A nonprofit is moving forward with a plan to sue the city of Troy over its imminent City Hall move.
As the city prepares to move its City Hall to the former Proctor’s Theater in downtown, a nonprofit that formed in 2009 says the city is doing so in a non-transparent manner.
The city is leasing the space on 4 Street from the Troy Local Development Corporation, an arm of the city, which purchased the property from Columbia Development Corporation.
Erica Veil, Troy Proctor’s Foundation board president, says taxpayers will be on the hook for numbers that don’t make sense.
The city projects flat costs for City Hall in its new space over the next 30 years. Veil says that’s not realistic.
“It's not even just the fact that it's the building that it's too late for. It's taxpayers, what we're going to be saddled with,” Veil said.
Veil says the city won’t listen to the residents.
“They're not talking. I don't like repeating myself, and I feel like I'm repeating myself every time in the council meetings, and absolutely no one is listening,” Veil said.
The group says a public GoFundMe is raising money to cover legal costs.
Michael Lynch is the group’s treasurer and a preservation engineer. He says there is a disconnect between what the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation says and the city’s interpretation.
“The October letter from the state preservation office says, ‘If you can do this reversibly,’ then there's no impact,” Lynch said. “The city took that and said, ‘we are doing it reversibly,’ and that's where there's a disconnect between what the SHPPO said and what the city is saying about that letter, because SHPPO did not say ‘what you are doing is reversible.’ They're just saying, ‘if you do it’, and the city is saying, ‘we are’ and we disagree.”
A city spokesperson called the suit, which the city has not yet been served, “ridiculous.” He added that the deal is “over and done with” and that nothing can stop the city from moving into its new home in 2027. The spokesperson says it “sounds like they just don’t like the project.”
