cannabisnews.com: Yellow Springs Saves the Farm! 





Yellow Springs Saves the Farm! 
Posted by FoM on March 08, 1999 at 15:58:54 PT

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio A 1960s brand of counterculture still thrives in this southwestern Ohio village, where organic food, tie-dyed shirts and men in ponytails are part of the mainstream. 
So when local residents found out a sprawling farm north of town was being auctioned off, possibly to developers, they rose to the occasion with rallies, fund-raisers and a 13-hour benefit. In the end, with the generosity of a pair of married lawyers, they gathered $3.27 million to buy all 930 acres. ``The great fear was that developers were going to come in and destroy the ambiance, the place and basically the life that people have here now,'' said Karen Gundersen, 33, pausing as she shopped at a gourmet food store. ``The whole town rallied around. It was really exciting.'' A village of 4,000 people 20 miles east of Dayton, Yellow Springs is home to Antioch College and saw hippies and war protesters walk its streets in the 1960s and '70s. Today, shops selling pottery, art and health food line the main street, drawing tourists for a little '60s nostalgia. Incense burns inside the Second Chance Hemp Co. clothing store, where album covers of the Doors, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin and other vintage rock groups hang on the walls. ``We're unique, and we want to keep it that way,'' said Maria Thornton-Bunkley, 30, as she tended to customers at the Organic Grocer. ``I get all misty just talking about it.'' Residents saw a threat to their identity when they learned in January that Whitehall Farm just north of the village would be auctioned off to settle an estate. The village immediately earmarked $400,000 from a special green-space fund to try to buy the farm. And then residents went into activist mode, organizing fund-raising events, rallies and even protests to try to scare away developers. At Antioch College, 20-year-old Sarah Alden organized a 13-hour benefit concert. It featured 14 bands from as far away as Tennessee and raised nearly $7,000. Merchants also donated food, pottery, jewelry, T-shirts and other clothing for sales to raise money. ``I can't understand how people can put these generic, pre-fab houses that mean nothing'' on farmland, Alden said. ``I don't want everything to look the same.'' After three weeks of work, residents had raised about $600,000, sending the village to the Feb. 22 auction with nearly $1 million. An estimated 800 people crowded into a motel ballroom in nearby Springfield for the bidding. Village Manager David Heckler popped open his notebook computer to track bids he and others made. Gloom set in when he got down to his group's last $497, and he began to look for help. ``We wanted to identify the strongest horse, get on that horse and ride,'' said Heckler. David and Sharen Neuhardt, attorneys who wanted a piece of the farm because they own adjoining property, agreed to buy the whole farm for conservation with a combination of their own and the town's money and a bank loan. As the auction built to a frenzied pitch, the Yellow Springs-Neuhardt coalition found itself pitted against a group of 25 other bidders. With the two groups tied at $3.26 million, the anti-development coalition upped its bid to $3.275 million. When the other bidders couldn't answer, preservationists in the back of the room counted down from 10 and then erupted into cheers. ``We think Yellow Springs is a very special community,'' said Mrs. Neuhardt. ``Someone needs to stand up and say what makes sense for the use of this land.'' In exchange for accepting $1 million from the village, the Neuhardts agreed to give their new property a legal status that will keep it from being developed by themselves or future owners. They plan to resell about 60 percent of the farm to farmers and lease some of the remaining property for farm and other non-development use. Villagers celebrated with a parade and party. ``I would love to say that it's a blast from the past, but I don't think so,'' said Gundersen. ``I think it's moving toward the future.'' http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/front.htm
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