EDITORIAL: The Developer’s Wife
August 28, 2013
An earnest commenter, upon reading the Wave’s story about the developer who plans to convert the Old School into an apartment building, wrote, “I don’t think it’s fair to smear someone’s name just for “knowing” another person. . . . Mary [McCormack, wife of developer J. David McCormack] is one of the kindest, sweetest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and I am sure there are lots of people here on the Shore that would agree with me that her name should not even be brought into this mess.”
Indeed, it’s a journalistic axiom when reporting the actions of a public figure that family members’ privacy should be respected. But what about when the public figure himself brings up his wife’s name?
In this case, developer McCormack, addressing a meeting of the Cape Charles Planning Commission, noted that his wife, Mary, “just by sheer coincidence realized that she had a relationship with Heather [Arcos, the town manager].” The Wave videotaped McCormack’s statement (to the discomfiture of the Planning Commission chair), and the video may be viewed by clicking here.
Why is it newsworthy that the wife of a developer “had a relationship” with the town manager? Because what the Town did with the Old School property was highly irregular. When authorities decide to divest public property, it is unusual to give it away, and even more unusual to pay a developer $41,000 to take it – especially when the property was valued on the tax rolls at $900,000.
If a municipality wants to sell public land, it normally would advertise for bids, and then sell to the highest bidder. That didn’t happen in Cape Charles. Instead, Town Council met secretly with McCormack. No one else knew that Town Council was considering selling the building (much less paying someone to take it). Most people still thought the Cape Charles Christian School was going to lease the building.
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According to Town officials, they received an “unsolicited bid” from McCormack. In other words, it was his idea, not theirs. But McCormack lives in Petersburg, and he has never before pursued a development project on the Eastern Shore. How did he learn that the Town of Cape Charles might be receptive to giving him the school building if he agreed to convert it into an apartment building? How did he even know the building was available (that is, not going to be leased by the Christian School)? This was not information readily available to locals.
Never before has McCormack received such a sweetheart deal as he did in Cape Charles. So when McCormack said that his wife “had a relationship” with Town Manager Arcos, that was news. It’s then up to readers to draw their own conclusions.
And now that McCormack has brought his wife into the public arena, we have a request for “one of the kindest, sweetest people”: Madam, kindly ask your husband to allow the children of Cape Charles to play on his basketball court.
I personally have always wondered how McCormack happened to “find” our school. No use asking him. I have been in many meetings where McCormack was and I would say he basically is looking to make money on the backs of taxpayers. Edwin Gaskin taught him well. I wonder how David McCormack would feel if his town did to him & his family what our town has done to us? If I were him I would give back the building and the $41,000 and call it a day. I know that will never happen. I wonder how these people sleep at night?
You have to take everything on the Cape Charles Wave with a grain of salt. This online opinion-driven “paper” has never been that modest or credible.
If you are aware of any incorrect information in this editorial, the Comments section is available to you to point it out. –EDITOR
The editors of the Wave definitely have an opinion about the recent events in the town but they are open about it by publishing these opinions in editorials. However, their news articles are just that — news. As the editor mentions above, if you know of different FACTS please let all of us know. Some of us are interested in seeing ALL sides of a story.
Now, regarding this article, my opinion is that the fact that there is a relationship between our town manager and the wife of the developer of the Old School project is a conflict of interest which should have been made public by the town manager, herself. Finding this out AFTER the town paid the developer $41,000 to take the Old School building leads to speculation and thus the outrage of readers that we have seen in the Wave. Questions that might arise from such a transaction are the following:
— If the relationship between the developer’s wife and the town manager was not revealed, what else was not revealed? Could there be kickbacks involved?
— Was the Town Council aware of this relationship before the deal was made? Could it be that they did not know and this is why they circled their wagons (so to speak) to put up a strong wall of defense against the criticism that followed?
— Why would the Town Council not entertain any other offers on the building? Could there have been financial interests for any of them as individuals?
This is the sort of speculation that arises from the lack of transparency shown by our Town government. If I were the town manager or the Town Council I would be outraged by such speculation. However, their lack of transparency has fueled this fire.
I very much doubt that any of the speculation whispered about town is true. I know and like many of the individuals involved. I am just puzzled about how all this happened. What goes constantly through my mind is: Was it corruption or was it just the bumbling about of fallible humans? Neither choice is complimentary, but I vote for the fallible humans. With voting in mind, I’ll bet the readers of this newspaper can guess what my plan is for the next election.
The Wave is the only serious newspaper in town. The competing local papers offer little valuable information – mostly outdated and watered down material, if you read the Wave.
The Wave asks important questions of town leadership and, interestingly, it has inspired citizens up and down the Eastern Shore to ask similar questions of their own leadership. Media in democratic societies should take the lead in asking difficult questions; otherwise it is simply a vehicle of a dictatorship – governmental, corporate – or a useless rag with Walmart ads.
The Wave made an important contribution to me personally with the story above, so I would like to join the author to ask the wonderful wife of the developer to please put up the basketball hoops. I need my sons to get out of the house again.
I have to agree that The Wave is performing a valuable service to our community. They were the only paper to report on the anonymous school survey that came out in February, exposing the shocking situation at one of our local public schools. The Eastern Shore News wouldn’t touch the story with a ten foot pole, for reasons unknown. While it can be argued that an anonymous survey cannot be called news, the relevance of the responses to the survey has been proven by the events at the school. Had the “real” paper dared to report the truth, perhaps our wider community would have woken up much earlier and demanded action.