Serra defends handling of Remington Rand sale proceeds

Democratic Majority Leader in the Council, Tom Serra, defended the Council's handling of the sale of the Remington building, in an interview with The Eye on Sunday. He was responding to Mayor Giuliano's criticism of the use of the anticipated sales revenue by the Council to balance the City's budget in the 2008/09 year budget. The sale of the Remington building has recently been jeopardized by the reduction in the share price of the company, Unisys, responsible for the $5 million clean up of environmental contamination at the site.

Serra said that the deal should have been finalized before the stock price of Unisys collapsed from about $5 to about $0.50 per share. Serra said that the resolution authorizing the sale was passed in April of 2008, and questioned why the closing of the deal took so long. He said about the mayor, "He was cool to [the sale of Remington Rand] when it was suggested," and said that the Mayor's "footdragging is responsible" for the possible collapse of the sale.

The Remington Rand sale to Thomas Briggs was endorsed in April 2008 by the Economic Development Committee. The City also considered another offer for the building, by Evan Blum. The Council used the anticipated proceeds from the sale of the building as revenue in the budget that they approved on May 15th of last year. On June 2nd, the Council voted to accept Briggs' offer to purchase the building.