Saturday, August 31, 2013

When is a ten-year lease really a 30-year lease?

Just over one week ago, the Cincinnati Port Authority announced that it had determined -- after a 75-day due diligence period -- to ink the Parking Plot with the City of Cincinnati.  But they assured us that they had purged the worst parts of the further agreements with Xerox and Guggenheim to make the deal palatable to the voters.

In particular, they announced that the lease between the Port and Xerox for the City's parking meters   had been shrunk from an unacceptable 30 years to an entirely acceptable 10-year window.

But then this ditty: "The port authority and Xerox have two, 10-year mutual options for renewal."  Now think about that.  Each party has the right to renew the lease to make it a 30-year lease.  If it is advantageous for either party to continue the lease -- and it is almost always advantageous for one party or another to continue the lease -- then it will continue.

It is virtually inconceivable that the 10-year lease won't become a 30-year lease.

Thus, once again, the Port and the City are playing us for fools.   

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