Crotched Mountain Foundation CEO Ned Olney discussed the closure of the foundation’s Greenfield Campus with the Greenfield Select Board on Thursday. It was Olney’s first-ever meeting with the Select Board since coming on as CEO last fall, and the town’s first meeting with Crotched Mountain personnel since it announced it intended to close its Greenfield campus by the end of the year.
Once Crotched Mountain leaves, mortgage holder TD Bank would own the main campus area, Olney said, unless a buyer or long-term lessee steps in. Several out-of-state organizations providing special education or support for adults with disabilities have contacted Crotched Mountain since they announced their intent to close, he said, but he’s “not optimistic” that a sale will go through before the end of the year. For one, other organizations may not understand the unique nature of the site, Olney said, situated on top of a mountain. “Well, let’s cross our fingers,” Town Administrator Aaron Patt said.
“We can wind down the Mountain and do it in a professional and safe way for staff and residents by starting now,” Olney said, rather than during a potential second wave of COVID-19 cases in the fall. The school currently has about 80 students and adult residents, about 20 left over the past three weeks, he said. Olney expected some residents to remain on campus through October, and that the school would be entirely moved out by Dec. 31.
Families are begging the DHHS to keep Crotched Mountain School open, he said. “There is a real crisis in New Hampshire for services for the types of residents we have, so it’s going to be a challenge,” he said, although some residents had luck with securing a few early placements.
The Greenfield campus comprises about 80 percent of Crotched Mountain Foundation activities, Olney said, and that the Foundation would continue the Ready, Set, Connect autism programs in Concord, Manchester, and Nashua. It would also continue to support the case management of 900 people with disabilities living below the poverty level throughout the state, although the Board of Directors would make a formal determination about future programs this fall or winter, he said.
Olney characterized the decision to close the school and residential homes on the mountain as “excruciatingly painful.”
“It was really because there was no other option,” he said. “The school has been losing money for a lot of years,” he said, with the campus’s former hospital and ATECH program causing deficits while operating and costing millions to close as well. Olney characterized the school as “hobbling forward” when COVID-19 hit the state, with the school experiencing an early outbreak and death as compared to the rest of the state. Olney said he hopes to set up a committee to hold a final event to acknowledge the decades of human service the school has provided.
The Greenfield fire and police departments currently fuel up on the Crotched Mountain campus and need to make alternate arrangements since there are no other fuel stations in town, Patt said during the meeting, and also mentioned potential issues with a loan for a wastewater treatment upgrade the school received. Other ways the town might be affected by the school’s closure are yet to be discussed, he said on Friday. “We are in the early stages of working with CMRC and last night’s meeting was their first meeting with the Board,” he said.
“This is such a sad day for all of us,” Select Board Chair Margo Charig Bliss said, adding that she herself worked on campus for 15 years. “I’m concerned that we lose the organization not only from the financial standpoint, but from the shared community standpoint,” she said.
2019 assessment records indicate that the Crotched Mountain Foundation owns eight properties in Greenfield, comprising 657 total acres, with buildings and grounds assessed at a total value of about $55.5 million.