09/21/1999 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Special Council Meeting 9-21-99 Page 2 but on the first floor which means you will have to install elevators. It is an archaic building. He wonders the purpose for spending two million dollars for that particular building. Your comment that this has been publicized in the paper--it hasn't been publicized with what Council has in mind for that particular piece of property. He, as a citizen of Mayfield Village, is paying for it with his money. If you didn't spend two million dollars there, you would have two million dollars to spend somewhere else. He also wonders what the legality is with the fact that you are going to give the Church, technically, a million and a half dollar loan for three years interest free. If what was circulated to members of the Church is correct, I would like to have you speak to that particular item if you would. Robert VanVliet, 6809 Thornapple, said he feels, as an architect, that that building, as a Church building, is not appropriate for use by the Village. He thinks it is a waste ofmoney--two million dollars--and thinks you should let the Village residents decide whether or not to buy it--put it on the ballot so that everybody can have a voice. He has never heard of a work session or a meeting for the purpose of this building. It seems like it is not being done properly. Toni Baxter, Anderson Road in Lyndhurst, said she has been a member of the Church for about 30 years. If you do purchase the Church and the Congregation does vote to sell it, that you might consider letting another Church share it or rent it. There are a lot of people who have come-to this Church for a long time who won't be able to make the trip to Chesterland; they aren't able to go that far. They made sure my generation had a Church when I was growing up and I would like to guarantee them the same thing for the rest of their lives. They had mentioned "I thought I'd be buried from there and that won't happen." She thinks it is indicative of this community that the center of it is a Church and it has always -been there. Nanc~ger, 6528 Wilson Mills, said she is not here all year long but .part of her family is. They have grown up in the Church. There are so many things circulating that they don't know what to believe and what not to believe. We had received a letter last week that the Village had proposed two million to buy the property and that we are to vote on it Saturday morning. She imagines that is why there is an emergency meeting tonight to make sure that whatever has to be voted on is voted on. She questions some of the validity of what is going around and maybe she doesn't understand it properly. Also, it was said that if the Church did sell to the Village that the Village would be buying it to protect the corner from other developers coming in and tearing the church down which is very nice of the Village to do so because aesthetically it does belong to the Village. But, in :doing so, it should be rented out to another body. `She understands there is some type of a clause in there that says that it cannot be rented out to another body. She does not understand that clause at all. There are other things that are probably written in there that we do not know about but it is a shame that we will fmd out about them after the fact. Toni Baxter said a lot of the people who are on the -side of not moving the Church didn't vote in the last vote because everything they get in the mail from the Church is pro move, pro change. So, a lot of the older folks have decided that this will happen no matter what we all say. If it is in the newspaper tomorrow that the Village has approved the purchase of the Church, people won't even bother to come and vote because they will figure it is a done deal. That is part of what is going onhere--there is a lot of smokescreening. Everybody thinks it is a done -deal because