Minutes unveil council’s discussions

Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 6, 2014

For two years, the Clemmons Village Council concluded many of its public meetings with closed sessions to discuss real estate.

Last week, the council disclosed 24 sets of previously sealed minutes from those closed sessions that showed interest among board members then in moving the village hall to the new Village Point development north of Interstate 40.

Minutes of a Jan. 25, 2010 session noted council member Jack Ingle told the board he had met with developers about an opportunity to lease with the option to buy property for a Village Hall and Cultural Center and possibly moving the Post Office and Forsyth Library to the area.

No action was ever taken, and an overwhelming public rejection of a $9.6 million bond for road improvements redirected the board’s goals. However, the minutes of the meeting gave village manager Gary Looper flexibility to option three tracts for up to $125,000 an acre.

Board member Mike Rogers pushed to have the minutes released. He opposed the bond.

“We wanted to get it out so people know the details,” he said. “People wonder why we were so cautious. This is the typical way they operated.”

Rogers suggested the broad language of the referendum would have allowed that money to be used to build a road in the Village Point development to link Lewisville-Clemmons Road and Harper Road.

In a May 26, 2009 closed session, the minutes note the new Reynolds Lake off Harper Road was unusuable because there is no parking. The council discussed buying two acres by the lake. No action was taken.