SOUTHWICK — Assuming his new role as the chair of the Conservation Commission, Norman Cheever arrived at the commission’s meeting Monday prepared to take steps to protect the North Pond Conservation Area.
“There are some people in town that think the Conservation Commission failed at addressing this problem when it happened,” Cheever said as the meeting started.
He arrived at the meeting with spreadsheets detailing the items the commission needs to address as the activity at the conservation areas begins to ramp up for the summer.
“I want to make sure that we have a plan in place that’s going to quickly react and address the situation [to show] we have it under control,” Cheever said.
“That’s what these documents are trying to do,” he said about the spreadsheet.
The first item Cheever discussed was an ongoing issue with an abutter on the western side of the property.
For several years, someone who owns property at the end of Babb Road and who has yet to be publicly identified, has been entering the conservation area.
In 2021, the person, using motorized equipment, cut an unauthorized trail on the 61-acre property and cleared natural debris from the shoreline, specifically along the area formerly known as Kings Beach.
Cheever said that last weekend, he was on the property cleaning up trash and found a gate the property owner has installed between the boundary of their property and the conservation area where the main trail ends.
Cheever said it was open and it appeared that someone had been operating a four-wheel drive vehicle recently on the property.
The privately owned gate swings open into the conservation area, Cheever said.
To keep the owner from opening the gate into the area, the town’s DPW placed two boulders on the conservation property side to block it from opening.
Both had been moved, said Conservation Commission Coordinator Sabrina Pooler. It appeared one had been pushed into North Pond and the other pushed beside the Main Trail, she said.
“We need to come up with a method to permanently prevent him from opening his gate,” Cheever said, adding earlier he wanted a commissioner to take the lead.
“I would like someone from our commission to make this happen,” Cheever said of permanently closing off the trail’s boundary with the private property.
He said he had spoken with DPW Director Randy Brown about putting a jersey barrier at the gate, but that would be mean widening the Main Trail by 15 feet, which is not allowed according to the conservation restriction that spells out what activities can occur and what activities are prohibited.
One of the commissioners asked if the property owner had been contacted.
“Yes, he’s been spoken to many times,” Commissioner Dennis Clark said.
Select Board member Diane Gale, who attended the meeting, confirmed it.
“He does know he’s not supposed to be there,” she said, adding that he typically enters the property at dusk when people can’t see him clearly enough to identify him.
Then Gale said something she wanted the residents and the public to know.
“This is not to restrict anyone’s fun. This is to respect the [conservation] restriction,” she said.
Later, Pooler wanted it made clear that people can be anywhere on the property, “they just can’t create new trails.”
Cheever showed another photo he took over the weekend that showed another opening, wide enough to allow dirt bikes and ATVs through, to the conservation area within a few feet of the private gate.
He said it’s been suggested that bollards be installed, and that Pooler had suggested a multiturn entrance in a “Z” pattern that would allow people in and out, but not recreational vehicles.
Some of the items on Cheever’s spreadsheet had already been finished, like closing the entrance to the Scenic Trail and the area where the rope swings were located just west of the former Kings Beach.
Cheever also had listed the more than 20 signs that need to be installed throughout the property with various messages like no camping, grilling, littering, and area under surveillance.
Many of the items on Cheever’s list were recommendations from the North Pond Task Force that was created after a street in the parking lot of the property spilled out onto South Longyard Road.
One of those was installing surveillance cameras throughout the property.
The commissioners scheduled an executive session for early June to agree on locations for the cameras.
Cheever also wanted a commission member or members to walk the property on a frequent basis and note evidence of prohibited activities like littering, destruction of property, evidence of grilling or campfires, camping, and consuming alcohol.
Several of the solutions proposed are contingent upon Town Meeting approving a bylaw that will establish regulations for all town-owned properties. That meeting was Tuesday, May 20.
The Conservation Commission is working on ideas to block the area between the tree and post shown. It’s another area where recreational vehicles have been accessing the property. (SUBMITTED)WESTFIELD NEWS
