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Santo Center deal hits another reef Navy's request could sink city's interest in purchase By David Preszler The debate over whether the city will get the building that houses the West Medford Community Center seemed settled in October when the U.S. Navy said it would drop plans to take over the federal property. In exchange for the Santo Center, at 701 N. Columbus Ave., the city agreed to pay rent for the Naval Reserve Center to stay in the former West Side School building for 10 years, at a cost of $440,000. The city also agreed to pay for a $173,000 water line to the building at 3070 Ross Lane. But a Navy official is now asking for a condition in the agreement that has city officials concerned. "It leaves the door open for the Navy to step in and retake control," City Manager Michael Dyal said. The condition, requested by Robert Ulrich, the Navy's northwest real estate director, says that if the school building becomes "unavailable, unfit or unusable" for any reason that the Navy be allowed to move back to the Santo Center. The request came Monday in a letter from Uhlrich to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the Santo Center, and to the General Services Administration (GSA), which handles the transfer of federal property. "It's like buying a house but the old owner can walk right back in if something goes wrong with his new house," Dyal said. "I don't think that's going to be acceptable." The City Council agreed, voting Thursday not to finalize the deal without the Santo Center deed. "Every time we get ready to close the door, the Navy seems to come up with some exception," Councilman Bill Moore said. The council decided against other options for a community center in west Medford, including buying an existing building or building a new one. The city plans to make $200,000-$250,000 in improvements to the Santo Center, bringing costs of the proposed deal to $813,000-$863,000. The city has asked U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Bob Smith to intervene on its behalf. Smith wrote a letter Thursday to the GSA asking that the city get the title "free of any conditions and encumbrances." The council made it clear that it doesn't intend to accept anything less: "This is all predicated on the fact that we get the Santo Center, otherwise all bets are off," said Councilman Skip Knight. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA