Town green lights South Cartwright purchase: Preservation Fund will pay $3.9 million

Despite a couple of objections, following a public hearing on Dec. 17 , the Town Board voted to acquire  a parcel of land at 7 South Cartwright Road using $3.9 million in Community Preservation Fund money.

The action came at a special meeting following a work session for passive recreational use of the site.

Specifically, Board members see the site as having potential for creation of a park, nature preserve, and recreational and/or educational use.

“The Town Board had determined that this acquisition is the best alternative for the protection of community character,” according to the resolution.

Former supervisor Gerry Siller appealed to the Town Board not to make the purchase, arguing that the Community Preservation Fund Advisory Board (CPF) and Town Board are required to update the acquisition plan every five years and that much more time has passed without that being done.

The South Cartwright property is similar to the property on Fresh Pond that was owned by Vincent Novak. In 2019, after much consideration, the Town Board passed on the acquisition because there was a house and garage on the property that would have to be demolished.

Mr. Siller said there were concerns about the potential for soil remediation and costs of restoring the site after removal of the buildings.

But primarily, Mr. Siller said, purchasing developed property that would have to be cleared could set “a dangerous precedent.”

Mike Gaynor, who had tried unsuccessfully to sell development rights to part of his property took the argument much further. He questioned whether CPF money was being used to pay a broker’s fee on a transaction that he calculated at $250,000.

There is nothing in the public record on the transaction indicating more than the total price the Town Board agreed could be paid from CPF money, $3.9 million.

In a followup interview, Gordon Gooding, who just stepped down from the CPF chairmanship to take his seat as an elected member of the Town Board, said few deals involve a broker, but even when one is involved, the CPF and Town Board negotiate the amount to be paid based on the value of the property. Any broker’s fee is worked out between the seller and buyer.

Mr. Gaynor told the Town Board the CPF Advisory Board doesn’t have the capacity to recommend anything and no acquisitions should be purchased until there is a major investigation into the advisory Board’s practices.

Mr. Gaynor cited several parcels where development rights, which he maintained should not have been purchased, including land at Sylvester Manor, and property belonging to Laura Tuthill and John Needham on Midway Road earlier this year. Mr. Gaynor also said Mr. Gooding and Mr. Siller disliked him and that’s why they wouldn’t consider the development rights on his property.

In 2020, Mr. Siller said the Town had already expended $30,000 to fight a lawsuit Mr. Gaynor had filed against members of the Community Preservation Fund Advisory Board and others in and out of government. Mr. Gooding has said in the past that access to the land on which Mr. Gaynor wanted to sell development rights would not be accessible to the public because of its location on the property.

As Mr. Gaynor turned from the original subject of the hearing on the South Cartwright sight to bring up issues about other properties, Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams tried several times to stop him, insisting comments had to be related to the pending acquisition, not previous sites.

Resident Michael Shatkin had words of praise for the CPF Advisory Board and its efforts, protecting properties important to the rural character of the Island.