SOUTHWICK — While it took months of meetings and revisions on a proposed bylaw to define and regulate activities that would be prohibited or allowed on town-owned property, it took less than 20 minutes for Town Meeting to vote against it.
“It’s a terrible overreach. I tell everyone to vote no,” said Richard Paxson during the annual meeting held Tuesday night in the auditorium of Southwick Regional School.
Select Board member Diane Gale had worked on the bylaw since last October, which was the result of several meetings of a task force established in August after a fight started in the parking lot of the North Pond Conservation Area and spilled out onto South Longyard Road.
That incident forced town officials to address several ongoing behaviors that violate the state’s conservation restriction on the property, including littering, openly drinking alcoholic beverages, grilling food, starting campfires, camping, destroying vegetation, and using the shore known as Kings Beach for swimming.
During the meeting, those who spoke against adopting the bylaw repeatedly referred to it as an “overreach.”
“It’s too much of an overreach,” Finance Committee Chair Joesph Deedy about the bylaw.
He then read a section of the bylaw to make his point.
“No person shall dig, fill, remove, dredge, build upon or alter any sand, soil, rock, stones, trees, shrubs, plants, downed timber, twigs, branches, fallen leaves, other wood, material or detritus or make any excavation by tool, equipment, or other mean or agency, an any bank beach dune or flat on any pond, lake river or stream or land under said waters,” Deedy read.
He then asked if a boy would be in violation of the bylaw if he picked up a stone on a beach and skipped it across the water.
While Nancy Beaman didn’t use overreached as a description of the bylaw, she did say: “This sounds like a police state.”
Robert Horacek suggested the bylaw could be “used and abused” in the future, adding it was pretty “ridiculous in my opinion.”
Another resident said the bylaw looked like a “backdoor de facto ban on hunting.”
The bylaw did have its supporters.
Michelle Pratt reminded everyone about the efforts, and money spent, to acquire the North Pond Conservation Area, and the bylaw was needed to allow police to enforce defined prohibited activities.
“I think it’s a great balance,” she said.
Gale, following Pratt’s defense of the bylaw, said it would “give police the teeth to act …this gives them the tools they need.”
Police Chief Rhett Bannish was asked for his opinion of the bylaw.
He said officers now have only one way to enforce laws for minor offenses like littering or drinking alcohol in public; summonsing a person to district court, which forces to appear in court when the person’s case is adjudicated.
With the bylaw, he said, it would allow officers to cite violators of the town’s rules and issue fines accordingly without involving the courts.
Once the debate concluded, Town Moderator Celeste St. Jacques remined the audience that only a majority was need to adopt the bylaw and called for a voice vote — it was inconclusive.
After a showing of hands, the bylaw was defeated 116-70.
Gale responded to the vote after the meeting in an email.
“As it was voted down, we are in no better place for meaningful enforcement to protect our residents than we were in the past few years. The residents that have been directly and negatively impacted certainly understood its purpose,” she wrote.
“The bylaw put forth by the North Pond Task Force was developed in response to the continuous abuse of the [conservation] property, and the residents’ public outcries to the Select Board to act to restore their peace and safety. Speaking as a resident, I am disheartened that the Select Board, the Town’s Police Commissioners, did not unite to empower their police officers to protect the community and their town properties,” she wrote.
Select Board members Jason Perron and Douglas Moglin voted against the bylaw.
The next article Town Meeting needed to decide on was proposed by Perron. Unlike the bylaw Gale proposed that would only cover town-owned property, Perron’s established definitions and violations on private property.
As St. Jacques opened the debate, Pete Reiser spoke first.
“How are we going to enforce common sense?” he asked rhetorically.
Perron, defending the bylaw, said it would cover all prohibited activities within town, not just public property.
Resier pushed back.
“[This] would open the door for any reason [for the bylaw] to have the potential of overreaching,” he said.
There was then a back and forth discussion about “common sense” and what activities, like a noise complaint for example, might be considered unreasonable, which was the language used in Perron’s proposal.
“I guess unreasonable noise would be open to interpretation,” Perron said, adding, ‘If you don’t want it, vote it down.”
When St. Jacques called for a voice vote, it was a resounding no.
The last bylaw was a citizen’s petition put forward by Janis Prifit.
She proposed forcing hunters to get written permission before they could hunt on private property.
Defending the bylaw, Prifti said it was meant to have hunters respect people’s private property, which she believed was just common sense.
Bill Fraser, who said he was a hunter who had always gotten permission to hunt from property owners, was against adopting the bylaw and said it would tell other landowners what they can and can’t do.
Maryssa Cook-Obregon spoke in favor of the bylaw.
“This is an evidence-based approach … it’s for everyone’s protection and in no way impedes your ability to hunt,” she said.
Prifti reminded everyone that towns like Tolland, Blandford, Huntington, and Otis have similar bylaws on the books.
Frazer acknowledged that was so, but added that not one hunter has been cited for violating those bylaws.
Deb Herath, who supported the bylaw, put it simply: “Private property is private property … and you have a lethal weapon.”
Another supporter of the bylaw spoke of a property owner in town who has no trespassing signs surrounding her property and despite that, the property owner finds trash left behind by trespassers every year.
Frazer did say that some hunters won’t care if a property is posted or not.
“You can post your property [with signs] every 2 feet and they’re still going to come back and come back,” he said.
St. Jacques stopped debate after there were some brief contentious exchanges, and asked for a voice vote, which was inconclusive. After a hand count, the article failed 96-71.
