Berne needs a marketing plan to promote assets like the Switzkill Farm

To the Editor:

I’m sending the following remarks, which I intend to present at the Berne public hearing on Wednesday, April 29. Please consider them as a letter to the editor.

It is my understanding that the members of the town board desire to increase the number of businesses and capital investment in town. A worthy aspiration and, if the board listened to all its citizens, few would disagree. It is a matter of setting priorities and taking a hard look at the town’s assets.

This board’s priority, however, is the installation of a convicted felon to chair the planning board and increasing membership on the board to seven. This is the board’s second attempt to maneuver Mr. [Thomas] Spargo into a role on the planning board. The first ham-fisted attempt was declared illegal by the court. This remains an embarrassment to the town.

With all due respect, the town board is approaching its aspiration to increase investment in the town from absolutely the wrong direction.

The town board has to realize that the market will decide what investment will be made in Berne, not the planning board or its chair. We can throw out the comprehensive plan (although it is only three years old and was developed with all segments of the community participating) and draft an entirely new plan.

The cold eye of the market could care less. To developers, zoning laws are merely pesky common hurdles to step around in order to maximize their investment.

You can appoint convicted felons to all seven seats on the planning board and the cold eye of the market will raise an eyebrow (or perhaps a wry smile) but ultimately the market will make investment decisions with little regard to the membership of the planning board — to investors, that’s irrelevant.

This board needs to focus its attention on marketing the town — not fiddling with the comprehensive plan or the planning board’s putative chairman. Marketing the town is the duty of the supervisor and the town board.

Presently, there is no such marketing plan, nor anyone charged with its implementation.

Let’s look at some hard facts and assess how the market reacts to those facts:

— We are a community of approximately 2,800 folks;

— Our population is aging;

— We are not an affluent community;

— The nearest supermarket is about 15 miles away;

— Farming in these hills is a tough business; and

— We have no municipal water supply and our groundwater is very sensitive to contamination.

How has the market reacted to these facts?

In the last two years, virtually the only significant development in town is the Dollar General, which is not designed to cater to an affluent market. The comprehensive plan had no effect whatsoever on that developer’s decision to build here.

A customer base of 2,800 folks is hardly enough to attract any sort of large-scale commercial development. Industry of any magnitude will not invest when our water supply is often stressed and at times inadequate.

So how do we market our town? What are our assets that we can market?

— Our hills are beautiful and around many corners lie spectacular vistas;

— We have an abundance of forest preserves and game-management areas;

— We have an abundance of hiking trails; and

— We have an active agricultural community ready and willing to sell its wares.

Switzkill Farm is the town’s foremost asset that brings together almost all the assets listed immediately above. Berne is the jewel of the Helderbergs and Switzkill Farm should be the principal tool by which to market the real treasures of this town.

Hiking trails that connect to the Cole Hill forest, water falls, and breathtaking vistas. Switzkill Farm also has the potential to be a significant revenue source. Weddings and receptions, small conferences, renting cross-country skis and snow shoes, getting certification as a dark-sky site, catering businesses to serve visitors to the farm, etc., etc.

If developed wisely, ancillary businesses such as bed-and-breakfast establishments, restaurants, and other businesses catering to out-of-town visitors to Switzkill Farm, can move forward.

How has this board utilized this compelling asset? Our code-enforcement officer delights in pointing out all the alleged “code violations” he can dream up. The citizens on the voluntary advisory board have been insulted and dismissed. The town has not seen fit to appoint anyone to manage the development of this asset. You can’t do that with sole reliance on volunteers.

Switzkill Farm remains unused, unrepaired, unpainted, and devoid of revenue. There is an undercurrent suggesting we should “dump the farm.” The only use presently made of this beautiful asset is an ersatz and cobbled-together dog pound that likely violates the restrictive covenant and conservation easement attached to the property.

Also, such a use may constitute an alienation of parkland that requires an act of the state legislature. This expense was utterly unnecessary. Such neglect is unforgivable.

I have read Mr. [Mathew] Harris’s lengthy essay in The Altamont Enterprise regarding our present comprehensive plan [April 23, 2020: “Planning will be the key to our town’s survival and success”]. Mr. Harris’s description of the plan as “antiquated” is intentionally misleading and profoundly wrong.

Our comprehensive plan is forward-looking, explicitly flexible, and designed to be adjusted over the coming years. It is packed with data that supports the direction outlined in the plan.

The comprehensive plan is not a fixed or static document but sets forth a planning process designed to evolve as the town’s needs and priorities change. A plan simply cannot be “antiquated” if the very planning process outlined in the plan has never been initiated!

It is the function of the town board, not the planning board, to initiate these steps.

How has the town approached these issues? Instead of developing a marketing plan that emphasizes the town’s real assets, it is hellbent on appointing a convicted felon as chair of the planning board. Rather than marketing the town’s assets, it has created an embarrassment for the town that will not generate a single dollar of new investment. Is this the “spirit” and “vision” that Mr. Harris longs for?

Such a priority remains a mystery.

Let’s see how the comprehensive plan addresses the town’s assets:

Page 4 of the plan explicitly states: “The Plan is not to be viewed as a fixed, static document, but rather it is meant to be one that evolves in response to changing conditions and concerns that may emerge. The Plan’s implementation should be monitored and reported on each year to evaluate its progress. The overall Plan should be reviewed to consider both progress and any need for modification.”

The plan sets forth some 144 action steps to be undertaken by the town board to implement, evaluate, and update the plan and the planning process each year. Page 50 of the Plan sets forth those action steps for the board to undertake. The obvious first step is to appoint an “implementation committee” in addition to the town’s other committees.

This plan has been in existence since 2017. The town board has utterly failed to undertake any of the implementation steps in the planning process.

To say that this sophisticated and forward-looking planning process is “antiquated” is a deliberate falsehood. To aver that yet another plan can be thrown together within the year is not only laughable but serves only to demonstrate that anyone championing such an approach simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

We are embarrassed for the town.

You will likely appoint Mr. Spargo as chairman of the planning board.

You have alienated and insulted many segments of this community in the process. There is no action plan to market the town.

One can only imagine what the agenda is — would you like to let the town in on the secret?

Lawrence Zimmerman

Member

Berne

Planning Board

More Letters to the Editor

The Altamont Enterprise is focused on hyper-local, high-quality journalism. We produce free election guides, curate readers' opinion pieces, and engage with important local issues. Subscriptions open full access to our work and make it possible.