Seeing Red Flags in Ambler Farm Lease, Bd. of Finance Plans to Caution Selectmen

Concerned the Town may be entering into a potentially incautious lease with Ambler Farm, the Board of Finance plans to issue an official opinion to the Board of Selectmen warning that the proposed new lease — as written — is not in Wilton’s best interest.

At its regular meeting on Tuesday, May 13, BOF members expressed strong reservations, as well as general surprise, about the content of a lease between the town and the Friends of Ambler Farm, that the BOS is planning to approve at its next meeting.

“For the life of me, I cannot understand what is the magic about a 90-year lease, a one-sided 90-year lease, (and) how our town attorney could have recommended this to us as being fair on behalf of the taxpayers,” BOF Vice Chair Stewart Koenigsberg said. “It really doesn’t smell right, from where we sit, but maybe there’s something we’re not aware of.” 

“It would have been great for us to have a conversation with the Board of Selectmen, lawyers,” he said.

Along with the longevity of the lease, BOF member were united in concerns about potentially uncapped expenditures that would fall upon the town, including capital costs that could tie to renovation of what is known as the Yellow House on the property.

On April 8, the BOF chose to withhold support for a $1.3-million capital bond request from the BOS for a renovation project at the historic Raymond Ambler House at Ambler Farm, which taxpayers ultimately approved at the Annual Town Meeting last week. 

“The reason for that (was) we couldn’t get comfortable with what the ongoing expenditure level would be for the town, in order for us to feel comfortable committing the capital resources,” BOF member Tim Birch said.

Birch, an attorney who does a lot of work with capital leases, said that this lease puts no cap on the town’s financial exposure, instead leaving both operating and capital costs open and to be determined by the FOAF nonprofit.

“I’m really puzzled and disappointed that that’s where we’ve ended up, to be just perfectly honest,” he said.

Contractually, he said, FOAF could turn around and expend “a few hundred thousand dollars to do something” and the town would not only have no option in consenting to the work, it would also be burdened with the cost, per the lease.

Koenigsberg, the former CFO of a multinational commercial real estate business, echoed those concerns.

“The town should have the ability to cap their expenditures … If (FOAF) wanted to run up significant expenses, including capital expenditures, it seems they could under this lease,” Koenigsberg said.

“The lack of governance over this property, which is going to be paid for by the taxpayers, I believe, has to change,” he said.

“Normally you would have some cap of total annual expenditures — ‘After this, you’re done!’ — and there’s nothing about that, so this is an incredibly generous, one-sided lease,” Koenigsberg said.

Birch also stated that, in his opinion, per the Wilton Town Charter, the lease should legally be voted on by residents at a Special Town Meeting, not merely approved by the BOS.

Doug Lamonte, the town attorney from Bercham Moses PC who is handling the lease negotiations on behalf of the town, told the selectmen at their most recent meeting on Monday, May 5 that approval of the lease did not require a Special Town Meeting vote, claiming an ordinance from which he drew information overrides the charter.

“I think the charter’s pretty clear … I read the charter and I read the ordinance,” Birch said. “I think it requires a Town Meeting.”

At its May 5 meeting, the BOS was split on whether to hold a Special Town Meeting, with selectmen Bas Nabulsi and Ross Tartell arguing that it would be costly and that no one would show up anyway. While Selectwoman Kim Healy was in favor of holding the meeting because procedurally she felt it was required, she ultimately yielded to Selectman Josh Cole‘s suggestion that they delay a vote until their Tuesday, May 20 meeting in order to give the public time to take a closer look at the lease and voice its opinion.

In comments made after Tuesday night’s meeting, BOF Chair Matt Raimondi stressed that his board was highly supportive of Ambler Farm and recognized it as a cherished amenity that, he said, adds tremendous value to the community.

“That said, it is our responsibility to safeguard the financial interests of Wilton’s taxpayers,” he said. “In reviewing the proposed lease, we identified several provisions that raise concerns about potentially significant future financial exposure for the town.”

Raimondi will be drafting a statement this week, with the input of his united board. He said he plans to email it to BOS members on Monday, May 19, and may be on hand the next evening, May 20, to read it in-person at the BOS meeting.

Koenigsberg also shared positive words regarding FOAF, but said that given the longevity of the lease, the town had to exercise caution.

“While we love the people that are running it now,” he said, “we don’t know who’s going to be running Ambler Farm 90 years from now and what the world will look like.”

BOF member Sandra Arkell weighed in on First Selectman Toni Boucher‘s approach on the matter as the town’s top administrator, versus her predecessor.

“I know we have a new administration,” Arkell said. “This is something that I think the Board of Selectmen in the past would have brought to the Board of Finance and would have explained their rational for why they thought that was a good lease or a good investment, or why expenses should be untapped infinitum, or for 90 years.”

Birch suggested some wording in their message to the BOS.

“We have concerns about certain of the provisions of the lease that we believe could put the town in a fiscally untenable position,” he said, including its 90-year duration, and the financial obligations the town could become responsible for for operating expenses and capital expenditures, including work on the Yellow House.

“For these reasons, we think that the subject matter of the lease should be revisited,” he said.