Death Knell for Grace Hall? NO!!!

Do you hear that bell tolling?

Tuesday night - this Tuesday, July 21, at 7:00PM - the City Council will once again consider the Special Use Permit requested by Woodstock Christian Life Services that includes demolition of Grace Hall.

It is important that every opponent to the demolition of Grace Hall show up at City Hall in time to get into the City Council chambers well before the 7:00PM starting time. Please note - the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners is due to use the chambers from 5:00PM for what it hopes will be - and probably will not be - a short meeting.

Before every City Council meeting the members of the Council receive a "packet" from the City Manager. They get their copies electronically, but a printed copy is delivered to the Woodstock Public Library, usually on the Friday before the bi-monthly City Council meeting. The printed packet this time is two (2) volumes, and each volume is one inch thick.

Now, do you think that each Council member will read every word in the packet and be fully informed about City operations and the items on the Agenda? I'd say it is not humanly possible. And not humanely possible, either.

In the packet is a Memorandum to the City Manager (and, therefore, to the Council) about the Grace Hall issue. The Memo, from Deputy City Manager Derik Morefield and dated July 13, 2009, summarizes the progress of the WCLS petition through the City's process. With the Memo are a letter from the Chairman of the WCLS Board of Directors and a Memo from the WCLS President. The haste in preparing Derik's Memo resulted in several date errors, where "2009" crept into the Memo instead of "2008". I say "haste" because his Memo bears the same date as the letter and Memo from WCLS.

Numerous points in both the WCLS letter and the WCLS memo deserve challenge. Hopefully, each member of the City Council and the Mayor will go through those documents with red pencils and mark areas for further explanation and investigation. Except how do you mark electronic copies with a red pencil for attention?

Derik's letter fails to mention that Ordinance 08-O-62 was modified after passage by the Council on October 7,2008. The City Attorney crafted extremely unfair and prejudicial Conditions, imposing obligations on two Woodstock residents that were NEVER discussed or approved by the City Council, and then Mayor Sager signed the Ordinance into effect without ever getting the consent of the other members of the City Council.

And the six members of the City Council have never publicly challenged that action. Why not? Is Ordinance 08-O-62 even valid?

The Ordinance placed a light burden on WCLS and so heavy a burden on Dan and Caryl Lemanski that they could never meet it.

When it appeared that the City Council was going to vote against WCLS' Special Use Permit on April 21, 2009, the Mayor handed WCLS a bye. The demolition matter comes back to roost on Tuesday night.

In his July 13, 2009 letter to the Mayor and City Council, WCLS Board Chairman David Fisher wrote, "There are cases such as this, where preservation is not practical or possible without seriously impinging upon the progress and viability of a business or organization. The length of the process, and the associated costs, has hurt the financial status of WCLS which operates on razor thin margins from year to year. This past year was our first loss in net income in several years due in part to added legal and consulting fees."

The City should have an auditor examine the WCLS books for any "cost over-runs" (such "added legal and consulting fees") directly attributable to any "extra" work to seriously consider adaptive re-use of Grace Hall. How many of the "added" fees would have been incurred, anyway? And how recently were other years of net loss at WCLS? What are the projections for the next 3-5 years? Net income or net loss?

Is WCLS in such financial peril ("razor thin margins") that its business plan needs radical surgery? Administrative staff cut-backs? Salary and expense account cuts? Will the plan for duplexes merely be a band-aid on its Income Statement and its Balance Sheet?

If WCLS had interest in any solution other than the demolition of Grace Hall, it could be worked out. For starters, put four "apartments" in the 7,300 sq. ft. building, not just two.

They keep their heels dug in. It's time for the City to do the same and to refuse a demolition permit.

Mr. Mayor and Members of the City Council, JUST SAY NO.