By Kristal L. Dearing

FAYETTEVILLE -- A local preservation group will meet tonight to discuss funding options to help the city buy a 70-acre tract of forest on Mount Sequoyah that Mayor Dan Coody offered $1.3 million for on Friday.

The purchase offer from the mayor is contingent on the city securing funding for the deal and on approval from the City Council. The $1.3 million offer matched the asking price from the owners, United Methodist Assembly, and also matched the appraisal value of earlier this year.

The land, which covers the east side of Mount Sequoyah from Skyline Drive downhill to Happy Hollow Road, has attracted a lot of attention, because it is the most visible and well-known forested area in Fayetteville. The parcel for sale does not include the church and retreat property at the top of Mount Sequoyah.

Coody made the offer Friday after asking the city's Trees and Trails Task Force to put $172,000 of its tree-preservation money toward a down payment on the land.

The task force on Friday recommended that the city spend the rest of the tree-preservation money, which came from the settlement of a lawsuit stemming from the city's preservation ordinance, to buy three parcels of undeveloped land in south Fayetteville. Those three tracts, which total about 21.5 acres, will cost about $294,000.

The task force declined to immediately act on Coody's request for the leftover funds but said it would consider it in the next month.

Coody said that, with that money and the $465,000 or so the city could get from selling less-visible land it owns elsewhere, that would make an attractive down payment of about half the $1.3 million asking price. The mayor said he feared that a smaller down payment would not be able to sway the landowner from accepting a full-cash offer from some other party such as a developer.

Tonight's meeting was called by the recently established Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association, which is urging every neighborhood group, preservation group, nonprofit and club in the city to attend.

The focus will likely be on building a partnership between the city and private groups so the Mount Sequoyah land can be bought and preserved, said Terry Eastin of the association.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. and will be in the new building at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on the corner of Dickson and East streets.

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