By Adam Pearson
apearson@chronline.com
If Bill and Linda May had about $8,000, they would foreclose on Michelle Moline and Frank Monteleone, who bought their Juggling Java building in downtown Centralia in 2008.
Moline and Monteleone, the Mays say, owe them about $50,000. The Wilson Hotel tenants have missed two balloon payments and are consistently late — and short — on interest payments. But they keep saying they’re good for the money.
“It’s been one phony promise after another,” said Bill May, describing the talks his wife has had with Moline concerning unpaid interest and principal.
Moline declined early Tuesday morning to comment on her ownership of the Juggling Java and El Rancho buildings on Tower Avenue, writing in an e-mail that The Chronicle should refer to her comments made last week on the Wilson Hotel because she and her husband “did not find that the newspaper was accurate, fair or unbiased.”
In January, Linda May sent Moline a letter of intent to foreclose on the Juggling Java building. But the Rochester woman soon discovered that in order to get her building back she would have to pay property taxes — $6,058.77 — that Moline and Monteleone owe.
“Pretty soon you get to a point where you tell the county just come take it,” Bill May said.
But that involves a rub: if Lewis County forecloses on Moline and Monteleone because of unpaid property taxes, the county owns the building and the Mays don’t get another dime from their $250,000 sale — even though they’ve received only partial interest payments thus far.
The simple solution, Linda May said, is for Moline and Monteleone to give the building back and pay the taxes. And she suggested that to them in January. But Moline has dismissed forfeiting the building and continually tells May it is ‘“a big piece in their plan.’”
After 9 p.m. Tuesday, Moline responded to a second e-mail asking her to clarify her position on the Java and Rancho buildings, which she claims have decreased 40 percent in value since they were purchased: “Rehabilitating the north end of the 300 block of Tower creates a far greater impact than one building alone. We remain committed to the Main Street Program mantra that ‘Preservation is Economic Revitalization.’ Therefore, we have done everything we can to work to keep both buildings in our project package for the benefit of all parties involved and our Historic Downtown community.”
The Fix
Robert Tomlinson said he came to Centralia from Ellensburg, where he was an artist and director of a nonprofit arts center, because of Moline’s invitation to operate the Jupiter Arts Center and Gallery in the former El Rancho tavern, which now houses Moline’s prom dress store Christella’s Closet.
Just 14 months ago, when the gallery opened, Tomlinson said, “We’re claiming this block as ‘Wilson Street Hotel Arts and Entertainment District.’”
On Tuesday, Tomlinson, who is 58 and now runs Oregon Crafted, a nonprofit in Eugene, Ore., said he was duped by Moline to bring four buildings together in working order — the Wilson Hotel and its annex building, El Rancho and the Juggling Java buildings — when the money to do so never existed. In fact, he said when he last entered the Wilson Hotel in September 2009 — the same month he says he was terminated without reason — there were no renovations to speak of.
“I didn’t see any evidence of any work being done at all,” Tomlinson said.
For the historic Wilson Hotel on the corner of Maple Street and Tower Avenue, Moline, her husband and Connie Moline, her mother, owe the county over $10,000 in property taxes and in less than two years a balloon payment of $355,000 to the city. City records also show that interest payments on the hotel are consistently late.
On Nov. 23, 2009, Tomlinson sued Moline and Monteleone in Lewis County District Court for $2,500. Although the matter was settled out of court, Tomlinson said he accepted a smaller payment for his final paycheck.
In Tuesday night’s late e-mail, Moline said her four buildings will soon be eligible for state and federal programs — in April they were the first listed on the Centralia Local Register of Historic Places — and that “we are the pioneers of this program here” and “everything takes longer the first time through.”
Tomlinson said when he worked for Moline and Monteleone they were “always complaining about how they’re victims.”
Same Old Story
Linda Blosl and her husband Fred, who died years ago, used to own and operate the El Rancho tavern. Although Linda Blosl declined to provide details of her building’s $300,000 sale to Moline and Monteleone in December 2007, she said the Wilson Hotel story goes for her building as well — unpaid interest and penalties piling up.
According to Lewis County, $7,055.94 in taxes is due on the El Rancho building.
Originally, Linda May said she asked $225,000 for her Juggling Java building.
“They upped it,” she said, explaining that Moline bargained for interest-only payments for many months by offering an extra $25,000 for the building.
Four months after the sale, a balloon payment of $12,500 was due — and skipped.
In March 2009, the Mays were owed $25,000. That payment was skipped. And interest payments are always late and short of the $1,500 per month agreement.
For the first seven months of 2010, the Mays collected only $1,500.
In a conciliatory e-mail Moline sent Linda May in January, Moline said she could budget $8,850 in interest payments through July. That promise is $7,350 overdue.
“I have never seen so many excuses in all my life,” Linda May said Monday of her correspondence with Moline since.
In fact, May shared some e-mails from Monday.
“We believe that this is a spiritual battle and we are in the middle of a firestorm of those who are trying to improve and change downtown for the better, and those who want this place to rot so they can pick up buildings for little to no money,” Moline wrote Monday night. In an e-mail later that evening, Moline told May she will reapply for tax credits the federal government will make available in the fall and hoped May would not talk to The Chronicle, among other concessions. “(W)hen we met last in person, the last thing you said to us was, ‘try to do something, anything with your payments because something each month is better than nothing each month. Do your best.’ We took that to mean that we could do just that, our best,” Moline wrote.
Several months ago, May talked to an attorney about suing Moline and Monteleone for the balloon payments and unpaid interest. But the attorney took a look at what the couple owed on back taxes and said it wasn’t worth it because they obviously don’t have money, May said.
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Adam Pearson: (360) 807-8208
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Moline Held Bellingham Businesses for Three Years
Michelle Moline and her husband, Frank Monteleone, and her mother, Connie Moline, came to Centralia from Bellingham. There they had three businesses registered under a single business license for My Banner Works, including My Posh Pet and MEM Enterprises.
Those businesses were registered from September 2005 to Dec. 31, 2008.
In Whatcom County, there is no evidence of foreclosures enacted upon the Molines or Monteleone or back taxes owed by them, but they were involved in court cases, and one is notable.
In April 13, 2007, construction company Andgar Corp. sued the Molines and Monteleone for back payment of $23,949 for work completed in August 2006 at 4331 Saddlestone Creek. “Andgar has made repeated demand for payment, and Moline has refused to pay,” the complaint for the lawsuit reads.
However, in May 2007 the lawsuit was dismissed. An Andgar representative declined to comment.
