Suit Challenges Park Lease Law
Residents Attack Legality
Of Expanded Parking Lot At Addison

(February 21, 1954) A lawsuit attaching the legality of the Village of Larchmont's action in a proposal to lease part of Addison Park to the Grand Union Company for public parking, has been brought against the Board of Trustees, George P. Forbes Jr., attorney, announced Monday night at the Village Board meeting.

Filed in the Westchester County Supreme Court by Larchmont residents Mr. and Mrs. Irving Bloomberg of 18 Bonnett Avenue, the action charges specifically that Local Law I, passed by the Larchmont Board in December, 1953, is illegal. The law gives the Village the right to lease the park property to the Grand Union.

The suit was brought by the two residents to hold up a pubic referendum which goes before the voters in the March elections. The referendum was forced on the Trustees December 8, when a petition signed by 130 residents was brought before them after they had already approved the lease at a November 2 meeting.

At the December 8 meeting Mr. Bloomberg, with Glen Solomon of 14 Bonnett Avenue, learned that their petition to forstall immediate board passage of the land-lease to Grand Union had been received and that the question would now have to go on the ballot.

Mr. Bloomberg’s suit also calls the board's action in calling public referendum on the petition "defective” and seeks to have the referendum annulled on that basis. Mr. Bloomberg spoke for the petition at the board meeting but was not a signer.

Attorney Forbes, at the November meeting, stated that a referendum has to be called on a petition bearing 100 or more names opposing lease of village land within 30 days after approval by the trustees. This was according to Village home rules he said at that time.

The lease proposal is unique in that the Grand Union Company in exchange for the park property, proposes to deed back to the Village a buffer strip along Chatsworth Avenue. The blacktopped parking space would adjoin the present space and a strip of landscaped ground would be placed between the parking lot and the rear of residences along Bonnett Avenue.

At the Oct. 20 Village Board meeting, Mr. Bloomberg charged that the Grand Union had attempted to buy him off by approaching him with the idea that if he withdrew his opposition he would receive free food. A Grand Union representative present also, vigorously denied the charge.