Out of Control
In ChinatownBenevolent Association Seeks
To Put AACA on the Street
A Superior Court judge will decide today whether the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) can move forward with plans to evict
the Asian American Civic Association (AACA) from its home at 90 Tyler Street. If CCBA manages to force the agency onto the street, it will have flouted the intentions of the city, which believed the building would be used as a community center and become the home of AACA when it agreed to give it to CCBA for $1 in 1983.
Current CCBA president Robert Leung and his supporters appear determined to flout the will of Mayor Thomas Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority by pushing forward with the AACA eviction.
The long-running dispute between AACA and CCBA escalated in recent weeks as CCBA again sought to evict AACA from 90 Tyler Street.
AACA executive director Chau-Ming Lee told the AACA staff last week that CCBA's lawyer had informed AACA that the execution of an eviction had been forwarded to the sheriff's office. For the last two weeks, the staff of AACA has been left in suspense as to whether their programs - including this newspaper - would be disrupted by an eviction.
In an effort to stop the action, AACA lawyers on Wednesday sought an injunction in Superior Court to stop the eviction on the grounds that CCBA had violated an oral agreement reached between AACA, CCBA, and the BRA that would have led to the issuance of a new lease for the agency. An affidavit submitted by the BRA confirmed the existence of such an agreement.
This week AACA board members sought support from Chinatown community leaders in a luncheon at the Imperial Seafood Restaurant. A number of those present suggested they would write a letter to Mayor Menino urging him to take action to support the beleaguered agency. "I think the community would have a say by encouraging the city to enforce that promise [to provide a home for AACA at 90 Tyler St.," said Thomas Lee of the Chinatown Coalition.
The current crisis brings into the open a long-standing conflict over how community resources are used in Chinatown and who controls them. For years the city officials, local politicians, and institutions negotiating with Chinatown have felt the need to pay allegiance to CCBA. Moreover, few leaders or community agencies have been willing to publicly criticize the organization despite obvious abuses in the way the organization has handled such community resources as 90 Tyler St. and 50 Herald Street.
Chau-Ming Lee this week said that forces operating in the city and the community have allowed "CCBA to amass a fortune."
"The question is, what have they done for the community other than so called housing?" said Chau-Ming Lee, who added that "people are always afraid of attacking CCBA."
If CCBA were to follow through with its threatened action, Chinatown's largest social service agency, which provides language and skills-training programs and a multiservice center for immigrants - would no longer have a home. This latest crisis comes after the dispute between the two Chinatown organizations appeared to be settled. Under a recent agreed-upon plan, AACA would have received a new lease, while CCBA would have received a higher monthly rent and payment of a court judgment owed it by AACA.
AACA has been operating at 90 Tyler St. since CCBA received the building from the city for $1 in the early 1980s. In making its pitch to obtain the old Quincy School Building from the city in 1983, CCBA said it would use the building as a community center. According to its original proposal, the new center's tenants would be the Chinese American Civic Association (now called AACA) and the Kwong Kow Chinese School. Some 15 years later, however, CCBA and its president are embroiled in a law suit with the Kwong Kow School over who has the right to control the Chinese school and is threatening to evict AACA.
CCBA has also managed to alienate the Archdiocese of Boston, whose Chinese Catholic Pastoral Center at 78 Tyler St. is being damaged by water leaks and a faulty drainage system at 90 Tyler St. CCBA has refused to respond to the Pastoral Center's concerns or to a letter from diocese lawyers, according to the Rev. Denis Como, the Pastoral Center's director.
Attorney Paul Yee, who is AACA's vice president, last week pointed out that CCBA was given such a large piece of public property with the understanding that it was going to use the building as a community center. A major selling point for its plan was the fact that AACA would be using much of the space for its community programs.
Yee said that AACA had originally sought a long-term lease from CCBA, but that CCBA would only agree to give it a three-year lease. At the time, CCBA said it wanted to limit the length of the initial lease so that it could better determine whether its rent was in line with its operating expenses. CCBA also told AACA not to worry about finding a permanent home. "We were assured this was our permanent home," said Yee.
When the initial three-year lease expired, CCBA sought to raise AACA's rent before issuing it a new lease. It was at this point that the dispute between the two groups originated. AACA said CCBA was inflating its operating expenses by including payments on several outstanding loans. Yee said the loan expenses made up a substantial portion of the operating expenses and "were not legitimate." Several AACA board members, for example, said the debt for which AACA was paying were loans CCBA had made to itself.
While CCBA publicly argues that AACA refused to pay its rent, Yee said the organization continued to pay its rent but refused to pay the percentage of the operating expenses attributable to the loans. "It wasn't that we didn't pay rent," says Yee. "We always paid rent."
During the administration of CCBA President Paul Wong in the early 1990s, the CCBA board voted to evict AACA from the 90 Tyler Street building. In response to the eviction, AACA filed a counter suit in which it argued that the original agreement between the city and CCBA gave AACA the right to remain in the building. The court, however, ruled that CCBA had the right to evict AACA because AACA was not a party to the original agreement and its name was not on the deed to the building. It then judged the case as a dispute over a commercial lease between a landlord and tenant without taking into account community intentions surrounding the acquisition of the building.
After the court ruling and an unsuccessful appeal by AACA, CCBA was apparently afraid to evict AACA from the building because of the public vilification associated with putting a major Chinatown social service agency on the street.
