Nora Grace-Flood photo
Half of the 18 Mill River St. property to be sold by the city to neighboring landlord Michael Smart.
Paul Bass file photo
City Clerk Smart: Just providing parking for tenant, following sliver lot rules.
Should the standard sale of a small plot of unusable city land to adjacent property owners trigger an ethics review — if one of the potential buyers is a citywide elected official?
Members of two city commissions recently raised that question at two separate public meetings, even as both boards ultimately voted in favor of selling a vacant 1,887 square-foot lot on Mill River Street to a holding company controlled by City/Town Clerk Michael Smart without first consulting the Board of Ethics.
That proposed sale of a city-owned sliver lot received favorable recommendations from the City Plan Commission on Sept. 20, and from the Livable City Initiative’s Board of Directors on Wednesday night.
If the Board of Alders gives final approval for the proposed transaction, a 5,662 square-foot sliver lot at 18 Mill River St. will be divided between Smart Properties LLC and Juan Martinez, who own the two next door properties at, respectively, 22 and 16 Mill River St.
Smart, the principal of Smart Properties LLC, is expected to pay $2,830.50 for his portion of that lot, a sale price calculated based on the city’s Property Acquisition and Disposition (PAD) Committee guidelines which charge non-owner occupants of properties $1.50 per square foot to adopt sliver lots.
Juan Martinez, meanwhile, is expected to pay $471.75 for his portion of the property, charged at $0.25 per square foot because he, on the other hand, is an owner occupant at the lot-adjacent property.
The publicly owned lot at 18 Mill River St. was most recently appraised by the city as worth $43,700.
The 18 Mill River St. lot is already divided into two properties used for off-street parking by the tenants to whom Smart rents out the single-family home he owns at 22 Mill River St. and to Juan Martinez’s family next door at 16 Mill River St.
A fence separates the property in two, as pictured below.
Smart — who is also the city/town clerk, a citywide elected position that oversees absentee ballots, property records, and a host of other public documents — said that LCI approached him about the sliver parcel, asserting that the property had already been split as such nearly two decades ago during an independent sliver lot exchange, but that neither Smart nor Martinez technically owned 18 Mill River St. because former owners had never actually paid to complete the property disposition.
“This goes way back before my time,” Smart said. He said he was under the impression that so long as his identity was disclosed to the various boards tasked with approving the sale, his role in government was inconsequential to the transaction.
He said his plan is simply to buy the property from the city so he can continue providing parking for his tenant.
The half of 18 Mill River St. used by 16 Mill River St. resident Juan Martinez.
LCI's Evan Trachten during last week's City Plan Commission meeting.
LCI Acquisition and Disposal Specialist Evan Trachten presented the proposed sale to the LCI Board of Directors on Wednesday night and the City Plan Commission the Wednesday before.
“Full disclosure, this is an LLC of which our City/Town Clerk, Michael Smart, is a principal member,” Trachten told City Plan Commissioners. “But this is absolutely consistent with PAD disposition guidelines and it has been disclosed according to city policy. So I just look at this as a textbook sliver lot sale — nobody’s getting any special treatment.”
He informed both the LCI Board and City Plan Commission that he consulted Assistant Corporation Counsel Michael Pinto as to whether or not the sale should trigger an ethics review. Pinto was unable to present his own opinion at either meeting, but Trachten said the lawyer dismissed any need for an ethics examination since the sliver lot program is enacted by the books and doesn’t require any negotiations between involved parties.
The LCI Board voted unanimously to approve the sale so long as Pinto provides a letter to the body confirming that legal stance. Westville Alder and Majority Leader Richard Furlow suggested that solution, stating that “it might be good for Mr. Pinto to just include a letter stating that there’s no conflict, just as part of the record so that I can get this through the Board without any hassle,” referring to the Board of Alders, who will serve as the final sign-off on the sale.
City Plan Commissioner Carl Goldfield at last week's City Plan Commission meeting.
City Plan Commissioners also offered a favorable recommendation for the property disposition, with one lone commissioner, Carl Goldfield, worrying that there was an “appearance” of impropriety “I’m not comfortable with.”
Trachten argued that the sliver lot disposition is an as-of-right program for all owners of abutting lots. The city sells those properties at predetermined rates to owners in order to rid themselves of unusable lots that typically serve only as potential liabilities but could offer homeowners an opportunity to develop off-street parking or side lots. Read more about that here.
When an individual applies to take over a sliver lot, Trachten said the city’s land disposition guidelines simply require the city to consider whether the applicant is a neighbor in good standing, then price the property according to pre-determined pricing rules that account for whether or not the owner occupies the property or not and how the property is zoned. Read through those guidelines here.
Commissioner and Westville Alder Adam Marchand said “what I would feel uncomfortable with is if some how the situation was treated differently and not in accordance with the program guidelines. But if it is, if it’s following the same guidelines and standards, and it’s being treated as any other similar situation, then I think that makes me feel some confidence.”
“The other thing is that our city clerk has an important role in government,” Marchand continued, “but he is not going to vote on this. If this were an LLC owned by me, I would have to recuse myself.”
Chair Leslie Radcliffe agreed. “Mr. Smart has nothing to do with the decision — there’s no way he could really influence it, and if it wasn’t Mr. Smart, if it was anyone else, we would have to use the same guidelines to govern our decision.”
Goldfield disagreed. “Obviously if Mr. Smart was able to vote on this it would be a direct conflict, and I’m not suggesting it is. But I do think that what the Ethics Commission would do would be to examine this and confirm that this was just in the ordinary course and consistent with the PAD guidelines.
“I would feel more comfortable with that before I voted for a recommendation to the Board of Aldermen.”
Meanwhile, the Board of Ethics appears to have met only twice this year, if that. According to the city website, each of their monthly meetings from 2023 were canceled with the exception of a meeting in June and another in September, though meeting minutes have not been posted for either. Neither do agendas for either of those meetings list specific issues or questions that were slated for review.
When asked why the Board of Ethics has failed to meet consistently throughout this past year, city spokesperson Len Speiller said “the Board of Ethics only meets on an as-needed basis.”