No one verified authenticity of Mountain Cove Farms bids

Walker County officials didn’t contact a local business woman to verify that one of her bids to lease the Mountain Cove Farm property was authentic, Larry Brooks, the county’s economic development director, said last week.

“We had no reason to doubt the (bid),” Brooks said Tuesday, Dec. 27.

Lea Kapherr, of The Cove Resorts, allegedly submitted two bids to lease the county-owned property, which consists of about 300 acres in Walker County’s McLemore Cove. The first bid was submitted in mid-November, and officials know it was valid.

After the county essentially rejected that bid, Kapherr allegedly submitted a second bid, in the form of a letter through the mail, about a month later.

The second bid was handed over to the Walker County Development Authority, which oversees the Mountain Cove Farm property.

But Kapherr says she did not submitted the second bid. In the second bid, her first name is misspelled as “Leah.” Also, the bid wasn’t signed.

Brooks said the second proposal arrived in the mail through U.S. Postal Service and was then circulated via email.

“It (the letter) was handed to us in good faith,” Brooks said. “We assumed it was her (Kapherr) following up on some of the questions that were asked (regarding the first bid). “

Robert Wardlaw, Development Authority chairman, presented the second bid, as an official bid, during a public meeting on Nov. 22.

“We want to do business with people that are legitimate. ... We don’t want to get into something that, obviously, is not,” Brooks said.

The Development Authority plans to accept bids, through the end of February, for leasing the property.

The county bought Mountain Cove Farms for $2.2 million in 2008 to serve as a resort and wedding business. The property includes stables, cabins, a barn, and a Civil War-era house. It has been a financial drain, losing nearly $1.5 million from 2009-14, which is why the county wants to outsource its operation.

Last week Wardlaw said that both the initial proposal and second proposal came from the county, like all proposals pertaining to Mountain Cove Farms have in the past.

According to Wardlaw, he received an email from Heiskell’s office about a proposal for consideration and was asked to place it on the agenda.

Wardlaw said the only time he has not receive a proposal from the county was when See Rock City owner Bill Chapin, who has also expressed interest leasing the property, emailed him directly with a proposal.

Wardlaw said he had never spoken to Kapherr until the first meeting and hasn’t spoken to her since.

Wardlaw said Kapherr’s first proposal was too low and he invited her to attend the next meeting with the information requested of her, but she did not attend the second meeting.

Wardlaw said he did not reach out to Kapherr after receiving the second proposal, even though the proposal included a letter criticizing him.

Based on Kapherr’s initial proposal and also that she agreed to return at the next meeting, he did not question the validity of the second proposal, he said.

Asked about the negative comments about himself in the letter, Wardlaw said it did not match up with the Kapherr he met at the initial meeting.

“I was surprised by some of the comments in the letter, but those personal comments hold no sway over honest deliberation, which is what is most important to the citizens of Walker County,” Wardlaw said.

Wardlaw said he never spent time going back and forth with Kapherr over any personal problems and he learned about the letter being a possible fake as he read it in a Chattanooga newspaper.

“Ms. Kapherr has not told anyone at the Development Authority that the letter did not come from her,” Wardlaw said.

Wardlaw called the Mountain Cove Farms property a public asset, not a private one, and when Kapherr made the first offer, he decided to allow time for all interested parties to submit a proposal to lease the property as that would be fairest.

He said he was not in a rush to lease it as, “These things take time.”

“My responsibility as chair of the Development Authority is to facilitate and provide a fair and equitable process,” Wardlaw said.