THETFORD — The Selectboard has decided to sell an 8-acre Post Mills hayfield recently considered for workforce housing to neighbors for $140,000.
The sale is pending approval of the town’s attorney, Selectboard Chairwoman Sharon Harkay said via email on Tuesday. Harkay, along with fellow Selectboard members Li Shen, Mary Bryant and Steven Tofel, all voted in favor of the sale on Monday evening, while previous Selectboard Chairman Nick Clark abstained.
The buyer is the John D. Freeman and Jeanette B. Freeman Trust. The Freemans own a nearby home off Route 244 on Lake Fairlee, according to town property records, and the trust plans to provide financing for another neighbor, Brian Ricker, to maintain it as a hayfield and he “at some point hopes to build a new home there,” Harkay said during the Selectboard meeting.
If the town attorney approves the wording in the contract, the closing would be on or before April 16.
“If all goes as planned, we are really quickly coming to the resolution of this issue and the (Poore Family Farm) Trust will get its money back,” Harkay said.
Ricker, who lives next to the field in a home that has been in his family for generations, had expressed interest in buying the property in October. He could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
The sale of the land caps a nearly yearlong process that began last spring after the Selectboard, acting on the recommendation from the Thetford Senior and Affordable Housing Committee, purchased the plot for $120,000 with the intent of building up to 16 units of workforce housing. They used a $20,000 grant and borrowed $100,000 from the Poore Family Farm Trust, which they agreed to pay back in a timely manner if the land was not used for housing.
After opposition from Post Mills residents who wanted to preserve the land, the Senior and Affordable Housing Committee recommended the town not proceed with its plans. The Selectboard agreed to place the land on the market and listed it for $134,000. The town did not receive any offers for its first deadline of Feb. 5 and the land went back on the market, when it received two identical bids. The Selectboard then voted to extend the bid period until Monday, culminating in the vote to accept the offer from the Freeman trust.
Prior to discussing the land, Selectboard members redid the votes from its March 8 organizing meeting where they elected Harkay as chairwoman and reelected Shen as vice chairperson. Clark, who had served as chairman for a year, voted against Harkay and abstained from voting on Shen’s reappointment.
At this week’s meeting, after Harkay made a motion to accept the Freeman trust offer and asked for further discussion, Clark said he was “concerned about the outstanding open meeting law violations that related to this and I don’t feel comfortable voting on it right now.”
He referred to emails exchanged among the Selectboard and Town Manager Bryan Gazda, including one Harkay wrote saying she wanted to have the discussion about the bid out in the open instead of executive session. She proceeded to read the email into public record, followed by Shen.
“First the Selectboard has to determine if a violation occurred and then it has to cure the violation by making that information public,” Clark said. “The Selectboard hasn’t determined anything yet, we’ve just started reading emails out loud from prior email exchanges.”
Harkay said they were acting on the advice of the town attorney, whom she spoke with on the phone and discussed all of Clark’s six complaints. “I am acting according to what our legal counsel has advised,” she said, adding that the attorney did not have concerns about emails sent by Shen and Bryant.
Resident Alexis Jetter encouraged the Selectboard to take a moment and read the emails into record, given the community’s intense interest in how the situation in Post Mills has played out.
“Let’s make this the moment where we really turn things around,” she added.
Bryant then read her email into the record before the vote was taken. She also thanked all who were involved in the process, including the Poore Family Farm Trust, the people who submitted bids and the more than 120 residents who attended community forums about the land purchase.
“That is democracy and we heard you,” she said.
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
