By ANDREW W. GRIFFIN

Oklahoma Watchdog, editor

Posted: April 26, 2010 

andrew@oklahomawatchdog.org

PIEDMONT, Okla. – Driving into the Canadian County community of Piedmont along rural 164^th Street, the ride gets pretty rough as you head west into town.

The asphalt is pretty pitted with cracks and potholes. As you get closer to the center of the small city, the road gets better but not all that much.

As in many Oklahoma towns, funds to repair roads are always in need.

Phil Boevers, a Piedmont native and a prominent developer in town spoke with Oklahoma Watchdog about funds that could go to repair roads or help the infrastructure in other ways are being neglected.

He said it involves a grocery store chain that is planning to come to Piedmont and the funds that will go towards helping pay for the store will be diverted away from repairing roads around town.

Boevers said he had a contract from Williams grocery, but they pulled out – with his approval – to go elsewhere.

That was when Boevers approached Oklahoma City-based Buy For Less grocery chain about coming to Piedmont. He said they were interested, and everything seemed to be heading in that direction.

“I got a letter of intent from Buy For Less to come to Piedmont,” Boevers said. He showed a copy of the letter of intent to Oklahoma Watchdog but could not allow a copy of the letter to be made.

Boevers said he had the perfect spot. It was a TIF district on the main street in town – Highway 4 – across from the Piedmont school buildings and in a school zone, which meant traffic would already be going slower through that stretch, making it safer.

At a town council meeting, Boevers said he tried to get his Buy For Less proposal heard. He said he was told flat-out that they would not listen to his proposal.

“They didn’t want to hear our proposal,” Boevers said. “They said, ‘We’re going to talk to Williams.”

What Boevers and others in Piedmont’s business community don’t understand is why Mayor Mike Fina would dismiss an opportunity to save Piedmont as much as $500,000 by going with Buy For Less, which would cost the town $1.4 million, compared to $1.9 million for the Williams store.

Williams, who was busy at a location in Kansas, talked to Oklahoma Watchdog and said that yes, he would put forward $2.2 million and Piedmont would cover the remaining $1.9 million. But he also says the Boevers deal would have cost more due to a planned unit development (PUD) Boevers wanted, a plan rejected by the city council.

Claiming that Boevers has not been on the up-and-up, Williams said he has been slandered by Boevers, trying to paint him as a villain.

“It’s amazing,” Williams said, sounding exasperated. “He was all for it until his land wasn’t bought by me.”

Williams said that he is aware of the Buy For Less deal and is a landlord for that company in Midwest City. Williams said that all Boevers has is a letter of agreement, not a letter of intent, as was shown to this reporter in Boevers’ office.

Asked about it, Boevers said, “I’ve got a letter of agreement, a letter of intent, whatever you want to call it. (Buy For Less) told me they would start tomorrow if we got all this worked out.”

Boevers added that Mayor Fina allegedly suggested in the Piedmont-Surrey Gazette that people not come to tonight’s council meeting because the deal is done.

Williams said that Piedmont better come through, a deal which is sealed Tuesday.

“I’ve spent $50,000 of my own money. If city backs out they would have a lawsuit.”

But he is confident the plans to build a Williams store in Piedmont will go forward, regardless of Boevers’ alleged manipulations.

“I’ve been in this business all my life,” Williams said, noting that he operates more than a dozen stores in rural Oklahoma. “(Boevers) has lied, slandered, made false statements about my financing, about the deals made. Where was he a year ago when he couldn’t get anyone to come to the  table?”

Williams questions whether or not Boevers really has the best interest of Piedmont at heart.

“Does he really care about Piedmont or getting that land sold? He tried to strong arm the city in to approving a PUD. He said they were going to lose a grocery store if they didn’t approve it,” Williams said.

With the council having approved the plan to build the store, Williams said he is merely doing what any businessman would do and working hard to get a grocery store in a town that “has been trying for 10 years to get a store there.”

In fact, he said he had been approached by Piedmont five years ago when they were looking to get a store and he told Oklahoma Watchdog that there wasn’t the population base to support it at that time.

