News That Matters

I had a conversation at a party Saturday night about the Tilly Foster contract with someone I’ve known and whose opinion I trust. His take was this: there’s so much potential for the future at the Farm that we should worry less about the contract and more about the potential for what the Farm could be and what it can offer the community. I got the feeling he feared that objection to the contract could scuttle the deal and that the dream of what the Farm might be would be lost. My assurances that my take was focused on protecting the taxpayers first were not met with a satisfactory response and we agreed to disagree on the issue. Yesterday morning and again this morning, a post to the Patterson 12563 list said the same thing: tourism, the arts council, warm fuzzy puppies, singing kum-ba-yah around rare goats… and that – somehow – I had some sort of nefarious “agenda” and that we should accept the contract as it is. But this is the type of argument designed to confuse and befuddle and draw attention away from potential problems.

Look, there’s no one I know who does not want to see the Farm have a successful future and even if the ultimate vision of that future differs, the basic concept is still the same. It’s the getting there we’re not focusing enough on. Supporters don’t want us to get bogged down in the messy details, they’d prefer we get bogged down on the dream instead. That’s not good business, not good governance and is demonstrably irresponsible.

Forty years is a long time. Anyone with a young child today should understand that we’re in this agreement until our children’s children have entered college. Forty years is a long time to be stuck with a less than desirable deal.

We need to do everything we can to vet this properly, to do the research, to see a genuine plan for the farm that goes beyond a bullet point list of promises. When you’re entrusting the future of the Farm to someone, no matter how well liked, talented and well meaning, we need more than their personal assurances and promises.

This can only be achieved by shining a nova-bright light on the terms of this agreement, by ensuring that the taxpayers are well protected, that aside from Attachment A (the dream for the farm) there’s a real, genuine business plan, that the taxpayers are intimately involved for the long term and that environmental concerns are more than adequately addressed. We know what things look like today, but we also need to know what they’re going to look like 5, 10, 20 and 40 years from today. Not from the perspective of what may be possible, but from the perspective of what the costs might be and impact to the community.

There is a price we can afford to pay and a price we cannot. As it stands now, those in favor of the lease agreement don’t seem to talk much about those costs nor the fiscal responsibility the county has to its taxpayers and residents; they seem to care only about “the dream.” They seem to believe that if the dream comes to fruition that the fiscal costs will be more than compensated for. In the end it could be cool. In the end it could be not cool. We need to have the vision today to peer into that uncertain future.

Unless we take the time to be studious and cautious we steer our ship into this sea without a rudder to a vague destination on an unseen shore. Government should be more responsible than that.

All I can ask for, and all I have been asking for, is for the county to perform due-diligence on this deal and not be swayed by the emotional arguments being made but by sensible business practices: Have a business plan in place, protect the environment and protect the next two generations of Putnam County taxpayers for ultimately they are the ones who will end up footing the bill. If we cannot see this issue from a straight dollars and sense perspective than we’re not doing our homework. Aren’t we always pointing at some government entity or other claiming they’re not thinking about the taxpayers first? In this instance, supporters of the contract are pointing at its cautionary detractors like myself (and interestingly, never directly to my face). But who will they point to if things don’t go as planned? Will they come before us and say, “Sorry, we made a mistake”?

Whether Mr. Whipple (against whom I’ve been repeatedly accused of having some sort of personal vendetta!) has the business acumen to manage the farm for the next two generations is the key here. He may be more than capable and my writings have said as much. But we only have his word, a promise, we don’t have a contractual business plan and that’s what we need. Anything less and we’re gambling and government should not gamble on our children’s children’s future.

I cannot urge the county enough to slow down, to take a breath, to think this thing through and not be pressured into making a hasty decision by anyone for any reason. If we are being pressured to decide now, that should signal to us that all may not be as it seems.

In the public relations battle I’m apparently the Grinch. But I don’t mind playing that role so long as in the end we make a studied choice here. If anything I’ve had to say or write about this causes the county to be more cautious and to look beyond the flow of emotion that has pervaded this discussion, it will be, in the end, for our collective betterment.

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