What's in a Conservation Restriction
Fighting Falsehood
An anonymous letter leads to a troubling discovery
Earlier this year we received an envelope with no return address. Its contents were what appeared to be a copy of the RMF’s Deed of Conservation Restriction and a letter from a concerned neighbor, who wanted to make us aware of a troubling situation while remaining anonymous.
Now, for reference, a Deed of Conservation Restriction or CR as we’ll call it hereafter, lays out what can and cannot be done with a conserved property. For instance, per our CR, the RMF cannot install an air strip or a tennis court at Ragged. Our CR went through a number of iterations before being finalized and agreed upon by the RMF, the Berlin Land Trust, which holds the CR and The Nature Conservancy, who owned the property back in the 90’s before the RMF took possession.
Since our CR has been finalized since the 1995, it was with some surprise that we recognized the included CR as an early, unpublished draft, of which a red-lined copy still resides in our archives. This draft included later deleted provisions such as one forbidding commercial guiding on the property and another banning signage.
The included letter informed us that a resident with an abutting property to the RMF’s has been going door to door, handing out copies of the draft CR, (how they obtained this we have no idea,) claiming that it was the version in force and that the RMF was in violation of its provisions. Further, the letter stated that this person had accused the RMF of assorted illegalities and, surprisingly, as the reason for their well going dry.
This situation is obviously troubling to us. We aren’t in the wrong and can easily disprove the falsehoods, certainly the drying of wells is beyond our ken, but at the same time we don’t want to carpet the neighborhood with defensive mailers or bother people by going door to door ourselves. Thus, while we continue to pursue the matter as best we can, the RMF is asking for the community’s help. Should you, or anyone you know, be approached by anyone claiming the RMF is acting against its CR please notify us. Should you be approached by anyone acting aggressively or claiming that you are trespassing or otherwise in the wrong while accessing RMF property please notify the police and then notify us. The Southington Police are already in the loop on this and the more reports they receive the stronger our case becomes.
The RMF is on good terms with most of the neighbors and our trails are regularly used by local families who want to enjoy the natural beauty of the preserve. While disputes do arise from time to time, we do our best to resolve them with dialogue and compromise. That said, this level of outright falsehood and aggression has gone beyond the bounds of normalcy and has to end.
