Boro & YMCA talk future of historic bldg.
Red Bank holds off on lawsuit over sale
BY MELISSA KARSH Staff Writer
The borough may not be headed to court just yet since a dialogue about the sale of a historic Monmouth Street building has begun between Red Bank officials and Community YMCA representatives.

The CYMCA building on Monmouth Street.

"Both parties, the Y and the borough, at this point have agreed to talk it out and negotiate with each other, and that's where we are as of today," Gary I. Laermer, president and CEO of the CYMCA, said Monday.

As late as Feb. 29, Assistant Borough Attorney Thomas Hall was ready to file a lawsuit against the CYMCA for putting the 51 Monmouth St. building, which the borough sold to the Children's Cultural Center for $1 in 2000, on the market for $2.5 million. Marketing the building for sale is Geoff Brothers of Brothers Commercial Brokerage in Red Bank.

"I'm going to file a suit Friday," Hall said last week before agreeing to hold off on taking legal action until after talking to CYMCA officials.

The Borough Council had authorized Hall to go forward with the lawsuit after a discussion of the terms of the sale in an executive council session Feb. 27.

"I defer to what the borough attorney says because that could be very much in litigation," saidMayor PasqualeMenna at the council meeting.

Hall continued, "We are going to discuss this tonight in executive session. I've investigated it. I've issued my reports to them [council] and I'm waiting to get their feedback. After I get some direction from the mayor and council, I'd be happy to comment on it; until then it's kind of a delicate situation."

Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission Chairman George Bowden previously said the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and in a 1981 write up it was referred to as the best remaining 19th-century town hall in Monmouth County.

The building was the home of the former Shrewsbury Town Hall before Red Bank became a separate borough, according to Bowden.

Although now in the hands of the CYMCA, Red Bank originally sold the circa 1892 building to KidsBridge, which was the organization that called the space home before the Children's Cultural Center succeeded that program and took up residence.

The Children's Cultural Center became a branch of the CYMCA in 2002, according to the CYMCA 2003 annual report.

According to a listing on the Red Bank Visitor Center Web site, Red Bank sold the Children's Cultural Center in 2000 for $1, with the stipulation that it never be used for any other purpose.

Although the listing on the Red Bank Visitor Center Web site notes a reverter clause attached with the sale of the property, the ordinance that references the reverter clause was not cited in theApril 11, 2000, sales contract, which was signed by Menna.

Menna was the Borough Council president at the time of the sale.

"You do have an ordinance, 1999-29, which basically … allows the town to sell this property for $1 provided they have limitations and enforce the reverter clause. This reverter clause is in that ordinance. The dollar amount that was established was that KidsBridge would spend at least $1 million in renovations. There was a restricted use clause, there was a termination of sale clause and of course, also in this ordinance was the requirement that KidsBridge would file annual reports every year regarding their operations and also their expenditures and also to affirm their tax exempt status, both the federal and state requirements," said resident Steve Fitzpatrick during the public comment portion of the Feb. 27 council meeting.

According to Hall, a reverter clause stipulates that once a property is sold and the conditions of the sale are not complied with, the property may revert back to the seller.

According to ordinance 1999-38, "The building shall be the subject of historic restoration in accordance with plans and specifications to be approved by the borough and further, that the building shall be used only for educational, recreational, cultural and similar purposes to promote the general welfare of the community, and shall not be used for any commercial, trade or manufacturing enterprise, nor for any political, partisan, sectarian, denominational or religious purpose; and whereas such sale shall be conditional upon the fact that should the lands or buildings not be used in accordance with the above limitation, title thereto shall revert back to the Borough of Red Bank."

Fitzpatrick went on to question the mayor and council about why the two ordinances referenced in the sales contract, 1999-38 and 1999-42, did not include any of the language that was included in the first ordinance, 1999-29, passed in July of 1999.

"Why in the April 11, 2000, contract of sale was not any of the language referenced from the 1999-29 ordinance? Subsequent to that, in October of '99 there were two ordinances, 1999-38 [and] 1999-42, which were the ordinances referenced in the contract of sale following April 2000, yet in those ordinances there were no references to the stuff that I just spoke to," said Fitzpatrick at the Feb. 27 council meeting.

Fitzpatrick said in those two ordinances the reversion clause was gone, the restricted use clause was gone, the termination of sale clause was gone, the annual report language was gone and the amount of money that Kids Bridge was to had changed from the original $1 million to $800,000.

Former YMCAchairman Sean Byrnes, who currently sits on the YMCA board of trustees, has said it took a lot of thought and time to make the decision to sell the building and that the revenues generated by the programming were not covering the expenses associated with running the Children's Cultural Center.

The building is assessed at $1,864,900, according to the Red Bank tax assessor.

The building had been renovated in 2005 at a cost of more than $3 million for the total renovations, which began before the CYMCA moved into the building, according to Pamela L. Ortman, CYMCAdirector of communications and special events.