Washington seeks ownership of its park after old records lost
Lacking records from 80 years ago, the city of Washington has gone to court in hopes of obtaining proof so it can getting a grant from state taxpayers for $350,000 worth of pool repairs.
The Pennsylvania Office of the Budget, which oversees state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grants, including those for recreation projects, declined to process a grant application for final funding because the city could not establish a record of ownership.
A grant of $350,000 to the Redevelopment Authority of Washington County was leveraged with $650,000 from the Local Share Account of gambling revenue from The Meadows Racetrack & Casino.
The city and redevelopment authority entered into a cooperation agreement on the project in 2010, but when the project was completed, the state Office of the Budget noted it could not distribute the grant because the city couldn’t document its ownership of the property.
Washington Park has existed for more than 80 years, and its pool was built in the 1930s, but city Solicitor Steven Toprani said in a court filing that “municipal records have been lost and court records are limited… Most, if not all, of the city records from that era were lost in a flood that occurred at City Hall several years ago.”
Washington Recreation Co., a for-profit corporation that was created in 1926, developed the park and the corporation has never been dissolved.
The city has meeting minutes from 1937 showing it began eminent domain proceedings against private land in the the city and South Strabane Township to acquire the 18-acre park, and it cited a news article from that year that appeared in the Monongahela Daily Republican newspaper.
Prothonotary records show the court later that year “setting an award in the amount of $32,000 payable to Washington Recreation Co. by the city for the taking…. Curiously, no curative deeds were recorded, nor were any further orders of court entered.”
Toprani cited the Donated or Dedicated Property Act of 1959 in asking Washington County Court to confirm the city’s ownership of Washington Park and its pool, saying that the city will suffer financial harm and “irrecoverable loss” in that the grant will not be completed by the Department of Community and Economic Development.