‘This battle is not over yet’
Attorney General’s Office backs UConn Extension Center bid to keep its Bethel home
BETHEL — The state Attorney General’s Office is adding to the pressure of thousands of community members who are calling for a University of Connecticut agricultural center to keep its home in Bethel.
An assistant attorney general told Stony Hill Preserve, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit,that it should not terminate the lease of the UConn Fairfield County Extension Center, which has called an 11-acre property at 67-69 Stony Hill Road home for about 60 years.
“This battle is not over yet,” said
Sandra Wilson, UConn Extension’s Fairfield County master gardener program coordinator.
Stony Hill Preserve acquired the property in 2017 from the Fairfield County Agricultural Extension Council — a nonprofit that formed in the mid-1950s to oversee and run
the property for UConn’s regional Extension programs. Stony Hill Preserve told the Extension Center in February that it must leave the property within six months.
The Fairfield County Agricultural Extension Council, abbreviated as FCAEC, aims to reclaim the property and has launched a GoFundMe that has raised more than $2,000 to help with the effort.
“For our continued existence in Bethel to benefit Fairfield County, we need to quickly raise funds to restore ownership of the land to FCAEC,” the GoFundMe states.
Stony Hill Preserve retained Danbury-based attorney David Bennett, who said Friday that a response was sent to the Attorney General’s Office “about a week ago.” Bennett declined to comment further on the matter.
Since the 1950s, the site has been home to a range of programs — from master gardening and youth development to nutrition, home horticulture and urban agriculture — and services like soil nutrient analysis to people in Bethel and Fairfield County.
Cease and desist letter
In a Sept. 7 letter to Stony Hill Preserve Vice President Madeline Bunt, Assistant Attorney General Gary Hawes called for a cease and desist of any and all activities relating to the property that “may be inconsistent with the specific charitable purposes and uses of FCAEC (including) ceasing the cooperative relationship with UConn.”
Bunt — who told Hearst Connecticut Media in July that Stony Hill Preserve decided to terminate UConn’s lease because it “couldn’t serve Extension the way it needed to be served and also take care of the property” — did not return requests for comment.
Hawes noted that the Fairfield County Agricultural Extension Council — a Connecticut nonstock corporation and duly-qualified 501(c)(3) charity — donated not only ownership of the property to Stony Hill Preserve in 2017, but $170,000 in liquid funds as well.
“Under applicable charitable law, a charity may not make a gratuitous
disposition of its charitable assets (which, in this case, would include the property and associated liquid funds) for any purpose other than its specific charitable purpose,” he wrote.
According to the letter, the position of the state Attorney General’s Office is that use of the property and liquid funds transferred to the Stony Hill Preserve is “confined to those uses that are consistent with the specific charitable purposes of FCAEC,” and sale or transfer of the property would not eliminate those restrictions.
The Attorney General’s Office couldn’t be reached for further comment.
Reclaiming the property
Fairfield County Extension
volunteers started a petition in July in hopes of keeping their home.
“Our petition signatures are now at 2,600,” Fairfield County Extension volunteer and master gardener Barbara Stauder said.
With the goal of getting the lease termination rescinded and the property returned to the Fairfield County Agricultural Extension Council, the petition signatures were sent to members of the Stony Hill Preserve board, as well as the Office of the Attorney General.
“We’re excited that the Attorney General’s Office is on our side and that their finding was that the property should be used for the original purpose intended,” Wilson said.
Hawes concluded the letter with two requests: for Stony Hill Preserve
to cooperate in an “equitable deviation action” to transfer the property to a nonprofit that will “assume the fiduciary obligations with owning the property” if it “no longer wishes to be responsible for the property and its use for the agricultural extension programs,” and let the Attorney General’s Office know its intent to comply by Oct. 7.
“If you do not respond by that time, the OAG will be obligated to consider legal action to ensure that these assets are protected,” the letter stated.
While happy that the Attorney General’s Office has gotten involved, Stauder and Wilson say they’re still worried about the fate of the property.
“We don’t know what Stony Hill
Preserve’s position is, if they’re planning on fighting this or giving the land away. We have no idea what their intent is,” Wilson said.
Stauder said an FCAEC board member was told that the Attorney General’s Office will only take legal action to ensure 67-69 Stony Hill Road is used for its original intent.
The Fairfield County Agricultural Extension Council is looking to retain an attorney of its own, Stauder and Wilson said.
“If the FCAEC wants to reclaim the land, they will need to have their own legal representation to pursue that,” she said. “It is critical that the FCAEC raises some additional funds to initiate a retainer with an attorney — and this is only the beginning if there is a legal battle.”