Arts Clubs’ Cry: Help Us With Ely Rent

The Paint and Clay and Brush and Palette clubs will be allowed to stay at the rescued John Slade Ely House. If they can come up with $1,500 a month for rent.

That’s what the soon-to-be-new landlord of the beloved arts center – the ECA/ACES regional arts ed group – plans to charge after completing a probate court-ordered purchase from the building’s current owner, the Wells Fargo bank. The clubs, historically allowed to occupy the building under the Grace T. Ely Trust’s ownership, have fought to stay there.

Guess whom the arts clubs – still babes at fundraising – are pitching to get that moolah, which is roughly about half their anticipated costs for the first year?

Yep, the old landlord, Wells Fargo, which was the trustee of the building and stands to reap $390,000 in next week’s sale to ACES.

The bank’s answer thus far: We’re sympathetic. The Grace T. Ely Trust loves you, and recognizes your historic importance. But … not so fast.

This tale of the kids being kicked out of the house but still wanting to live there — and hustling hard to learn how to pay rent for the first time, to a new owner — unfolded in friendly but palpably tense detail at a status hearing Thursday afternoon in the North Branford Probate courtroom of Judge Frank Forgione.

It was the sixth hearing convened in Judge Forgione’s courtroom since Wells Fargo decided to put the house on the market. That action triggered widespread outrage among artists and the formation of a group called the Friends of the John Slade Ely House. Artists — backed by the city and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven — sought to stop a sale that would eliminate the building as an arts center, and have made progress on a new deal to preserve that function.

The court has formally approved the sale of the house to ECA/ACES. That deal is expected to be signed next week, said Attorney Arnold Shimelman, who represents ECA/ACES.

But the saga continues.

At stake at Thursday’s hearing was not the sale — Shimelman was there, he said, only to monitor the proceedings — but the status of the former tenants, the two arts clubs; and the financial help they might expect from the trust as they, post-sale, in turn negotiate a lease under the umbrella of the Friends of John Slade Ely House. In the past the clubs occupied space at the house for free.

State Attorney General representatives Caitlin Calder and Karen Gano asked the judge to convene the hearing and give the clubs priority status as recipients of grant monies from the Grace T. Ely Trust, which by law must spend 5 percent of its capital in grants to community organizations.

Because the clubs are named in the Grace T. Ely will, Calder and Gano argued in their motion that the bank, operating the trust after the sale, should put the clubs at the top of the list and set aside for them approximately $35,000 to help in the transition during the first year, specifically to pay the new rent and estimated utilities. That would be part of a general $60,000 first-year budget, the latter $30,000 representing program, insurance, haulage, and other miscellaneous costs.

Without taking sides, Judge Forgione put the matter bluntly: ​“I understand I’m being asked to order the trustee to contribute a certain amount of money annually for the clubs so the lease being discussed is secured.”

“We’re just seeking some reassurance for these groups,” said Calder, as they go into negotiations for the first time with the new landlord.

“Yes, but what authority do I have to compel a trustee to pay X amount of dollars per year?” Judge Forgione rejoined.

“This is construing the [language of the] trust. To make this an appropriate priority payment,” Gano replied.

Forgione reminded the courtroom that the Brush and Palette Club and the Paint and Clay Club were, as he read the will, ​“named as desired beneficiaries, not as mandated beneficiaries.”

He suggested the best way to move forward might not be compulsion or court orders but for the parties to continue to talk.

“We’re a lot closer to being on the same page than the matter suggests,” said the trust’s representative, Wiggin & Dana attorney Aaron Bayer.

Bayer said he agreed with the court — or with how he interpreted Judge Forgione’s remarks — that the court has no authority to order a trustee to spend $35,000 for a first year or year and a half. But Bayer was open to discuss in specifics how the clubs and the Friends might apply, with a budget and a program like any other applicant. They of course would receive sympathetic hearing from the trust’s grant makers given the long history and the intense involvement of both the city of New Haven and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven in the sale deal.

Under law, however, the bank could not simply funnel money to the clubs or the Friends without treating them the way they would any applicant, he said

The preparation of those grant applications is being facilitated by Jackie Downing of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. She explained to the judge that the full budget for the first phase of the project— a second phase sees the building closed for renovation and a third a yet-to-be-determined sharing arrangement after the building is reopened — would amount to about $60,000 for the Friends and its sub-tenants the clubs.

Make that $30,000 for basic occupational costs and about the same amount for program costs.

That’s a daunting amount to raise for the fledgling groups. ​“These are organizations that have been enjoying the generosity of the trust for 50 years. Until now they didn’t have to fundraise” Downing said.

Bayer pointed out that of the three entities, the Friends and the two clubs, only one is in possession of formal charitable 501(c)3 status.

Judge Forgione asked the status of the Friends’ non-profit credentials.

The Friends at this point raises and receive funds using the fiscal sponsorship of the Community Foundation, replied Friends’ attorney Ronald Pacacha.

“We’d hope that for the first few years, it would be a non-competitive process,” said Downing.

Bayer pointed out that the trust, which now must shift from an operating to a non-operating basis, but still give away 5 percent of its principal every year, would have about $38,000 to distribute.

If most of that were given to the clubs and the Friends, how should the trust respond, Bayer posed the hypothetical, if the city of New Haven sough support for a great new arts venture?

Several other participants reminded the court that the Friends had assembled more than 1,200 signatures for support, that the city is behind the group, as is the Community Foundation.

These issues, along with details of the closing, are to be discussed at the next status hearing, the seventh, scheduled in Judge Forgione’s court for March 24.