When Enough is Enough
Disclaimer: This is written at a point of frustration I don’t usually convey. It comes on the heels of six weeks of attempted niceties and asking for collegial collaboration. It comes after a great deal of work building a project plan from scratch, presentations, meetings, phone calls, and research. It comes after two denied agenda item requests, a meeting with the Township Engineer, backdoor personal attacks, and door after door closed in the face of cooperation. I did not take on this project to pick a fight with the Township. Exactly the opposite. I had hoped to help, to raise awareness, to fundraise, to write grants, to collaborate. The way this experience has been handled has led me to feel as though I’ve had quite enough and it’s time to have some questions answered.
Sometimes listening keenly to events in the past becomes relevant to the present. Consider that there have been two points repeated by the Township Board as to why they did not move the Historical Town House when they moved to the new office building...”no one was interested and no one wanted to use the building”. This narrative is ripe with contradiction that begs for explanation. It’s also not reflective of our present circumstances.
Let’s consider “no interest”. First, let’s get one thing perfectly straight, the members of the Historical Society, longstanding Tyrone Township families who have served this community for years, absolutely have ALWAYS expressed interest in moving the Historic Town House to the new property from the time the issue fell into their laps. The difference now, is through outreach and advocacy in partnership with RCP, they have a platform in which the community can hear their voices. Second, putting this issue on a Board agenda in 2019 and counting that action as sufficient “public notice” is far from an accurate assessment of how the community feels. What else was done to gauge public interest? How many residents even know the building was being left behind?
Fast-forward to this moment in time and there’s absolutely no question that the community has “interest”, if not deeply rooted passion for moving this building. That has been documented in the numerous letters, speeches, public comments, and conversations that continue to grow daily. We don’t need the Township to pay for a survey to tell us that the community has interest as was suggested at last night’s Board meeting, it’s readily apparent. If a survey were going to be done, it should have been done a year and a half ago before the building was left behind.
Next consider the claim that “no one wanted to use the building.” I find this particularly confounding because as the story goes, our Township Supervisor says he found that building a mess and worked hard to clean it up, paint it, repair floors only to find that no one then wanted to use it. (May 11, 2018: Old Tyrone Township Hall Gets A Makeover) I’d love to know more about what the Township did to let residents know the building was available to use. How much did it cost to rent? What policies were in place for use? Was the building really fixed up for the community or because the Township knew they were preparing to sell? If our Supervisor’s “passion for the building” was genuine, why wait until 2018 to fix it up when he’s been in office since 2010? Ironically now that residents are calling for the Township to move the building and sharing ways they want to “use” it, the Township Board says the building needs a lot of work to even be “useable”. I’m struggling to know which is true, because it can’t be both that people didn’t want to use it and it’s not in useable condition.
Here’s where we are to date with a timeline of events:
May 1st – May 18th RCP Phone discussions with Supervisor to learn about the Historic Town House and talk through project ideas related to moving the building to the new property. I requested repeatedly to present to the Board our Project Plan for discussion, questions, and feedback. I also took time to meet and/or speak to each individual Trustee so that they were well informed about what we hoped to accomplish.
May 4th – Sent an email to the Supervisor asking for keys to get inside the building to assess the condition with Historical Society members. It was determined that the Township had given the keys to the purchaser of the property and we could not go inside the building as it was now on private property.
This was the first email in a series regarding this request that occurred on May 4th.
Please contrast this email with the June 15th Board meeting video when it’s available, in which our Township Supervisor and Clerk both insisted in a rather heated exchange with one of our Board Trustees that we NEVER asked for keys!
You’ll even hear me speak out of turn that I asked for the keys and they didn’t have them because I knew this was absolutely false.
May 18th – Township Board meeting at which the Board decided that it would be a good idea to form a committee to consider the feasibility and look at expenses involved with moving the Historic Town House. I spoke with public comment time about why this is such an important project for our community and our vision for a gathering place, an identity that links the past and present to our future.
May 24th – Met with Supervisor, Treasurer, and Clerk to better understand the situation about the Town Hall and what RCP and the Historical Society could do to support the effort.
May 25th – Met with David Walker.
