avoided eminent domain proceedings that neither the county nor the former property owners desired.
“The arbitrator I think came to a fair conclusion,” said Fanslau, adding the new amount is within budget projections.