According to the Day’s headline writer (we can’t blame the reporter for this) an Open-Space Bill [has taken] Groton By Surprise. The text of the article tells a bit different story. We townsfolk are in fact going about our business in as placid a state as the impending Depression permits, unfazed by the Open Space Bill to which the article refers. In fact, it appears that “Groton”, so far as the bill is concerned, boils down to one person, Town Councilor Heather Bond (it may or may not be a coincidence that Wright beat Bond in the election that sent Wright to the statehouse), who professes to be shocked at a bill proposed by State Representative Elissa Wright:
When voters approve municipal funds to purchase open space, measures should be taken to protect that land permanently, state Rep. Elissa Wright, D-Groton, said.
Wright has proposed a bill that would do just that, saying that such town open-space purchases should fall along the same lines as purchases that use state funds – a permanent conservation easement is placed on the land.
But her bill has frustrated several Groton Town Council members who were unaware that their representative had proposed it and believe it has the potential to tie towns’ hands in future uses of such property.
Other than Bond, none of the “frustrated” Town Councilors are identified. The claim made in the article that somehow the bill was represented as having been proposed at the council’s instigation is poorly supported.
This brouhaha does illuminate a couple of odd things about our Town Council. First, and I can attest this from personal experience, is the idea that somehow our state representative is personally answerable to the Town Council. That is manifestly not the case.
More troubling is the idea that the town is free to, in essence, defraud its own citizens by getting their okay to buy land for a stated purpose-in this case open space, and then turn around and use it for another purpose without getting their okay. The council considers it an affront that their hands should be tied. Years ago they were all set to hand one of the properties purchased as open space to a for-profit minor league baseball team. Had that happened we would now, like Norwich, be looking forward to an empty baseball stadium after years of handing tax breaks and concessions to the team. It didn’t happen only because the piece involved was the one piece (the Copp property) purchased for open space purposes that did, in fact, have restrictive language in the deed.
Those events took place prior to my time on the council. When I became a member of that august body, I was somewhat surprised at the degree to which they resented the legal strictures on their ability to do whatever they wanted with the Copp property. They perceived it as an affront, despite the fact that the town had acquired that particular piece for a below market price precisely because it came with the legal restrictions required by the former owner.
The other properties have no legal restrictions, but the fact is the folks who paid (the taxpayers) agreed to do so on the express representation that the land was being purchased as open space. In the world of private actors, when one induces someone to part with their money based on a representation of fact, and then one acts in a manner inconsistent with that representation, it is called fraud, or, at the very least, breach of contract. Why the town council feels it is appropriate for it to retain the ability to dedicate that land to other uses, at their sole whim and without further taxpayer input, has always mystified me.
I hope Representative Wright’s bill becomes law. She is asking nothing more than that towns abide by the representations they make to their own taxpayers. That’s not really asking that much.
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