Article Eleven, Placing Conservation Easements on Town Forests
“Article Eleven asks voters to convey conservation easements to one or more qualified organizations to monitor seven town-owned forests. Forest use would be restricted to open space purposes including wildlife habitat conservation, forestry and recreation. A similar advisory warrant passed last year with 76 percent of voters favoring the plan, however town counsel sought a binding re-vote. Costs for surveying and monitoring the conservation easements would come from the Conservation Fund according to Conservation Commission Chair Serita Frey, and there would be no additional cost to the town. All seven forests are now town owned, but without the conservation easements could potentially be used for other purposes or sold.
Comment opened with town historian Joanne Wasson, who stated she had an interest in several of the parcels but particularly in the Dow St-Cate Town Forest. She had been a member of the Select Board in 1993 when the town received this “wonderful piece of land” from a descendant of the family which had owned the land for two centuries. “Why can we not as a town take care of the land?” she asked. “Why turn it over to organizations to manage and lose control?” She gave the example of Bear Paw Regional Greenways, a private organization which, she claimed, would have the right to sell, exchange, lease or otherwise dispose of property they control. “We should take care of it for ourselves,” she concluded. Having delivered her statement, Wasson returned to the back of the room, and then disappeared. The meeting, now far from over, spent the next hour and one-half debating her contentions and the powers and rights of the Select Board, Conservation Commission and third-party monitoring organizations.”
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