Agency offers to settle defunct firm's loan

A defunct company will have three options for repaying a loan to the Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency.

The agency's board, meeting Thursday morning, agreed to give the owners of Sackets Harbor Trading Co. LLC the choice to pay the agency a lump sum of $20,000 instead of the loan's full outstanding amount of $27,000.

The board first talked in executive session as the item entails possible litigation.

"The owners were resisting what the IDA had proposed," said Donald C. Alexander, chief executive officer of the agency. "For many months, there has been a dialogue going back and forth about what to do."

The lump-sum payment wasn't one of the offers the owners had brought to the table, he said.

The agency will give the owners, Mark A. Pacilio and Daniel H. Menapace, up to 30 days to sign an agreement with the agency and an additional 60 days to make the one-time payment.

The two business partners in the failed venture also could choose to abide by the current agreement, which called for full payment of the loan, with no interest, over 10 years. Otherwise, the agency will expect payment per the original schedule.

In March, the two owners told the agency's loan review committee that the agency hamstrung its success as a distributor for regional agricultural goods by failing to give them full access to a regional "North Country" brand.

The $40,000 loan approved in June 2005 was to help the company acquire, market and distribute products that have been grown, produced or crafted in Northern New York.

The loan was contingent on the owners obtaining additional investor financing for the business, and on the business being a successful applicant in a request for proposal process to take over the North Country branding program begun by JCIDA.

Ultimately, the agency was supposed to issue a request for proposals to control the brand. That never happened.

In other business, the board agreed to a six-month forbearance on a loan to C&B Rent-All, owned by Eric J. Soules. The equipment rental business, which opened in 2002 on Route 11 in Adams Center, is closed and Mr. Soules is selling the property to repay the outstanding loan, which totals about $61,149.

The agency's board also approved a six-month interest-only term for the loan to Curtis Furniture Co., Evans Mills, owned by Peter S. Curtis. The custom hand-crafted cabinetry and furniture maker has seen a downturn in business following the economy. There is a balance of $103,942 on the loan from 1988.

"We just never know — traffic in the store is low," Mr. Curtis told the loan review committee last week.