County opposed land taking in 2001

BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER

Nantucket's county commissioners are not the first to ponder whether Leroy Viera truly owns his land at 112 Pleasant St., the site of the former Pleasant Street post office.

The county commissioners of 2001, including Steve Bender, Matt Fee, the late Isky Santos, Frank Spriggs and Tim Soverino, were presented with the same opportunity to take the land in June of 2001, but voted not to in executive session that August.

Currently, the county is trying to discern if it owns Viera's .57-of-an-acre lot that he bought in 1946, and not just a drainage easement across Viera's property that it took in 1956. Viera's attorney, Donald Lynde of Hyannis, maintains the county took property from owners unknown at the time and not from his client. Incredulous over the county's recent belief that it owns Viera's property, Lynde questions the legality of the taking when Viera has paid property taxes on the land for the last 51 years.

Although the County of Nantucket would not provide The Nantucket Independent with minutes from the executive session meetings held in August 2001, two former county commissioners shed some new light on this alleged taking by emphatically stating why they think the county does not own 112 Pleasant St.

"The property was taken, it was illegally taken insofar as the law states very specifically that the owner must be informed of the taking," said Bender. "That suit has no merit. The courts just threw out a [similar] suit in the last month; the town hasn't done due diligence. I was very adamant about it too. I voted against it every time."

Spriggs shared his fellow former county commissioner's thoughts that the county does not own 112 Pleasant St., having grown up with the Viera family on Nantucket.

"I've known the family for years and even from the time when I was a kid and I've known that they lived there," said Spriggs. "I didn't see how we could take it, mainly because he had been paying property taxes to the town and renting it to the post office, and he built the building for the post office."

Brian Chadwick, chairman of the county commissioners and Town Manager Libby Gibson did not return phone inquiries as to why the county

wants to take Viera's property. I