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5/25/06 BACK

Land use attorney assigned to dig through documents, get the dirt on Lucy


By SUZANNE MARINO
Staff Writer
MARGATE -- With the squabbling between the city and the Save Lucy Committee having no end in sight, the city has opted for a different tack.
The City Commissioners directed city solicitor Mary Siracusa Thursday, May 18 to bring in a separate attorney to begin the task of sorting through legal documents, agreements, common lore, and rhetoric regarding Lucy the Elephant to determine rights, responsibilities and intentions regarding the beloved but beleaguered landmark.
Mark Asselta of the firm Brown and Connery of Westmont is the land use attorney already under contract with the city. Asselta has been assigned to review the lease that the Save Lucy Committee has with the city for Lucy and the surrounding property that houses the gift shop and the snack bar. He will prepare a report that will spell out exactly how the agreement between the city and national historic landmark is written and look at past practice as well.
“This is a neutral party looking at the lease and just gathering all the facts,” said Siracusa.
Commissioner John Swift has sent an itemized list of documents that he wanted to examine and was given a specific time and date that he would be permitted to look for those documents. Rather than Swift digging for the original papers of the lease, Asselta will now try and follow the paper trail and bring the facts to the table as a baseline for both sides.
But no matter what the paper trail may indicate, one of the issues still festering is the makeup of the board of directors and the fact that executive director Richard Helfant has a vote on that board. Also lingering is his compensation package and the city’s annual stipend toward the operation of Lucy, approximately $25,000.
The president of the Save Lucy Committee, Scott Blackman, distributed a letter a week ago spelling out why he felt Helfant’s $70,000 annual salary was warranted.
While the city commissioners and the Save Lucy Committee look to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, they do share a common ground: Both sides admit that Margate is home to a very unique national historic landmark. With that one common thread Asselta will begin to gather all the facts and find a place from where both sides will be able to begin negotiating.
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