Samuell Farm sits 15 miles east of downtown Dallas, a refuge from the bustle of the big city, but not from its politics.
The 340-acre tract is at the center of a deepening confrontation between a nonprofit group that has run it largely unencumbered for four years and the farm's owners, the Dallas Park and Recreation Department, which is seeking to reassert control.
Both sides insist park users will be better off if their side prevails.
Depending on whom you talk to, the outcome will mean one of two things:
A more tightly run facility with an infusion of new funds.
The arbitrary abandonment of an arrangement that has improved a once-neglected city asset.
At least one of the key players believes the conflict has gone beyond a difference over who can do the better job.
"We don't think it's about performance. We think it's about personalities," said Hugh Brooks, executive director of Friends of the Farm.
The property, bequeathed to the city by Dr. W.W. Samuell in 1937, was opened to the public as a working farm in 1982 with animals and a resident family that tended the property.
The experiment failed, and by 2002, the city dropped its annual funding from about $600,000 to about $20,000, said assistant park director Carolyn McKnight-Bray.
For two years, the city closed the park to the public and performed only basic maintenance duties - until Mr. Brooks formed the nonprofit group and signed an agreement with the city.
The contract was part of the park department's Mow-mentum program, which was used mostly by private groups that wanted to help the city by donating money or labor to keep a park or even a street median mowed and free of litter. But an addendum gave the Friends of the Farm management power, as well.
"Basically, we were given the keys to the place," Mr. Brooks said.
Over the next few years, the group's volunteers built paths, stocked fish ponds, revived a tall grass prairie and refurbished rundown buildings - including the Samuell homestead - using no taxpayer money and charging no admission.
Though no attendance figures are available, group leaders said the farm has become a destination for cross-country meets, Scouting events and weekend anglers.
Park director Paul Dyer argues that, despite the improvements, the farm is still not in as good a shape as it was when the city was fully funding it.
"That it's in better shape than if no one was out there at all is beyond dispute," he said. "I think it was in the best shape ever when we had seven or eight people out there taking care of it."
Ms. McKnight-Bray also noted the park department spent $300,000 to maintain the park between 2004 and 2007, including $120,000 in utility costs alone.
Now, the park department has an additional $200,000 it would like to put into Samuell Farm, she said - for general staffing, mowing and other landscaping work, trash collection and maintenance.
The money would not come from taxpayers but from funds in the Samuell Trust, which itself has become a source of friction between the two groups.
The trust bequeathed by Dr. Samuell at his death included blue chip stocks that were then worth $1.7 million. Friends of the Farm says the portfolio should be worth perhaps as much as a quarter-billion dollars and openly questions the city's stewardship.
Ms. McKnight-Bray said that portfolio is "separate from the city of Dallas," and Mr. Dyer said it is administered by outside professional financial managers.
"I don't know the instruments, and I don't believe Paul knows the instruments," Ms. McKnight-Bray said. "If you invest in something today, you can always say 10 years from now that if I'd invested in something else, I'd have that much. Hindsight is always 20-20."
Earlier this year, leaders of the nonprofit group sent a letter of complaint to the state attorney general. Both sides say that office is now looking into the matter, although a call to an investigator was not returned.
In any case, the park department will only allocate the $200,000 if Friends of the Farm agrees to a new contract that gives the park department greater control.
Ms. McKnight-Bray said the contract is a standard one the department requires of all nonprofit groups. It would be an annual contract, with a provision for "termination for convenience," which would allow the city to cancel the contract if it decided to use the property for some other purpose.
"We put that in all our agreements. This can be an issue from time to time with groups that are investing thousands or maybe millions of dollars in a property," she said. "But we have that with all city properties, and the city attorney always has us use that."
Still, Ms. McKnight-Bray acknowledged that the dispute has caused relations between the park department and Friends of the Farm to deteriorate.
But, she said, the new arrangement will make for a better park.
"We need that oversight to help them do what they want to do," she said.
The last contract between Friends of the Farm and the city expired in October 2007, Ms. McKnight-Bray said. And after months of wrangling by mail, telephone and e-mail, city officials gave nonprofit officials until Aug. 29 to sign a new contract.
The date came and went. A series of subsequent meetings has failed to resolve the issue.
Mr. Brooks charges that the park department is threatening to evict the group. Mr. Dyer denies it, saying that nonprofit employees could still work there as volunteers.
"But they can't continue to govern the place as an entity," he said.
Mr. Brooks said that if the city succeeds in reasserting control over the park, his group will keep the lawns mowed and pick up litter but leave everything else to the city.
"It's up to them to step up to the plate," he said.
Staff writer Michael E. Young contributed to this report.
