VIDALIA — The mysterious records request that apparently sidelined the Square on Carter project earlier this year came from a federal investigator.

If the request resulted in anything other than the transfer of documents from one office to another is unclear.

The Square on Carter — a proposal for the city to purchase a tract of land, install city infrastructure and then use the project-ready site to woo developers — has been on the Louisiana State Bond Commission’s agenda multiple times, the last time as an executive session item.

Commission representatives have indicated the matter would not move forward until some unresolved issues reach resolution.

The executive session, which happened in late August, was the apparent result of a request from FBI Special Agent Jeffrey A. Goins. At the time, bond commission representatives declined to discuss who made the request, saying only that it was ”serious.”

In the request, sent by email Aug. 7 to State Treasurer John Kennedy and carbon copied to Bond Commission Director Lela Folse, Goins wrote his office had recently received an allegation of impropriety regarding the City of Vidalia’s bond proposal and he needed to conduct an “in-depth review” of documents associated with the bond proposal.

The information requested included the project fund distribution; a summary of assumptions; property appraisals; the title history of the property in question; any purchase contract; estimates for any engineering work needed; and “any other documents which might shed light on the intended use of the funds, the value of the assets to be acquired, and the owners of those assets.”

In the email, Goins wrote he might also “conduct interviews as appropriate.”

The agent did not indicate in the request how in-depth the review would be, but wrote, “If you would prefer a Grand Jury subpoena, please let me know and I will request one from the Assistant United States Attorney.”

The email — which was obtained Thursday through a routine public records request — is the only correspondence between Goins and the Treasury about the matter, Department of the Treasury Staff Attorney Aisha Mizra said this week.

While Goins did not specify who made the allegation of impropriety about the project, his email followed two days after former Secretary of State Al Ater made a public call for state and federal investigations of the proposal.

In his call, Ater alleged Mayor Hyram Copeland was part of a conspiracy to get the city to purchase property from a former business partner at an inflated rate. Copeland’s former partner, City Engineer Bryant Hammett, has since threatened Ater with a lawsuit in response to the claim.

Goins could not be reached for comment Friday. He has declined to comment on the matter in the past.

Copeland has denied the Ater allegations on multiple occasions, and — saying he didn’t have a reason to lie about the matter — affirmed again Friday he is confident his blamelessness in the matter will be proven.

Copeland said he does not know if the review suggested in Goins’ email ever resulted in any kind of formal investigation.

“I have not spoken to any investigator, no one has come to see any of my personnel,” he said. “No one has questioned us about anything.”

The mayor said he would have been charged if an investigation had turned anything up.

“They wouldn’t still be investigating, they would have arrested me,” he said. “They would love to arrest a high-profile mayor.”

Copeland said he believes the call for the investigation — as well as questioning from members of the Vidalia community who have been outspoken about the project in the last year — is an election year move motivated by personality and political differences.

“In all my years in office, I have never been subject of an investigation or an ethical review,” he said. “If I have committed a crime or done something wrong, put my butt in jail.

“If you can prove that I have done anything wrong and you can bring it to me, you don’t have to worry about an election, I will resign that day.”

After a recent Board of Aldermen meeting in which Vidalia resident Bill McDonough asked Copeland if he had hired a criminal attorney, Copeland later told The Concordia Sentinel he had consulted with an attorney after Ater made the allegations. Copeland declined at the time of the matter to discuss the matter on the record with The Natchez Democrat, saying only that the city had not hired an attorney.

McDonough said at the time his question was prompted by an exchange of emails between members of the board of aldermen he had been told about in which the board discussed the potential of hiring outside counsel.

The email exchange was obtained through a public information request.

The three-email string, between City Accountant Ashley Anderson and Aldermen Ricky Knapp and Vernon Stevens, was sent between Aug. 14 and Aug. 17 — after Goins’ request but before the bond commission meeting. The discussion appears to be more interested in diverting civil rather than criminal action.

“(City Attorney) Scott McLemore has recommended that the City have an outside attorney on retainer in case any of the City’s advisories (sic) decide to file suit against the city,” Anderson wrote Aug. 14. “This will be a simple precaution to protect the City, all of its employees as well as the Board of Aldermen. Please let me know if you agree. Thank you!”

In his brief reply, Stevens wrote that he thought the city could get an outside attorney if it needed one, but, “I do not think that we need one right now.”

Knapp, too, expressed skepticism about the necessity of an outside attorney.

“Can I get more information? Cost?” Knapp wrote. “What exactly will a retainer cover? Does this lessen the responsibilities of the city attorney? Can we hire additional legal representation only if needed?”

The discussion ends on Knapp’s questions. The city has not engaged an additional attorney for the matter since then.

The Square on Carter proposal is part of a wider master plan for the city and calls for the purchase of adjacent parcels of property near Walmart on U.S. 84. Third-party consultants with the Orion Group developed the plan after a series of public meetings in 2014.

The City of Vidalia initially applied for two bonds in connection with the project — one for the purchase of the property and one for the installation of infrastructure — but those applications were delayed several times and ultimately shelved by the bond commission after a legal memo from the attorney general’s office advised the project might not meet constitutional guidelines for the purchase of property by a city.

The memo was initially confidential because the attorney general’s office was acting as the bond commission’s legal counsel, but became subject to public document laws after it was distributed at a bond commission meeting in June. It was released following a public records request.

Since then, the city has restructured its request by applying not as the city but as Carter Street No. 1 Development District.

The Vidalia Board of Aldermen created the district last August, naming the members of the board of aldermen as the governing directors for the Carter Street No. 1 district, which exists to levy special sales, hotel occupancy and ad valorem taxes to support the construction of infrastructure within its boundaries.

The BCHT property falls within the Carter Street No. 1 boundaries, but the Scroggins property does not. As part of an agreement the city entered with the district, any shortfall in revenues the district experiences while paying for bonds will be provided by the city.

Because the city would have to act as a guarantor for the district — officials have contended that the district would be able to fund itself — the City of Vidalia had to file an application for itself as well as the district in August.

 

The parcels of land in question are 31.67 acres owned by Scroggins Investment Co. and 32.72 acres owned by BCHT, LLC.

Copeland and Hammett were members of a partnership with Mark Taunton and H.L. Irvin that bought 33 acres across the highway from Walmart in 2006. Copeland, Taunton and Irvin sold their portions of the partnership in 2010, and the land is now owned by Hammett and Brad Dutruch of Baton Rouge.

Copeland said he ultimately lost $40,000 on the deal by the time he sold out.

“I finally got out because every time there was some kind of development in that area there was talk about something being inappropriate,” Copeland said.

“When we started this (master plan) conversation, I said, ‘I can’t be a part of this because it will eventually come back that I used to own this land.’”

Correspondence to the bond commission by the city’s bond attorney, Jason Akers, in August, indicates the then-current offer from the owners of the BCHT property was $3,775,000, while the Scroggins property owners were asking for $741,000. Both were asking the appraised value of the land, Akers wrote at the time.

No conspiracy to affect the price of the property could have happened, Copeland said, because he never had any contact with the appraisers.

“I have never talked to an appraiser, I have never seen them,” he said. “If one of them walked into my office, I would not know them.