Oso property owners defend $85K deal with WSDOT

There were many heroes in the Oso landslide recovery effort, but a few property owners painted by some as villains are finally speaking out.

Margo Walsh, her husband, and their business partner held out for more money when the state approached property owners with an offer of $500 for permission to build an access road through their property.

Other property owners accepted the $500 and granted the state permission, but Walsh told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson they weren’t ready to sign just like that. “The verbiage in the contract was the exact verbiage you use when you’re going to take something by eminent domain.”

Walsh said the man negotiating for the Washington State Department of Transportation implied they would get more money later and the $500 was just a starting point.

“What he said is that was just a kind of a signing bonus, we definitely would get more money after the appraisers looked at the value, and this was just a small payment. That’s what he told everybody. They told everybody the original amount was just kind of a good faith thing.”

Walsh said they decided to try to come up with an appropriate number based on how many cars would be using the road. “We researched and asked how many cars per day use that byway through there and he [her husband] came up with a toll idea, just like the DOT does, at 25 cents per car.”

Eventually, the DOT agreed to pay them $85,000, while the other neighbors still received the original $500. When this went public, the Walshes and their business partner were called greedy and villains.

In an article by Danny Westneat titled “Oso spirit slides a bit on story of landowner’s pricey demand,” the Walsh’s neighbors had some harsh words.

“It was an act of pure villainy,” said Michael Aylesworth, the nephew of the Walsh’s next door neighbors. “This is using an unimaginable tragedy to hold up the state in a robbery. Nobody else was out there on those piles saying, ‘Where’s mine? How do I get mine?’ It never occurred to anyone.”

But Walsh isn’t unsympathetic that it was a great tragedy. Having lost her own son three years ago, she said she knows how horrible loss can be. But for those that lost a person or their primary property, she said there were resources being made available.

“Most of the people out there that were impacted, that lost loved ones and their homes, they were given money by the Red Cross, they were helped by United Way, FEMA. We went to each one to see if Mr. Taggart [their business partner] could get help, because he’s recovering from cancer twice now. Nothing. They said, ‘You are business people.’ They told us this very nicely ‘You are business people. It’s not your main home.'”

Seeing that they were being looked at as business people, they decided they needed to make a business deal.

“When the DOT came, what I said to them was OK fine this is a business transaction because we’re business people.”

Whatever type of deal it was, business or otherwise, Walsh said reporters began hassling them and writing mean things. She said they even received death threats.

“The reporters they come to the door and if you don’t answer then they write bad things. Al Jazeera TV [was] at the door and then I saw something where he wrote well they were more than happy to open up the door to the DOT’s pockets.”

But Walsh said their property was one of the largest impacted, and it was something they couldn’t just walk away from.

“We’re almost 60 years old. Mr. Taggart is 62. This is retirement time. My husband has worked his whole life,” she said adding they haven’t filed a lawsuit like many others have. “We just wanted to recoup our business investment.”

Monson said he’s upset that the media gives government a free pass on what it takes from us, but then when someone tries to get something that he calls legally justifiable from the government, these private citizens are vilified.

“The people in the media don’t say a peep about any of that, when government steals from us. But when you do a business deal with the government, you get blasted,” said Monson. “I think these people in the media are incredible hypocrites for attacking you.”

Correction on Aug. 5: