Board of Aldermen 12-28-2021 Page 17
Alderman Jette
Okay, thank you. Thank you for answering my question. Could | continue?
President Wilshire
Yes.
Alderman Jette
So | think | have a lot of difficulty with this. I'm torn. I'm on the Conservation Commission. I'm in tune with conservation
and the opportunity to acquire property. Green space seems like a thing that | should be in favor of and that | would like
to do. What bothers me about this whole thing is that it clearly was a reaction to news that this property was being sold to
a developer and the neighborhood reacted. As Alderwoman Klee has been a great advocate for the position of taking
advantage of the opportunity to purchase this property. But from a planning point of view, it doesn't seem that we have
really put in what | think is an appropriate amount of study. The petition that was referred to by one of the speakers talking
about over 2,000 signatures, | looked at the petition and the petition is entitled, “Stop Thorndike from raising Barker
forests to build a housing development in Greeley Park”. | think that a lot of the people who sign this petition really don't
understand what was being done here. The petition asked to stop this purchase so that the Mayor can do a study for the
highest and best use of the property. Seems like from a planning point of view, we ought to look into that. What is the
highest and best use of this property? Has an appraisal been done? Somebody told me that they could not determine
what the purchase price was by Thorndike offer. The seller refused to tell them.
So where does it $2.5 million come from? The property is assessed at $1 million. Why is it worth $2.5 million? | don't
know, maybe itis. But has an appraisal been done? Do we know what the true value of this property is as open green
space? Open green space is very valuable. So maybe it is worth that much. | don't know but | would like to see - | think
we ought to get it appraised and we ought to find out what an appropriate purchase price might be. | think that we ought
to spend some time studying whether this was, you know, the highest and best use of that property. There's a conflict
here. | like the green space. I'd like to preserve green space but this is private property. Greeley Park has been there a
long time. There's a lot of other land in Greeley Park that is undeveloped. So it might be a good idea, but | feel like we've
moved ahead. | know it was because of this pending sale. But now that that pending sale apparently is no longer
happening, maybe we've got more time to look into this further. Thank you.
Alderman Tencza
Thank you, Madam President. | just wanted to mention that this was heard at the Planning and Economic Development
Committee last week. It did pass with a favorable recommendation. We also received word that it passed the Planning
Board also gave it a favorable recommendation.
The other piece, | just want to mention, | did abstain from the bond vote even though it wasn't tabled. | will also have to
abstain from the vote on this piece of legislation just due to a professional relationship that | have in my law office with
another attorney who's worked on the project. | don't think it would be fair to either side to take a public position. So | will
be abstaining on this vote as well. Thank you.
Alderwoman Kelly
Thank you, President Wilshire. Actually Alderman Jette asked the question that | was going to ask, which was just that in
the past we had offered support or general, you know, feelings of, you Know, go and figure it out to Director Cummings,
etc. in the past and | was just wondering why it was in a formal ordinance with a purchase price when it's kind of at this
point made up.
Alderman Schmidt
First of all | don't think we can actually go in and assess the property for its purpose without having given some approval
somewhere. | think that has to start with our approval here. | couldn't vote for 202 because | don't think my vote to indebt
the city would be a value at this point. It belongs to the next set of Aldermen. I'm glad that they'll be looking at this.
The seller needs to know that the city is interested in this. That they are actually not just talking about it, not just doing
petitions, not just a few people being angry or about it, we really need to let the seller know that this is something the city
would be very interested in. As Alderman Lopez said, in the past people who have owned property like this, they've
