Editor’s note: This commentary is by Don Keelan, a certified public accountant and resident of Arlington. The piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
[O]ver the past 10 months, there have been many headlines in the Bennington Banner. However, three of them present a trend that could have a negative impact on the town’s economic well-being.
They were: in October 2014, “Drug Treatment Center to Open in Bennington.” Almost nine months to the day later, was the following headline, “The Bennington County Child Advocacy Center and Special Investigations Unit Opens.” And more recently, on Aug. 22, across the top of page one was this, “Students to Receive Free Meals.”
When each of these programs was announced, there was a great amount of fanfare. For the first two, Gov. Shumlin and a host of state and local politicians were present and, of course, the press and photographers. If anything, they were celebratory events – wide smiles were quite evident.
The problem that I have with all of the media coverage that accompanied the opening of the centers is the impact that it will have on those businesses and employees who might be looking at Bennington as a future site for their business or residency.
Can we open such facilities with less publicity and save our celebratory energy for when it will be announced that a company with hundreds of jobs is opening in Bennington?
Take, for instance, the press coverage given to the free meals. According to the Banner article, the program has its genesis in a 2010 piece of federal legislation known as the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Somewhere in the act is a program referred to as the Community Eligibility Provision (free meals at school). Until recently, Bennington schools did not meet the minimum 40 percent eligibility to qualify for free breakfast and lunch for its students, but now, at 43 percent, it does.
The school district’s CFO, Richard Pembroke, was quoted, “The entire SVSU community benefits from our participation in CEP. All families qualify for free meals. A family of four who paid for breakfast and lunch last year can experience a savings of $1,200 this year. That is money families can use to relieve pressure off their personal finances or increase their purchasing power in our local economy.”
A newcomer to the area, sizing up Bennington as a possible location, who wishes to know how the school district is doing might just wonder how the community benefits from such a program.
How does it benefit the community when parents are not being held responsible for making sure their children are having a decent breakfast and a lunch prepared at home and not by their school? Is it too much to ask parents to get up earlier and prepare a breakfast and lunch for their children? Or are we at the point that our schools are primarily restaurants and then, secondarily, educational centers?
Nor is it helpful to know that around the corner from several local schools will be the proposed drug treatment center with planned daily visits by approximately 100 addicts. What is truly sad about the announcement concerning the center is the fact that it has never come to fruition – in light of all the fanfare last fall.
The drug center was planned to have been operational by January/February of 2015 and when this did not materialize, the opening was stated for July. Well, July has come and gone the center does not exist — the publicity does.
If, in fact, the Bennington community is in need of a child abuse center, a drug center, and free meals for school students, so be it. I don’t really care if the funding comes from the federal, state or local government. What I ask is: can we open such facilities with less publicity and save our celebratory energy for when it will be announced that a company with hundreds of jobs is opening in Bennington? And maybe then the need will not exist for such centers and free meals.