May 26th – Grant interview in which I learned how other communities arrange collaborative efforts.
Sent a letter to the Board with questions that came from our joint RCP and Historical Society meeting, including a written request for a copy of the extended contract to move the building and the Township named on the insurance policy.
May 19th - Sent a letter to the Township Board about forming a committee with the appropriate scope and tasks, including creation of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
May 31st – Spoke by phone with Zach Tucker.
June 1st – Spoke with public comment time again at the Township Board meeting to express the idea of collaboration and shared publicly what I had learned about how other communities establish collaborative projects. I again asked for a committee with an appropriate scope and task assignment. Tom Runyan, Historical Society gave an incredible speech about the Historic Town House.
June 2nd - Met with Township Engineer who said it was a structurally sound building that was absolutely possible to move. He offered to assist us with a scope, budget, and schedule. By the next day, he was told not to proceed in doing so by our Supervisor.
Received a copy of insurance and contract extension as requested.
June 3rd - Formal Project Plan submitted to the entire Township Board and request #2 was made in person with our Township Clerk to be an agenda item and discuss with the Board our ideas.
June 7th – Met with Kurt Schultz and Herman Ferguson.
June 9th - Received email from the Township Clerk that we would not be an agenda item on the June 15th Board meeting.
June 15th – Township Board meeting at which an abundance of support and calls for collaboration were expressed for both RCP, and the Town House project. The room had more than every seat filled. (Please see further notes below.)
I’m left utterly confused. So why not move the building now? There’s clearly interest, interest to the extent of a 30-page project plan, a sustainability plan, and cooperation from the Township Engineer to determine a budget, scope, and schedule. We’ve been begging to sit down with the Board or subset thereof (ahem – a committee?) and make a viable plan as communities all around us do regularly. Collaboration between the municipalities and the private sector happen ALL.THE.TIME. Grant money is available, and the residents are eager to fund raise to support the cause. We are literally offering to pay for the project, help sustain it, and work within the community to get it done…yet we cannot seem to get Supervisor approval to be added as an agenda item to discuss our vision with the Board. This makes zero sense.
Last night at the June 15th Board meeting the Historical Town Hall did appear under “old business” on the agenda despite the fact that we weren’t added to the agenda to discuss our ideas. The topic of conversation amongst the Board members consisted of two ideas regarding the building:
John Martin who bought the old Township office building and the property the Historic building sits on, would use the building and maintain it. He would make it available for community use a whopping 4 times per year.
The Township could sell the building to the Historical Society for $1 and they could move it to private property and care for it going forward.
** Please note here that neither option has anything to do with moving the Historic Town House to the new property and integrating it into a larger vision for a community gathering place. In fact, neither option allows the building to actually belong to the residents any longer.
** Also note that the Board suggested a survey as part of Master Planning to collect data on community interest. Any guess how long that process will take? We’ve been talking about and asking to participate in Master Planning since February and we haven’t even started. It’s the middle of June folks. Meanwhile, our only Historic landmark is deteriorating without care. A survey? Maybe a year and a half ago when the move was made. Maybe put the money available to spend on a survey about the Town House toward moving it.
This entire experience has been an unfortunate wake up call. It’s not what I anticipated when we rolled our efforts into a community-based nonprofit and to say I’m disappointed is an understatement. I’m still advocating for collaboration, but I also want the community to know where the behind the scenes frustration has come from. I want to understand, but I don’t. I am left with so many lingering questions that every resident should be asking.
Why was this building really left behind?
Why did no one know about it?
Why has no committee been formed with an appropriate scope and task set?
Why did none of the Board’s options for discussion on June 15th, 2021 include moving the building to the new Township property?
Why was our project proposal, the one submitted jointly by RCP and the Historical Society, not included in the discussion among other options?
Why can’t our resident-made and resident-supported project plan be discussed with the Board?
Why is our leadership unwilling to hear the voice of the people?
Why does our Township Board refuse to collaborate to make a plan that works for the benefit of our community?
Why doesn’t the Township Board want residents involved?
Many of these questions permeate several issues. Two of the most glaring take-aways are the immediate need for a COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM and MUCH IMPROVED COMMUNICATION with the RESIDENTS they serve.