MDC “taking” in question
Published on July 31st, 2002
STONEHAM, MA - The questions surrounding the “friendly taking” of a 25,000 foot parcel of land resulted in an emergency meeting of the Stoneham Board of Selectmen last Thursday night, and a successful vote.
The successful vote was not in favor of approving the transaction, however, but was instead a directive to Stoneham Town Counsel William Solomon to file letters with the Attorney General’s Office and the State Ethics Commission. The initial thrust behind the motion came from a letter Selectmen Cosmo Ciccarello had penned to the Board earlier in the week.
The two letters would, in effect, request that each of the state bodies investigate any possible wrongdoing or conflicts of interest with the MDC’s friendly taking, and then give the Stoneham Board of Selectmen a legal opinion.
“This action just covers us in case something negative happens down the line, and we end up looking like baboons for approving it,” said Selectmen Charles Smith. “I think we all just want to make sure this is legal.”
“I was always under the impression that the MDC purchased land for open space, and this agreement doesn’t seem to be promoting open space,” added Smith.
At the crux of the brouhaha is an agreement between the MDC and J.J. Grimsby’s Restaurant that would allow a parking easement. According to MDC spokesperson Chuck Borstel, the MDC would use the area for additional parking and a passive recreation area, and would allow Grimsby’s to utilize the lot for extra parking during the busy dinner hour. Grimsby’s would provide a one time payment for the easement, and, through legislation proposed by State Rep. Mike Festa, Stoneham would receive the payment in lieu of lost property tax dollars.
The problem, according to the Selectmen, is the secretive way in which the transaction has evolved, and the lack of hard numbers for the Selectmen to digest. Neither the MDC nor J.J. Grimsby’s have submitted substantive numbers to the Selectmen, so the Stoneham governing body has no clue of the amount of any easement payment to the town’s piggybank.
The Selectmen also voiced a preference for the transaction to have transpired in the reverse. Ciccarello openly wished that J.J. Grimsby had purchased the plot, and then sold the surplus land to the MDC for passive recreational purposes.
Borstel claimed that the MDC had always made a practice of acquiring land through friendly, and sometimes unfriendly, taking of land. The MDC had agreed to purchase the plot for $675,000, and thought it well within their bounds to grant an easement for a parking lot.
The MDC spokesman claimed that they had a similar agreement with a restaurant near the Pope John Paul Park in Dorchester, and that their “dual parking lot” was not an unusual situation.
“We’re a state agency that has to answer to many other state agencies when we do real estate transactions, and the Commissioner can’t act autonomously in a situation like this,” said Borstel. “To have our integrity questioned by a Board of Selectmen, with accusations that we’re trying to circumvent the law, is frustrating and offensive.”
According to Borstel, MDC land acquisition are a lengthy proposition that begins with the MDC Commissioner consulting with MDC general counsel. General Counsel makes sure that each transaction is “aboveboard”, the Associate Commissioners must vote on the taking, and then the MDC must apply to the Executive Office of Environ-mental Affairs for funding, and, finally, the deal must be approved by DCAM (Depart-ment of Capital and Manage-ment).
“We don’t run into this problem at any Selectmen meetings,” said Borstel. “I understand the concern about the tax revenue, but I really don’t think that’s what their concern is when a Selectman asked me why the MDC didn’t buy it at the auction.”
“It seems like they want us to take the property, and you have one Selectman that’s delaying the process,” added Borstel.
The Selectmen declined to reconsider their vote against the taking during the July 25 Selectmen meeting, and, in effect, squashed the MDC’s chances of acquiring the property through eminent domain.
“If it’s right and legal, I’ll go along with it,” said Ciccarello. “But if it’s not, I don’t want any part of it.”
The MDC had a July 29 deadline to act on the land taking, and, according to Borstel, must now acquire the land through a normal property purchase.
“The seller hasn’t come to the Board of Selectmen to stop, the constituents haven’t come to the Board of Selectmen to complain, so I don’t know who they’re answering to on this one,” added Borstel. “But we do have some options, and a deeded transaction is one of them.”
Borstel added that a taking was more advantageous to a deeded purchase because it marks the property boundaries more specifically, and the property is the MDC’s without dispute.
“The Commissioner (David Balfour Jr.) is on vacation, and we’ll see what he wants to do when he gets back,” said Borstel.
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