Believing that it had a right to remain in the building because of the services it was providing to the immigrant community, AACA then wrote a letter to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Since the city had originally given CCBA the Tyler Street building to be used as a community center, AACA board members
believed that it was up to the city to ensure that the building was being used for that purpose. AACA also sought the help of Congressman Joseph Moakley, who has played a crucial role in getting the most recent round of negotiations between the two organizations started.
About a year ago BRA Director Thomas O'Brien met with representatives of AACA and CCBA in an effort to get the two organizations to resolve their differences. According to Yee, an understanding was reached last December in which CCBA agreed to sign a lease with AACA and refrain from pursuing an eviction. AACA's rent would rise from $3,500 to about $6,000 ($4,000 a month plus $1,900 for capital improvements). AACA also agreed to begin paying off the original court judgment, which, with interest, had risen to more than $70,000. According to this agreement, AACA would receive a two-year lease with five-year renewal options provided that AACA paid off its judgment. "At the last moment, CCBA reneged and would not sign it," said Yee.
"We did exactly what the BRA told us to do," said Yee of AACA's effort to reach a settlement.
Although CCBA refused to sign an agreement, it soon informed AACA that it was raising the agency's rent from $3,500 to $6,000. Unable to secure a lease from CCBA, AACA refused to pay the new rent because the agreement called for a lease before payment of the $6,000 rent. AACA attempted to pay the $3,500 rent and also put the remaining $2,500 in an escrow account for payment once a lease was issued. CCBA, however, refused to issue a lease or accept the $3,500 rent when AACA attempted to pay it.
In January another agreement even more favorable to CCBA was negotiated with the BRA. "We signed it," said Yee, who added that "CCBA wouldn't sign [that one] either."
In that proposal, the city agreed to pay CCBA $47,000 of AACA's outstanding judgment provided that the money was used to improve the Tyler Street building. As part of the agreement, the city would inspect 90 Tyler St. to determine what capital improvements were needed. The new proposal would also provide a lease with terms similar to those of the previous agreement.
"It was a win-win for everybody, but they refused," said Yee.
In June yet another agreement was reached. This new agreement called for the same $6,000-per-month rent but included a six-month rather than a two-year lease until AACA's court judgment had been paid off. In negotiating this latest agreement, CCBA representatives told AACA its members would not accept a two-year lease. And while they also asked for more than $6,000 per month in rent, AACA made it clear that it could not afford to pay such a high rent. To overcome the impasse, the BRA sweetened the deal by agreeing to pay CCBA an additional $1,000 per month toward the judgment starting in 1999.
Once again there appeared to be an agreement that all three parties could accept. But once again CCBA refused to follow through with the agreement, according to Yee. Instead of providing AACA with a six-month lease, CCBA offered the agency a six-month license agreement. "No one talked about a license," said Yee, who explained that operating an agency with a rental license is comparable to buying a ticket to park in a parking lot or to sit in a movie theater. "At any time they can ask you to leave," he said.
CCBA's strategy in all this appears to be aimed at forcing AACA out of the building. If that isn't possible - given the pressure the city is exerting to force CCBA to keep AACA there - it wants to make sure that the eviction is still hanging over AACA's head, according to several board members. If CCBA and AACA were to sign a lease, the earlier eviction would be lifted.
The AACA "board unanimously voted not to go along with that license agreement because that's not what we agreed to," said Yee. "It's not in AACA's best interest to agree to a license agreement." AACA then drew up a lease that was consistent with the terms discussed at the June 11 meeting and sent that to CCBA. CCBA refused to accept the proposal and its lawyer "said the execution (of the eviction) has been forwarded to the sheriff's department," said Yee.
CCBA President Robert Leung claims that CCBA lived up to the six-month lease agreement and suggested that there was no difference between a license agreement and a lease.
CCBA President Poy Ho said that the CCBA board voted unanimously to follow through with the eviction. Ho said it was too late to change the relationship between the two organizations and that the best solution now would be for AACA to find another location for its programs.
AACA, meanwhile, held an emergency meeting and voted to continue to fight the eviction in court by arguing that CCBA has violated the terms of the most recent proposal. It has also been seeking the help of the city to resolve the problem but the city has so far been largely silent.
"The BRA's been a disappearing act at this point," said AACA board member Edmund Crotty earlier this week. Crotty believes the city-built structure was given to the CCBA with conditions that should be enforced by the city. "This (90 Tyler Street) is not a community center if they succeed with this eviction," he said.
"We've contacted Tom O'Brien's office again to request a meeting with him," said Yee, who added that AACA was determined to fight the issue because an important community issue was at stake in the dispute. Yee pointed out that the old Quincy School building was given to the CCBA to be used for a community center and as a new home for AACA. He said it's not easy for an organization such as AACA to find affordable space in the Chinatown area. "I think it's an asset in the Chinatown community that is quite suited for the use," he said.
Yee pointed out that "AACA was used by CCBA to obtain the building." Without a clear-cut social service function like the one proposed by AACA at the time of the transfer, it's unlikely that CCBA would have been given such a large school building. "That's the spirit of the conveyance of that building," said Yee.
"Tom O'Brien stated that the mayor knows about the situation and the mayor told Tom O'Brien to make sure AACA had a home in this building," said Yee.
"AACA is not going to give up," added Yee. " We'll continue to try to resolve the issue and seek a permanent home."
-Text and photos by Robert O'Malley(Photos: Statue of Confucius at the front of 90 Tyler Street (top). AACA teacher Ruth Henry in English class this month.)