Thetford
Compromise wasn’t easy, but at least the public hearings, lengthy board meetings and arguments would come to an end.
But while neighbors felt like they had an agreement everyone could live with, those who use the range saw things differently. Instead of a grand compromise, they felt negotiations ended too abruptly and the Selectboard essentially was telling them to “take it or leave it.”
In February, the Selectboard signed the 10-year lease and memorandum of understanding that governs the 57 acres of town-owned land on which the range sits. The lease then went back to Upper Valley Fish and Game Club officers for their approval.
But the Fish and Game Club never signed off on the new deal; meanwhile, the current lease expires next month.
Members of the club earlier this week made clear their feelings on the matter, when they asked the Selectboard to reopen negotiations to consider loosening the range regulations under the new lease.
The request hasn’t been well received by neighbors.
“This was like starting over,” resident Ford von Reyn said by phone on Tuesday. “It just doesn’t seem right that this should be opened up all over again.”
The current agreement between the town and club expires on May 1; if the new lease is not signed by both groups, shooting could come to a halt.
Alternatively, the Selectboard could opt to simply extend the current lease and its terms.
On Monday, club members told the Selectboard that the new lease and memorandum of understanding weren’t negotiated fairly. Instead, they said, the town unilaterally imposed terms.
“The correct and proper move at this point is to extend the current lease ‘until such time as a new lease is signed and in effect,’ and to reopen the negotiations with all input to be strictly limited to the two parties (the Selectboard and the club) involved in the negotiations,” club President David Goodrich wrote in an April 10 letter to the board.
Doing so would cut out neighbors and other residents, who fought for a less noisy range throughout the two-year process.
“I’ve thought we’ve been doing that for two years,” range neighbor Ted Levin said of the club’s calls for negotiations. He said the club’s complaints were akin to those of “10-year-old boys on the playground” who didn’t get what they wanted.
When neighbors brought noise issues to the board’s attention early in the process, they asked for much stricter regulations on sound, but no one got everything they wanted in the end, von Reyn said.
“It didn’t give everything that we asked for, but it gave enough,” he said.
Club member Bill Huff, however, said the board issued an “ultimatum” with no direct negotiations between board members and the club.
Huff said the Selectboard’s response to Monday’s request was the “opposite” of receptive. He called on the board to enter into an executive session with the club to “hammer out a lease.”
The Fish and Game Club is asking for five changes to the board-approved lease and memorandum: Drop a rule requiring just one round per second be fired at the range; change the Sunday shooting schedule; allow licensed firearms dealers to make sales on-site; permit automatic weapons and .50-caliber ammunition; and do away with a provision allowing public access to a fishing pond on the property.
A formal motion and majority vote from the board is needed to reopen negotiations.
Board Chairman Stuart Rogers said he’ll be speaking this week with the town’s legal counsel, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and state wildlife officials about the matter before bringing new information to the board next week.
He said the lease and memorandum have been subject to several negotiation sessions between himself and the town’s attorney and club officials and their attorney. While he’s not sure whether the board will reconsider its decision on the range, Rogers disagrees with club officials calling for an executive session on the matter.
“Everybody should be able to hear comments of each board member and comments of each club officer,” Rogers said. “That’s called transparency.”
Goodrich, the club president, feels more certain that both the board and club will reopen talks and come to a resolution, however.
“There are very few absolutes in life, but I am confident that both the club and the Selectboard want to have a fair lease in place and will continue to work to make that happen,” he said in a Tuesday email to the Valley News.
The board will discuss the Fish and Game Club’s request again at 8 p.m. on Monday in the Thetford Town Hall.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.