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Lebanon site-selection panel sends top candidate parcels to mayor to seek willing sellers
Summary
The city's wastewater site-selection committee voted to keep 11—12 top-ranked candidate parcels and asked the mayor's office to contact owners to determine whether they are willing sellers; the list includes a clear front-runner (site 13) and a newly added 150-acre site (site 22).
A city-appointed committee in Lebanon voted June 29 to advance its short list of candidate parcels for a future wastewater treatment plant and directed the mayor's office to contact property owners to determine whether they are willing to sell.
The panel approved a motion keeping the top-ranked sites (through site 10) and adding a newly proposed 150-acre parcel designated site 22. The committee then voted to send the approved list to the mayor to ask property owners whether they are "willing sellers." The chair later announced the motion carried, with seven yeses and three nos on the roll-call count.
Why it matters: the committee's next step is not a purchase or condemnation; it is a fact-finding phase to learn which parcels owners would consider selling. Committee members repeatedly emphasized that city leadership has told them there is no intent to use eminent domain, and they want to return with a narrower set of willing-seller options before any acquisition steps.
The committee noted one parcel (site 13, in the Rockwood/Hartman Drive area) had a much higher score than other candidates and was commonly described as a front-runner. The chair described the group's charge as narrowing ~20 sites to a shorter list for the mayor to contact. One member cautioned that the committee must return to vetting and cost analysis after the mayor confirms interest from owners.
Several members pressed for clarity on process and timing. "We were not going to send anything on forward until we took this a step further," one member said during debate about the timing of outreach. Another committee member, Caleb Thorn, told colleagues, "I'm not going to vote to take anybody's property. If you're not a willing seller, then I'm out on it."
What happens next: the mayor's office will reach out to owners named on the committee's short list to determine willingness to sell. The committee directed staff to assemble cost estimates, maps and other vetting materials and scheduled future meetings to review the mayor's findings and refined matrix results.
Votes and formal action: the committee recorded the roll-call vote on the mayor-referral motion (names and responses were read aloud and counted; the chair announced "seven yeses, three nos"). The committee also approved an amendment earlier in the meeting to add site 22 to the candidate list.
