Have Your Say: The Carnival at Tilly Foster Farm

The reverberations from Putnam County’s newest plans for Tilly Foster Farm have spread onto YouTube.

Ann Fanizzi posted “Tilly Foster Farm: Paradise Lost” July 16 to highlight the threat she sees from county officials’ plans to “repurpose” the bucolic farmstead.

Fanizzi posted the video the day after a contentious county board meeting.

According to The Examiner, “tempers didn’t just flare, they erupted” during a discussion of the farm and the fair. Screaming matches, said reporter David Propper.

Apparently the fair lost money—up to $30,000, The Examiner said, in overtime for the sheriff’s and highway department.

Opponents of the county’s plans for Tilly Foster pointed to the red ink on the balance sheet and the deep tire tracks on the fields.

Supporters said the carnival introduced the farm to people who had never been there, during the five years when the farm museum and general store were part of the operation funded by Preserve Putnam County; or long before, when it was a top-notch horse-breeding operation.

The county plans to spend $1.1 million to renovate the property, with the goal of having it become if not a revenue center at least no longer an expense, The Journal News reported.

Learn more about Tilly Foster’s history from this 2009 Examiner article.