Family has to pay to buy back land it donated
Staff writer
When Vernon Vogel donated a 900-by-250-foot section of land north of Marion’s baseball complex to Marion Advancement Campaign in 2004, he gave it for a community center for Marion youths.
The land had been in the Vogel family since the 1800s.
His son, Greg, and Greg’s wife, Dina, bought it back Sept. 3 for $35,314 after a years-long battle with MAC.
During the years since Vernon donated the land, Greg and Dina rented it from MAC and continued farming on it.
When Dina and Greg found out there would not be a community center, she thought the whole thing “was a crock of shi—.”
“I’ll never donate anything to MAC,” Dina said.
She was similarly unimpressed with MAC’s next plan for the land — a two-screen movie theater that also never materialized.
Two years ago, MAC worked with Overland Park-based MRE Capital, which planned to use $750,000 in property tax credits from Kansas Housing Resources Corp. to build 28 houses on the parcel of land.
“When my husband found out they were going to put in a housing development, he was like, ‘Oh, my,’” Dina said.
KHRC later rescinded the tax credit award after it discovered an error in MRE’s description of the location of the proposed housing development.
In its application for tax credits, MRE had described the location as a reserved section of the city industrial park that earlier had been rejected as home for a new dollar store.
The corrected application was resubmitted the following year, but denied.
In 2011, the Vogels offered to buy the land back. MAC, which obtained the land for free, said it would sell it to the Vogels for $15,000 plus a $15,000 donation to the organization, Dina Vogel said.
The Vogels offered $15,000 but no donation. MAC refused.
At the start of this year, the Vogels got a letter saying they could have only a one-year lease, and then the lease would expire.
Dina sent MAC a check for five years’ rent, which MAC deposited.
“They cashed it, which meant they accepted it,” she said.
Soon afterward, the Vogels hired lawyer Randy Pankratz to help with the situation. He inquired of MAC director Matt Meyerhoff.
In a letter Feb. 12, Pankratz said the Vogels had paid $1,875 rent for five years and wanted to purchase the property for $25,000.
Meyerhoff responded with a letter saying that the property had been deeded to MAC without reservation and rented on a crop-share basis.
“Your clients have not been particularly diligent in paying the foundations’ share on time, or without prompting,” Meyerhoff wrote. “When the check you reference in your letter was received by the treasurer, he assumed it was payment for the previous year or years.
“There was not discussion between MAC and the Vogels of an agreement to create a multi-year lease. The treasurer had no authority to create such a lease. One party can’t unilaterally create a contract by scribbling a notation on the memo section of a check.
“The foundation board was expecting the renters to pay their bill. When the check came in, it was assumed it was their payment. No meeting of the minds = no contract.”
Meyerhoff added that MAC would be happy to refund any overpayment if the Vogels provided detailed information verifying the amount that should be applied to previous years and the balance to be refunded.
He said MAC acknowledged the offer to purchase the land and was willing to consider a sale, but the board didn’t think the amount was sufficient.
“If we are to negotiate a potential sale, communication is key,” Meyerhoff wrote. “In the past, your clients dodged our attempts to notify them of our intent to terminate their tenancy by not accepting our letters sent by certified mail. Responses to subsequent communication attempts have been nonexistent except for your letter dated Feb. 12, 2024, to our foundation. In any event, we will not consider a sale or continued tenancy by your clients without a written lease agreement signed by both parties.”
On May 1, Meyerhoff emailed Pankratz to say MAC had heard nothing about establishing a lease to continue farming the land.
He said the board had authorized him to negotiate a sale. The five acres of land recently had been appraised at $10,000 an acre, he said, and he proposed the Vogels pay $7,000 an acre.
He said MAC also wanted an easement 30 feet wide so the city could develop a walking trail along the south side of the property.
On May 7, Meyerhoff emailed Pankratz to say MAC board members wanted an agreement that no negative or disparaging public comments would be made by either the MAC board or the clients.
“The fact that all communications between MAC and the Vogels are occurring through you underscores the lack of trust in our relationship,” Meyerhoff wrote.
MAC treasurer Gene Winkler said the Vogels “think a little different than everybody else.”
“They came to us and wanted to buy it back, and we finally agreed to sell,” Winkler said. “I just thought it would be a nice place. Just recently we thought we were going to put some housing in there.”
Meyerhoff could not be reached for comment because he was out of his office on personal time off.
Mike Powers, who was MAC’s chairman for many years, did not return a phone call.
In early planning for a community center, MAC added a twin screen movie theater to the plan and began raising money for the project. It sold $500 theater seats with names on them and obtained a grant with a 20% match.
Many people volunteered to help build the theater, Dina Vogel said.
Nothing ever came of the theater.
Money raised by MAC appears to have gone to other projects, such as leveling the floor in the former city building auditorium, Dina Vogel said.
The land donation was made when MAC was getting started, Winkler said.
“Back at first, we did raise money for the theater projects,” he said.
Not much money was raised, and MAC used it for other things, he said.