COURT TIME: BOROUGH PLANS LAWSUIT
Oh, brother: this one’s headed to Freehold.
The Red Bank council has authorized Borough Attorney Tom Hall to file a suit against the Community YMCA over that organization’s plan to sell the Children’s Cultural Center, redbankgreen has learned.
At issue, says Hall, are the terms under which the borough deeded the 116-year-old red brick marvel to Kids Bridge, a Children’s Cultural Center predecessor charity, for $1 in April, 2000.
The complaint, which Hall said he expects to file in state Superior Court in Freehold by early next week, will not immediately involve separate allegations by the Y that the borough owes it some $500,000 over renovation costs to the Monmouth Street structure. But Hall said he expects the Y to countersue over that issue.
“What they do about the construction costs is up to them,” he said.
Hall, though, declined to discuss the matter in any substance until the case is filed.
“We’ve basically taken the position that we’ll do our talking in court,” he said.
The council authorized the legal action in closed session following last night’s regular bimonthly public meeting.
As reported first by redbankgreen, the former borough property is on the market for $2.55 million. Red Bank Catholic High School has a lease on part of the space through June, 2009, and a right of first refusal to buy the property.
Unclear is whether a sale now to a commercial entity would violate either the letter or the spirit of what the then-council intended in mid-1999, when it passed an ordinance specifying the terms of the sale to Kids Bridge. Among the terms: that the property would revert to the borough if it ceased to be used for non-profit educational and cultural aims.
As previously reported here, there may also be questions about the paperwork attached to the transaction.
The borough still owns both the adjoining monument park at the corner of Drummond Place and the attached firehouse used by the Relief Engine Company.
redbankgreen has a call into Y Executive Director Gary Laermer. We’ll update this post if we hear back from him.