By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — While a resolution to approve the sale of the Dennis M. Lynch Ice Arena to a private company is on Wednesday’s City Council agenda, a spurned bidder is hoping for an eleventh-hour chance to submit what he says is a better offer for the city and its taxpayers.

The City Council is poised to take up a resolution that was tabled on June 29 and July 8 that will convey the city’s property at 25 Andrew Ferland Way, the site of the Lynch Ice Arena, to BVS Realty LLC. This action will serve to finalize a purchase and sales agreement to sell the ice rink to Blackstone Valley Sports for a price of $400,000.
As part of the deal with BV Sports, the city has agreed to pick up the tab — largely with the help of federal grant money — for cleaning up contaminated soil that was found in the rink’s parking lot from an underground fuel tank. The deal also reportedly offers BV Sports a tax break from paying any property taxes to the city for the period that it owns the rink in 2009, and a second tax incentive that allows the corporation to pay 2010 taxes based upon the sale price of $400,000 rather than the rink’s assessed value, which is reportedly five times that amount.
However, a bidder who was rejected in the initial Request for Proposal (RFP) process, RINMAN, LLC, based out of Warwick, has come back with a new local partner and a re-vamped proposal that offers $50,000 more for the sale price of the property and indicates a willingness to pay property taxes on the rink at its assessed value.
Additionally, RINMAN representatives say they will agree to pay for the cost of the environmental clean-up.
While RINMAN’s deal appears at the outset to be more beneficial to the city, one of the partners, Christopher O’Neill, told The Times the group has made little headway in trying to get city officials to consider the new proposal. He said that since June, the RINMAN group has been trying to contact Planning Director Michael Cassidy, City Councilor John Barry, who chairs the council’s Property Committee, and various other city council members to request that they look at the new plan. He showed The Times copies of several letters written for that purpose.
O’Neill, a Pawtucket resident and former St. Raphael Academy hockey coach, said he had been following the ice rink sale process and contacted the RINMAN partners about getting involved.
O’Neill told The Times he has been involved with the Lynch Arena in various capacities over the past 30 years, including 15 years with the Pawtucket Youth Hockey Association and 16 years as coach for St. Ray’s. He said he is concerned on the one hand as a taxpayer, that the city is losing too much in its deal with BV Sports due to the lower purchase price and its offering of tax incentives.
See RINK, Page A-2
Secondly, O’Neill said that as someone who considered the Lynch Arena a “home away from home” for many years, he is concerned about the facility’s future in the city and wants to make sure that it is available for use by Pawtucket schools and residents for many years to come. “I’m passionate about that building. It is a proud possession of the city,” he stated.
O’Neill said he is especially worried that the owners of BV Sports, affiliated with Woonsocket and Cumberland youth hockey leagues, will give priority to skating groups in those communities. In particular,  he said he is concerned that with the Mount St. Charles Academy’s  ice rink in need of substantial fire code upgrades within  three years, this school’s hockey program could be moved to the Lynch Arena as well, effectively edging out St. Ray’s, Tolman and other local skaters for ice time.
O’Neill said he has met with all of the members of the City Council to state his case, and thinks he has the support of “a majority” of them.
Councilor Albert Vitali, Jr., also a member of the City Council’s Property Committee, has gone on the record in support of the RINMAN group’s quest to have the new bid considered. In a recent communication to his fellow councilors, Vitali urged them to re-open negotiations for the sale of the arena. Vilati told the TIMES that is as plain as “black and white that the RINMAN group’s new proposal is the better one for the city and its taxpayers.”
Councilor John Barry III, chairman of the Property Committee, said he was aware of that the RINMAN group had come up with a new offer. Yet, he noted that during the original bid process, the group, which then did not include O’Neill as a partner, had submitted a bid for the same price as BV Sports. He said that BV Sports had been selected by the City Council’s Property Committee, and that group had been involved in negotiations all along with city officials.
Barry also said while the city has agreed to talk to the BV Sports group about possible tax breaks in 2010, he pointed out that the city had been receiving no property tax payments at all from the rink all these years because it is municipally owned property.    
Barry said he feels it would be “unethical” to suddenly start entering into discussions with RINMAN  about a new bid proposal. He said the city’s legal department was instructed to draft a purchase and sales agreement, and, if the council supports it, the conveyance could take place on Wednesday as planned.
City Council President Henry Kinch Jr. also said it would be “in bad faith” for the council to start negotiating with RINMAN on a new bid offer when BV Sports has been involved in a negotiating process. He also noted that both original bids were the same, and that the Property committee, after holding a public hearing, had selected BV Sports over RINMAN.
Like Barry, Kinch said that BV Sports, as the chosen bidder, should be given the opportunity to answer all of the questions and meet the stipulations as set forth by the city’s legal department regarding the sale of the arena. He said that the council will find out on Wednesday if all of the questions have been answered.
“If the questions have not been answered to the council’s satisfaction, then the resolution (to sell the ice rink) will be defeated and we’ll start over with a new bidding process,” said Kinch.  He added, however, that it would be wrong for the council to simply take up the new bid from the RINMAN group just because it had stepped up “in the 24th hour” with a higher bid. “We owe it to them (BV Sports) to negotiate in good faith,” said Kinch.
Councilor Paul Wildenhain, also a member of the Property Committee, said he would be willing to listen to the RINMAN’s bid, but said that at this point, he had only seen a letter stating what the group was willing to offer. “A letter is not a bid,” noted Wildenhain. He said he would wait and see how the other Council members felt on Wednesday and would then consider whether to support the resolution to convey the rink property to BV Sports.
City Planner Michael Cassidy also noted that BV Sports had been the City Council’s choice in the RFP process, after proposals from both bidders were reviewed. He said he was “following a directive from the Council” in having the city’s legal department draft a purchase and sales agreement for BV Sports.
“The purchase and sales agreement reflects what the city wants to have happen out there. They (BV Sports) were designated for a reason,” added Cassidy.