July 16, 2009

As River Church goes home, lawsuit looms

Insurer argues fire alarms were taken offline

By Rasheed Oluwa and Kevin Lenihan
Poughkeepsie Journal

Nearly nine months after a blaze ripped through the historic building, Sunday services may return to the River Church this weekend, but the church remains mired in a legal battle over a $5.9 million insurance claim.

Although the main building is still in pieces, the nondenominational church has managed to restore the central portion of the structure, which only sustained smoke and water damage. Sunday services will be at the Hooker Avenue site for the first time since a fire destroyed the church on Oct. 30, if church officials can get a certificate of occupancy for the building today.

Even as the congregation prepares to return to the 118-year-old church, a legal fight is under way over the insurance claim denied by GuideOne Specialty Mutual Insurance Company. The company alleges church members took the fire alarm system offline the day of the fire because of repeated false alarms as work was done in the church. In a response to the lawsuit filed by the insurance company in the U.S. District Court in White Plains, Marlow Dunham, one of the church's pastors, admitted the fire alarm system was taken offline the day of the fire.

In the days leading up to the fire, work scraping plaster off the brick in the bookstore area set off the fire alarms, requiring the City of Poughkeepsie Fire Department to respond. The last false alarm was on Oct. 28. The alarm system was taken offline on Oct. 29 and 30, according to the lawsuit.

GuideOne's lawsuit alleges that because the fire alarm system was taken offline, the church is not entitled to a claim under the policy. The company said the church also failed to notify GuideOne about the fire alarm being taken offline.

In its response to the lawsuit, the church said it was in full compliance with the policy and GuideOne violated the terms of their contract.

The fire gutted the building by the time it was extinguished by the City of Poughkeepsie Fire Department. About two weeks later, City of Poughkeepsie firefighters determined a faulty dehumidifier caused the fire.

The maker of the dehumidifier doesn't share the fire department's view on the fire's cause, according to Dunham.

Cleanup held up

Debris that sits at the site of the old church must remain there until the claim is settled.

Sarah Buckley, a spokeswoman for GuideOne, said the company stands by its decision to deny the claim and filed the lawsuit seeking to clear the company of financial responsibility.

Neither Buckley nor Dunham were willing to discuss details about the claim, the denial or legal actions.

In its response to the GuideOne lawsuit, the church said the damage to the building was $5.57 million and its contents were valued at $345,380.

Amid the legal fight, members of the congregation have been donating their time and talents to get the church ready for use again.

"This is what I do from the time I wake up to the time I lay my head," Dunham said while overseeing renovation efforts this month. "My life is definitely not my own right now."

Dunham, who works as a general contractor when he's not working at the church, estimated that anywhere from 7,000 to 8,000 man-hours have been committed to getting the church prepared. He said the church still needed to raise about $150,000 to cover the expenses for all the work that needs to be done.

Volunteers from the church and the Bolger House have donated their time to clearing up chunks of smoked saturated walls and charred plaster from the section of the church that once served as a coffee bar, bookstore and children's church.

"One of the things I've learned is that I have an awesome church," Dunham said. "The people are wonderful and they want to be helpful."

The new church meeting space, which is located upstairs, is much smaller than the old church and will only accommodate 250 people at one time. Still, it represents an improvement from where the church was late last year.

It was sometime shortly after 3 p.m. on Oct. 30 when the fire ignited at the River Church. The red brick church, which was built in 1891 by members of the Trinity United Methodist Church, had stood out as a landmark in the City of Poughkeepsie. The River Church, which was formed in 1981 by a group of 40 people from the Abbott Loop Community Church in Anchorage, Alaska, purchased the church building in 1996.

On historic register

The fire raced through the building that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Chrissy Solanky, the church's volunteer coordinator, said she was out of town at a conference in Pittsburgh at the time of fire.

"We were just in shock," said Solanky, after someone called her about the news and she saw the accounts on the Journal's Web site. "I just thought how could you rebuild a 100-year-old church."

While the church offices were in relatively good shape, the congregation had been meeting at the Poughkeepsie Reformed Church on Hooker Avenue in the interim.

"It was hard on us," Dunham said. "It was like staying at our uncle's for a month. It's someone else's house. It never feels like your home."

Dunham said many of the church's ministries - including the church's Adopt-a-Block program - were put on hold due to lack of space.

Jay Barrett, a member of the church who has volunteered his services as an electrician, said church members rallied when Dunham announced five months ago that they were moving back to the Hamilton Street location. Although the fire damage looked bad, Barrett said he had faith that the church would return.

"Our mission is here, in the City of Poughkeepsie, to help people with the Adopt-a-Block and all of the other programs," Barrett said. "We're here to stay."

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