The issue is dead. I had a meeting scheduled to go look over the books and discuss the business in general. I was 99% sure I didn't want to deal with it, but I wanted to be 100% sure. Right before I left school to head to the meeting, I got a text from him that he'd sold it out from under me. The City Manager, with whom I had discussed the possibility of the acquisition, went behind my back and tipped off a crony of hers who owns a paper in the next town over. That woman contacted the current owner, and he lied through his teeth, telling her that I had declined. Needless to say, I gave him hell, quit immediately, and went back to Menards to regain my old job. There's a slim possibility that the new owner might hire me to write, but I don't want to deal with that liar either. Fuck 'em all!