The Town’s Best Interest?

by Robbie Stanley

Landowners spoke out against public use of ancient roads at the April 3 Planning Commission meeting after reading over evaluations prepared by a commission sub-committee. The planners promised to take all comments, e-mails and letters into consideration before making their report to the Selectboard. They repeatedly emphasized that input was part of the process and that the evaluations served as a starting point.

Despite some of the roads’ “connectivity” and desirability as trails, no one in the audience seemed to be in favor of converting an ancient road to a permanent town trail. In fact, Eddie Krasnow got a favorable response when he stated that converting the town’s ancient roads for public use “seems like the wrong way to build community,” one that could prove very costly to the town. The handouts evaluated 18 ancient roads in Charlotte previously identified by Selectboard member Frank Thornton, of which six are preliminarily recommended by the subcommittee to be mapped as potential trails. As commission member Jim Donovan explained, “These are town resources that the town already has. The town must decide whether to keep them or not. Do they have value? Should we keep them? We should all be happy that we’re going through the process.”

Using existing data, the commission will come up with a “planning point of view,” as Donovan put it, and will then turn over the report to the Selectboard. Commission member Ellie Russell reminded the audience that the Selectboard, not the Planning Commission, is “the final decision maker” about which ancient roads will be used by the town as a public roads or trails. The Planning Commission would like to complete its part of the parject by February 2009, even though the state’s deadline is 2015.

The objections of landowners centered around the public use of trails close to homes, the negative affect to property value and privacy, and the dubious public value. In response, MacDonald emphasized that they were not “ramming these trails down the town’s throat.” Representing the Trails Committee, Brooke Scatchard commented that the trails “do exist, and they deserve evaluation. We are trying to educate ourselves and the town.” To that end, three public forums on the town’s plans for trails will be held in May and June. The first of these meetings is scheduled for May 5 at the Town Hall from 7 to 9 p.m.

The next Planning Commission meeting will be held at the Town Hall on April 17 at 7 p.m.