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03/06/2018 03:12 PMAfter a heated special Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting on Feb. 13 on the proposed disc golf course at Peddler’s Park drew in numerous residents expressing concerns over location, safety, costs, property owner rights, and the process of approval, the Parks & Recreation Committee met in a special meeting on Feb. 27 to discuss the meeting and find a way forward.
Disc golf is a game that combines Frisbee and golf. A golfer is given a disc and has a certain number of throws to reach the “hole,” which is a stand with a chain basket sitting on top. Parks & Recreation Director Rick Maynard previously said disc golf is “growing like crazy” across the state. Nearly 80 people of all ages and experience levels came out to play in a town tournament last fall and Maynard said having a regular course can draw in even more enthusiasts.
Peddlers Park, on Peddlers Road, was chosen as the course location because of the 30-plus acres there owned by the town and because the park has very limited use in general compared to Bittner Park, the other proposed location. At the Feb. 13 presentation, Maynard said Peddlers Park has been in the Parks & Rec Commission five-year plan for some new use and this disc golf course is a good solution. The course would have minimal environmental effects and would open the land up to more people in town.
The Parks & Recreation Commission, Planning & Zoning Commission, and the Inland Wetlands Committee approved the course plan and, while the course is not on Guilford Land Conservation Trust (GLCT) property, Maynard said he and members of the Parks & Rec Commission met with members of the trust to review any concerns and ultimately moved a few baskets in response to the concerns over proximity to certain parts of land trust trails.
Additionally, Maynard said establishing the course would require minimal clearing as trees provide desired obstacles, but that some trees would have to be cleared to expand the parking lot. The plan is to expand the lot to accommodate about 20 course users at peak times.
Those speaking out against the park dominated the meeting on Feb. 13. At the commission meeting on Feb. 27, Commission Chair Rose Dostert said she was frustrated by some of the comments because she said the commission has been talking about this course for a long time and the project has been featured in multiple local news outlets.
“Are we going to go through this process again and find out we can’t use this property?” she said. “Let’s do this or let’s cut our losses. I feel like we are spinning our wheels and we are going nowhere. We have answered everyone’s questions honestly and we haven’t hid anything. I don’t know what else we could possibly do.”
First Selectman Matt Hoey attended the Feb. 27 meeting to speak with the commission. He said he was not speaking for his whole board, but said the commission made some mistakes in this process including not asking for BOS support—even though it was not formally needed—and not showing the community that this disc golf course is a needed and wanted recreational amenity.
“We have failed somehow to convince this community that this is needed and that is just a bad sales job,” Hoey said. “We didn’t get out in the community and build the constituencies that we needed to build to make this go. When half of the people who spoke in favor at that meeting were commission members, we’ve got a problem.”
Hoey said there should have been more discussion about the fact that Peddler’s Park was a former burn dump on which solid waste was burned to ash for on-site storage. While members of the commission knew that, Hoey said it should have been more public and more research should have been done, especially since town officials have had a difficult time identifying where exactly the burn dump was on the property. Concerned about the potential liability of the burn dump, Hoey said he reached out to the town’s environmental lawyer in Hartford.
“He sent something that said, ‘On the advice of counsel I would be strongly against any disruption or placement on any part of the former dump site that was a burn and dump site...I would also be reluctant to begin testing to determine the boundaries or the impacts owing to the potential liabilities or remediation requirements if we find something,’” Hoey said.
Hoey said the lawyer’s initial opinion is not the final word on the issue, but it is going to take some more research. He said the commission’s having overlooked something like the dump helped create the perception that the project itself wasn’t fully fleshed out.
Commission members said they moved slowly and got all of the necessary approvals as they moved forward. Additionally, no one came to spoke out against the plan according, to commission member John Jagielski.
“It’s been on our monthly agenda since March 2017,” he said. “Not one person showed up to complain, to offer any kind of alternative—I mean there was no dissent and my statement here is with the absence of any dissent, the board and Maynard followed every governmental and environmental procedure for implementation. We did everything we possibly could.”
Hoey pointed out that most people don’t look up meeting agendas and minutes and boards can’t count on people reading the paper to get their news.
“You should have had the BOS hold a public hearing at the outset,” he said. “This is what we want to do—let’s build the groundswell. At that point you have all of the objections out on the table and you might have had to only design this once.”
What Happens Now
As the town looks at the environmental elements, Hoey said the commission can keep working on a plan for the course moving forward. Members discussed possibly shrinking the course to nine holes or looking to other properties in town if for some reason Peddler’s Park is not feasible. Maynard said moving forward, the commission is going to need to do more work explaining disc golf to the public.
“One of the frustrations is that this is really just people hiking with a Frisbee,” he said. “The activity itself—it’s not golf. People who are disc golfers are hikers for the most part. They like being in the woods and while they are there, they get a little exercise throwing the Frisbee around. I just think there is a lot of misunderstanding and maybe we didn’t clear that up enough.”
Dostert said the commission was just trying to do something nice for the community with the disc golf course and now they are being sent back to square one.
“We have an idea of where we are heading and what we need to do,” she said. “This was getting very frustrating because we thought we were on the right path and then we were stopped. So at least now we know how to proceed.”
Hoey said he is not opposed to a disc golf course in town and would be open to looking at town land for the course if environmental lawyers turn down Peddler’s Park, but he needs to see community support for the project.
“Anything is fair game if we demonstrate the groundswell and the support for it,” Hoey said. “We should be in the business of making decisions that provide the greatest amount of benefit to the greatest number of people in this community, mindful of the negative impacts to the environment and certain folks.”