Date: Fri 27-Mar-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-land-trust-Schmidle

Full Text:

Ed Ink: Time For A Public Land Trust?

Earlier this month, the Legislative Council put a dollar aside. Not for

coffee. For a land trust.

Mae Schmidle, former town clerk, former state representative, and longtime

activist for several good causes in town, had urged the council to at least

set up a line item in its proposed budget for a land trust so that later in

the year the creation of such a trust could be considered. Even though the

town already has an account with more than $70,000 in it earmarked for the

acquisition of open space, the council went along with the idea. A public land

trust, Mrs Schmidle argued, offers advantages over simply having money on hand

for open-space purchases.

Mrs Schmidle explained this week that not only could a land trust purchase

open space, it could sell it as well. And its buying and selling, under the

direction of a panel of citizens, would not be limited to open space.

Properties with buildings could also be bought and sold. A land trust, Mrs

Schmidle noted, could have purchased the Congregational Church House adjacent

to the Edmond Town Hall when it went on the market, securing it (as the

Newtown Savings Bank eventually did) as future office space.

Newtown already has a private land trust, the Newtown Forest Association, but

Mrs Schmidle notes that the Forest Association is limited to acquiring land

with deed restrictions on its development. She argues that the acquisition

priorities of a private land trust don't always coincide with the public

interests of the town.

The land-trust proposal is worth thinking about, and the council should at

least consider Mrs Schmidle's proposition. Serious thought should be given,

however, to whether Newtown wants to empower yet another public agency to

spend its money. The Board of Selectmen and the Legislative Council already

have the authority to acquire and sell property, including buildings, to

accept gifts on behalf of the town, and to act quickly, if necessary, to seize

opportunities to add to Newtown's inventory of park land, as they did last

September when they acquired the 13-acre Amaral property on Elm Drive.

The town also should consider the effect a public land trust will have on the

proven success of the Newtown Forest Association to attract bequests and

maintain its properties for the benefit and enjoyment of the public. The

Forest Association has accumulated nearly 1,000 acres of open space for public

use by establishing a tradition of private giving in town. The town should do

everything it can not to undermine that tradition.

We also worry about accumulating large amounts of cash in an account under the

control of a panel empowered to buy and sell property on behalf of the town.

How would the members of this panel be selected? Who would they be accountable

to? And if public money or public property is involved in these transactions,

would voters have an opportunity to comment on or to ratify the deals?

In short, we would want a public land trust to adhere to a process like the

one that already exists for buying and selling land on behalf of the town. The

fundamental question is: Do we really need to reinvent a wheel that seems to

be rolling pretty well already? On the surface, we don't see too many clear

advantages to creating a town-sponsored land trust. Yet the Legislative

Council should take the time to probe more deeply into the issue to see what

advantages may lie there. If we can buy a little forethought with the dollar

we've expended so far, it will have been money well spent.