The battle over Klondike has ended, not with the high court drama, but with both sides claiming victory, or sorts. Must have something to do with the municipal election being over or something. Maybe the legal bill the first taxing district was amassing was going to be one of those awkward discussion points with rate payers. From the Advocate:

The First Taxing District will withdraw a pending lawsuit against Norwalk after city attorneys agreed that a piece of a disputed Wall Street park belongs to the district.

The district’s Board of Commissioners filed a suit against the city in May, centering on the ownership of Klondike Park, a small tract of land at the Wall Street bridge and Main Street.

The recent agreement acknowledges that the taxing district owns a 270-square-foot triangular plot of land known as Klondike Park next to the bridge, and that 21 Wall St., the larger adjacent parcel just north of it, is owned by the city.

The site of a former diner, the city gained the adjacent parcel in a tax foreclosure 10 or 15 years ago, city attorney Robert Maslan said. The taxing district acquired Klondike Park in 1897 for $800, according to land records.

The Common Council must approve the settlement.

Both sides are claiming victory in the suit. It arose from a dispute that began in May, when the taxing district discovered the city was allowing PJF Construction Corp. of West Hartford to use Klondike Park as a staging area while the firm repaired the Wall Street bridge.

“We’re very glad this has happened because it’s everything we were looking for,” First Taxing District Commissioner Kenneth Slapin said.

“We’re happy the taxing district asked us to meet and discuss settlement,” Maslan said.

The lawsuit had larger implications because former city attorney Peter Nolin’s opinion that claimed Klondike Park for the city, called into question the ownership of all other First Taxing District parks by extension, taxing district officials said.

“Despite what city representatives would like the public to believe, this lawsuit was never about Klondike Park,” Fulton said. ” (Nolin) on June 21 wrote an opinion that the First Taxing District acquired no parkland in act of consolidation of 1913. It’s all about the parkland.”

But Maslan said Nolin’s letter was part of a general discussion and never challenged the taxing district’s ownership of other park properties, including the Green or Union Park.

The confusion arose from the complicated history of the municipalities that joined together to form present-day Norwalk, he said.

A special act by the state legislature in 1913 consolidated the city of Norwalk, leaving in place special taxing districts, like the First Taxing District, which survived as a water company.

The taxing district, in the old city center, was known as “the city of Norwalk” until it was renamed as a taxing district in the consolidation, but the tiny tract of land still is deeded to the former city of Norwalk.

“A title searcher doing a regular title search would reach the opinion that the city of Norwalk owns Klondike Park, because the deed says so, not realizing the intervening history in 1913, hence the confusion,” Maslan said.

Nolin was not questioning any of the other parks in the First District, he said.

It’s amazing that Fulton is still in hyper spin mode over this blatant political stunt that has essentially backfired. He wants us all to forget that this was all about a DPW contractor who needed access to the area in order to repair the bridge.

t is disingenuous for the city to accuse the district for bringing a frivolous suit that they “forced,” Slapin said.

“They wouldn’t budge and then complained we had to spend money to defend ourselves for a fight they picked with us,” he said. “It shouldn’t have happened but it needed to happen because the city’s law department directly and in writing challenged our title to the land.”

Right. This could have been settled with the First Taxing District asking for the City of Norwalk to replace the lock, at say $20, and an agreement over how long the contractor needed access. First Taxing District rate payers should question how much this lawsuit over a lock really cost them.

source:Advocate, Taxing district will end lawsuit over park, By Alexandra Fenwick, February 19 2008