The La Grange Park District estimates it has spent about $1.5 million over the last nine years defending its plan to sell nearly 3 acres of land in Gordon Park.
The costs are still being tallied as the district is now also fighting another lawsuit filed in February challenging its plan to sell 2.8 acres on the park’s northwest corner for $3.45 million to a division of DesPlaines-based Pathway Senior Living, which would build assisted living and a memory care center on the property.
The $1.5 million covers legal costs and other expenses of about $92,000 for such services as negotiations, research and appraisals paid to Bradley Belcaster, a former board member hired in 2014 to negotiate the proposed land sale. Belcaster’s hourly rate is $175 an hour, according to board minutes. He filled a vacancy on the board in 2010 and served until 2011.
A leading opponent to the proposed land sale is Orlando Coryell, a La Grange resident who backed previous lawsuits and also filed the latest one. He filed a lawsuit in 2007 to block the sale to a developer. The conflict eventually reached the Illinois Supreme Court in late 2013, which upheld a lower court’s 2010 ruling in favor of the park district.
Coryell maintains that the district should’ve backed away long ago.
“I know the park district is defending acts that were ruled illegal,” he said. “The case should’ve been taken care of, but they’re ignoring court decisions and saying this case should be dismissed.”
Board President Mary Ellen Penicook said park board members has asked themselves many times over the years whether to proceed, and decided they must.
“It’s not a waste because we had to do it,” she said. “The objectors weren’t just challenging our sale. They were challenging the right of park districts throughout the state to sell land.”
She maintains park districts need to be able to sell land to adapt to changing circumstances and that the land the park district is seeking to sell is not functional.
“It looks like a panhandle of Gordon Park,” she said. “It had a lot of value to someone, but not to us.”
More Top Picks Best Tushy Bidet Alternatives With Warm Water
She said the panhandle is surrounded by high rises on the north, west and south and has a slope.
“It’s hard to police,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of issues with people drinking, doing drugs and other things that they shouldn’t do there.”
At Coryell’s urging, the park district placed a referendum on the ballot in 2008 in regard to the land sale and most voters endorsed the sale of part of the land. Coryell maintains voters approved that measure because the park district promised it could get $6 million for the land rather than the current $3.45 million offer.
Penicook said the language of the ballot question didn’t include a price tag of $6 million.
Penicook also defended the money spent on Bellcaster’s services. She said the park district doesn’t have employees with his real estate expertise.
“He guided us on the early transactions on this. He’s been a valuable asset to us,” she said.
Park district executive director Dean Bissias said the protracted legal battle has affected the park district’s ability to proceed with capital work.
We’re doing some but not to the magnitude we’d want,” Bissias said.
The projects that were delayed include roof repairs and playground replacements, he said.
“Obviously it (the money spent on lawsuits) could’ve been spent on other things,” Coryell said. “Like buying land — and not selling land in Gordon Park.”
With the $3.45 million it hopes to generate from the land sale in Gordon Park, Penicook said the park district would be able to buy other more suitable park land and make improvements to other parks.
Penicook doesn’t understand why Coryell continues to battle the proposed land sale.
“It’s not rational,” she said.
Coryell, who said he has put his own money into the fight, said he is doing it on principle.
“It’s a very simple thing,” he said. “Once park land is gone, it’s gone. How do you get it back?”
He said he asked for a continuance at a recent hearing on the latest lawsuit because he wants to hire an attorney. The delay was granted.
Twitter triblocalam