By Stephanie Mariel Petrellese

As the Village of Garden City inches closer to resolving the dilemma of what to do with the Historic Main Building at St. Paul's, Second Deputy Mayor Thomas Lamberti, who chairs the Mayor's Committee on St. Paul's, is looking ahead to the possible future threat of legal action from those who would not be pleased if the Board of Trustees decides to ink a more permanent deal with AvalonBay.

"There are a number of legal issues that need to be resolved with regard to this proposal," he said in an e-mail to the Garden City News. "These issues must be resolved now before the Village goes forward with a vote. The Village must be protected from the expenses and damages that may be a consequence of such a lawsuit." Some of the issues include the legal authority of the Village to enter into an agreement with AvalonBay and the impact new affordable housing legislation will have on the project.

Village Counsel Gerard Fishberg is out of the country, but told the Garden City News via e-mail that "there has been no opinion, nor is it the belief of most Board members that all legal issues must be resolved before a POA opinion poll."

Lamberti emphasized that his main concern is to protect the Village in case of a lawsuit. One way this may be achieved is to have AvalonBay be responsible for the expenses of a lawsuit and any damages in the event of an adverse decision.

"Litigation on matters great and small is a fact of life today and Village government would grind to a halt if threats of litigation deterred us from acting in the public's interest," said Mayor Peter Bee. "Residents should know that no final decision on St. Paul's will be made until there is a careful and prudent examination of all the issues, including any potential legal ones."

Throughout the years, the Village has had to deal with several lawsuits concerning St. Paul's. In December, 1997, the Village tried to lease the Main Building and several surrounding acres of land to CareMatrix. It was legally challenged by four residents (Kenny et al. v. The Board of Trustees). The court ruled that the land is held in a public trust and cannot be leased to a private developer without Home Rule legislation. According to Lamberti, "the courts held that the Village did not have the authority to enter into such a lease despite an opinion provided by counsel that it had such a right."

"This mistake must not be repeated," warned Lamberti. The opinion Lamberti refers to was rendered by an attorney named Rothkopf, who wrote a well-known treatise on New York zoning, according to Village Counsel Gerard Fishberg.

In January, 2006, residents Peter Negri, Thomas Poole and James Edmund Keating, filed a lawsuit against the Village of Garden City, claiming that the expenditure of public funds to market the sale or lease of the St. Paul's Historic Main Building to a private developer is illegal. The lawsuit also stated that if it was deemed illegal, the consultant hired to conduct a feasibility study should be required to repay any money received from the Village. The plaintiffs also sought a permanent injunction from making any further expenditures of public money to "market" the sale of the building to private commercial developers. The Village emerged victorious and the lawsuit was dismissed in July of that year.

Negri is president of the Committee to Save St. Paul's, a community group which advocates public use of the building. Negri has publicly said the AvalonBay proposal is a "bad deal" and a "giant giveaway." "The Committee to Save St. Paul's cannot comment on the possibility of litigation at this time," he said in a statement to the Garden City News.

Deputy Mayor John Mauk, who was the former chairman of the Mayor's Committee, responded to Lamberti's comments in his own statement to the Garden City News:

"Trustee Lamberti recently indicated that the Village must have "certainty" on all of the legal issues before a vote is taken on St. Paul's. As an experienced attorney, certainly Tom knows that isn't possible. We will never achieve anything even close to certainty on the legal questions unless and until the Village gets to a point, as indicated in the Memorandum of Understanding with AvalonBay, where we are ready to sign off on a development agreement. Such an agreement is still a long way away. Even then, there is always the likelihood (based on past experience) that some disgruntled person or group will once again sue the Village to keep any redevelopment from going forward. A court may eventually find such litigation to be without merit, as it did with the action filed against the Village last year by some leaders of the Committee to Save St. Paul's. But there is no way to prevent such a suit from being filed, or to keep the Village from incurring related expenses. Should AvalonBay share in any costs resulting from future litigation on this issue, as Mr. Lamberti now advocates? I think there are pros and cons to that approach that require more discussion.

"A critical element to success on any project as complex as St. Paul's is to keep moving forward, and not to let all of the perceived obstacles bring everything to a halt. Many of the legal issues affecting redevelopments-some of them created by previous Boards of Trustees-have been around for a long time. They haven't taken on greater significance recently just because the residents are about to be asked to vote their preference for the future of the building. Nor have such important issues been ignored until now. Opinion from counsel and other assurances obtained long ago (and recently updated), suggest that some potential legal obstacles may not be that significant in the long run, or that they can be resolved through the step-by-step process we are following. The trustees need to keep on top of the issues, and keep asking appropriate questions. To stop everything now, however, and insist on resolving all potential legal hurdles before going further, only further delays making long overdue decisions on the building. Just about everything imaginable has been tried over the years by those trying to keep any final decision from being made about St. Paul's. I think the best way of countering that now and finally achieve such resolution, is to keep moving forward. The legal issues will be resolved, but all in due time, and after the vote."