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Library shelved: Proponents lose bid to resurrect
Shutesbury project
By Ben
Storrow
Created 06/30/2012
- 5:00am
SHUTESBURY - A Massachusetts Appeals
Court decision Friday effectively kills plans for a new library in Shutesbury.
The court did not offer a ruling on
a pair pro-library votes that had been invalidated by Franklin Superior Court
Judge Mary-Lou Rup on May 3. The decision means the result of a Jan. 10
Proposition 2½ override on the town's $1.4 million share of the project stands
at 522-520 against the library.
The ruling appeared to mean the loss
of state funding for the project. Shutesbury had been given a June 30 deadline
to accept a $2.1 million construction grant by the Massachusetts Board of
Library Commissioners, a 6-month extension on the initial Jan. 31 deadline.
No officials with the commission
could be reached for comment Friday.
In its decision, the court wrote
that Richard and Joan Paczkowski, who split their time between homes in
Shutesbury and Florida, had established residency in Shutesbury and were
eligible to vote in the Jan. 10 election.
Library supporters had challenged
the Paczkowskis' eligibility, arguing that they had previously been registered
to vote in Florida and have placed their house in Shutesbury on the market.
The Appeals Court sided with Rup,
who ruled that neither contention disqualified the couple from voting.
"For the past several years,
the Paczkowskis have been gradually re-establishing their social and civic ties
to Shutesbury," the court wrote. "They have worked and received
benefits in Massachusetts and participated in town and religious activities in
Shutesbury."
"By 2011, the Paczkowskis had
'made a conscious decision to relinquish (their) primary residence status in
Florida and to re-establish (their) domicile in Shutesbury,' as evidenced by
the decision to register to vote in Shutesbury and relinquish the property tax
abatement in Florida," the court continued. "Both the Superior Court
judge and the board were entitled to conclude that the Paczkowskis had met
their burden of showing that Shutesbury is 'the center of (their) domestic,
social and civil lives.'"
As to siblings Jacob and Shoshanna
Holzberg-Pill, whose votes in favor of the library were thrown out by Rup after
she determined neither holds sufficient ties to Shutesbury to vote in the town,
the Appeals Court offered no decision.
Because a tied vote would result in
the project's defeat, the upholding of the Paczkowskis' votes meant that the
Holzberg-Pills' ballots could not change the outcome of the election - even if
the court had chosen to reverse Rup's ruling and count the siblings' votes.
"We affirm the ruling
concerning the Paczkowskis and, because the parties agree that confirmation of
the Paczkowskis' voting status renders unnecessary any decision about the
Holzberg-Pills, we do not reach or consider any issue regarding the
latter," the court wrote.
Opponents react
Library opponents welcomed the
ruling, saying it affirmed their argument that the Paczkowskis were eligible to
vote in the election and the Holzberg-Pills were not.
"I think Judge Rup got it right
and the Appeals Court affirmed she got it right," said Alan Seewald, the
attorney for library opponents.
Michael Pill, the attorney for
library supporters and the father of the Holzberg-Pills, declined comment
Friday.
The ruling looked to be the final
act in a months-long drama that began last October, when a special Town Meeting
voted to approve funding for a library proposed for Leverett Road. In the
months to follow, two Proposition 2½ debt exclusion override votes were held,
with voters rejecting funding for the project each time; a recount; a legal
challenge to the recount; and an appeal to the second-highest court in the
state.
"It was tiresome as hell,"
said Robert Groves, a leading opponent of the library plan. "But it was
interesting to learn about election law, about campaigning, about how to
organize."
Groves said he could be open to a
different proposal for a new library in Shutesbury, though he considers the
town's current library service adequate.
"If there is going to be a new
library it is going to have to be a better proposal," he said, adding,
"I'm very supportive of libraries."
The next step for library opponents
is to host a fundraiser to help pay their legal fees, he said.
The appeal
The appeal was made without the
support of town boards that previously supported the library. The Select Board,
which voted in November to schedule a second override vote on the matter after
the first failed, voted 3-0 not to support the appeal.
And the Friends of the M.N. Spear
Memorial Library, a plaintiff in the Franklin Superior Court case, chose not to
be an appellant.
Neither of the two appellants, Gail
Fleischaker or Joanne Sunshower, could be reached for comment.
Dina Stander, a plaintiff in the
Superior Court case and a library supporter, described the library debate as a
"painful" event for the small Franklin County town.
But she took issue with the claim
some have made that the library dispute made Shutesbury an unpleasant place to live.
"Neighbors are still helping
each other here regardless of their feelings about the library," Stander
said.
She and many of her neighbors are
ready to move forward, Stander said. "I still want to work with people I
disagree with about the library," she said.
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