BETTER CHOICE 2011 Board of Finance candidate David Adametz: On the Parmelee Farm

I would like to share two facts with you:

1) The Parmelee Farm is a wonderful idea.  It promises to keep our farming heritage alive for future generations and it promises to be a boon for our local businesses.

2) The Parmelee Farm is an ill conceived idea.  It threatens to saddle the people of Killingworth with a money pit they cannot escape from, and it needs to be reviewed, and if necessary, terminated.

These two facts completely contradict each other, but these two facts are still completely true.  How can this be?  

To explain what the problem is, we first need to explain how the problem first started.  A decade ago, the town of Killingworth purchased the Bosco property (later renamed to Parmelee Farm) in the hopes of creating a public recreation area similar to the Indian River Recreation Complex in Clinton, but the idea was abandoned when it turned out the location was unsuitable for any construction.  After a decade of the town possessing this white elephant, our town administrators were approached by lobbyists from the Killingworth Historical Society to turn the farmhouse over to them for their own personal use.  According to the town charter, any decisions concerning the disposition of public property need to be brought to town vote for the simple reason that it was purchased with taxpayer’s money to begin with…but our town administrators didn’t do that.  Instead, without a single vote from the residents of Killingworth, our town administrators took it upon themselves to sign over the buildings for the Historical Society’s exclusive use for well over a century, in a lease for only one dollar per year.  The fact than many of the critical offices involved in the decision to turn over the property to the Killingworth Historical Society were Killingworth Historical Society members themselves helped in this decision process, as well.  With lease in hand, the Historical Society is branding this property as a historical site, and are now establishing it as a new home for their historical collection.

Although well meaning on the surface, this approach has several potentially disastrous problems:

First, our town administrators cannot request a public vote to authorize any public funding for the farmhouse because they cannot legally give the farmhouse to the Historical Society to begin with, so instead, our town administrators are authorizing public funding in less obvious ways.  For example, the terms of the lease were written to make the town responsible for the upkeep of the exterior of the Parmelee Farm buildings.  Every broken window, every missing shingle, and every stone on the walkway, of Historical Society property is being bought and paid for by taxpayer money.  Because public funding can only be given under the radar like this, the questionable methods used to authorize this project has also created the very reason why the project may flounder- a lack of proper public funding. Yes, much talk has been made of public grants, but these are one time only disbursements, which is why they’re called “grants” and not “subsidies”.  The actual subsidies will be paid for by the Killingworth taxpayers, and are included in the town budget for the coming year.

Second, although the project has the potential to become a success, it likewise has the potential to become an abysmal failure.  The laws of economics apply to the Parmelee farm project every bit as much as they apply to every other business start-up.  In such an event, it will by design become a never ending cycle of throwing good money after bad that the people of Killingworth cannot distance themselves from, and it will be the people of Killingworth, rather than the organizers and supporters of this project, who would be left holding the bag.  This is patently unethical because the people of Killingworth were never allowed to have their say on whether they wanted to be involved in this project to begin with.

To Mr. Pleines and Ms. Iino, just to give you some background on myself, one of my hobbies is Civil War reenacting.  I am a member of the Civil War Trust that works to preserve Civil War battlefields, I am involved in living history events, I give presentations on Civil War life in schools, and I've even been an extra in a Hollywood movie.  As a historian, I fully understand the value of preserving our heritage for future generations, and anything that has the potential to become a public attraction that encourages patronage of our local businesses cannot be a bad thing.  However, as a politician, I need to tell you that you cannot organize a project in this way.  It threatens to saddle the people of Killingworth with a debt they may not want, the suspicious process on how the lease came to be threatens to tarnish the honorable name of the Killingworth Historical Society, and most troubling of all, with a rent of only one dollar per year along with a property tax increase on everyone else, it smacks of a conflict of interest.   The BETTER CHOICE 2011 committee is dedicated to establishing fiscal responsibility as well as preserving public representation for the people of Killingworth, and it cannot be denied that the Parmelee farm project, in its current form, is in gross violation of both.  Please explain to me why this shouldn't be a concern?

Simply put, the lease for the Parmelee homestead to the Historical Society is illegal and therefore must be nullified, and the proposal to create a historical site on the property must be allowed a public vote.  We cannot correct a bad decision until we first go back to where the bad decision originally started, and regardless of where we all stand on the Parmelee Farm project, the people of Killingworth must be allowed to decide for themselves if this is an operation they want to adopt.  As a historian and as someone with roots going back through generations, it is my personal hope that the project will continue, but as a political representative I must respect the wishes of the people of Killingworth.  The property was bought and paid for by Killingworth taxpayers and it will be up to them to decide if this is how they want their tax dollars spent.

There is a well known quote that says those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.  Throughout the years, our town administrators have squandered untold fortunes on ill-thought out projects that sounded good at the moment, such as the concept to create a town center which cost Killingworth taxpayers $500,000 before being abandoned with absolutely nothing to show for it.  When we look back upon the Parmelee Farm project, it is my hope that we can marvel at the wonderful thing we have built.   It is also my hope we will never look back and say “I told you so".