(Editor's Note: In a statement sent to all of their constituents in the Estates section, Trustees John Mauk and Robert Rothschild clarified their position on the board vote taken Dec. 18. They also set forth what they think needs to be done to resolve the difficult issue that is St. Paul's - resolve it in a way that will be acceptable to most of the community. It is printed below for the rest of the village to read.)

With the busy lives we all lead, it's difficult to keep up with events in our village. For that reason, we want to make sure the residents of the Estates section are aware of some recent developments regarding the St. Paul's boys' school and the next steps your trustees think should be taken to get this issue resolved.

As you may have heard, on Dec. 18, 2003, the board of trustees adopted a resolution to focus on constructing a new library at St. Paul's. We think the library concept currently being advanced, however, is a very expensive and misguided approach for achieving preservation. As your representatives from the Estates area, we voted against the library resolution, as did Trustees Peter Bee from the East and Gerry Lundquist from the West. The resolution was only adopted because Mayor Barbara Miller cast an extra tie-breaking vote, as she is able to do under our form of village government.

St. Paul's is a treasure to our village and we think something must be done to preserve and restore most of the historic Main Building. The current proposal for library construction, however, is expensive, incomplete and poorly conceived. Consider the following:

Any public construction, such as a library, is going to be very expensive for us, the village taxpayers, and that concern needs to be better addressed. St. Paul's is a very old building and making it suitable for public use will not come cheaply. Advocates for this library proposal think they can limit the cost to something around $28 million, which is still a hefty amount. But the detailed planning necessary to determine the true scope and cost of this project has yet to be done. Even the architect who prepared the limited conceptual plans for the library acknowledges that the costs will change as more planning is done. What about the ongoing, increased cost of operating and maintaining a new library at St. Paul's? We need to know that as well.

Whatever the final costs are, they will be even more difficult for village residents to swallow on top of recent increases in state and county taxes, the ongoing increases we are all experiencing from property reassessments and other anticipated new tax increases to purchase the middle school property and undertake the long overdue modernization of village hall.

If improvements are needed to the existing village library, they can be accomplished at that facility for a fraction of the cost (perhaps 1/5 or less) to relocate the library operation to St. Paul's.

Perhaps the biggest concern about the current library proposal is that it would use less than half of the Main Building. After the best spaces are turned into a library, nearly 80,000 square feet of space - 1.4 times the size of a football field - would remain vacant and with no prospects for future use. That would create a constant, and unacceptable, fire and security hazard for this old wood-frame building. Any future use that might be conceived of would require additional public expenditure - and taxes.

Because of the wide division on this issue within the village and on the board of trustees, we think the best solution for St. Paul's is to work toward a compromise solution that would be acceptable to a majority of the residents. To achieve a workable compromise, it may be necessary to allow some limited private sector development at St. Paul's. But only as a means of providing the expensive funding needed to restore the building. We disagree with those who believe that a library development with public funds is the only solution for St. Paul's. Such an inflexible approach has only served to harden positions on this issue and take us even further away from developing a compromise acceptable to a majority of the residents. Recently some members of the board of trustees took the position that a library bond referendum should be held before any further options are considered for St. Paul's. There are several limitations to holding a bond vote at this time on just this one option. Nevertheless, a bond vote on the library may be appropriate if it will break the log-jam on this issue and get us all back working toward an acceptable solution for saving St. Paul's.

Before you, the residents, are asked to make such a significant and costly commitment to the proposed library project, we think a few things need to be done:

More Detail - More detailed planning must be undertaken to validate this option and see what improvements can be made. The full scope and nature of this project must be more clearly defined. The uncertainty regarding potential costs to the taxpayers must be removed. And more detailed drawings and plans need to be prepared to explain the proposed end result to residents. Even those favoring this library proposal should expect more detail to clarify exactly what they are committing to support.

Professional Planning - A professional planner should be engaged to begin work immediately toward developing other possible solutions for St. Paul's that will be acceptable to many more of the residents. These could include public/private partnerships, and they could include a library. If other options are put on hold pending a library referendum, however, much of the work done thus far toward resolving this problem could be lost. If this library referendum is defeated, and the search needs to be started all over again at that point, this critical problem will be many more months away from resolution.

Despite the many months and years already spent considering alternatives for St. Paul's, little comprehensive planning has ever been done in connection with this critical land use decision. Even the minimal planning done on the proposed library was only to prepare basic architectural concepts. The library planning has never focused on the broader aspects, approaches and problems of implementing the plan. Some serious land use planning needs to be done before making a final decision of this magnitude and consequence.

And in developing a compromise, in the event it is determined that some private development should occur as a means of funding the Main Building restoration, proper planning now can help limit any detrimental effects that such private development might otherwise have on the property and the community.

A Committee of Professionals - Finally, we think the establishment of a committee of professional volunteer residents, along the lines of the Ad Hoc Committee that oversaw planning and implementation of the school construction bond, may be the only way to get this issue resolved. With the positions on St. Paul's as hardened and divisive as they have become, we must find a way of setting aside some of our differences to achieve a compromise that most residents can accept. It may not be necessary to do this now. But, if the current impasse continues, it may become clear that the establishment of a committee of experienced and professional residents, people who are not locked-in to any particular option, is the only way to achieve a solution.

We ask for continuing support and input from the Estates residents as we try to implement some of these actions and achieve an acceptable compromise on this difficult and divisive issue. The loss of St. Paul's would be a detriment to us all.