Page 104 of Grit
Melissa heard the rumble of the crowd before she heard the next speaker through the microphone. She couldn’t see him, but she’d recognize that voice anywhere.
“I’ve been listening to all this for about an hour now,” Gus Allen said from the far side of the room. “And what I want to know is why on earth you people think you can get away with this development?” The crowd began to murmur, but Gus Allen kept speaking. “It’s specifically spelled out in the contract that I signed with you, Miss Delaney, that any residential subdivision of the Allen ranch can only occur under very specific circumstances and must be limited to no less than four-acre divisions.”
“Oh… shit.” Cary chuckled. “Hey there, Gus. Nice to see you. Glad you brought your hammer.”
Melissa’s eyes went wide. “It’s in the sales contract? Can you do that?”
Cary shrugged. “Maybe?”
The blond woman’s smile was brittle. “It’s so nice to see you, Mr. Allen. Thank you for coming tonight. If you examine the plans submitted to the planning committee of the Oakville town council, you will see that, in fact, all the particular addendums to the sale of your land have been met.”
There was shuffling and a new voice spoke into the mic. Melissa craned her neck and saw Adrian Saroyan reaching for the microphone.
There was a squeak, and then he spoke. “Miss Delaney, with all due respect, I would disagree with your assessment of the submitted plans. Jeremy, you want to hold up that board?”
Jeremy Allen, Gus’s grandson, walked to the front of the room and held up a board half the size of a Ping-Pong table. On it, Melissa could see the outline of two thousand houses nearly surrounded by a massive golf course.
“Hey, folks. I’m Adrian Saroyan. A lot of you knew my grandparents, Jan and Ana. They went to Saint Gregory’s, so I spent a lot of holidays out here as a kid.” Adrian paused while the crowd made friendly noises. “What JPR is trying to do here is a pretty classic underhanded tactic. As you can see from the diagram Gus’s grandson is holding up, they’ve divided the Allen ranch into these weird property parcels so that it looks like they’re all four acres, but all the condos would be in the middle of the development” —Adrian pointed to a cluster of houses in the middle of the board— “and then the golf course would surround it.”
“Huh,” Cary said. “Clever. Devious, but clever.”
“And then the homeowners’ association is going to lease the land from the purchasers for the golf course, I guess. Now, we can challenge this in the court as a breach of contract—”
“I hope your friend has deep pockets, Saroyan.” Devin Peres leaned forward and spoke loudly. “Very deep pockets.”
Les Arthur cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Gus, Mr. Peres. He’s a smart man with his money.” The old man shot a pointed glance at Devin. “And he’s got more than a few friends in Oakville willing to back him up if he needs it.”
Melissa said, “You were right. Looks like Les does know something.”
Cary said, “I wish I had popcorn right now.”
Melissa reached in her purse and handed him a bag of air-puffed cheesy corn. “Knock yourself out. It’s Abby’s favorite, but she’ll live.”
Cary’s jaw dropped open. “You are the best girlfriend ever.” He threw his arm around Melissa and opened the bag of popcorn.
Adrian started to speak again, but Bud banged his gavel. “Time is more than up, Mr. Saroyan.”
The farmer standing on the other microphone said, “I’m gonna go ahead and yield my time to Mr. Saroyan, if that’s all right. Adrian, you have more to tell us?”
“Sure do, Carmen.” Adrian held up a sheaf of papers and turned around, speaking to the room. “Now, what I think is really important for the council and all of you to know is, they’re going to try to screw Oakville on taxes with this plan.”
Cary munched on a handful of popcorn. “I’m shocked.”
“So shocked.” Melissa grabbed a piece.
The muttering in the room turned angry.
Adrian kept talking. “They’ve reserved a very small space around the edges of the property.” He walked over and pointed to the boundaries of the golf course with one finger. “See that shaded area right along the edges? That appears to be reserved for some kind of agriculture. It’s not much—not really productive—but it’ll probably be enough to keep the land taxed as agricultural use instead of residential, which will save them a whole truckload of money and significantly reduce the taxes Oakville will be able to collect.”
The murmurs from the crowd gained in volume.
“What’s this?” Bud Rogers was glaring. “I didn’t see this part of the plan. What’s this?”
“Did you read the actual proposal, Bud?” Adrian held a folder out to him. “Here. Have a copy. I don’t know what they’re going to do with that amount of land, breed llamas or something? God knows. Maybe a chinchilla herd?”
Laughter scattered around the room.
Melissa said, “I knew llamas were going to make an entrance in this somehow.”
