The Bend Metro Park and Recreation District board decided Tuesday to buy some time in the deal to purchase the Shevlin Park conservation easement while newly-seated park board members study the issue.

The board, which failed to purchase the easement by a Monday deadline, voted unanimously to pay $6,900 to developer Andrew Crosby to delay the closing date for the deal until July 15.

”I think Mr. Crosby and the district all want the same thing,” said board Vice Chairman Ron Delaney. ”This is the opportunity to try and refine what the district has in order to make a better deal.”

The decision by the board which had three new members sworn in Monday morning is the latest twist in a year-and-a-half process that has included a last-minute lawsuit and allegations of a backroom deal.

The $6,900 is required under a purchase agreement the previous board signed with Crosby.

In a 3-2 vote, the board agreed May 15 to acquire a 43-acre plot from Crosby to create an open-space buffer between Shevlin Park and a residential development Crosby plans to build. The district agreed to pay $597,000 for 27 acres on the park’s east side, and Crosby would donate an additional 16 acres.

Under the easement agreement, Crosby would hold the property title and relinquish the right to develop the area. Public access to the property would be guaranteed.

The sale was set to close Monday, with Crosby using the $597,000 to help buy a 76-acre parcel and then transfer 43 acres to the district.

That sale was halted after two Bend residents Vince Genna and Hap Taylor filed a lawsuit suit late Friday afternoon against the district and Crosby, alleging improprieties by the former park board in the deal.

Deschutes County Judge Michael Adler issued a temporary restraining order until a Monday hearing.

After the park board met in two emergency executive sessions and two court hearings, Genna and Taylor unexpectedly dropped their lawsuit, after reaching an agreement with the current board.

That board includes the two nay votes on the May 15 agreement Delaney and Chuck Burley and two newly sworn-in members who have also voiced opposition to the easement Don Smith and Jim Young. Freshman board member Mary Evers is undecided.

Taylor said the intent of the lawsuit was to have the easement deal considered by the new park board.

The terms of the lawsuit settlement specify that the board will not execute the easement agreement until it discusses the matter in a public meeting and holds another vote something it postponed Tuesday. The settlement violated the easement agreement, which specifies the purchase was to close by Monday.

The episode has created tense relations between the board and Crosby. Echoing his attorney, Greg Hendrix, who on Monday called the arrangement, ”a classic backroom deal,” Crosby said it ”raised a certain amount of suspicion.”

”It seemed very contrived,” Crosby said Tuesday. ”It raises the question of whether the plaintiffs (Taylor and Genna) and the (park) district were really adversaries.”

Crosby now has several options. He can sue the district to make it go through with the sale, or he can force the district out of the deal by seeking to declare it in default keeping $38,000 paid so far as earnest money.

Crosby said Tuesday, however, that he did not have sufficient funds to buy the 76-acre parcel outright, but he held out the possibility he may do so in the future.

He is going ahead with the third possibility: paying the Cook family $15,000 for a 15-day extension, with the option to extend that to 30 days with another payment.

Hendrix sent a letter Tuesday to the district’s attorney, Andrew Jordan, indicating Crosby would not declare the district in default if it paid 46 percent or $6,900 toward the extension, as laid out in the original deal.

Now that its authorized the money, the board can go forward with the easement deal, and Crosby said he hoped it would.

”I’d like to maintain optimism that this new board will respect the public and the last board’s decision,” he said after the meeting. ”I would hope they would respect that contractual obligation.”

But wide differences appear to remain.

”I’m not opposed to trying to protect that eastern rim; my differences are how we get from here to there,” said Burley, the new park board chairman.

”I would prefer that we not have to spend money for it. I would prefer somebody buy that property up there and donate it to us.”

Crosby called that unrealistic.

”You’re not going to see a donation the size of Shevlin Commons,” he said. ”I’m letting go of 65 percent of my revenue base by this project because I believe strongly in the value of the property and I respect the public interest.”