Greenwoods Theatre

A lot of the information about me and about the Greenwoods Theatre’s continuing search and demand for due process in the assessments, appraisals and alleged tax bill in your last edition, is incorrect.

I have never asserted that I thought the municipality wanted the building, but that the long, publicly established arena of the risk of injury due to huge dollops of structural negligence (which I have sequentially discovered and largely corrected), has induced a motive of cover-up. The core documents, known to the town since 2000, are in court files and relate to any tax or assessment adjudication remaining undone.

The entire situation takes place furthermore in an arena in which, due to conflict of interest cited by common cause, it appears the town may be being used as a cat’s paw for some developer with large show business interests.

Before the purchase of the old hardware store, I planned to utilize it perhaps for an ancillary theatre venue. The sole reason for the driving out of local retail business has been the protracted blockage by the municipality of all efforts to adjudicate the Greenwoods alleged tax bill. Who is supposed to benefit from the “ghost town” Tom McGowan describes, and the situation of which he is a victim? One has to wonder what the “change” we are “girding for” at the behest of the Economic Development Commission might be, and why the paper twice misled readers about heat at the theatre and the reason for a tenant being served with a notice to quit.

Where were all those arts organizations and real estate interests on the day of the “sale”? Could the facts published elsewhere have made them not wish to involve themselves in such a transaction? If a tenant and a newspaper editor responsible for false information, have ties to New York’s most powerful theatrical law firm, just what is going on?

A large sum of money has been taken from Joe Public to pay an unproven and judicially disputed tax bill, but it is not the payment of the tax bill because the tax bill has not been validated. I have been recently moved to posit that Rossiter may have designed this peerless treasure whose alterations are restgricted by its historic status. Were we viewing an attempted heist of a world-class architectural treasure in broad daylight for a tiny fraction of its value? Is Joe Public to imagine his property taxes are going to continue to be just as erroneous and excessive as the “bill” he is being asked to pay? Does he know about the income-based calculation method and the Royal Arcanum? Why not? A demand for accountability should certainly include any purchaser.

Maura Cavanagh Smithies
Greenwoods Associates LLC

The Hardware Store

Your February article on the Norfolk Tea and Trading Co., said that the hardware store “failed” in 1998. This is misleading. Manuel and Maria dos Reis were making a go of it with loyal support from townsfolk, and despite the failure of the town administrators to lend a helping hand (for example, contracting for their services), until the absentee owner of the premises raised the rent beyond all reason and forced them to vacate. This was a real loss to our town.

Everett E. Briggs

Clarification: In our December issue we referred to Norfolk’s Cay Fields as a “former” town historian. We are happy to report that Cay is still Norfolk’s Town Historian and we apologize for any confusion.