Friday, March 20
NORTH BENNINGTON — A committee formed by the village trustees has gone public with a request for Bennington College to pay the village a voluntary yearly stipend.
Committee members believe the college owes it to the community for being such a large tax-exempt property, much like state sites that are required to give towns Payment in Lieu of Taxes by law.
'A difficult thing'
"They've been here 76 years," said Robert Howe, a committee member who serves on the village's Planning Commission, on Thursday, "and, as far as we can tell, they've never really paid anything to the village. ... That's why our taxes are so high."
The committee, made up of Howe, trustees Matt Patterson and David Monks and Alisa Del Tufo, has been meeting in private with representatives from the college, namely William Morgan and Joan Goodrich, both vice presidents at the college. "We're trying to keep things civil," Patterson said Thursday. "It's a difficult thing to approach."
However, at their last meeting, committee members said they would go public at the village's Town Meeting, which they did this past Tuesday. College officials were invited to the meeting but did not respond to the invitation.
Officials remained quiet on Thursday, declining to be interviewed.
"The college is in ongoing discussions with representatives from the village," the college said in a statement. "Our discussions have been very cordial
Advertisement
and we have nothing more to say at this time."
The college's board of trustees authorized officials to pay the village $20,000 per year for five years, according to the committee.
The committee declined the offer. "What sticks in my craw is they've offered us a little tiny bit," Howe said, "and when you look at the dimension of what goes through the college all the time, we're talking about millions of dollars."
Committee members have proposed $100,000 per year as an initial payment for three years. "We have discussed larger numbers," Del Tufo said, "but we thought this was a good first level of commitment."
Members have also proposed establishing an ongoing "town/gown" committee, comprised of college and village officials, that would look to strengthen ties between the two. Patterson said the college has shown "no interest" in forming such a body.
Del Tufo said the college's actions have contradicted its overall message.
"What frustrates me is that the college's (public relations) is all about community building," Del Tufo said, " ... and we're a community that has a lot of vitality and we're also a community that has a lot of needs and problems. And it's a typical 'Ivory Tower' approach to problem solving when you look in Darfur (Sudan), but you don't look in your own backyard."
She added that the genocide in Darfur is a huge problem that deserves attention.
The committee's main argument is that the college makes up 14.7 percent of North Bennington land, or 212 of 1,441 acres, 36 percent of its population, 760 out of 2,094 people (including students) and equals the rest of the village's property value, yet contributes nothing financially. "We'd be a much stronger community financially if it weren't a college," Patterson said.
He added that the college has contributed to the community by providing jobs and hosting cultural events.
Patterson said the relationship between the village and college has been "one-sided" in recent years. The village changed zoning for the college and expanded and upgraded its water system to accommodate the college's new dormitory and signed off on a $10 million Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA) low-interest loan, reserved for municipalities, unless they defer it to a local not-for-profit organization, he said.
The loan saved the college $3 million, according to Patterson, a number he says the college is now contesting. He said if the college wants another VEDA loan, "(it) would be an interesting discussion."
In return, the college reneged on promises to improve Prospect Street, a road leading to the college, and removed a historical stone wall without consulting the village. He said students have become more isolated in general, which he believes has come from the college.
"I think it's the culture of elitism that has gotten much stronger at the college over time," Patterson said. "Students used to hang out at The Villager (now Kevin's at Mike's Place). It used to be a college bar."
Del Tufo agreed. "I know students on campus who want to do things in the community," she said, "but they're guided in certain directions, not others."
Del Tufo said she was kicked off campus by college security when she was cross-country skiing there over winter break.
Although not a given, some colleges do voluntarily pay their home communities yearly stipends.
Tufts University, for instance, pays $135,582, according to the committee. Williams College does not pay Williamstown, Mass., a set amount per year but helps to fund certain municipal projects, like a new elementary school in 2004.
Committee members said they realize Bennington College is smaller and receives less funding than these schools.
Members also said that, if an agreement cannot be reached, they believe the village could tax the college's for-profit ventures — faculty housing, the bookstore, snack shop — after going to court.
"(If) they don't want to make a contribution to the community," Del Tufo said. " ... then we end up getting into this position where we start looking at taxing property on campus."
She said the village faces a critical time, with public school costs rising and property taxes getting higher each year.
The committee plans to meet next week to discuss additional strategies, including contacting college trustees and reaching out to students, and with the college in the near future.
