Letter to the Editor: Killing Tilly Foster

There are a whole spate of books by Bill O’Reilly entitled “Killing” of famous personages. Well Tilly Foster Farm is our own famous personage being slowly and brutally killed by CE Odell and Deputy Walker and some members of the Legislature. Disappointedly, the two members of the legislature, Joseph Castellano and Roger Gross, Town of Southeast representatives, who one would have expected to defend this gem of the town’s historical, cultural and agricultural history, have stood idly by and even approved of the carnage that has taken place.

For almost two years the Odell/Walker regime has denied the public access to the Farm; has engaged in systematically betraying their promise to Putnam County residents, clearly expressed at visioning sessions held in the Spring of 2014 to protect the historic Farm, has misused taxpayer and DEP funds to “repurpose” the property, turning the Farm into a “Campus.” They have shamelessly and with impunity ignored the public’s stated vision for an equestrian center to advance their own delusional profit-driven agenda. The residents and most especially the children have been unconscionably robbed of its enjoyment, education and appreciation. While horse boarding thrives in Patterson and at Green Chimneys in Southeast, Tilly Foster languishes with only two miniature horses not 24 inches high to graze in its fields.

Disrespecting America’s husbandry and Tilly’s agricultural history, they have replaced its native animals-- its stallions and mares with miniatures; its guinea hogs with New Zealand Kunekunes; and Jacob sheep with South American alpacas.

Odell and Walker have despoiled the farmland and Farm’s structures first by a one-time carnival (fair), losing anywhere from $15,000-$30,000 in July of 2014, plundering acres of open spaces for parking lots. This plunder continues unabated, as additional acres are being ripped from the once green pastures behind the iconic Lodge. However, not content with turning paradise into parking lots, they have proceeded to attack The Lodge itself, the handiwork of Italian craftsman and former manager, John Gaudelli, gutting the original architecture and transforming it into a out -of -scale monstrosity.

By latest count, Odell/Walker are proposing to squander close to $2 million to “repurpose” the Farm into some kind of copy-cat Woodstock with expanded banquet facilities and BOCES lease, requiring wasteful expansion of septic fields, sewage and increase in bathroom facilities, with the hope of a mere $36,000 from the lease.

Fellow Putnam County residents, we have created a YouTube video, detailing the devastation occurring at our beloved Farm entitled KILLING TILLY FOSTER. In addition, shortly a protest petition will be posted on change.org, under the title - Preserve Tilly Foster Farm, demanding that the County reverse course and restore our Tilly according to that envisioned by the participants of the Spring 2014 workshops,

Am indebted to Kara Dorkin for assisting me in this project.

Ann Fanizzi

Carmel, New York 10512