LEVERETT — At a heated special Town Meeting this week, voters rejected a warrant article seeking to take by eminent domain the easement on a small portion of Shutesbury Road land to ensure that the easiest public access to town conservation property remains intact.
Inside a packed gymnasium at Leverett Elementary School, residents failed to achieve a two-thirds majority vote for the article, the threshold necessary for successfully taking the easement. The final vote was 150-148 in favor of the eminent domain.
The article was brought forward by the Select Board as a possible way to resolve an impasse in ongoing mediation between the town and Julie Evans Marlowe and her parents, David and Norma Evans.
The family, which is renovating the neighboring home at 101 Shutesbury Road into a multi-generational dwelling, filed a Land Court lawsuit in June 2024 against the town and its Conservation Commission due to concerns about the public using a strip of land to get to the Blueberry Patch, also known as the Gordon S. King Life Estate, a former Christmas tree farm.
At the center of the dispute is the language in the easement, dating to 1955, and whether that path from Shutesbury Road can be used by all residents and visitors, or whether it is restricted to town officials and municipal workers, such as police officers and firefighters who might need to respond to an incident on the conservation land.
Since the lawsuit was filed, a short time after the family was informed by the Conservation Commission that the public could use and park on the land, a locked gate with no trespassing signs has been in place, making it more difficult for those who want to get to the town land.
The site features blueberry bushes and a covered seating area and bridge with a plaque honoring the late King, a professor at the Stockbridge School at the University of Massachusetts and a former town fire chief.
Now, to legally enter the property, visitors have to walk either from the East Leverett Meadow Conservation Area, off Cushman Road, or the 4-H Forest, closer to town center. Both of those have small parking areas, but also mean longer, more challenging journeys, with several bridge crossings and rougher terrain.
The outcome of Nov. 4’s special Town Meeting vote means the status quo remains.
Select Board Chairwoman Patricia Duffy said that her board and the Conservation Commission will let things settle down and move on other town business before talking about next steps in the near future.
Marlowe said her family will be speaking with its lawyers soon, preemptively amending its Land Court complaint should the eminent domain article have passed. “We are waiting to hear back from the attorneys regarding the next step,” Marlower said.
Marlowe described the tenor of the meeting as residents making “a heated series of comments.”
After presentations by Conservation Commission member David Powicki and Donna MacNicol, the town attorney, Marlowe was allowed to speak. While she and her parents are former Leverett residents, with her father serving on the Select Board in the 1970s, they haven’t yet moved back to town.
She has observed that the eminent domain would have been complicated by another land owner owning property between the easement and the conservation land.
The family has provided keys to unlock the gate town town officials, should they need access. Prior to the meeting, the family also disseminated an information sheet to residents stating:
“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.”