Letter to Editor - HuntHrld

On WedAug12 there were opinion letters to the editor in the Huntington Herald from BOA President John Anglace, and Citizens United Chairman Chris Panek. The following is my response submitted for their publishing:

** On FriAug14 I was asked to revise my letter to be >500 word limit of the Huntington Herald. The revision caused a slightly different version to be submitted and hopefully printed next week. I offer the trimmed version at the end of this entry. **

Editor,

As Chairman of the Conservation Commission, I hope to offer some clarity on the issue of Shelton selling real-property (real-estate) which was commented on in recent letters to the editor by John Anglace and Chris Panek.

The City acquires real-property for basically two government purposes. Either to provide for City needs toward infrastructure (schools, firehouse, roads, etc) or preserving community quality of life (open space, woodland forests, agricultural soil lands, fields for recreation, etc). At times the City can suffice without buying the land as a whole ("in-fee") by stretching taxpayer dollars to buy only partial ownerhips for "rights" such as an easement to utilize the property (ie: sewer or water line), or protect the property (purchase of development rights on farm and forest lands).

No matter the reason for acquisition of either easment or full ownership rights, a fair amount of thought goes into the decision process before action is taken. Likewise, if such ownership of land is sought to be disposed of or sold, there is a thoughtful process in place to make such decision. In Shelton, that is spelled out in Ordinance #832, which was recently reviewed and unanimously adopted on 2009/Feb/11.

Through its own volition or via a request received, the Board of Alderman (the City's fiscal authority) may wish to consider selling City owned real-property. If the property is signficant (having fair market value over $10k) and the BOA decides it has an interest in selling, they move into this defined process. The BOA requests commentary from the Conservation Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission who respectively offer input on the environmental and recreational value of the property to the City and a recomendation. The BOA considers this information provided to determine if they wish to proceed, and if so, they request comment from the Planning & Zoning Commission as a formal "8-24" referral to receive their recomendation from a planning perspective.

The process continues further, but it is to that point that we have reached. The City (Mayor's office) received a request(s) and/or decided to sell five parcels of City land, and began asking for input from City agencies. The PZC responded to the Mayor's request, however the BOA halted that endeavor by bringing attention to and beginning the ordinance defined process with requesting of input from the PRC and CC. As this applies for 2 of the 5 parcels discussed in the letter to the editors (279 Soundview Avenue, 58 Perry Hill Road), the PRC and CC both returned unanimous negative comments toward a sale. The BOA then determined that they still wished to proceed and requested a referral from the PZC. Subsequent to publishing of the letters to the editor, the PZC on TueAug11 also returned a unanimous unfavorable referral toward a sale for both parcels. At this juncture, if the BOA wishes to proceed they must over-ride the PZC unfavorable referral by a 2/3 vote (super majority) to have the property appraised for valuation, and schedule a public hearing. On ThuAug13 the BOA decided to instead defer that decision until it had seen the minutes of the PZC meeting so that they could more fully understand how they arrived at their unanimous unfavorable opinion toward a sale.

I have served on the Conservation Commission for over 10 years, during which time the public has strongly supported open space acquisition, enjoying the passive recreation uses upon them and the ambience they provide to our education campuses and community at large. While I hope that unfavorable opinion from the CC, PRC, and PZC regarding selling property (some of which was just purchased last year) would collectively persuade the BOA that disposal at this time is ill-advised, I am confident that an educated public will make their desires known to the Aldermen if they continue to pursue the disposal process to the next step of obtaining an appraisal and scheduling a public hearing. Too further that education beyond what can be written in a letter to the editor, I invite readers to review further info on such issues via the blog I have maintained since 2006. http://www.sheltoncc.blogspot.com/

Tom Harbinson - ChairmanShelton Conservation Commission
submitted Aug14 10:20am

** Trimmed version below as requested by the newspaper to meet 500 word count limit ***
As Chairman of the Conservation Commission, I offer some clarity regarding Shelton selling real-estate which was commented on via recent letters to the editor by John Anglace and Chris Panek.

Shelton acquires property for basically two government purposes: provide for infrastructure needs (schools, firehouse, roads, etc) or preserving quality of life (open space, forests, agricultural lands, recreation fields, etc). The City might suffice without buying the land as a whole ("in-fee") by stretching taxpayer dollars to buy only partial ownerships ("rights") such as an easement to utilize the property (ie: sewer or water line), or protect the property (purchase of development rights on farm lands).

No matter the reason for acquisition of either easement or full ownership, a fair amount of thought goes into the decision process before action is taken. Likewise, if such ownership is sought to be disposed of or sold, there is a thoughtful process in place to make such decision that is spelled out in Ordinance #832, which was recently revised and adopted on 2009/Feb/11.

The Mayor's office received a request(s) and/or decided to sell five parcels of City land, and began asking for input from City agencies. The PZC responded to the Mayor's request, however the BOA halted that endeavor, brought attention to and started the ordinance defined process by requesting input from the PRC and CC. As this applies for 2 of the 5 parcels discussed in the editorials (279 Soundview Avenue, 58 Perry Hill Road), the PRC and CC both returned unanimous negative comments toward a sale. The BOA then determined that they still wished to proceed and requested a referral from the PZC. Subsequent to publishing of the letters in the paper, the PZC on TueAug11 also returned a unanimous unfavorable referral toward a sale for both parcels. On ThuAug13 the BOA decided to defer anymore decision until it had seen the minutes of the PZC meeting so that they could more fully understand how they arrived at their unanimous unfavorable opinion toward a sale.

I’ve served on the CC for over 10 years, during which time the public has strongly supported open space acquisition, enjoying the passive recreation uses upon them and the ambience they provide to our education campuses and community at large. While I hope that unfavorable opinions from the CC, PRC, and PZC regarding selling property (some of which was just purchased last year) would collectively persuade the BOA that disposal at this time is ill-advised, I am confident that an educated public will make their desires known to the BOA if they continue to pursue the disposal process to the next step of scheduling a public hearing. In order to further that education beyond what can be written in a letter to the editor (and even this letter was revised under request to fit within the newspaper’s word count limit), I invite readers to review further info on such issues via the blog I have maintained since 2006. www.sheltoncc.blogspot.com