Officials: ‘Bye Bye Barry?’
Mayor moves to overcome deed restrictions on sale of Barry Field
WOONSOCKET – Some members of the City Council are crying foul after learning Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt quietly filed suit in Superior Court two months ago in attempts to modify the deed to Barry Field so the land could potentially be sold for private development.
Home of the Woonsocket High School Villa Novans football, soccer and field hockey teams, Barry Field was conveyed to the city in 1925 by the now-defunct Woonsocket Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Society on condition that the 22-acre parcel be used only for athletic fields, playgrounds or school buildings.
Baldelli-Hunt says no one has expressed an interest in buying Barry Field, but the deed restrictions make it considerably more difficult to open a dialogue with a possible suitor. If the land were sold, however, she says the proceeds could offset the cost of redeveloping Cass Park as a modern, multi-component athletic complex, with a new football field, conveniently situated adjacent to the high school, as its centerpiece.
“It opens up the door for potential development in the future,” the mayor said. “It’s much easier to have options and conversations in the future when the restrictions have already been removed.”
The Call learned of the suit when a consulting law firm placed an order for a related legal advertisement in the newspaper on Tuesday. City
officials later confirmed the existence of the complaint and answered questions about it.
“This seems to be a common theme with this administration – keep the public and the city council in the dark until the eleventh hour,” said City Council President Daniel Gendron. “Once again this is the administration going rogue and acting without any consultation with the council prior to doing these legal actions.”
The sale of Barry Field has been a point of debate in the city for many years, with many opposed to it on the grounds that the land came with explicit strings attached from the sellers.
Yet the mayor moved forward on such a hot-button issue without so much as a phone call or an e-mail to any member of the council, said Gendron.
Council Vice President Jon Brien said he, too, was blindsided by news of the lawsuit and voiced objections similar to those expressed by Gendron.
A lawyer, Brien added that the mayor could be setting a dangerous precedent by moving to strike longstanding deed restrictions that were imposed as the property when it was conveyed to the city in 1925.
“By seeking to reverse the restrictions on this land, what does that say about other people that want to donate land for other causes in the city?” Brien said. “It basically says other people’s wishes are null and void and whatever the political whim of the day is what stands. That totally circumvents the rule of law.”
Moreover, Brien said there is no way the council can legally object in court now without, in effect, taking on its own law department, which authorized the complaint even though the work was outsourced. The council, he said, has complained of “poor process in the past and this process sucks.”
Mayor: A worthy project
Baldelli-Hunt defended the suit as “good planning” for a worthy project.
“This is an administrative function and not every administrative function that takes place each day needs to be reviewed with a city council,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “I have a responsibility as mayor to administratively move forward with plans and ideas and this is one of them.”
According to papers filed in Superior Court, the suit was filed on Sept. 20 by Richard Sinapi of Warwick, a lawyer Baldelli-Hunt chose for his expertise in the area of title law, she said.
The legal action is designed to “remove any cloud” on the title to Barry Field, “specifically a restriction on the use of the property as an athletic field and playground for pupils of the public schools in the city of Woonsocket or for erecting school buildings, insofar as the plaintiff no longer has any use for the property in the manner limited by said restrictions,” papers filed in the case say.
The 6-page complaint essentially argues that over the years, Barry Field has come to be mired in a cluster of fast-foot restaurants and retail stores, isolated and too far away from the high school to be conveniently accessible to students.
The original deed gave decision-making power over the property to the School Committee, which rejected a proposal to sell Barry Field in 1987. Committeeman Paul Bourget says the authority to dispose of the land properly rests with the administration because members are now appointed by the mayor.
Bourget says the mayor’s plan to move the football field to Cass Park makes sense, but he hopes the administration honors the spirit of the deed to Barry Field, perhaps by dedicating a revenue stream from the private development of the facility if and when it’s sold.
“Sports complex? Sounds great,” said Bourget. “Woonsocket High is actually going to have its own field. Alright, but what do you do with Barry Field? I’m hoping the mayor can find some way to make sure that we do achieve some educational benefit out of that land.”
The suit names as a defendant the previous owner of the property, Woonsocket Agricultural and Horticultural Society, an organization chartered by the General Assembly in 1867. The charter was revoked in 1934, but the suit makes provision for parties who might have an enduring interest in defending the deed to step forward to do so.
On Oct. 30, a Superior Court judge ordered Sinapi to reach out to any conceivable group or individual with a potential interest in the parcel before the suit is given any further consideration. The lawsuit describes the target group as the “Woonsocket Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Society, its successors, assigns and/or its members, shareholders and/or their respective heirs, executors, administrators, successors and/or assigns and all persons unknown and unascertained, claiming, or who may claim, any right, title, estate, lien or interest” in Barry Field.
Under the terms of the order, Sinapi must place two legal advertisements in a newspaper of record, which includes The Call and possibly other newspapers in the region. The ads will invite potential litigants to state their claim in writing to the court and are expected to appear this week and next.
Counterclaims must be presented to the court no later than Dec. 15, otherwise there will never be another opportunity to object.
“Unless your appearance is filed by or for you, your default will be recorded, the complaint will be taken as confessed, and you will be forever barred from contesting the complaint or any judgment entered thereon,” the ads will say.
Once known as Trotting Park, Barry Field – contrary to many published reports – was not donated to the city. According to notes in the files of The Call written by the late Edgar Allaire, a noted historian who worked for the paper as a reporter, the city paid the horticultural society $75,000 for the land abutting the North Smithfield line and the City Council approved the purchase on a 4-3 vote in 1926.
The agricultural society had owned the land since 1870. A year after purchasing the parcel, the city rededicated it as Barry Field in tribute to the late Dr. William F. Barry, a former chairman of the School Committee.