Mayor Barbara Miller abruptly cancelled the Jan. 22 village board work session on St. Paul's hours before trustees were expected to meet in village hall, stating that without the presence of the consultants and bond counsel, the meeting would prove unproductive.

Five trustees, however, disagreed. Robert Rothschild, John Mauk, Gerard Lundquist, Peter Bee and John Watras (who was not in attendance) felt that because word of the cancellation got out so late they should still be present to conduct a question and answer period with the public.

"This is not a meeting of the board of trustees," Trustee Lundquist noted. "This work session was supposed to include a number of consultants but they were not available tonight. Being that the notification process to cancel the meeting came out late, we thought it would be a good opportunity to come here and meet with whoever is here so as not to waste everyone's time."

According to Trustee Rothschild, he received the meeting agenda via e-mail at 10:08 a.m. Jan. 22. At 10:25 a.m. he received a memo from Trustee Peter Negri stating that he didn't feel the meeting should be held without the consultants. At noon, Trustee Rothschild said he got word from village hall that the meeting would be held. At exactly 1 p.m., he said, he was informed the meeting was cancelled.

The board intended to discuss various issues relating to the St. Paul's Main Building. Particularly, trustees were going to review the status of the library/community center project, review what information bond counsel needs to draft a bond resolution, discuss a desire to extend the period of useful life from 15 to 25 years via special New York State legislation, identify information trustees require to develop the scope and cost of the project and review Todd Harvey's draft layout.

"Peter Negri felt that since the consultants were not available there was no point in meeting. Five of the trustees felt that that really didn't matter since the mayor had said on the day she cast the deciding vote [Dec. 18], 'we haven't even had the chance to sit down and talk about this.' Well, we had a perfect opportunity Jan. 22 to talk about it. But the mayor decided that since outsiders weren't available we couldn't talk about it, which was obviously not the case since we sat down and had a very nice conversation. I felt it was a very productive meeting," Trustee Rothschild said.

Stating that Trustee Lundquist provided the "official" reason for canceling the meeting, Trustee Mauk, speaking frankly, said, "At the eleventh hour, almost literally, a request was made by Peter Negri to cancel the meeting. I don't accept that as a valid reason as to why this meeting was not held. I have to feel, personally, that it has an awful lot to do with the nature of a challenge in particular respect to my position on the board of trustees. I think there is ample reason to go forward with this meeting and it's extremely unfortunate that the other trustees are not here tonight. But that was the excuse given."

Trustees brought with them an oversized rendition of the latest sketch Todd Harvey presented to them last Tuesday, Jan. 20. This sketch replaces the unoccupied space on the first, second and third floors with "tenant space." The proposed breakdown is as follows: 2,000 square feet of tenant space would occupy the first floor, 600 square feet of tenant space would occupy the second floor and 25,700 square feet of tenant space would occupy the third floor. Residents should also note that an additional 7,200 square feet of tenant space is available on the fourth floor of the St. Paul's Main Building.

The latest sketch of the library/community center proposal consolidates the library on the first two floors and puts tenant space on the third floor. "Even though this vacant space has been labeled tenant space, there is still no plan and/or comprehensive thought about how that space is going to be used. This cherry picks all of the prime space for the library and then leaves all the other space without really taking a comprehensive approach in saying, 'this is how we're going to develop the whole building,'" Trustee Mauk said.

Trustee Rothschild felt that all Todd Harvey did, in modifying the sketch, was centralize the space, which could give the board the opportunity to then, if a bond for the library is approved, go to Senator Kemp Hannon and ask for home rule legislation.

"I find this interesting because the library proponents really don't want commercial use in the building. But now they figure this is a way of getting everyone on board and saying that we've compromised when in fact we don't believe they have," he said.

The real cost of moving a library into St. Paul's was and still is the bottom line, according to Trustee Rothschild. "If it's $35, $40 or $26 million, let's be sure about it. Let's do enough analysis so we can go to the public and be honest in telling them these are good hard numbers," he said.

Opening up the floor to questions and/or comments from the audience, approximately 20 residents, one villager requested that each board member, especially Mayor Miller and Trustees Watras, Jon Segerdahl and Negri, the four that didn't attend the meeting, publicly acknowledge that Garden City residents have the last say. "Regardless of the composition of the board, even if it voted 8-0 one way or the other, the people of Garden City should have the final say," he said.

According to Village Counsel Gary Fishberg, the board is not "required" to hold a referendum. The board is, however, subject to what is known as a permissive referendum. "The board has two choices. If it's a 6-2 vote, it's subject to a permissive referendum. This means that the public, by petitioning the board, can determine that there be a referendum."

Fishberg continued, saying, "The board, on its own, can decide they want to have a referendum. By doing that, the board can then have a 5-3 vote to pass the bond. But the board would then be committing itself to having a referendum conducted."

Trustee Mauk, who has said in the past that he has no problem with phased development, doesn't think such development should begin until an overall plan is formalized. In response to that, Trustee Lundquist said, "In all fairness to Harvey, we only had 15 minutes with him. During the next work session we'll have, we can explore a lot of his thinking behind this particular plan with the tenant space on the third floor."

Although the work session has not been officially rescheduled, Thursday, Feb. 12 is the rumored date. "It hasn't been rescheduled but that is the date that the mayor was asking people to check their calendars for," Trustee Rothschild noted. "I guess that's what she's shooting for, which in our eyes is a very much Wizard of Oz way of doing things. You know, stay behind the curtain and don't talk to anyone until after Feb. 3 [the day the run-off election in the Estates section between Trustee Mauk and George Pappas will be held] when hopefully they'll have their fifth vote by ousting Mr. Mauk."