RE: Joanne Gorman’s letter of 2/4/09 concerning the town’s potential purchase of undeveloped land. Ms. Gorman unfortunately mischaracterizes much of the issue, with the result that her letter is inaccurate and largely unfair to those she criticizes.
Let me state that I wholeheartedly share her concern for open space and for the financial health of Killingworth. Furthermore, we need more citizens to share her enthusiasm for long-term planning and environmental appreciation.
But her zeal ignores both fact and reason, which is fatal when making multi-million-dollar decisions with public funds.
First, the selectmen did not “put together some committee to yet analyze again and again and again to determine if this was worth pursuing.” They know it is worth pursuing, and so established a committee to make a plan reflecting the long-term interests of the town. Any plan brought to referendum needs a deep and durable rationale and realistic budgetary grounding. Committing the town to millions of dollars is not an impulsive act to be undertaken because of love of nature or fear of neighbors. It requires dispassionate evaluation and lots of background work.
Which is exactly what happened in Guilford. The selectmen did not simply throw out a referendum to the citizenry with the attitude of “Whadya think?” That deal took years – yes, years – to put together. The funding is from multiple sources, and the purchase terms were negotiated to be favorable to both town and property owner. Then and only then did the selectmen put forth a referendum that reflected, in their estimation, the best interests of the town. When the citizenry ultimately agreed, it validated years of hard work by lots of people, not “some committee.”
The committee studying the Venuti property does indeed believe Killingworth residents have a right to make an intelligent decision based on all the facts. Joanne Gorman’s sweeping statements about the purchase of the property are not buttressed by facts, but by feeling. Is this really “the most attractive parcel in town”? Heavy machinery has worked over much of the main parcel for decades, resulting in a denuded front lot with no topsoil or vegetation. The pond, which is the result of materials mining, may not be ideally suited to recreation in its present form. And there are braids of motorbike trails cut into the forest.
None of the foregoing precludes the parcel from becoming an attractive public resource. But the facts are more complicated than the writer’s simple declarations.
Similarly, the statement asserting that development is always a net financial loss for the town is untrue. An “active adult 55+” community pays its full share of town taxes – the vast majority of which go to educate children – yet no children live in these communities. So the town could have a net financial gain from some forms of residential development.
As a member of the Venuti Property Planning Committee, I believe all of us take very seriously our responsibility to our neighbors to present plans that serve their long-term interests. In the meetings so far, I have been extremely impressed by the critical analysis, creative thinking, and profound historical knowledge expressed by my fellow members.
I do not know what our final recommendation will be. But I do know that it will be the result of thorough investigation, factual analysis, hard work, and solid reasoning. If the selectmen put forth a referendum based on anything less, our residents would be ill served. By waiting until this work is done, your selectmen are not “cowardly” – an angry term for which the letter writer would do well to apologize – but instead are providing the kind of leadership our citizens have the right to expect, as were Guilford’s selectmen when they did the same. This is the responsible course for our elected officials, and it is hard to imagine a reason for behaving otherwise.
Peter Richards