Monday’s Janesville Gazette front-page headline story Is it a goldmine or a fairgrounds? seems to be a story created out of spite. Here, the newspaper once again puts the county owned land at Highways 14 and 51 AND the county board into their cross hairs.
As you may recall, in a land swap from just over a year ago and receiving heavy Gazette pressure to consummate the deal, county board supervisors showed great judgement for rejecting the unsolicited offer to sell the land to a group of wealthy buyers. This one decision by the board ended up not only saving the appreciating land for the county's future, but may have saved the taxpayers potentially up to $50 million in extraneous expenses leading from the logistics fall-out of the complicated land swap/sale.
In another supporting article regarding the newspaper's interest in this land, the Gazette reports moving the Rock County Fairgrounds is low on the list of county priorities. Which leads to the question: Then who is so concerned to prompt the Janesville Gazette into giving this non-issue the front-page headline priority of breaking news?
The buyers in the original deal labeled some of money ($7 million) they offered for the land as a gift and implied that the stadium/fairgrounds deal was nothing more than their chance to leave a legacy for the good people of Rock County. Why hasn't the Gazette pursued the legacy promises from the wealthy area businessmen? Certainly, these wealthy individuals chance to leave a legacy wasn't based on some petty land swap opportunity? Or was it?
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