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Taxpayers Get Second Chance To Vote on Children's Theater


FALLS VILLAGE — Taxpayers who are skeptical about the town’s $25,000 donation to a children’s theater company for the purchase of a downtown building will have another chance to raise questions at a town meeting set for Tuesday, Jan. 23.

At the meeting, which is set to begin at 7 p.m. in the Lee H. Kellogg School gymnasium, voters will be asked to accept or reject the granting of an easement to the Falls Village Children’s Theater Company to construct a septic system on town-owned land behind the former R & D Emerson building.

The nonprofit theater company has agreed to purchase the building from the Emerson family for $150,000. The company plans to turn it into a performing venue and community center.

The 100-year-old building needs about $350,000 worth of renovations and improvements, including the replacement of the septic system, according to Denise Cohn, the theater company’s executive director.

But the 1/8-acre site does not have adequate space for leaching fields. So the Board of Selectmen has offered to grant an easement on the adjoining town-owned property for the fields. The Planning and Zoning Commission was expected to recommend the variance at a meeting last night, too late to be included in this article.

If the commission endorses the easement, a simple majority at the town meeting would be sufficient. If the commission rejects the idea, a two-thirds majority at the town meeting would be required to grant the easement. In any case, the purchase will not go through if the easement is rejected by voters, according to First Selectman Patricia Mechare.

At a town meeting in late December, taxpayers approved the $25,000 donation to the theater company by a vote of 72-8. But opponents later objected that a motion to close the debate was made prematurely and another motion to use paper ballots was denied.

At that time, Mechare told voters the town will get its money back if the sale collapses. In an interview, Mechare said once the sale closes, the town will also be protected in case the project to turn the building into a theater fails.

After the sale, a lien will be placed on the property, so that if the plan fails and the theater company is forced to sell the property, the $25,000 will be returned.

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