On April 23, the Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Central School District’s administration will host a meeting for the community to talk about their concern about the status of the federal Impact Aid program. It’s expected that Superintendent of Schools Michael McElduff will ask the community to get involved, most likely by making calls and writing letters to federal officials.

Last week about two dozen community residents gathered at the Highland Falls American Legion Hall as part of the monthly Sit & Chat program. There, they, whether they expected to or not, learned why the HF-FMCSD remains in the position, after nearly 100 years, of having to ask for federal aid to fund the school district.

The topic was eminent domain. Eminent domain, Sit & Chat facilitator Agnes Saffoury explained, is the power of the government to take private property for public use, but only with just compensation to the owner, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

If a property owner does not want to sell, or refuses to accept the price being offered for their land, the government can still take land, still with payment, but as part of a condemnation process.

“I think those of us of a certain age recall the use of eminent domain for urban renewal decades ago, as the government build the roads that we now use,” Saffoury said. She noted, however, that the process still exists. In Texas in recent years eminent domain was used to acquire land to build border walls, and there has been talk about a government entity using the process to purchase land for Elon Musk’s SpaceX needs.

But that’s not what the discussion last week was about.

In the early 1900s, both the federal and state governments took what eventually added up to 93 percent of the land in the Town of Highlands – much of that is now the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and lands owned by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and New York State. That leaves seven percent of land that is privately owned, or taxable. That is the school district’s problem – as well as both a problem of both the Town of Highlands and Village of Highland Falls – the tax base in the community cannot grow, and increasing costs have to be borne by those who own parcels of that seven percent.

Fort Montgomery’s Danny Zint was one person who shared his family’s story last week. His family came to the United States, and Orange County, NY, from Alsace-Lorraine, currently part of France. Zint’s great-grandfather, also known as Daniel, came here at age 18, in 1850. He went to work for West Point, “carrying drill bits for their quarry,” Zint said, “and then became a shoemaker, and eventually had stores on Main St. and Schneider Ave.” Zint’s family eventually also owned 370 acres in what is now the vicinity of Long Pond, on Rt. 293. They had an iron ore mine. Zint brought a piece of that iron ore to pass around – it’s a heavy mineral substance from which metallic iron can be extracted, primarily used to produce steel.

“Then, in 1930ish, the land was taken by the federal government by eminent domain,” he said.

Village Trustee Peter Carroll, a historian, was at the meeting too. A friend of Zint’s, the two of them looked up the value of what that land would be now were it not government property -- $11 million.

“That could make me pretty happy,” Zint said.

Saffoury had a similar story to tell, but hers involved the taking of land by the state. Her family’s land was taken in the 1920s, she believes; it was about 1800 acres of pastureland and a farmhouse near what is now the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area and the Palisades Parkway.

“My grandfather was offered $10 an acre,” she said, “but he knew it was worth far more than that. When he challenged the amount, he ended up going to court in Newburgh. It ended up condemned and he was paid $5 an acre.”

She added: “If you challenge the government ….”

“You lose,” the audience finished her sentence.

Saffoury said it was not an easy time for her family and added that while she loves how the Palisades Interstate Park Commission opened up the land for the public, for hiking, swimming, fishing and more, “it was not fair, and it caused great upheaval for many families.”

Others had similar stories. Pharoby Ripa spoke about her late husband’s family that had land in the area of what is now West Point’s Round Pond that was taken via eminent domain.

“So, the family moved to the vicinity of Stony Lonesome,” she said, “and built a beautiful home. Then the government came knocking again and said they needed that property too. The family moved to an uninsulated cabin on Wayne Ave. – it wasn’t easy.”

Ripa said the worst part of that second incident of eminent domain was that the home sat untouched for about 30 more years before the federal government began using that parcel of land. “They had no reason to take it.”

Conversation drifted to an area north and west of Stony Lonesome that was known as the ‘village farm’ that many local residents had working farms on and possibly lived on – it later became federal land and is now used for military training for West Point cadets.

Town Councilman Rich Sullivan, also a historian in his free time, said that in the era of the 1930s, “people had the mindset that they weren’t being patriotic if they didn’t give up their land at the government’s request.”

The conversation drifted around, from a long ago letter the Village of Highland Falls has possession of that guarantees water for the community if it becomes a problem due to the federal government’s taking of many reservoirs in the hills surrounding the village; but, attorney Ned Kopald said at the meeting, that letter has not been able to be held up as viable.

“Congress, in its lack of decency, reneged on it,” Kopald said, “saying the Secretary of War (who signed it) didn’t have the authority to do so.”

Talk also turned to the recent purchase of a piece of property in Highland Falls by the non-profit Scenic Hudson, where a .7-mile walking trail is being created. Some in the audience weren’t happy, and, bringing the conversation full circle, wondered if the village could use eminent domain to return it to public property where it could be sold to “increase our ratables”.

The next Sit & Chat is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7. The topic hasn’t yet been announced.