These stories© 2002, The Hartford Courant, reproduced with their kind permission. Please respect the Courant's ownership of this material. You may print this page for your personal use, or refer others to this page, but may not otherwise copy or retransmit this information in any form.

Beach Actually Owned By Town, Attorney Argues
December 19, 2002
By CLAUDIA VAN NES, Courant Staff Writer
OLD SAYBROOK -- The town's ownership of the roads in Cornfield Point could actually extend to the edge of Long
Island Sound, making the Cornfield Point Association beach town property. At least, this is one legal argument Town Attorney Mike Cronin made Wednesday when describing to selectmen how the lawsuit the association brought against the town earlier this month can be countered.

That suit contends 10 road endings in the Cornfield Point beach neighborhood are actually the association's, not the town's. Cronin said according to the deeds from the 1920s and 30s turning the roads in the neighborhood over to the town, it appears the roads may have extended to the water until the hurricane of 1938. The bluffs where the roads now end were formed by the state after the hurricane and may be setting up false barriers, Cronin said.

Even if the roads end at the start of the beach and not at the water, there's a good legal argument to be made for public beach access under state statutes concerning tax-exempt status, Cronin said. Tax exemption is granted on certain lands as long as the public is able to use them, he said. The Cornfield Point Association did not intend a precedent-setting beach access case when it brought suit. It is seeking to establish the 40-by-100-foot road endings are association property and that the town has no right to make them accessible to the public. The suit has infuriated the selectmen.

"I've lived in Cornfield Point for over 30 years, and I consider this my neighbors' attempt to steal something from the public. It's offensive," Selectman Bill Peace said. "This is sad; not a happy situation at all," said Selectwoman Velma Thomas. First Selectman Michael Pace said Wednesday he will attempt to force the association to make public minutes, records of votes and other documents through the Freedom of Information Act. "I've heard from enough Cornfield Point residents to believe they didn't have prior knowledge their associationwas bringing suit. I want to know if there was a vote on this," Pace said of the pending FOI action.

Most Cornfield Point residents who've spoken out in meetings over the months and in private oppose the town's intention to remove fences and other encroachments on the road endings put up by adjacent property owners and to allow limited parking by the public. But at Wednesday's meeting, Dee Marx, who has lived on Gates Road in Cornfield Point with her husband for the past four years, said no meeting of Cornfield Point residents was called to vote on whether to use association money to sue the town. Now, she said, she finds herself in the unenviable position of having to help pay, through association dues, for a lawsuit against the town and also help pay as a taxpayer to defend the suit.

But Marx did say later that at the June annual meeting of the association a vote was taken to retain a lawyer for the road ending issue, though she didn't know it would lead to a lawsuit. Association President Theodore Kopcha, who was blocked by a very angry Pace from speaking during Wednesday's meeting, has said the June vote gave the association board the go-ahead to take whatever legal action was necessary. Meanwhile, Pace said the town would probably countersue the association to challenge their actions to block the public from their property. However, that suit won't be filed until the selectmen vote to do so.

Town Ponders Beach Lawsuit

December 16, 2002 By CLAUDIA VAN NES, Courant Staff Writer

OLD SAYBROOK -- The town is considering countersuing the Cornfield Point Association to either force it to open its Long Island Sound beach to the public or make the association liable for taxes on the property.The countersuit would argue that the association is a type of municipality and thus its property should be open to the public.

The association sued the town earlier this month over the selectmen's decision to make shoreline road endings in Cornfield Point more readily accessible to the public. The town would remove lawns, hedges, wells and other barriers put up by residents over the years. Cornfield Point, like 13 other beach associations in town, owns beachfront restricted to association members but does not pay property taxes. The associations have some powers similar to those of municipalities, such as bonding and levying taxes on members.

If a town countersuit failed to establish that the association was a public entity, town officials and attorneys argue, it would mean the association was private and its valuable waterfront land taxable. "The town would like to turn this into a beach rights case, but it's not," association attorney Richard Carella of Middletown said Friday.

The association's suit asserts road endings in the Cornfield Point beach area are not the town's, but owned by the association. Town officials have said they wanted to clear road endings, in part to open up views of the sound to the general public and to reclaim the property. The road clearing move wouldn't open association beaches to the public, but a countersuit could.

"They don't know what they got themselves in for when they decided not to work with us," said First Selectman Michael Pace, who plans to ask selectmen at their Wednesday meeting to endorse a countersuit. "You can't have the benefits of not paying taxes on your land for all these years and then turn around and say, `What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine, "' Pace said.

A legislative act established the Cornfield Point Association and most other beach associations in town. The Cornfield Point Act of 1935 states the association has "exclusive charge and control of all roads ... not under state or town control." Carella said the road endings, found at the top of small cliffs that lead down to the association beach, aren't under town control because the town never used them for highway purposes and long ago abandoned them.

Town Attorney Mike Cronin and Pace argue the town does control the roads to their very ends. Cronin, who has been researching the possible countersuit, said there has never been a legal case challenging the status of beach associations.

If the town decides to countersue, it will look to the high-profile Greenwich town beach case, which established that municipally owned property is open to everyone, based on the U.S. Constitution. "It could be one step further to say this applies to beach associations," Cronin said.