The Center advocates find sympathy at City Council

More on the story of the city trying to take The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation's land: The Chronicle reports that advocates of The Center seem to have found supporters on City Council. To recap, the issue here centers on an agreement The Center worked out with former Mayor Lewis Cutrer in 1963 to lease the land at West Dallas and Shepherd for 99 years. Under the agreement, The Center would pay the city $1 a year in rent in exchange for providing social services and building on the land, which then held the old City Tubercular Hospital. The deal rocked along until the city informed The Center that the lease was invalid under a city charter provision that limited such agreements to 30 years.

Mayor Bill White said the city wants to sell the land — prime real estate valued at as much as $26 million — and use the money for grants to nonprofits that serve people with disabilities and mental health issues. But The Center's leaders have said paying for a new location and building new facilities is far beyond the agency's $11 million annual budget, which worries friends and family of those who use The Center's services and live in the Cullen Residence Hall on its property. White said he met with representatives of The Center and offered to let them buy or lease the property at a fair market price, but the agency's officials say they don't have the money for that. "You opened your heart to Katrina victims," Richard Quoyeser, whose son Edward lives in the residence hall, said to councilmembers. "Why not one of your own?"

Councilwoman Ada Edwards assured The Center's supporters that the city "[is] going to do the right thing," and Councilwoman Addie Wiseman said the fact that The Center has been on the property for 44 years could work in the agency's favor: "I think we have an issue of squatter's rights in this matter," she said. "I would hope The Center and its supporters are as aggressive as possible."

To help make its case, The Center has created savethecenter.org, a website that includes information on the agency, news about the property and a petition calling for the city to reconsider its plans. "We strongly believe that the City is acting outside their legal rights, and against contracts previously signed. ... If The Center is forced to close the West Dallas location, our ability to provide the standard of services to which individuals and their families have been accustomed for over 40 years will cease," Executive Director Eva Aguirre wrote in a statement on the site.

---
Photo: The Center Serving Persons With Mental Retardation