LYME — When voters rejected a $100,000 appropriation to clean up his family’s property on Dorchester Road at Town Meeting earlier this month, Jed Smith was overwhelmed with relief.
“I was just amazed,” Smith, 46, said Tuesday. “I left the meeting that day having some faith that there’s still some people around that really do care and are sympathetic to our situation.”
The money would have been used to “continue to remove the materials stored on the property” and “to cover any legal or other related costs associated with such action,” according to the warrant.
The move marks the latest development in a years-long legal battle between Smith and his mother, Martha, and the Town of Lyme, which has been pushing to clean up two properties the Smith’s own in town. The Smiths argue that they will clean the lots at their own pace and wish to keep items and materials they say are valuable.
Smith and the town disagree on what is and is not junk on the properties. He would prefer to clean up the lots himself.
“They said we want it scorched earth, everything gone,” Smith said.
Lyme Selectboard Chairman Ben Kilham and member David Kahn did not respond to requests for comment this week. The third Selectboard member, Michael Hinsely, was elected at Town Meeting and is new to the board.
One of the properties is a half-acre lot on Goose Pond Road where Smith previously lived and the other a 17-acre lot on Dorchester Road headed towards the Dartmouth Skiway. No one lives at either property. Smith is currently living with family in Orford.
In 2015, a Grafton County Superior Court Judge ruled that the Smiths have to remove items from their properties, including unregistered vehicles, parts, salvage, trash and refuse, ruling that the collection “amounts to illegal junkyards in violation of state law,” RSA 236:111.
Smith denies that the properties are junkyards, but acknowledges that they need to be cleaned up.
“I might have a messy yard, but I don’t have a junkyard, per se” Smith said.
After the 2015 order, the issue was mostly quiet for nearly a decade until voters approved spending $150,000 to remove the materials at Town Meeting in 2024, 80-51.
Smith and an “army” of volunteers worked together to get “90% of the cleanup done” on the Goose Pond Road property in 2024, including hauling away multiple dumpsters worth of material at no cost to taxpayers, Smith said.
“My thought is that’s how the process should go, piece by piece go through and reach an agreement,” Smith said. “Because, honestly, I want it cleaned up too. I need to clean it up. I need to be more efficient and have everything more neat and tidy and organized.”
Some of the equipment and materials are essential for Smith’s many jobs including contracting, plowing, mowing lawns, hauling material and farm work, he said. He keeps a collection of old square body vehicles that he fixes up and uses for work and even posts videos of the trucks and what he uses them for on a YouTube channel called “Squarebody Obsessed” with his son.
Smith, a father of four, sees the Selectboard’s continued pursuit of cleanup as “overzealous enforcement of zoning laws” to force the working-class family out of town.
In May 2025, contractors employed by the town spent a day at the Goose Pond property and filled a dumpster, according to Selectboard meeting minutes. The board gave the Smiths until late June to remove the rest of the items. As of July 22, there were still items to be removed, according to meeting minutes. The Smiths requested a letter certifying that the cleanup was complete, but the board opted in September to wait on sending it, according to minutes.
Meeting minutes do not reflect whether this letter was ultimately sent, but Smith said in an interview and wrote in a recent court filing that the cleanup at Goose Pond Road was complete and he had received a letter from the Selectboard attesting to this.
Compared to the Dorchester Road lot, the front yard of the Goose Pond property did not appear to have piled up materials, trash or equipment visible from the street Thursday.
At the end of 2025, the Lyme Selectboard voted to carry over $128,000 for property cleanup and planned to ask for the additional $100,000 “in case additional funds are needed,” according to minutes from a Dec. 30 Selectboard meeting.
The $100,000 appropriation, which was recommended unanimously by the three-member Selectboard and 8-1 by the Lyme Budget Committee failed, 64-86, at Town Meeting earlier this month.
Town Meeting minutes are not yet available and the meeting was not recorded, Town Clerk Emily Shepard said.
Annual Town Meeting Minutes should be publicly posted within five business days of the meeting, which took place on March 14, according to the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office. Towns have 20 days to submit minutes to the Department of Revenue Administration, per state law.
Despite the recent vote, Smith said the ordeal is far from over and there’s a “long road” ahead.
Had the Town Meeting article passed this year, it would have only applied to the property on Dorchester Road.
The front yard of the former farm where Martha Smith grew up is littered with piles of material and larger items like a log truck, which Jed Smith said he is using to clean up the property. A large back field is full of vehicles.
The Selectboard is actively pursuing cleanup of that property and confirming the town has permission to use a drone to inspect the lot, according to November meeting minutes.
The attempt is “extremely invasive, it’s a complete and utter annihilation of our property rights and our peaceful, quiet enjoyment of our property,” Smith said. It is also a “slippery slope” for the town to survey other landowners or access the property without warning in the future.
On March 10, Grafton County Superior Court Judge Lawrence MacLeod denied Smith’s motion to block this access.
Drone imaging would be used “solely for assessment of the property, identification of violative items and documentation for the remediation of the property, would allow accurate mapping, itemized documentation, transparency for both parties, reduced disputes, and increased efficiency in carrying out the Court’s order,” according to a court motion filed by town attorneys.
The Selectboard plans to discuss continued clean up at the Dorchester Road property at a regular meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Town Office building, Town Administrator Dina Cutting said in a Thursday email. She did not respond to a request for further information about the meeting or the cleanup.