By GLYNIS HART
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UNITY — The select board declined to support a grant application for the transfer station, discussed progress on the repaving of Center Road, and took a first look at an updated master plan for the town during their weekly meeting. The weekly meeting lasted from 4 p.m. to past 7 as the select board handled a dozen different issues.
Early manifestations of winter have slowed progress on Center Road, but the base of crusher run stone that has been laid down should hold up well until spring. Project manager Josh Stevens said next week they’ll start adding culverts.
A resident of Center Road showed up to ask what can be done about water accumulating on her property as a result of the roadwork. She also said that, when it snowed, she couldn’t find the drop-offs at the side of her driveway. “I’d just like a plan at some point,” she said. “My biggest worry is losing the snow blower down in the ditch.”
Stevens promised to meet with her this week.
In correspondence, the select board received a letter from Vicki Davis of the Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission asking for their support of a grant application. The grant would help train citizens on solid waste and waste reduction, including such efforts as: developing a school food scraps recycling/compost program, starting a lead tackle take-back program, and other community outreach. However, the board said the letter did not specify how much the grant was for or which government entity it came from.
Selectman John Callum scoffed at the idea of people turning in their lead tackle. “People are not going to do it,” he said. “They’re not going to dig through all their stuff for old lead tackle and turn it in.”
Callum said Davis should come to the board and “sell it to us.”
Robert Trabka, chair of the planning commission, submitted a first draft of the town’s new master plan. The plan was last updated in 1996, although the state recommends an update every 5 to 10 years. Trabka said the new document has been trimmed down from the old one. “There were a lot of recommendations. We tried to pare them down to what could be done and assign them to people who could do them. It took a long time.
“We had a good group of volunteers who did a lot of work,” said Trabka. He emphasized the importance of the plan. “This document has been key to fairly high-level activities in the past.”
The select board and the planning board will look over the plan before a public hearing on it is held.
Snowmobile route
Terry Callum, president of the regional snowmobile club, came to the board with a request to use a Class VI road as a connector on the snowmobile trails. The section of Halls Road to Lufkin by the Halls Farm offers a relatively flat place for the trail to go, in a hilly area.
The first question was whether the road was indeed Class VI. Callum said that a fire of town documents in the mid-1800s may have consumed the original town designation of the road, but according to early colonial law, “two stone walls and uninterrupted traffic for 20 years” makes a road legally a town road.
“I don’t think we need to be absolutely positive,” said Terry Callum. “We need the select board to feel it’s a Class VI road and encourage us to do the same.”
The select board did so.
The second question was whether the snowmobiles could temporarily use Lufkin Road, “restoring the width and function all the way down to Stage Road,” said Terry Callum. “It would allow us a method to connect east-west for a season while we work out something.”
“I wouldn’t have a problem as long as the people on the road don’t care,” said John Callum. “The issue is, if somebody decides to run the road before it gets plowed.”
Terry Callum said they do run on some other town roads. “What we do is make sure the guys know they’ve got to stay way over to the sides.”
Selectman Ed Gregory said he’d prefer the club go back to the landowners and ask them first. John Callum agreed.
Other business
The board decided to take action against a landowner who has illegally blocked a town road. The landowner put up a gate with a chain, which is heavily greased to discourage anyone trying to open it. The road in question appears to be unpaved and unmarked but provides the only access to several privately owned parcels. Neighbors who have found access to their land blocked by the gate have been advised to call police.
John Callum noted that it is within the select board’s power to send highway equipment to simply take the illegal gate out. However, the board will send the landowner a letter first, advising him he has ten days to remove the gate.
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