LEVERETT — A proposal to take private property by eminent domain will come before voters at a special Town Meeting Tuesday, a possible way to bring closure to an ongoing legal dispute between town officials and the land owners over how the public accesses conservation land in East Leverett.
The idea of taking 7,214 square feet of land, just south of a home at 101 Shutesbury Road, and also appropriating $5,000 to place visual barriers between that access point and the dwelling, are among nine articles on the warrant for the session to be held at the Leverett Elementary School gymnasium starting at 6 p.m.
Since June 2024, the town and Julie Evans Marlowe and her parents, Norma and David Evans, have been in Land Court over this access point. The family has installed a metal gate and no trespassing signs, requiring those who want to legally access the so-called Blueberry Patch and Meadow, a 65-acre site also known as the Gordon King Life Estate, to use much longer routes, by entering through either the East Leverett Meadow Conservation Area or the 4-H Forest.
Mediation over the summer didn’t yield a deal, even though the attorneys, Michael Pill, of Green Miles Lipton, LLP of Northampton, representing the plaintiffs, and Donna L. MacNicol, of Greenfield, counsel for the town, told the judge one might be forthcoming this fall.
Select Board Chairwoman Patricia Duffy said that, in her view, the request before voters isn’t about building a road or taking private land, but ensuring that residents and visitors continue to have an easy way to get to the Blueberry Patch through an easement that has existed since 1955, but which the family is trying to take away.
Duffy said even though it is a woodland path, it has been maintained by the town’s Conservation Commission, Rattlesnake Gutter Trust volunteers and the town’s Trails Committee.
“It’s about preserving a small piece of Leverett’s heritage by keeping open a right of way, used for generations, with reasonable accommodations for the Evans/ Marlowe family,” Duffy said, adding that many recall visiting the land in years past to pick blueberries, cut Christmas trees and watch sheep grazing there, and restricting access would mean people having to navigate longer trails with more rocks and bridges.
“The town has approached this with care and respect,” Duffy said.
Marlowe, though, said her family is disseminating a postcard to residents urging that they vote against the measures, and warning that a vote in favor could lead to expensive litigation, adding to the thousands of public tax dollars the town has already incurred in Land Court.
The postcard outlines why the family made the decision to file the complaint against the Leverett Conservation Commission, with a growing number of vehicles parking next to the home and those without authority entering the site. The easement, which dates to 1955, only allows municipal employees to access the path.
“In good faith the Evans’ had first voiced their concerns unsuccessfully to the Conservation Commission that a private right of way across their land was being turned into a public highway,” the postcard reads.
“For over 60 years, use of Evans’ private land was and always has been by permission, agreement and with friendly cooperation. The conservation restrictions contained in the former King Life Estate do not grant to the public or any individual right of access.
The Leverett Conservation Commission wants to take our property rights against our will in order to convert the easement over our land into a public highway.”
To date, more than $40,000 had been spent defending the land, the Evans/ Marlowe family said.
The site was deeded to the town by longtime resident Gordon King in late 2000. Since then, volunteers have placed a memorial bench for King, who died at 98 in 2016, on a covered bridge built by his sons. King taught arboriculture at the park management program at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts.
Other articles on the warrant include additional spending, including Leverett’s share of the new roof for the Amherst Regional Middle School, where the town’s seventh and eighth graders are educated.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority is expected to provide 62% reimbursement for the project.
Like other towns, Leverett is facing an increase in health insurance, and is looking to appropriate an additional $33,935 to cover the town’s insurance budget, and $74,870 to cover the elementary school insurance budget.
Another $10,000 would go to pay part-time police officer salaries in this year’s budget. The warrant includes a handful of previous year invoices for a fire extinguisher inspection at Town Hall, mapping work for the assessors’ office, printing for the 250 Anniversary Committee and an expense incurred at the Leverett Library.