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Oakland organizations, VFD settle

February 20, 2019 - 00:00
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Oakland Plaza will remain public land, OCA gets school house

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    Members of the Oakland Heritage Society, shown last March in front of a building believed by many to be one from Robert L. Smith’s Oakland Normal College, an institute for black teachers, last week settled ongoing litigation with the Oakland Volunteer Fire Department.

OAKLAND -- Following nearly two years of controversy and litigation, two community associations and the Oakland Volunteer Fire Department have settled their ongoing dispute over access and control of the Oakland Plaza and various buildings in this small far-western Colorado County community.

According to documents filed in the Colorado County District Clerk’s Office just after 10 a.m. Thursday, the Oakland Volunteer Fire Department agreed to give up control of a small school building on the Oakland Plaza, believed by some to be one of the original buildings of R.L. Smith’s Oakland Normal College, a teacher’s school for black educators.

Access to the small building on the Oakland Plaza touched off the controversy between the three groups in 2017. The OVFD originally took actions to give the building to the Oakland Heritage Society, and then withdrew that offer.

The Oakland Volunteer Fire Department will retain exclusive rights to most of the volunteer fire department building, but the Oakland Community Association will have access to the facility’s bathrooms, with an external door to be installed at the association’s expense.

Additionally, the Oakland Volunteer Fire Department has agreed that the Oakland Plaza, dedicated to public decades ago, will remain a public space, and will execute documents signed by all of its current members stipulating this.

In early 2018, the Oakland Volunteer Fire Department filed paperwork with the Colorado County Clerk’s Office to take the land that constitutes the Oakland Plaza through a legal maneuver known as adverse possession, which touched off the most recent round of litigation settled Thursday.

OVFD also agreed to allow the Oakland Community Association the right to tie in to existing water and sewer facilities in the event such tie-ins are needed.