Postal Service lambasted by Planning Board for not producing easement
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Grinding down to the 11th hour, the U.S. Postal Service still cannot agree on the wording of an agreement between it and Bank of America for an easement between their properties at the junction of Pleasant Street and Sparks Avenue.

This revelation angered the Planning Board, which, at its Monday night meeting, had been expecting word from Arthur Reade, the attorney for L.M.D., LP, developer of 140/144 Pleasant St., the site of the new post office, that the easement agreement was sealed and ready to go.

Instead, one of the attorneys from Reade's firm, Stephen Cohen, delivered the news to the board that the Postal Service was hung up on six words in the agreement. Hearing this, board members criticized Cohen for L.M.D's taking two years to resolve easement issues.

"Steve, that's not acceptable," said Planning Board member Barry Rector. "I'm this close to saying this is denied. We are almost on top of the summer."

Acting Planning Board Chairman Frank Spriggs, equally incensed, did not hold back his frustrations.

"It's really a shame for the island that the roundabout has been there and we're waiting for the signs to go in place and not to have that easement. Here we are at Figawi Weekend in two weeks and that thing is not going to be open. I think that's a disservice to the community and a sham to keep that thing rolling," said Spriggs. "It impacts so many people. It impacts people who travel through that area, and now we're going to have chaos going through that area."

A condition of the Planning Board's June 27, 2005 approval of L.M.D's major commercial development special permit for constructing a building to lease to the U.S. Postal Service for its new post office at 140 and 144 Pleasant St. was that L.M.D principal Al DeMarco secure an easement between his and Bank of America's property at 15 Sparks Ave. so the two businesses could share parking and driveways.

The easement would allow one entrance into this new, combined parking lot through the bank's existing driveway on Sparks Avenue and one exit out through the post office's current access on Pleasant Street.

The board designed this condition to work in concert with the island's first roundabout at the intersection of Pleasant Street, Hooper Farm Road and Sparks Avenue.

At the last Planning Board meeting on April 24, Reade told the board that DeMarco and the bank had reached an easement agreement that allowed bank patrons to park in its 18-spot lot and pass through the post office's 26-space lot to exit out onto Pleasant Street, but not to a merger of the two parking lots. At the time, Reade said the only thing left to finalize was a site plan from engineer Leo Asadoorian.

Bank of America island attorney Melissa Philbrick attempted to explain this glitch by detailing the events leading up to the Postal Service's issues with the agreement.

Philbrick said that she had received the site plan from Asadoorian and that the bank pretty much agreed to it. Then the Postal Service wanted to make some revisions to it that Philbrick learned of on May 9. She assured the board that the issues would be ironed out.

"We are trying to work it out," Philbrick said. "I think there were two sticking points. It is clearly an issue that can be worked out between the bank and L.M.D," she said.

For his part, there was not much that Cohen could do but offer sugges- tions on how to get the easement agreement signed by his clients and into the hands of the Planning Board.

"There is no dragging of feet here," said Cohen in response to Planning Board member John McLaughlin's comment that the Postal Service's attorney's were holding up the process to make more money. "We are working on this and I hope I can assure you that this will be done, done, done."

Cohen said yesterday that he expected to resolve the Postal Services issues in the next couple of days, and that he would have the signed documents ready to present to the Planning Board next week.

In the end, the board voted 5-0 to approve the new post office contingent on the U.S. Postal Service signing the agreement. The Planning Board, said Spriggs, would not sign L.M.D's plans until it had documentation

of the easement in hand. I