Garden City residents offered mixed emotions about the fate of St. Paul's during a public forum last Thursday evening at the middle school. Residents who spoke appeared split between demolishing the former school to permanently eradicate a problem that's plagued the village for 10 years and preserving the historic gem at all costs, even if it means increased taxes.

Gerry Newman of the Estates section noted that the proposed cost of moving the library ($27.7 million) into only a section of the deteriorating St. Paul's building would be nearly double the amount it cost Adelphi University to erect a new, 60,000 square foot dormitory for incoming freshmen ($14.5 million). Ultimately, Newman suggested the board move ahead with private use.

EPOA (Eastern Property Owners' Association) President James Carney agrees. "The most responsible way to preserve the building is to get home rule," he said. "Then bonafide parties can offer proposals for private use, whether it be residential housing or senior assisted housing. It's the appropriate fiscal way to preserve St. Paul's, bring tax dollars back to the village and not burden taxpayers."

Obtaining home rule legislation is not a difficult process, according to Village Counsel Gerard Fishberg. "It could take a couple of months to get if we get the state legislature's backing," he said, adding that the village recently secured the legislation with regard to the Kanner house move.

"We have a state senator living in this town that said he'd consider introducing the bill if enough people supported it," a nearly 40-year resident said. "I don't know how many of you support the assisted living idea but if we keep fooling around with this building for another 10 years, we're going to have a demolition problem."

Estates POA President Jon Schwieger said although the building is beautiful from the outside, the inside is another story. "When you get past the first floor and center of the building, it's a cut up structure with a lot of little rooms that are useless with a lot of deterioration from water," he said. "We'd love to look at this building for the rest of our lives but to spend millions of dollars to be able to? If we have private developers come in or we renovate it to a stage where we can look at but not go in it, I'd rather demolish it," he said.

Some residents questioned the safety of moving anything into a building made of wood. "In my opinion, the building is a firetrap and should be demolished," a 40 year Nassau Blvd. resident said. "I doubt that library officials would want to move books into a building like that."

Another resident concurred, stating, "It's a wooden building and we can't get away from that. As far as having senior citizens living there, it's dangerous."

Garden City Public Library Director Alan Roeckel, however, noted that as long as the community supported the library proposal and the building provided sufficient space, the library board would be interested. "That was the board's position a year ago and that remains the board's position," Roeckel said.

As far as the wood framing goes, Euston Road resident Ed Keating said there are numerous landmark buildings all over the country, priceless treasures that are made of wood, stone and stained glass. "I don't understand what the problem is in trying to save something so remarkable," he said, adding, "If we give it away, it's gone forever. We have a historic opportunity to do something that's not for us but for the generations to come. We're leaving something for our children and their children that can never be replaced."

Could St. Paul's benefit village seniors if it became a senior recreation/activity center? According to Dr. Regina Tracy of Adelphi University, the current senior center on Golf Club Lane is basically used for bridge, bocce and things of that nature.

"To expand that with a wider range of activities in a much larger space could definitely enhance the services available to seniors," Dr. Tracy said. "But more importantly, it would be an information center - an office where seniors could go to get information, to ask for assistance with whatever they may need. In conjunction with the library system, which is currently very helpful to seniors, this would even enhance that further. It would allow this village to offer special senior services to its elderly population," she said.

Garden City resident Mike Maloney applauded Trustee John Mauk's "fair and objective" presentation on the options for St. Paul's and urged officials to put it on the village's website for all to see. He asked Mayor Barbara Miller what she found to be so "objectionable" about Mauk's presentation to render it unusable as a Village Facts?

Mayor Miller, who, prior to the forum's start, stated trustees were there to listen to residents' questions and comments and not answer questions and/or offer opinions of their own, reiterated that she would not be answering those types of questions and pointed to Village Administrator Robert Schoelle, Jr. to respond. She told Maloney and others who groaned at her response to attend a board meeting, where she'd "probably answer that."

With the spotlight on Schoelle, he simply said, "There was no consensus amongst board members and it was decided to move forward with the format of the Village Facts in terms of continuing the timeline or chronology," he said.

