Toward a common goal

To the editor:

It was with great surprise that I read the article in last week’s Courier covering the August 7th meeting of Canajoharieπs Village Board titled “Village takes temporary ownership of West Hill.”  

No one from Historic Fort Plain (HFP) was able to attend the meeting and we were not contacted in regard to the piece so we were caught largely unaware of what transpired at the board meeting in our absence. So, as the newspaper circulated last Thursday, emails and phone calls asking for more information rolled in quickly.  Thankfully, aside from one irate phone call, the concerns were genuine and civil.

Rather than address the many specific questions the article raises, I would simply like to clarify a few things, at which point I think everyone will have a clearer picture.  

As many of you know the West Hill School has been in limbo for several years, and recently the Village of Canajoharie and Montgomery County moved to set the building aside so it would not go to auction for back property taxes. Due to a miscommunication between the parties involved, the auction company ended up going ahead with the auction anyhow, after which the bids were disallowed. At that point, a group came together in Canajoharie called the Historic West Hill School Committee (HWHSC), spearheaded by local contractor Hein Kraak, who was joined by other notable citizens of Canajoharie including Dolores Jacksland.  

Early on, the committee reached out to me for advice and help organizing due to my experience a year earlier founding Historic Fort Plain to save the former Universalist Church, now know as Unity Hall. I agreed to help and helped them save time, organize quickly, and avoid some of the time consuming missteps that a new organization will often make without any formal involvement by the full board of HFP.

At the same time, the County and Village of Canajoharie were wrestling with the idea of what to do with the building. They wanted to see the West Hill School saved and re-purposed, but did not want to take on the expense or liability themselves.  Unfortunately as a nascent organization without a formal charter or structure the building could not be given to the Historic West Hill Committee.  At that point the Village decided they would take the building on for a year, put it under their liability insurance and move to transfer it to the HWHSC as soon as it had a more formal structure in place, also discussed was the committee reaching out via a series of meetings with HFP to see if the new group could come under our umbrella, able to capitalize on the legwork already done by HFP, including the very time consuming not-for profit application.  

As the vote to transfer the building to the Village quickly approached liability issues weighed more heavily on the board and they decided holding the building for a year was more risk than they were comfortable with so they decided, unbeknownst to HFP, to move to transfer it directly to HFP.

While HFP welcomes the opportunity to help Canajoharie save the West Hill School, what is really needed is to slow this process down a bit to give the two groups a chance to meet to discuss combining under HFPπs umbrella, which could save HWHSC a great deal of time and money from going it alone. If we take that path, there would need to be changes to our name and charter to reflect a new and broader focus. Issues such as earmarking money for one project or the other would also be addressed, with no money earmarked specifically for one going to the other.

These are all details to work out, and if there is not agreement, then HFP will continue to advise HWHSC in developing their own organization, no harm, no foul. Our missions, our buildings, and our supporters are what must, and will guide us in these decisions.

All I will add to that is that there is too little distance between our villages for us to continue working against each other or maintaining our own separate worlds three-miles apart. For example, my father was born and raised in Canajoharieπs school district, and then I grew up in Fort Plain’s. In this day and age, we must recognize that all of us came here from somewhere else if you go back enough generations and stop being overly territorial. Remember that we are strongest when working together (and being civil) with our neighbors on shared goals, such as saving our historic buildings  — let’s make that effort.

Tolga Morawski,

Historic Fort Plain Inc.