Federal agency asserts claim to buildings
Sunday, September 22, 2002
By Herb Frazier
A congressional agency that funds legal services for low-income
Americans is battling Charleston lawyers over control of buildings
that once housed legal assistance programs in Charleston,
Georgetown and Conway.
At stake is prime real estate in the coastal cities, including a
Charleston building in the heart of upscale commercial development
on upper King Street.
The Washington-based Legal Services Corp. wants the buildings
transferred to the S.C. Centers for Equal Justice, said LSC
spokesman Eric Kleiman.
The LSC was once the funding agency for the Neighborhood Legal
Assistance Program Corp. in Charleston. In January, the LSC funding
went to the Greenville-based equal justice centers.
In an Aug. 21 letter to NLAP board chairman Gerald A. Kaynard,
LSC president John N. Erlenborn said: "If NLAP fails to effectuate
these transfers by Aug. 31, LSC will take all necessary steps to
protect its interest in these properties."
Kaynard did not return repeated phone calls from The Post and
Courier.
As part of its funding agreement, the LSC requires property
purchased with government funds be returned to the nonprofit
corporation if a local agency loses its grant, Kleiman said. In
August, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that requirement in
a lawsuit LSC filed in a property dispute with a legal services
program in Big Stone Gap, Va.
Kleiman said, "We will continue to work with NLAP to work out an
orderly transfer of the property. We hope this can be resolved
amicably." Last year, NLAP lost its federal grant with a nationwide
consolidation of legal aid programs. In January, the federal agency
awarded a $4.4 million grant to the Centers for Equal Justice,
which has a Charleston area office and sites in 11 other South
Carolina cities.
With a budget of $329 million, LSC provides civil legal
assistance to low-income people in every county in America, Kleiman
said. NLAP was created in 1968. A decade later, the agency used a
$50,000 LSC grant to buy a building at 438 King St. in Charleston
and $33,000 to buy a building at 201 King St. in Georgetown,
according to Erlenborn's letter to Kaynard. In 1980, NLAP used
$63,000 in LSC funds to buy property at 607 Main St. in Conway, the
letter said.
On Nov. 14, 2001, NLAP transferred title of the King Street
building in Charleston to the Charleston County Bar Association,
according to county property records.
The local bar paid $5 for the building, which sits between a
redeveloped office building and an antique shop. The local bar said
it would maintain the building for "legal services to indigent
residents of Charleston County and coastal South Carolina," the
records said. The King Street building appears to be vacant.
Notices at the entrance direct visitors to the equal justice center
on West Montague Avenue in North Charleston.
E. Douglas Pratt-Thomas, president of the local bar, was not
available for comment.
Charleston County has not appraised the King Street property
because it is tax-exempt. But Randall Goldman, managing partner of
Patrick Properties, which owns buildings from 440 to 456 King St.,
said he estimates 438 King St. would sell for between $700,000 and
$900,000. "That building, which was purchased solely with federal
legal aid dollars, should be used to provide legal services for
poor people in South Carolina," Kleiman said.
LSC wants the title to go to the equal justice center in
Charleston or "we want 100 percent of the proceeds from the sale of
the building to stay in Charleston. We are not contemplating taking
that money out of South Carolina," he said. Kleiman said if the
neighborhood legal program in Charleston "had honored their
obligation, this would not be an issue."