Town reservoir sale provokes discussion

There were more questions and spirited discussion Monday night at the Springfield town meeting about the proposal to sell the town-owned reservoir in Weathersfield than either the $25.4 million school budget or the $9.5 million town budget.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=201003020368            # # # # Town reservoir sale provokes discussion • Rutland Herald • By Susan Smallheer STAFF WRITER - Published: March 2, 2010 • SPRINGFIELD — There were more questions and spirited discussion Monday night at the Springfield town meeting about the proposal to sell the town-owned reservoir in Weathersfield than either the $25.4 million school budget or the $9.5 million town budget. • And if the questions and sentiments voiced were any indication, the proposal will go down to defeat during all-day balloting today. • Town Moderator Patrick Ankuda had to restrict each speaker to one question each, but that didn't dampen the discussion. • Residents wondered why the land and reservoir needed to be sold, and at what price, and why the Select Board didn't have a better idea how much money the town would get from the proposed sale. • Town Manager Robert Forguites said there was no truth to the rumor that the Select Board had been meeting with a potential developer, and he said to date no one had voiced interest in the two parcels. • Roseanne Putnam said the two articles, one to sell the reservoir itself and 87 acres, and a second to sell a five-acre parcel, were "too open-ended" for many people's taste. • "This article is too open-ended for the comfort of a lot of people," she said. • Forguites said the Select Board hadn't had the two parcels appraised because the board didn't want to be criticized for spending money unnecessarily. • Steve Sysko, who has devoted hours trying to convince townspeople to keep the reservoir as a backup water supply, said there just was no reason to sell it. "If we leave it alone, it costs us nothing, except for taxes and upkeep," said Sysko, who criticized the lack of upkeep at the dam. • The dam and reservoir at one time provided all the drinking water to the town of Springfield, and it has a capacity of 56 million gallons. • The reservoir was built in 1903 and until the 1960s was the town's drinking water supply. Since then, the town has converted to several deep wells in Chapman Meadows, next to the Black River and off Fairground Road. • Sysko said that extensive studies in the 1980s failed to find another suitable backup water system to the wells in Chapman Meadows, and he used that as proof that the reservoir should be kept. • Forguites said the town was paying taxes on about $224,000 worth of property in Weathersfield: $180,000 for the dam and 87 acres, and $44,000 for the small five-acre parcel. • Sysko and others, including two former Select Board members, David Yesman and Jean Willard, both spoke against any sale, noting that the town had already rejected selling the reservoir in the 1980s. • "I'm going to vote no tomorrow," said Yesman, a real estate agent. "The time will come when the town of Springfield will need this water and aquifer," he said, noting that the town had failed to maintain the dam, despite having a $100,000 appropriation to do so. • Select Board member Mark Blanchard said the state was after the town to "make the dam safe" and that holding property "is not a business we want to be in." Springfield voters will decide most issues, including both the town and school budgets and elections, during Australian balloting today. The polls open at 8 a.m. at Riverside School and close at 7 p.m. •