Tie vote saves Cape Land Trust funding

CELT Executive Director Chris Franklin

CAPE ELIZABETH — They say a tie goes to the runner, but, in this case, it goes to the "quiet, contemplative" walker.

That's how the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust says an 82-acre lot in Robinson Woods, which it acquired in 2003, must be used, according to deed restrictions.

On Monday night, the land trust saw its view triumph when the Town Council, by virtue of a 3-3 tie vote, defeated an attempt to renege on a $350,000 donation after the land trust refused to give up a piece of the woods for use in building the Shore Road Pathway.

"While new paths are allowed in Robinson Woods, they are meant to enhance the visitors' experience of the property for quiet contemplation," Chris Franklin, land trust executive director, said after the vote. "The intent of the Shore Road Path is a not to enhance the visitors experience of Robinson Woods, it's a Department of Transportation project to get you from one end to the other."

Recently, two decades-old dreams have come to fruition in Cape Elizabeth, colliding at the eleventh hour in a dispute over how Robinson Woods can best serve the public.

In early May, the town won a $729,000 state transportation grant to build the long-hoped-for Shore Road Pathway, a paved walking trail linking the town center to Fort Williams. Then, about a month later, the land trust announced it had signed a purchase and sale agreement with the Robinson family to buy the 65-acre balance of its ancestral woodlands. That helps the town finalize another long-sought goal, completion of a cross-town greenbelt trail.

The deal the land trust put together called on three-way financing, using state grants, private fundraising and a gift from taxpayers via the council.

At its June 13 meeting, councilors voted unanimously to make a $350,000 donation to seed the Robinson Woods purchase, using $150,000 from the town’s land acquisition fund and $200,000 to be raised from the sale of 20-year bonds.

Town Manager Michael McGovern said the donation is revenue neutral, offset by savings the town expects to realize by refinancing $1.9 million in remaining debt from a $4 million bond sale in 2001.

The council spent 20 minutes in executive session just prior to the donation vote. When the councilors came out, they took pains to make it clear that the donation came with no strings attached. However, at the request of Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta, they also agreed to make a "respectful request" of the land trust that it enter into talks connecting Shore Road Path and the original Robinson Woods purchase.

Several times, the council took pains to point out that its financial contribution was "in no way linked" to the outcome of these talks.

Some on the council want sections of the planned Shore Road Path shifted slightly (about 30 feet) onto the older Robinson tract. Amending the state Department of Transportation plan would allegedly shave $100,000 off the cost of construction by eliminating the need to blast into ledge. It also would save "about a dozen" trees closest to the road, which some see as a way of "preserving the character" of Shore Road. 

It’s an idea that was first presented to land trust in 2009, when the Shore Road Pathway was still a maybe-someday idea. Land trust leadership rejected the idea then, and rejected it again on June 20, when Franklin and Ted Darling, president of the land trust, met with McGovern and council Chairman Dave Sherman.

"We have an obligation first and foremost to protect our property," said Franklin, explaining that a conservation easement is held on the woods by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. "It’s a contract. We can't change the terms of the contract just because it’s convenient for somebody else."

The day after that meeting, four councilors signed a letter asking to "reconsider" the town’s $350,000 donation to the land trust for purchase of the new lot, known as Robinson Woods II.

That prompted dozens of angry letters to the town, and a stern rebuke Monday from Sherman.

"The reason people are upset and accusing the council of going back on its word is because that's exactly what's happened," he said, adding that he was "personally angry" about the reconsideration request.

"We said very clearly that our donation was not going to have a contingency," he said. "But because some on the council don't like the direction talks have gone in, they've done a compete 180-degree about face."

Sherman was not the only one doling out invectives.

Councilor James Walsh pointed out that at a June 30 workshop, the council decided to make additional concessions to the land trust, reducing the requested encroachment into Robinson Woods to 875 square feet (down from 7,000) and changing the paved path to stone dust in those areas.

"There must be something else going on here, I don't know what it is," said Walsh, by way of saying he could not fathom why the land trust continues to cast a cold eye on the council's plan to save money and trees.

"As a council, we make decisions that are in the best interests of everyone, not just special interests," he said, referring to emails accusing him of going back on a promise as a "bogeyman theory."

"If you read these emails, it's not pretty," he said. "But, at the end of the day, we are elected to do a job and I believe that if we can get CELT to partner with us, we are going to get something great for this town. We keep hearing about it but I have yet to see anything [from the land trust] that represents a true partnership."

Swift-Kayata said "some very good lawyers" had reviewed the Robinson Woods deed, and decreed that taking a section for the Shore Road Path – which "would have no meaningfully adverse impact on Robinson Woods as a whole" – does not violate its terms.

She made no effort to hide the fact that revocation of the $350,000 gift is retribution for the land trust failing to give away some of its property.

"I am perfectly comfortable saying to the land trust that if they want $350,000 to buy more land to hold in trust, then they need to demonstrate that they exercise their discretion in a way that balances the town’s legitimate needs," she said.

Because the land trust has yet to call a meeting of its full board to consider the council's request, Swift-Kayatta said, "In my opinion, it is responsible stewardship for the Council to now formally link our requests and needs to their requests and needs."

Swift-Kayatta then deflected blame for jeopardizing the second Robinson Woods buy, saying that because much of the property is wetlands, there is little likelihood of it being developed, even if the land trust fails to acquire the land. As evidence, she noted that trust's primary funding source for the project, the Land for Maine's Future program, appears unlikely to deliver on the trust's grant request.

Franklin said after the meeting that this is more indicative of a policy shift at the program, favoring state projects over local ones, than of low public value of the woods.

Nevertheless, Swift-Kayatta drove her point, while taking a jab at Franklin and Darling.

"A pristine and uncompromising vision of a few people apparently precludes a pastoral, stone dust path from encroaching barely on the edge of woods that the town itself helped buy," she said. "I respectfully disagree. Citizens who choose to leave their vehicles behind and stroll through our town on our new path should be invited into the edge of these woods, rather than shunned like interlopers who must be kept out because they might be on their way to someplace else."

In the end Swift-Kayatta, Walsh and Councilor Jessica Sullivan voted to reconsider the town's $350,000 pledge toward the Robinson Woods II purchase. Sherman and Councilor Frank Governali voted against the measure, as did Caitlin Jordan, who had signed the June 21 letter than made the debate possible. In the absence of Councilor Sara Lennon, Jordan's apparent shift in allegiance created the tie that blocked reconsideration.

In an email replay to a request for comment Monday night, Jordan said she signed the reconsideration letter in part because she was not a councilor in 2009, when the town originally broached Path issues with the land trust, and because she felt the trust gave a "very quick turn-around answer of no," this time.

"I wanted to be able to look at citizens when the blasting began on Shore Road and tell them we fully examined every other option. In order to do that I needed to know the Land Trust truly took a moment and really respectfully reconsidered," she said in the email.

Although she was not at the June 30 council workshop, which Franklin and other land trust members attended, Jordan said she'd heard enough about how the session went to feel as though the issue has been fully threshed out.

"By then I had a full grasp and understanding as to why the land trust had made the decision they did and, being someone who wrote the easement for my parents property, I respect the stance the Land Trust is taking," wrote Jordan. "Additionally I think it is one thing to ask them to consider the possibility of helping us with the Pathway and a completely different thing to hold the completely separate issue Robinson Woods II over their heads as an ultimatum.

"I did not agree with the stance that some councilors were taking of, 'Do as we want or we won't help you,'" she wrote.