First steps taken in eminent domain process

Date: 12/30/2008

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor



SPRINGFIELD Pressure on city government to take the Urban League building through eminent domain and return it as a full service library for Mason Square increased as the Library Foundation voted to indemnify the city in a possible taking and City Solicitor Edward Pikula gave a favorable opinion to a taking on Dec. 21.

Mayor Domenic Sarno had asked Pikula to render an opinion in several points. The first was whether or not the resale value of the building as set as $700,000 in an agreement between the Urban League and the Office of the Attorney General set a cap on the value in an eminent domain process.

The second was whether or not the Urban League had legal grounds to prevent or delay such a taking.

Pikula said the $700,000 value, as set by the agreement, is "most likely binding, binding in a court of law." The agreement stipulated the Urban League could only charge a maximum price of $700,000 if it ever elected to sell the building.

He added the Urban League would have no grounds to prevent or delay the procedure as long as the city followed the established process for a taking. He said among those steps is a study of possible library locations, including the Urban League. Much of that work has already been done, he noted, so he did not think it would slow down the process.

Pikula also noted that since statements have been made that the Urban League would fight such a taking in court, part of the eminent domain process should include a mediation element to try to reach a conclusion acceptable to all parties.

Sarno said that mediation might result in the taking of the present building, adding to it or purchasing the nearby Muhammad's Mosque #13 as a site for a library. Sarno has championed the latter site, although the Library Foundation, the non-profit private group that controls endowment funds for the city's libraries, has stated taking the building back is its choice.

With the vote taken to indemnify the city and the announcement of the City Solicitor's opinion, former Mayor Charles Ryan, the chair of the Library Foundation, said, "The rest is in the hands of the city."

Sarno said after the meeting the revelation of the agreement with the Attorney General had been "an 11th hour wild card in the whole thing."

The mayor noted he had been concerned about the financial elements and while they are "not solidified," they are "more concrete."

The Springfield Museum Association will turn over to the Library Foundation after Jan. 1, 2009 the Anne E. Curran Endowment for the Mason Square Library, which Ryan estimated a current value of about $3.52 million. Along with that sum, the Springfield Museums Association will be donating $330,000 for the Mason Square Library.

Ryan said that about $2 million of the Curran endowment would be made liquid to be used for the eminent domain taking.

At the Dec. 18 meeting of the Finance Control Board, a number of Mason Square Library advocates told the board that taking the former building was the only course to take. Elizabeth Stevens, the chair of the Mason Square Library Advisory Committee, told the board members that buying the mosque and converting it to a library a move that is estimated to cost $4 million wasn't an option.

"We'd have a library about half as good [as the original one]," she said.