A letter to the good people of Columbia: On the matter of a field, a fortune, and a rather costly fantasy


Dearest Gentle Reader,

And so it is with great affection that this author must report upon the latest chapter in Columbia Borough's ongoing romance with a plot of land known as the former McGinness airfield, or less accurately as the McGinness Innovation Park.

Some years past, a group of ambitious officials  conceived a vision so dazzling it might have been created by a vicar after too much sherry: a $20 million innovation park, replete with utilities, roads, and street lamps twinkling merrily over what was, in fairness, mostly dirt. The council voted 5-2 to purchase the property. 

One former councilman, when pressed on the wisdom of wagering the public purse on this venture, assured Columbia that this was most certainly not gambling. No, no, he preferred the far more genteel term "managed risk." This author confesses a fondness for euphemism as much as the next diarist, but calling a wager "managed risk" is rather like calling a duel "assisted conflict resolution." 

The numbers, Dear Reader, never lie, even when everyone around them does. The borough, having sunk millions into the property, realized the original plan was unfeasible and soon found a most eager suitor in Saadia Holdings LLC.

However, a potential sale to Saadia first collapsed over a technicality. It was the sort of bureaucratic misstep that would be comic were it not so expensive. Saadia remained interested nonetheless, but on Tuesday evening last, council voted 4–3 to exclude data centers from the zoning at the site. And so the courtship with Saadia once again ended not at the altar but at the exit door.

Those councilors who were counting on Saadia will no doubt proffer dire warnings that taxes must now rise, the sale having fallen through. But this author must gently note: taxes are going to rise regardless, as they have been for some time, due to years of overspending and mismanagement. 

As a wiser pen than this author's once wrote, "the best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley." But this author must respectfully note that these were not, in fact, the best-laid schemes. They were, if we are being honest, barely laid at all.

What remains, then, of the great innovation park? The answer is: a field, tidy of contamination, if not of consequence. The dream of $20 million in gleaming infrastructure has faded like morning fog over the Susquehanna: lovely to behold at sunrise, gone entirely by brunch.

Until next we meet, Columbia, do not lose hope, but do mind your wallets, your officials, and your zoning ordinances.

Yours in candor and mild exasperation,
Your Faithful Observer of Borough Affairs,
Cassandra Whistletown 

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