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Stuck in Swain: Grove town, Canaseraga school officials looking at deed restriction

Posted October 22, 2007 11:00 pm

The Grove town board is trying to find a new home, while the Canaseraga school board is trying to follow the intent of a deed restriction placed on the town's current headquarters.

That is the crux of the matter facing officials from both the town and the school, as3 they try to find a way to work together to find a resolution. The matter came up at Grove's town board meeting last week, as Supervisor Mike Johnsen explained the situation to the board, and others in attendance, telling them the school board would not consider it at its next meeting because the district's attorney is looking into the situation.

"I'm hoping we'll be able to sit down with the school board and talk this out," Johnsen said. "That's all we're really looking for."

Canaseraga Superintendent Marie Blum said the district merely wants to make sure what its options are before making any decisions. She said the board heard a presentation from Johnsen, accompanied by the rest of the town board, at its September board meeting, but had not come to any decisions.

"I think they were hoping there would be action on it that night, but we told them we'd place it on our Oct. 25 agenda," Blum said, "but we decided to have our attorney look into it before we did anything, so it won't be ready for that meeting.

"The board is just being careful they honor the original intent, although it was a long time ago, of the restriction," she added.

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The town hall and property was originally obtained by Central School District #2 in 1937 from Kate O'Connor to be used as a local school. In 1958, the building was no longer of use to the school and was deeded to the Town of Grove for use as a town hall. At that time, a deed restriction was put into place stating the building and land were to be used as a town hall and recreation facility, and that if those actions ceased, it would revert back to school ownership.

Grove town officials first approached the school in 2005 for permission to transfer the land to Swain Ski & Snowboard Center, in exchange for the ski center paying to move the building to another plot of land it would give to the town. The deal, however, has changed to having the town sell the land and building to Swain in exchange for a 2-acre plot of land across from the town's highway barn and the funds to not only build a new town hall next to the town barn, but also a salt storage facility on the acquired land.

The move is one Johnsen is convinced the town needs to make, because the current hall is not up to code and is not in compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

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"It's not a good situation, there's no choice, we need a new town hall," he said. "Unless we're able to find a way to work this out, it's going to come at 100 percent taxpayer expense, which would come with a huge tax increase for both the Canaseraga and Keshequa school district taxpayers.

"Unless we can work this out, Swain won't be getting the land they need to further their expansion plans," Johnsen added, "and we wouldn't get the extra land we need for a salt barn and funds to build a new town hall."

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