The Town Manager has no legal basis to withhold the final installment of a $3.2 million Community Preservation Grant awarded to Pilgrim Hall Museum in 2023 for badly needed roof repairs, a new air conditioning system and lighting. He has claimed the right to do so because no historic preservation restriction was recorded in 2023.
However, an historic preservation restriction was recorded in 1996, when Pilgrim Hall first received CPA funds. By definition, a preservation restriction is effective in perpetuity, as a result of which when Pilgrim Hall received further CPA funds, no new preservation restriction was needed. Simply put, since the 1996 restriction was in perpetuity, Pilgrim Hall had “nothing left to give” when it received subsequent CPA funds.
In this way, preservation restrictions operate like home equity line of credit agreements: They secure future advances, thereby obviating the need to secure each advance contemporaneously.
If the Town Manager has received a legal opinion to the contrary, I would like to see it.
– Richard M. Serkey
Serkey is a Town Meeting member representing Precinct 2.