“I need every customer to make this store work,” Williams said.

And when he worked with Boevers, Williams said he wouldn’t sell him the five acres he needed to build the store. And now, Boevers’ “is trying to get the city to give him incentives” which, Williams claims, “will cost the city more money.”

Mayor Mike Fina and others in the community, Williams said, “have been straight with me all along.”

Added Williams: “I will never in my life do business with Phil Boevers again.” 

Boevers, meanwhile, said that all is not as it seems when it comes to the Williams deal.

“It should be noted that $250,000 of the Williams proposal comes from school ad valorum tax. The school loses $250,000. With our proposal, the school loses nothing,” Boevers said.

And the town would also have to shoulder the cost of building the structure for the Williams store, where Buy For Less would build their own structure.

An email sent to Fina asking for answers to these questions was not returned. A call to Piedmont city manager Clark Williams was not returned.

Fina has weighed in in the media on the topic of the Williams store, noting in a recent edition of the Piedmont-Surrey Gazette that “(c)hanging course now would put the city in a precarious legal position as Williams Grocery has already expended a tremendous amount of money based on the terms of that agreement.”

And any plans to build two grocery stores, Fina wrote, “is a certain recipe for failure to both stores.”

Boevers notes that if Piedmont goes with Williams, the store will be on the outskirts of town, in a 45-mph-zone and will be $500,000 more than the Buy For Less store.

“It’s not a good business deal,” says a perplexed Boevers, who has brought many businesses to the bustling bedroom community, including a pharmacy, Sonic Drive-In and more. He has also done work in El Reno, Mustang and Oklahoma City.

“I’ve brought economic development to Piedmont,” Boevers said. “All economic development, I’ve done.”

Boevers, who admits he does not have a good relationship with Fina, said that Fina is behind the move to keep Buy For Less out of Piedmont.

Boevers believes Fina does not want him to get credit for helping Piedmont grow. He notes the APCO electric car and how Fina allegedly prevented a car plant from being built in the town.

Boevers said that the council declined to approve zoning plans that would allow for the plant to be built, costing the town jobs.

Boevers hands over a copy of an email he says is from Fina’s computer assigned to him at the office of Lt. Gov. Jari Askins, where he serves as chief of staff.

In the email, a copy of which was accidentally sent to Hoss Cooley, a Piedemont council member and Fina critic, claimed that a photographer was hired by Boevers to secretly photograph the interior of a Williams grocery store in the town of Tuttle.

Williams, who brought up the issue of the photography in the Tuttle store, said Boevers arranged for the photographer to take the pictures of the store that was not in the best of shape. Boevers counters that Williams threatened to sue the photographer and that she told Williams that Boevers did not pay her to photograph the store.

As for the mayor, Boevers said, Fina has a following, “but that following is dwindling.”

“He’s just trying to make a name for himself,” Boevers said, adding, “I think Mike is intimidated by me. I’m pretty straightforward, I don’t give in. I don’t play games.”

Working with Boevers is Piedmont Realtor Cindy Cheatwood. She took Oklahoma Watchdog on a tour of Piedmont, pointing out the land where the Williams grocery store is scheduled to be built. She then takes this reporter over to the area by the town park and town hall where surveyors were working. When asked what they were surveying, they said they were not certain.

“Oh, they know what they’re surveying,” Cheatwood said. “They were told to say that.”

Asked what they were surveying, Cheatwood said it was probably for a planned town hall, even though the over $1 million earmarked for Piedmont by U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas was meant for a police station.

An email to Lucas’s office was returned. Spokeswoman Leslie Shedd told Oklahoma Watchdog that the money “was requested for the FY10 budget for a new police station and municipal building for Piedmont.”

Shedd said her study of the issue led her to believe “the funding can be used for both”  but that she was looking further into it.

Tonight is a city council meeting, according to sources who spoke with this reporter. We plan to cover that meeting and issues discussed there.

Copyright 2010 Oklahoma Watchdog