Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1958 [PAGE 1273]

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1270

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[May 29

adjoining property and is negotiating for the acquisition of the adjoining property on the west. The property consists of a lot 62.66 feet wide, 199.64 feet deep, and a frame residence, the first floor occupied by the owner, Mrs. Elizabeth I. Keener, and also used as a student rooming house. The price is within University appraisals of the property. Funds are available in the state capital appropriations for 1957-59, subject to release by the Governor. The Board of Trustees on February 18, 1958, authorized the institution of proceedings in eminent domain for the acquisition of this property because the owner was then unwilling to sell except at a price University officials deemed excessive and could not recommend. Subsequent negotiations resulted in the acceptance by the owner of an offer of $25,700 which is within University appraisals. I recommend the purchase of this property at the price indicated, subject to approval of the terms of payment by the Director of the Physical Plant Department, the Vice-President and Comptroller, and the Legal Counsel; and that the Comptroller and the Secretary of the Board be authorized to execute the necessary documents, subject to the release of funds.

On motion of Mr. Williamson, the purchase of the above mentioned property at the above stated price was approved and authorized and the Comptroller and the Secretary of the Board were authorized to execute the necessary documents if the purchase can be effected through the usual procedure of entering into a contract and securing a deed, but, in the event it develops that this customary procedure can not be followed and it becomes necessary to proceed with the condemnation suit now pending in order to acquire the property, the Legal Counsel was authorized to then take the necessary steps to secure the entry of an agreed verdict and award in the sum of $25,700 for the property in that suit and the payment of such award was authorized, all subject to the release of funds. This action was taken by the following vote: Aye, Mr. Bissell, Mr. Herrick, Mrs. Holt, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Johnston, Mr. Livingston, Mr. Swain, Mrs. Watkins, Mr. Williamson; no, none; absent, Mr. Nickell, Mr. Stratton. (Mr. Nickell was absent from the meeting when this matter was considered and the vote was taken.)

ACQUISITION BY CONDEMNATION OF PROPERTY AT 6 1 4 EAST J O H N STREET, CHAMPAIGN (31) At its November, 1957, meeting, the Board of Trustees was informed that the property at 614 East John Street, Champaign, Illinois, owned by Cyrus VVaughn, Jr. and Maxine M. Vaughn, his wife, and leased by them to Edward Nadarski, is needed by the University as a portion of the site for the contemplated Student Services Building; that, as the result of negotiations which had been conducted by University officers with the Vaughns and Mr. Nadarski, it was evident that this property could not be purchased, by agreement, at a price which University officers deemed reasonable or felt justified in paying; and that it was necessarj', therefore, to acquire the property by resort to the University's right ot eminent domain. Accordingly, at that meeting, the Board authorized the institution of a suit to condemn the property, which was instituted shortly thereafter. The suit was tried by jury in March, 1958, and the trial resulted in the return of a verdict fixing the value of the interest of the Vaughns at $45,000 and the value of the interest of Nadarski at $4,700. While these awards are well within the range of the testimony and between the valuations placed upon those interests by the witnesses who testified for the University and those who testified lor tne defendants, counsel for the University felt that they were higher than they should have been and were at least partly attributable to errors upon the part of the trial judge in refusing certain instructions and a form of verdict tendered by the University, in giving other instructions and a form of verdict tendered by the defendants, and in certain rulings with respect to the admission and exclusion 9' evidence. In view of the probable effect of these rulings in other pending and m