Patterson said any funds could help offset taxes or might be put in a dedicated fund. He said it is not a new issue; it has just never gotten to this level.
"It's been an issue of contention, off-and-on, for many, many years," he said.
Bennington College's campus is divided between the village of North Bennington and the town of Bennington.
So I wrote a letter to the editor (my first):
In response to the Friday, March 20th article in the Bennington Banner entitled, “Village to Bennington College: ‘Pay up’,” as a student here at Bennington College and as an involved community member, I take issue with the pervasive ‘us versus them’ tone of the article. This tone has lowered the bar for public discourse in our community.
In times of crisis we look for someone to blame for the situation in which we find ourselves. The situation, however, is almost always more complicated than a simple story of good guys standing up against bad guys. This article is written as such a narrative, uniting ‘us’ and ‘good’ under the village and ‘them’ and ‘bad’ under the college. The product of this narrative is the story of an elitist, “Ivory Tower” institution that parasitically feeds off a community to which it doesn’t belong.
The point of the formerly private meetings taking place between the committee and the college was to find a way to work together as one community to overcome this latest national crisis. The article subverts this goal and insists instead on pointing fingers and inventing scapegoats.
I do not assume that with every story there is an equal balance of opinion. I do contend, however, that the news can be presented in a mature and responsible way that contributes to the public discourse. “Village to Bennington College: ‘Pay up’” adds to the polarization of, rather than to the informing of, our community. We – the village of North Bennington and Bennington College – deserve better.
But I wanted to write more. My first draft was much longer:
The Friday, March 20th article in the Bennington Banner entitled, “Village to Bennington College: ‘Pay up’” lowered the bar for public discourse in our community. The degree of factual accuracy is a qualm that has been taken up by the Bennington College administration and will be further contested. What is much more important to me, as a student here at Bennington College and as an involved community member in both my local community (Rensselaer County, New York) and my adopted one here, is the pervasive ‘Us versus Them’ tone of the article.
In times of crisis we turn inwards and shun those apparently unlike ourselves. Allow me a geek moment here. In the old Twilight Zone episode; “The Monsters are due on Maple Street (and here’s your spoiler alert) what appears to be a UFO lands somewhere near Maple Street. In the ensuing chaos the residents of Maple Street turn against one another for arbitrary reasons that would have been overlooked or faced as a community in another context. The moral of the story is that the monsters of Maple Street are not the alien invaders, but rather the residents who turned on their neighbors out of fear.
I’d like to be clear here that I am not accusing the committee members of the village trustees or the Bennington Banner of being the monsters on Maple Street. I wish, however, to make explicit the adversarial tone of the March 20th article so that we can avoid it in the future. Instead of talking in terms of ‘We’ the village want ‘Them’ the college to pay up, we together can work towards common solutions to our common problems.
The structure of this piece begins as a news article and rapidly descends into a narrative of the ‘We’ against the ‘Them’. John Waller, the author of this piece and a person just doing his job, portrays the committee primarily through their own words, giving them a sympathetic human face and letting them define the ‘them’. The committee is Robert Howe, Matt Patterson, David Monks, and Alisa Del Tufo. The product of this narrative is the story of an elitist, “Ivory Tower” institution that parasitically feeds off the community. With the quotations from the committee members Waller creates an ‘other’, a scapegoat, an object of collective hate that we can blame for our financial woes.
The ‘We’ of the article is the committee made up of village trustees, whose voices are liberally quoted in the body of the article. However, the ‘We’ of the committee and the ‘We’ of the village of North Bennington are treated as the same when Robert Howe is quoted as having said, “They’ve [Bennington College] been here 76 years, and, as far as we can tell, they’ve never really paid anything to the village.” The ‘We’ of the committee is therefore speaking for, or in the interests of, the ‘We’ of the village. ‘We’ are best defined against ‘Them’. And who are ‘they’? ‘They’ are defined through the words of the committee members. ‘Their’ actions are described by the committee members.
This so called article is in fact more of a summary of an interview with four individuals than a news story. I do not assume that with every story there is an equal balance of opinion. I do contend, however, that the news can be presented in a mature and responsible way that contributes to the public discourse. “Village to Bennington College: ‘Pay up’” adds to the polarization of, rather than to the informing of, our community. We – the village of North Bennington and Bennington College – deserve better.
And now I want to write a book. But I won't. Yet. Because I have two theses and an advanced project to finish, then a bookstore to open first.
No comments:
Post a Comment