A Word From The Publisher

Well, the St. Paul's developer has been chosen, and to no one's surprise, the controversy continues.

The Committee to Save St. Paul's contends that the public has been cut out of the process because the field has been to only one contender. Furthermore, the CSSP is unhappy that the decision was announced with little warning.

For their part, the trustees who rejected the Canus proposal believe the financial particulars were simply untenable. In particular, the possibility that the Village could lose the property to Canus' lender if the company defaulted was pretty much a deal killer.

We have to agree with the CSSP that the Board could have done a better job at public relations to let people know the financial details of both proposals before jettisoning Canus. If the Board had gotten the word out that there were some fundamental problems with the financing most average village residents would have been quite capable of grasping that, and the elimination of Canus wouldn't have caused such a stir. If the goal here is to build a consensus so that the parkland designation can be lifted, it was a real misstep not to reach out to the residents before making the announcement.

However, misstep or not, the problems with Canus's proposal are substantial and it seems irrefutable. The biggest problem is that Canus would be asking the Village to risk losing the building to a third party, which is simply unacceptable. No matter what other features might make Canus' proposal better than others, there is no way the Village should take that risk.

The Board members are doing their fiduciary duty to look at the numbers. Perhaps, though, they should give some more thought to better communication with the residents.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher