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Posts Tagged ‘Claude Moore Colonial Farm’
October 2nd, 2013 at 1:18 pm
Obama Administration Forces Living History Farm to Close – Even Though it Receives No Federal Money

In a disgusting PR stunt intended to sensationalize the government shutdown, the federal government barricaded a small living history farm and museum in McLean, Va., and ordered it closed – even though the historical reenactment site receives no federal resources to operate.

The Claude Moore Colonial Farm uses costumed interpreters and authentic recreations of period clothes, tools and buildings to transport visitors to 1770s Colonial America. At least that’s what the Farm did until Tuesday when the National Park Service ordered law enforcement personnel to remove staff and volunteers from the property and barricaded the facility due to the government shutdown.  The Farm sits on NPS land but is operated entirely with private funds.

In an email to supporters, Anna Eberly, the managing director of the Claude Moore Colonial Farm, called the government’s decision to close the facility “utter crap.”

“In previous budget dramas, the Farm has always been exempted since the NPS provides no staff or resources to operate the Farm,” Eberly wrote. “In all the [46] years I have worked with the National Park Service … I have never worked with a more arrogant, arbitrary and vindictive group representing the NPS.”

Eberly said that Farm administrators pleaded with the NPS to remain open, but “Every appeal our Board of Directors made to the NPS administration was denied.”

In her email, Eberly points out that closing the Farm actually costs the federal government money, while taxpayers would pay nothing if the facility remained open:

We have operated the Farm successfully for 32 years after the NPS cut the Farm from its budget in 1980 and are fully staffed and prepared to open today. But there are barricades at the Pavilions and entrance to the Farm. And if you were to park on the grass and visit on your own, you run the risk of being arrested. Of course, that will cost the NPS staff salaries to police the Farm against intruders while leaving it open will cost them nothing.

“You do have to wonder about the wisdom of an organization that would use staff they don’t have the money to pay to evict visitors from a park site that operates without costing them any money,” she said.

By forcing law enforcement personnel to shutter a historical reenactment site meant to educate children about our nation’s history in order to make the government shutdown seem worse than it actually is, the Obama Administration has sunk to new lows.