A recent discovery has stalled the sale of the Riverside Community Building.

The sale of the property at 81 East First Street to John Sojka was approved by the city council last November, but the sale cannot be finalized until the stockholders of the former Riverside City Corporation that purchased the building in 1951 come forward. City Clerk Lory Young said she found a stockbook that contained 226 shares sold, “We came across a stockbook of the stocks that they sold so basically we can’t sell it right now. We have to go through a few extra steps, we have to publish in the newspaper that anybody that has those stocks to come forth for a period of time and wait. If nobody comes forward then we’ll make a petition to the court that we take ownership of the building and then they’ll give us a document that says we take ownership of the building and then we’ll have to post that for 30 days. Then we’ll have to have a public hearing and then we can sell the building.”

Though the city has not been the official owner of the building, Young says the city has been paying the electric bill since 1967. Utility Billing Clerk Becky LaRoche says in talking with one resident who had a connection to the former corporation it was believed that the building was given to the Lions Club, but there is no documentation found proving this. City Attorney Bill Sueppel is working on writing a notice to be published for stockholders to come forward.