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Paul's Sentinel Newsletter
News
Stories:
July 11, 2006 - Court Ruling Reveals Trustees'
Deception
June 6, 2006 - Committee to Save St. Paul's
Conducts Tour
May 17, 2006 - Lawsuit Uncovers Shameless Deception
by Village Officials
January 12, 2006 - What's Behind the St. Paul's
Private Development Plan?
St.
Paul's Lawsuit Uncovers Shameless Deception by Village Officials
May 17, 2006
To
Our Fellow Residents:
The
December 15 Presentation Was a Charade
The continuing saga over the future fate of St. Paul’s took
a strange twist recently, when the Village obtained a temporary
injunction that prohibits us from disclosing documentary evidence
of outrageous acts of public deception. As part of our lawsuit challenging
the Village’s plan to illegally market the sale of St. Paul’s
without state legislative approval, our attorneys obtained a series
of documents from the Village’s consultant, K. Backus, which
included an appraisal report (in December they said publicly they
didn’t know the value of the property), a private presentation
made to the Board in November (with an intended plan very different
from the one presented publicly), and a group of emails that immediately
preceded the public presentation made in December. These emails
clearly show that certain officials intentionally concealed critical
information from the public. We had these documents in our possession
for nearly 3 weeks before the Village realized that they contained
information that was extremely embarrassing to them.
The Village Tries to Cover Its Tracks
The Village then went back to court and obtained the temporary injunction
by claiming, remarkably, that its effort to sell St. Paul’s
might be compromised if developers learned the contents of these
documents, even though the Village hired the consultant specifically
to provide recommendations from a developer’s perspective.
In legal papers, our attorneys are seeking to vacate the temporary
injunction. The public has an overriding interest in knowing the
details of the consultants’ reports, their recommendations,
and the Village’s actual development plans. The Board, in
contrast, wants to keep them secret precisely because they know
the information is politically embarrassing and would provoke an
adverse public reaction.
What
Are They Hiding?
Although we have been effectively muzzled and cannot disclose the
content of these documents at this time, the public has a right
to know that the Village is concealing some very important facts
respecting the feasibility (or lack thereof) of the planned condominium
development they presented in public, the current market value of
the property, and the true opinion of their paid consultant concerning
the size, height and bulk of likely new and additional construction
they never showed us. Of course, look for them now to make the preposterous
claim that they were hiding this information from developers, not
the public!
Bait-and-Switch
Tactics
This act of concealment is particularly troubling since our elected
officials are ostensibly representing the residents of our Village.
Regrettably, as part of a classic "bait and switch," some
on the Board are attempting to persuade us to go along with, under
false pretenses, a plan for the site that is a charade for much
more extensive development that they’ll tell us about later.
In this context, the consultants are merely paid accomplices in
an outrageous deception by the Board that will ultimately benefit
some private developer. In the end, the residents will be the losers.
Speak Up. Get Involved.
As law abiding citizens, we really cannot comment on these facts
any further, but we urge concerned residents to continue to ask
pointed questions of our Village officials (representatives is hardly
appropriate), and to demand a fuller explanation of the development
plan that the Village is currently marketing to the development
community.
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