News

Talks continue on Paterson Grain

By Scott Wagar

03/24/2015

The Bottineau City Council held at special city council meeting on Monday evening to discuss a non-disturbance agreement contract between the city and Paterson Grain LLC (PGL), which brought out heated disagreements between the council members over whether or not the contract should be signed. 

The major issue of the meeting surrounded the use and longevity that PGL would have to utilize Brander Street to enter into its grain handling facility.   

In the contract, PGL stated that it wanted the sole right to utilizing Brander in hauling its grain indefinitely. 

“What they are asking for is that at no point in the future will the city of Bottineau shut off Brander Street to their facility,” Mayor Ben Aufforth said.

Councilmen Tim Sanderson and Launee Hamnes stated that they were against this point in the agreement and added that the legal document should have been in their hands to read the previous week instead of just a few minutes prior to the meeting starting.

“In this wording (in the contract) we are giving them the right forever (to use Brander),” Sanderson said. “And, that is not what the county was trying to indicate when were talking to them. We all said that they could use Brander for awhile until we can get them off (with an alternate route) and then they’re gone. But, Patersons is putting it in here that they have exclusive rights, nobody has that.

“We have to do everything in one meeting, the county can have a year, Wold can have two years, but we have to do everything in one meeting, and we have to give them exclusive rights to Brander and that is wrong,” Sanderson said. “We don’t give the elevator these types of rights; we don’t give anybody these rights.”

“Yes, they can use that street, yes they can build that street up, yes we made an agreement, but we also said that we would look at other alternatives, we don’t want all that coming into town,” Hamnes said. “We agreed to follow our ordinance and to let them know that we will be looking for other uses for truck routes.” 

Councilwoman Diane Lorenz and Alderman Greg Bernstein disagreed with Sanderson and Hamnes.

“If they set up their facility as is and put all their weigh stations and everything there, how are we down the road going to tell them that they are going to have to move millions of dollars to another area because we are eventually going to build a road elsewhere,” Lorenz said. “We are not giving them any guarantees so then why should they give us any guarantees.”

“I can see from a legal standpoint why it is not worth throwing 22 million dollars out on the table with the chance it can change,” Bernstein said. “I can’t refute the logic of it. It is a reasonable request and it is part of the deal.”         

Sanderson, along with Hamnes, also stated that the agreement should be handed over to City Attorney Swain Benson so that he could have adequate time to study the document, especially after Benson stated that the first time he saw the agreement was minutes prior to the meeting.

“They (Paterson) had lots of time to prepare this and here we go again, in one 15 minute session we are supposed to give them an answer,” Sanderson said. “Swain should have this overnight or we hire an independent lawyer to look at it. I say get a lawyer to look at it because everything is in their favor.

“I move that we table this until our attorney can review our agreement and come back once he has had the chance to review it and look to see if there is anything we should be more concerned about,” he continued.

Lorenz sated that PGL had a timeline, and that if the council keeps continuing to table this issue PGL will not come to Bottineau. 

“We can’t keep tabling it, we are going to lose them, and I don’t think that is the way to do it,” Lorenz said. “We need this company to come to town for expansion; and, I don’t think tabling it every time you get to a little bit bump in the road should happen because you didn’t get the chance to read it, that isn’t the right way to do it. We are on a timeline here.”

Hamnes reminded Lorenz that the city was signing a legal bidding contract that needed to be looked by their attorney. 

“You just don’t sign something without having read it,” Hamnes said. 

Lorenz said that she understood that, while Bernstein stated the agreement looked “pretty cut and dried” to him.            

At that time, Benson stated that the contract to him looked pretty broad and that down the road legal issues could take place in the future. 

“There is a concern here,” Benson said. 

Councilwoman Cathy Claeys also disagreed with Lorenz and Bernstein.

“Officially, I am objecting to this,” Claeys said. “We should have had this paper work in our hands for a week. I don’t like coming to this meeting with things on the table, why can’t I know every little detail before I sit down here instead of two quick minutes to read it.”

With that, Hamnes made a motion to table the document until Benson had time to study the document, which failed on a four to three vote with Lorenz, Bernstein, Harley Getzlaff and Matt Seykora voting “no” and Sanderson, Hamnes and Claeys voting in favor of the motion.

Lorenz then made a motion to accept the non-disturbance agreement, which passed on a four to three vote with Lorenz, Bernstein, Getzlaff and Seykora voting “yes” and Sanderson, Hamnes and Claeys voting “no”.          

In a phone interview on Monday with Shane Paterson, who is the corporate development officer for Paterson Grain LLC, he stated that PGL hasn’t made their decision of whether or not they will come to Bottineau.

“We are weighing our options right now. We have been overwhelmed by the support of the people of Bottineau, but we did take any or all opposition very seriously,” Paterson said. “So, we are currently weighing our options as to whether we will proceed in Bottineau or if we will go to another location which is all signed up.

“Our concern would be the use of Brander Street in the future or the city passing some kind of ordinance to restrict our operations,” Paterson said. “We need to have the confidence to be able to build and grow in the community; and, obviously the mass majority of the people in the community are in support of the project, but there are some who are quite against the project. So that gives us some concerns,” he continued.

“We also have some concerns in the future that we might have some of our activities restricted with saying this is not a good elevator for Bottineau and we ware not going to support expansion plans,” Paterson added. “Those sorts of things are a concern to us. So we will continue to weigh our options and make a decision in the next two weeks.”

Individuals, who wish to see the non-disturbance agreement, can see the document at the city auditor’s office.