BRADFORD, Vt. — The Selectboard has voted to not proceed with a health order against the property at 649 Waits River Road, after much of trash that had accumulated on the property for nearly two years had been cleaned up.
However, Marcia Henry, the town’s health officer, told the board at the public hearing on Thursday that a concerning amount of “metal … in a pile” and “some other vehicles” still remain on the property.
“As far as I’m concerned, the things that I was most concerned about as far as toxic materials leaching into the ground have all been removed and are all cleaned up,” Henry said. “Other than that, I think we should move forward with junk ordinance as there is a huge amount of metal still left on the property.”
After hearing comments from Henry and others, Bradford Selectboard Chairwoman Meroa Benjamin proposed no further action on the health order “due to the clean up of the pollutants.”
However, the board unanimously voted in favor of moving forward with the enforcement of the junk ordinance on the property.
“We’ll put the junk ordinance discussion on our agenda for the next period,” Benjamin said.
Bradford defines the purpose of its junk ordinance as “(regulating) the disposal of solid waste, the location and outdoor storage of junk, junk vehicles, abandoned motor vehicles, and salvage yards in the Town to protect the public health, safety, and well-being of the public and to protect their environment.”
According to the ordinance, “if the owner of junk or motor vehicles does not remove or screen the items from view within 30 days from the date of mailing of the written notice by the Selectboard, the Selectboard may notify the appropriate state agency.”
The ordinance states that “a civil penalty of not more than $500 per violation may be imposed.”
The potential public health order on the property was the result of, as Henry described at the hearing, “a tremendous amount of junk, trash, discarded vehicles, containers of standing water, containers with unknown substances leaking from them.”
A major concern of Henry’s was the property’s proximity to the neighboring Pierson Farm, “which is a farm that grows food and vegetables for human consumption.”
“All of these things were leaching into the groundwater of this property,” Henry said.
The alleged violations at 649 Waits River Road stem from an initial report by Sophia Gawel, the town’s previous health officer, in May 2024 that cited “persistent trash and open trash on the property attracting rodents and beast (e.g. bear).”
The May 2024 complaint was brought by Emerson’s daughter, Amy, who lives on an abutting property.
Since then, Orange County Probate Court has sorted out who owns the property, which had belonged to Jason Emerson, who died in 2023.
Last August, the court issued a final decree of distribution of the property to his children “Angel Emerson, Anika Emerson, Elias Emerson, Ashley Emerson and Amy Emerson each one-fifth share as Tenants in Common.”
Then in September, Amy Emerson bought Angel Emerson’s share of the property for “10 dollars and other valuable consideration,” according to a limited warranty deed signed in September. That transaction means that Amy Emerson now holds a two-fifth stake in the property.
On Oct. 30, 2025, Amy Emerson filed a civil complaint in Orange County Superior Court against her three siblings who are part owners of the property: Elias Emerson, Ashley Emerson and Anika Gilbert, formerly Anika Emerson.
In the complaint, Amy Emerson alleges that Elias Emerson has occupied the property since April 2023 and “continues to occupy the property without a valid lease.”
The complaint alleges that “Elias has significantly damaged the property by these and other acts: breaking and failing to replace windows, failing to engage in ordinary maintenance and thereby allowing the elements and pests to damage the property, allowing significant amounts of garbage to accumulate on the property, misusing and thereby damaging the property’s access route.”
The complaint also alleges flood light harassment aimed at Amy’s windows through the night, a “misused, damaged and blocked” shared access route, and dogs owned by Elias were said to have killed her “breeding chickens.”
An answer to the suit was filed on Nov. 28, 2025, providing the amended probate distribution from August and alleging that multiple claims of Amy Emerson’s complaint are “INCORRECT.” The case is currently pending.
Of the three siblings being sued, only Ashley Emerson attended Thursday’s public hearing, via Zoom from Portland, Ore., where she lives.
“It’s become a land grab,” she said. “Amy is suing all of us to continue to try and devalue and grab the property.”
She contended that efforts have been made to remediate the accumulation of junk and alleged that those efforts have been “impeded by Amy blocking the road (and) harassing us.”
“We want to close the estate on my father’s property,” she said. “We want it to be a place where maybe one of my siblings buys it and lives or somebody else does and continues to have it be a wonderful home.”
Her father Jason Emerson, who died at 65, was “a wonderful person but he was also a hoarder.”
While the property was still in probate, it was Henry’s understanding that the tenants — “Elias (Emerson), his wife and another person” — would continue to clean up.
But improvements, she said, did not continue to happen.
In October of this year, Henry agreed to do a walk-through to see if the problems had been remediated.
“Unfortunately … the conditions had gotten increasingly worse,” she said. “My biggest concern is that there is a dug well right in the middle of the property. And at the time, there were still lots of containers around, there were lots of batteries, vehicle batteries on the grounds, lots of discarded vehicles, unknown containers of toxic cleaners and things that were visible in the piles of junk.”
She also mentioned numerous bags of garbage.
At the hearing, Amy Emerson presented photographs ranging from trash bags to dogs running loose to lights beaming through the night.
“My well happens to be the one in the center of the property and my complaints are in the court system,” Amy Emerson said at the hearing.
She added that as part owner of the property, she doesn’t want to be “stuck with fines, but at the same time I don’t want trash in my well.”
Recently, conditions on the property seem to have improved. During a site visit on Jan. 2, Henry found that “a lot of work had been done.”
“All the containers had been cleaned up, the garbage had been cleaned up, the batteries were gone,” she said. “Most of the junk ATVs and vehicles had been removed from the property.”
But due to the remaining “metal on the property in a pile” and other junk vehicle concerns, she recommended that the town continue to pursue violation of the town’s junk ordinance.
During the hearing at the Bradford Town Office with an attendance of just over a dozen, residents had the opportunity to speak.
Former Bradford Fire Chief Bob Wing, 75, took to the podium to address the board at the hearing: “I strongly urge the board to step away from this and take no further action.”
In Wing’s estimation, “the complainant is trying to get the town of Bradford to get into a civil dispute among the owners.”
“It is not our place to get into a civil matter,” Wing said. “This matter should be addressed by a court of law, not the town of Bradford.”
Bradford resident Byron Kidder addressed the Selectboard “with 75 years of wisdom of having lived in this town.”
“This is not a public health matter,” Kidder said. “This is a civil matter within the family … You should not be wasting your time and energy and our money on something that is not a public health matter.”