Editorial: Ownership has its challenges, and the town is past due to act

Elizabethtown’s Town Council made a good faith effort to help downtown merchants.

Now it’s dilly dallied for nearly half a year and failed to go forward on its intended purpose. One year after a fire destroyed a building at 112 W. Broad St., the mayor has floated the idea of letting it idle as much as another two years.

Enough!

Give up the idea of being so controlling and instead roll out the welcome mat to free enterprise, to entrepreneurship, to the freedoms we all enjoy.

When the C.A. Nails building burned on March 29 of last year, everyone here considered ourselves lucky. Had it happened at night, who knows? The fire happened in the daytime, and alert workers contracted to spruce up Leinwand’s down the street made the call that just might have saved the north side of the town’s economic engine better known as the 100 block of West Broad Street.

Then misery. The former owner refused an offer on the building — one that would have led to an incredible addition to the downtown offerings — and instead worked a deal giving the town ownership.

From the get-go, the council had no intention of investing in the property. And has not. The burned building, the gaping hole in the roof — it has sat there for a year, rainwater coming in, no work being done.

In full disclosure, we have a vested interest. The newspaper was a tenant next door and remains forced out and in temporary quarters.

We want back in, and the Leinwand family who owns the property next door wants us back. Part of the trouble is, Councilman Ricky Leinwand has to recuse himself from the matter and there weren’t enough votes in October to prevent the town from accepting the property.

Mayor Sylvia Campbell is leading the charge to have full control on how the building is used. The next step, possibly, is the council in April crafting language into the deed so that the future owner and any after that will have to adhere to what this group desires.

We understand the wish to have a business that meshes with what already exists. No problem there. But that’s why there are zoning ordinances.

To say the town is already quite protective would border on understatement. Sidewalks, mail delivery — the downtown guard has teeth.

Should the town go the route of wanting to be super restrictive, as the March 9 meeting conversations leaned, the price will go down. Doesn’t matter. Short of a minimum bid that meets tax value, the Town Council isn’t looking to strike it rich on the deal anyway.

But offering it “as is” doesn’t seem to have generated interest either. In fact, the council hasn’t even declared it surplus so it can be sold.

The option not discussed March 9, but certainly on the table, is to work with adjoining property owners who share walls and then tear it down in favor of a green space. Friendly grants, we believe, would be readily available to save the town money — perhaps even to pay for every cent of the work.

But a deal that allows the property to sit idle for three years since the fire? No, absolutely not.

Despite its best intentions, the Town Council is failing. So far, they’ve done no better than the previous owner.

Enough! Get it done.