The Wine Wars: Donal Collins and the Myth of Protecting Farms

Donal Collins ran a campaign on protecting farms and making Chatham affordable. His position on Fox Hill Vineyards does the opposite. Is he uninformed, or informed by his personal business?

Donal Collins, Town Supervisor of Chatham, presents in public as a defender of Columbia County agriculture. The town website says so. The press releases say so. The Fox Hill Vineyards file at 509 Bashford Road says otherwise.

The applicant, plastic surgeon Ed Williams, who has trademarked himself at the United States Patent and Trademark Office as “The White Coat Entrepreneur” and his wife Cherie filed the 303-b paperwork last October to enroll the parcel in Columbia County Agricultural District 10. The filing listed cattle grazing among the property’s farm activities. There is no cattle grazing. There are no cattle.

Northern Columbia County is small. Anyone in town who has driven past 509 Bashford Road can see what is on the land and what is not. So can the Town Supervisor, who happens to share an undisclosed business arrangement with the applicants. He did not flag the discrepancies. He continued to call the project a real farming effort.

Collins eventually recused. He has not, to thi…