School balks at Congel offer

IRONDEQUOIT – The East Irondequoit school board took a dim view of developer Scott Congel's latest offer in the Medley Centre dispute Monday night, decreasing the already slim chance the two sides will come to an agreement by January so that development can begin at the former mall on Ridge Road.

The developer needs an amendment to the terms of its payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement after missing an investment deadline last spring. One aspect of that will be a penalty payment, and the two sides are not close on the numbers.

In a Dec. 5 letter to Congel and Bersin Properties, the district asked for a $4.25 million "restructuring PILOT payment," $2.25 million of which would be due by Dec. 31.

In a response Dec. 8, Bersin Properties President James Giuliano upped the mall developers' payment offer to $2.1 million in total, their "best and final offer."

Giuliano accused the district of "assert(ing) aggressive and unfounded theories in an effort to leverage our significant investment and exact a significant payment from us."

In turn, East Irondequoit Deputy Superintendent John Abbott defended the district's stance and wrote in an email, "(Congel) has a history of failing to meet his financial obligations. ... We see no reason to be added to that list."

Part of the disagreement is over how many deadlines the developers missed: the district says two, Congel (and the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency) says one.

The school board shared Abbott's view at its meeting Monday night, saying they would defend Irondequoit taxpayers by insisting the developer meet their terms.

"It's frustrating the school district has spent so much time dealing with the Medley Centre and that Mr. Congel hasn't been willing to live up to the terms of the agreement," Board President Kim Lasher said. "We need to get back to educating the kids and stop spending so much time on this."

If the two sides don't agree by January, the stalled development will stall even further and could end up in court.

"No one in this communtity believes anything is going to happen at this mall," board member Carol Watt said. "I'd like to know how they expect us to agree to any kind of proposal with any degree of confidence."

JMURPHY7@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/CitizenMurphy