Springfield Mayor Charles Ryan announced last Friday, as signaled in a fall article by G. Michael Dobbs in the Reminder, that a settlement was reached in a lengthy legal dispute over the city’s library assets, specifically the Mason Square branch. From Azell Murphy Cavaan’s article in the Republican over the weekend:
On April 15, 2005, former City Solicitor Patrick J. Markey filed a suit in Hampden Superior Court on behalf of the city seeking financial damages from the association for its 2003 sale of the Mason Square branch library. The library was sold (PDF) to the Urban League of Greater Springfield for $700,000. The lawsuit stated that the Mason Square branch belonged to the city and its taxpayers and should not have been sold by the non-profit association.
The lawsuit did not seek any specific amount but sought an acknowledgment that the city and the museum were partners, according to City Solicitor Edward M. Pikula. Without a judgment, that legal question remains unanswered.
"But as a practical matter, the agreement acknowledges that both sides need to work together in the future to ensure that the city’s cultural assets, like libraries and museums, are available to everyone," Pikula said.
At the time of the sale, in 2003, Urban League President and CEO Henry Thomas said that the transaction was private (presumably from one non-profit entity to another). City budget cuts allegedly caused the then-Springfield Library and Museums Association to let go of some library assets. It quickly became apparent that the libraries had also been let go physically—something the city is still working to address.
The Urban League later announced plans to transform the former Mason Square branch into a beneficial spot for the community. From its Web site:
The building will continue to house a library out of which a full range of library services and literacy programming will be offered. It offers approximately 10,000 collections, with an emphasis on children’s materials and other materials by and about people of color. The complex will also house a community reading room, computer and Internet access, technology training center, and conference and meeting facilities with video conferencing capabilities. More than half of the 16,000 square foot building will be dedicated to providing services to the community.
On Friday, Mayor Ryan announced that a new library will be built, asking residents to put ill will behind us and go forward in a spirit of optimism. A trust fund, now worth around $4 million, bequeathed by Annie Curran after her death in the 1950s, explicitly dictated support for a State Street branch library. The mayor said that a steering committee, chaired by YMCA Chair and CEO James Morton, "will look for available building space on State Street, but will go to Probate Court if the Mason Square community determines a more suitable site exists in the neighborhood."
The Springfield Museums Association has agreed to give $334,000 to the city as part of the settlement. An additional $1 million from the trust fund will be combined with that amount to build a new branch library.
According to CBS3’s report by Leslie Tanner, the public is invited to the steering committee’s first meeting on Monday, January 8, 5:30 pm, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center, 3 Rutland Street.
