The Cole County Commission has been discussing selling some county-owned property deemed no longer necessary, including Renns Lake, since February.
At Tuesday's meeting, county commissioners agreed to table the issue for another week to allow time to contact landowners around the lake about interest in buying the property.
Eastern District Commissioner Jeff Hoelscher has pointed out no one on the current commission voted for the measure to take ownership of the lake in 2009. He reiterated he would like to give property owners around the lake the first chance to buy it and said in June he had been in contact with interested property owners.
"The county took their property and lowered the owners' property values by breaching the dam, some as much as 15-20 percent," Hoelscher said. "I know public works isn't fighting to keep it."
Western District Commissioner Kris Scheperle said he has been wanting to sell the lake as well as a lot adjacent to the roundabout at Big Horn Drive, along with two Osage City lots, not adjacent to each other. Those were lots the county obtained through past court actions.
Scheperle said he wants to get rid of the properties so the county will not have to continue maintaining them, and Hoelscher and Presiding Commissioner Sam Bushman agreed the properties should be sold.
Renns Lake has long been a point of contention. In October 2009, heavy rain compromised a 30-foot stretch of the dam. To prevent a dam collapse, emergency crews and landowners spent several days pumping water out of the lake to ease pressure on the dam.
Lake owner Patricia Renn didn't have the money to repair the dam, so her family deeded the property to the county. The county removed part of the dam to prevent the lake from building back up, which they feared could cause the dam to fail completely.
Residents tried unsuccessfully to form an association to take over the land from the county.
Some residents argued the county should never have gotten involved in the matter, but by taking over the land, the county was obligated to rebuild the lake.
Some landowners sued Renn in 2010, but the main petitioner, Doug Griswold, passed away. Earlier this month, the other landowners in the case, through their attorney, David Bandre, voluntarily dismissed the case, with prejudice, which means the plaintiffs are forbidden from filing another lawsuit based on the same grounds.
In June, the commission voted to move ahead with the sale process on the other pieces of property, but not Renns.
At that time, they were looking to do the sales by sealed bid with the commission having the right to refuse the bids, but at Tuesday's meeting, commissioners said they were still looking at all options for how to do the sales.
Commissioners said they wanted to finalize the sale of Renns before next spring when they would have to begin to work to keep mosquitoes out and cut grass in the old lake area.