What's happening with the Schlumberger property?
It's hard to know because all relevant discussions are carried out in
secret, Board of Selectmen executive sessions.
There are no minutes or recordings of these sessions. What decisions emerge, and come before the electorate, will be fait accompli.
In my opinion strategic thinking is not necessarily the hallmark of this board so will those decisions be in our best interests?
The Schlumberger situation should be important to all of us but it isn't getting any public traction.
Here's what we do know. There is a vacant corporate park, including a vacant Philip Johnson building sitting on 45 acres in the midst of Ridgefield.
Schlumberger has notified Ridgefield of it's intention to demolish the buildings and, when land values rise, they will sell the 45 acres to.... whom.... for what? Only five people know the answers.
How will what the BoS decides about this 45 acres impact us 10-20 years from now? Or are we taking a short view?
Do we want another Casagmo? How about another Fox Hill?
Would we be willing to give Schlumberger a $214,166.80 (what they pay now) tax exemption to help preserve the space for Ridgefield going forward while we try to work out a sensible plan?
How about turning town hall into a privately owned boutique hotel & moving the entire administration to the Johnson building? How about selling the Venus building? Maybe we could save millions by moving the Police station into that complex. Or would we prefer to have 45 acres of open space with another museum?
These are all questions that I can't answer but I do think the public should be part of the discussion.
We are now living with the results of the IBM fiasco. I don't want to be part of another one. How about you?
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