Refunds from the Scarsdale Community Center

We received this letter from Scarsdale resident John Auerbacher who contributed $625 in support of a Scarsdale Community Center with an indoor pool many years ago. Plans to build the center never came to fruition and below he describes his attempts to have his money returned. We have received several similar queries over the years:

(From John Auerbacher) Many passionate people worked creatively and diligently, but unsuccessfully, to build the Scarsdale Community Center, a proposed indoor pool, fitness center, meeting place and gathering spot for our town. I was an early supporter and enthusiast for this project after we moved here in 1998. For many reasons – insufficient interest, lack of a suitable site, cost and the recession – the SCC was never built.

Thirteen years ago, I was one of hundreds of "Founding Members" who pledged and paid $625 (the estimated yearly membership fee) to demonstrate to the Scarsdale Board of Trustees a certain level of interest. The money was to be placed in an SCC "reserve" account with the Bank of New York.

I have tried sporadically in the last 12 years to obtain a refund "without interest if the Community Center is not built or if you move away" (as the receipt letter stated). Happily, I received a check yesterday.

Yet I am distinctly unnerved because of the difficulty I had in retrieving this money and the absence of communication in the last five years from the SCC. Are there hundreds of residents in a similar situation or am I the only one who didn't receive the memo?