By Don Nelson
The Winthrop Auditorium Association is continuing to oversee operations of the “Red Barn” as the association and the Town of Winthrop, which owns the facility, are still seeking agreement on a new contract.
In January, the auditorium association’s board of directors proposed a new five-year agreement to continue operating the popular building for the town, replacing the previous 25-year agreement that has expired. The nonprofit association handles operations, booking and other day-to-day requirements. The town and auditorium association are currently operating under a temporary agreement that has been in place since May 2017.
In April, Winthrop Mayor Sally Ranzau reported to the council that it appeared progress had made on an agreement, and she and town council members Joseph O’Driscoll and Ben Nelson would meet with the barn association’s representatives — Robert Stone, Bruce Harron and Dennis Gardner — to perhaps finalize an agreement.
But the mayor and council members later reported that they found that meeting unsatisfactory and frustrating.
“We expected progress, but got stonewalled,” Ranzau said at the time. The association representatives asked for further review by the attorneys for both the town and association.
Subsequently, the barn association responded to comments by Ranzau and the council members in a letter expressing its disappointment at the “disparaging remarks” from the Town Council meeting, and raising issues the association believes have not been adequately addressed in the town’s proposed operating agreement.
Meanwhile, town attorney Scott DeTro reviewed the town’s proposed contract — at a cost of $600, Ranzau reported at last week’s Town Council meeting — and made some suggested changes. The town’s insurers also reviewed the document, she said, and the proposal has been sent to the Auditorium Association. None of the changes were in response to the Auditorium Association’s letter, she said.
‘All been said’
That’s where it stands, Ranzau told the council last week, as the Auditorium Association membership plans to meet on June 4 at the barn, starting at 6 p.m.
“It’s pretty much all been said,” Ranzau said at the council meeting. “We’ll leave it as is and see what happens.”
Stone had earlier told the council that the barn association was frustrated with the town’s lack of a timely response to its proposal, and concerned that the town would not adequately support the association’s efforts.
In its most-recent letter to the town, the association asserted that “the failure to reach an agreement rests not with the Association but with the undeniable fact that the barn operation, under the town proposal now under review, is guaranteed to operate at a significant loss.” (Earlier, Ranzau had said that “We are actually trying to give them more money” in the town’s proposal.)
The association asserted in its letter that the town was shifting responsibility for any losses to the association. According to the association, the town’s latest proposal “radically challenged the liability and risks of the parties … as to be wholly incompatible with the Association’s 501(c) 4 status and could not form the basis for an ongoing agreement.”
“It is the town’s failure to recognize the material shift on risk and responsibility from the 1992 lease to the Town’s new proposal that is the reason we cannot move forward,” the association concluded in its letter.
