Atlantic Beach residents challenge village board over rising legal fees

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Atlantic Beach residents voiced their concerns about financial discrepancies with legal fees and property taxes at the recent village board meeting.

Many were vocal during the meeting, raising concerns about where the money would be coming from to pay legal fees now totaling around $500,000.

Resident Francine Rosenberg sparked the conversation by bringing up numbers from previous years in hopes of getting clarification at the Jan. 13 meeting.

“Since 2022, the budget has reflected that central council will be allotted $7,500 per year,” Rosenberg said. “That’s 22,500 for three years for special council. Last meeting, we were notified that the legal fees are around $500,000, where is this money coming from?”

The question was met with a wide range of answers from members of the board.

Mayor George Pappas provided possible explanations, saying that some of the money came from the reserve, and was going toward the eminent domain attorney’s.

Such legal expertise was needed after the village announced plans to acquire the 2025 Park St. property from the Chabad of the Beaches through eminent domain, which is a governmental procedure to convert private property to public use after compensating the owner At fair market value.

Pappas did not respond to further questioning from the Herald, but said he would comment more on the topic at a future meeting.

Trustee Barry Frohlinger added that after reviewing the budget he can not come up with an answer for this question, which garnered a lot more concern from residents. 

“As to where the money came from, I have looked through the budget and I can report, that it is a mystery,” Frohlinger said. “What I can report is that we have had some positive and negative variances in the spend. There has been a reduction to the reserves, and our cash balances are down by $100,000 which is part of it, but it has not been easy to find the numbers.”

Frohlinger said that the board would be able to answer more questions and go into depth on financial discussions more during budget season.

This conversation led to multiple residents looking for clarification.

Among the confusion, residents wanted to know if last year’s property tax increase from last year was correlated to the rising legal fees and if they could expect another increase on property tax this year.

“I want to make it clearer to everyone, that the village should be prepared for significant, double digit tax increases,” Frohlinger said. “When I first got on the board six months ago, I was shown something that I cannot touch on at this point, that showed a number of a tax increase which could be significant double digits, which had nothing to do with Libby, Capital One, or the Chabad settlement.”

Frohlinger stated that the property tax increase for each resident could range from 40 to 60 percent. This estimate does not include potential additional costs stemming from ongoing settlements involving Capital One, Libbey, and Chabad, related to the 2035 Park Street property. The village had attempted to acquire the building through eminent domain after Chabad purchased it in 2021.

Resident Douglas Garczynski also raised concerns and objections. He said residents feel  left in the dark.

“We’re going to go down this rabbit hole with Chabad at all costs,” he said. “My only thing over the past two years was, what does that mean and how much does that cost? You’ve done a wonderful job not telling anybody. We’re all in the dark, and I’m just telling to people. The bill is coming due soon, and there’s going to be a lot of pain.”