NGIC appraisal finally comes to light

What began as a simple fact-checking measure has ended in a court settlement, with C-VILLE freelancer and former staff writer Jayson Whitehead coming out on top—sort of.

In 2007, Whitehead wrote a feature length story for C-VILLE that explored the behind-the-scenes pressures that led the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to make the unusual move of passing a resolution of intent in 2006 to move 30 acres of land owned by local developer Wendell Wood into the designated growth area.

As Whitehead discovered, the backstory to the resolution was that Wood had sold 46.671 acres to the U.S. government so that the Department of Defense could expand the campus of the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC). Wood felt he had taken a financial hit by selling the land, telling Whitehead that his land was worth at least double the $7 million that the federal government appropriated. Had he not done so, the argument went, NGIC might have moved to Texas or West Virginia. By moving more of his land into the development area, the county could help him recoup his loss.

Though the resolution of intent doesn’t include specific language to tie it to NGIC, supervisors clearly saw the link, as Whitehead reported. “I just want to go on the record of saying,” Supervisor David Slutzky told his fellow members on May 3, 2006, “I’m thrilled to have the NGIC relocation come to Albemarle County and that’s why I’m supporting this.” Only Supervisor Sally Thomas opposed the resolution. (To date, those 30 acres still haven’t been moved into the development area—it will be taken up when the Board votes on the Places29 master plan.)

Whitehead wanted to corroborate Wood’s assertion that the land he sold the government was worth considerably more than $7 million. Dillard Horton, chief of the Acquisition Management and Disposal Branch for the Army Corps of Engineer’s Norfolk District Real Estate Division, would not tell Whitehead how much it was appraised for. “All I can say is that the appraisal was for more than we paid for the property.”

So Whitehead filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a copy of all appraisals related to the purchase, leading to the lawsuit that was settled November 7.

The Corps denied the request, arguing that its release “could cause financial harm by affecting our ability and the owner’s ability to negotiate in the future.” Whitehead, with legal counsel from The Rutherford Institute (which his father, John, founded and leads), appealed the denial and later filed suit when the Corps failed to respond in time.

The case came to a close earlier this month when Whitehead and the Corps came to a settlement that boiled down to Whitehead receiving an unredacted page in exchange for agreeing not to file any more FOIAs on the subject.

So was Wood bluffing or not about the value of the land? The Corps’ unredacted document shows that it had a 46.675-acre parcel appraised in April 2005 for $9.675 million. That’s more than the U.S. government paid, but it’s only 38 percent higher—not 100 percent.

What complicates it is that the parcel appraised for $9.7 million isn’t exactly the same parcel that the Feds purchased. Whitehead’s attorney was told by the U.S. assistant attorney that the appraised parcel was “closely related” to the actual parcel sold. One other aspect to consider is that real estate assessments were still going up between 2005 and 2006—though not by 45 percent, which is what would have closed the gap between $9.675 million and $14 million.

In the end, Whitehead’s suit confirms what many of us thought all along: that the federal government is unreasonably tight with information, and that Wendell Wood tends toward hyperbole when making his case.

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