A St. Paul's Place resident wanted to know how trustees planned on measuring the degree of residential support for any proposed private use. "If this board commits to a formal, binding village-wide referendum, what percentage approval rate would meet the criterion of support of village residents?" he asked, adding to rousing applause, "I would find unsatisfactory any criterion that says the trustees are going ahead without the people."

Schoelle said the board would certainly get the pulse of the community through a resolution vote on whatever project was to come. According to Fishberg, a referendum is not required on the project, noting however that if a bond resolution resulted, the board would have it tested through a referendum. "Generally, a referendum is decided on a majority rule," Fishberg said.

How accurate are the library proposal estimates? According to Todd Harvey, an architect with Beatty, Harvey & Associates, the figures are as accurate as they can be at this point. "We took this very seriously because we knew that there was a lot of concern with these numbers," he said. "We took extreme care, we even brought in an independent estimator who did their own estimates to compare them to ours as well as EYP's [Einhorn, Yaffee, Prescott Architecture & Engineering]," Harvey noted. "These figures are a good reflection of what it would cost to move a library into that building."

Eileen Murphy, however, disagreed, saying she was "worried" about the $26.6 million figure that's been quoted for the library proposal. "Two years ago, EYP told us that moving village hall into St. Paul's would cost $23 million. When that figure was given to trustees, Trustee John Mauk said, right off the top of his head, that that figure should be $10 million higher.

Murphy continued, "Despite his caution that $23 million was too low, the village officially told residents that the cost of putting village hall into St. Paul's was $23 million. Within weeks after that, EYP was talking about a cost of $38 million," she said.

"The recent Village Facts told me that moving the library into St. Paul's would cost $26.6 million. But tonight we hear it's $27.7 million. What's going on here?" Murphy asked.

The $26,606,074 figure includes moving the library into St. Paul's. The $27,758,235 figure includes moving the library as well as demolishing Ellis Hall and the cottages. "How could you send out a figure [$26.6 million] to all the residents in this village when there was a major item left out?" she asked. Harvey stated it was never "left out," it was just "identified as a separate item," which some residents in attendance felt was misleading.

Resident Tom Lamberti wanted to know what would become of the library and senior center properties if the library/community/senior center project went forward. "We need to know what's going to happen with those properties now, not after the fact," he said. "You can't focus on Area B and forget about Area A. I raised this issue at a CPOA [Central Property Owners' Association] meeting in June - that was six months ago. Trustee Negri and Mayor Miller were there. No one's looked at it."

Mayor Miller and Trustee Negri some months back did inquire the values of both the library property and senior recreation center property were they to be sold, Schoelle said. "I can assure you that before any steps are taken, a planner will be engaged ... It's not like the board to inform residents after the fact. This is very much an open process. The desire of the board is to find out what your concerns are."

Lamberti, however, said he's been at CPOA meetings and he's heard it all before. "I've heard exactly what you said for the last six months. It's not happening. Everything's focused on this with all these panelists and the PowerPoint presentations, but we need to know what's going to happen to those buildings. And you need time to figure that out. It's just common sense and good planning, failure to do that is just irresponsible," he said.

Two-time EPOA President John Pittoni of Locust Street thought the Nov. 13 forum was a loaded deck. "I would like to see the same PowerPoint chart for private uses," he said. "How much money can we get if we give it to a private developer?" Pittoni further suggested that the board invite private developers to the next meeting, which Mayor Miller said there would undoubtedly be, because moving the library is not only expensive, "it's dumb."

RFIs (Requests For Proposals) were due back no later than Oct. 31, Schoelle noted, and are currently being evaluated by the board. "Comments will be made when the board has further information," he said, adding that Mayor Miller has been keeping the board's and staff's "feet to the fire" to move forward.

Ray Carew told the board to "get out of the way" if they're not going to lead. "A decision needs to be made," he said. "If you're not going to make it then put out an opinion poll and let the people decide. This is ridiculous," he said.

Perhaps another resident said it best. "I think the building may make a decision for us," he said. "What can we do if St. Paul's throws in the towel?"