[D]ORSET — A landowner involved in a boundary dispute with the town has gone to court over a hiking trail leading to the Owls Head Town Forest.
William Burns claims the town has seized his land for the trail, in violation of state law prohibiting the taking of private property for recreational purposes.
He has appealed the Selectboard’s Aug. 2 decision to create a new section of trail to facilitate access to the town-owned Owls Head property. He also wants the town to pay him damages and legal expenses.
The appeal was filed in Bennington Superior Court on behalf of Burns by attorney Sigismund Wysolmerski, of Rutland. It contends that “the property purportedly acquired by the town for purposes of this trail is owned by the Burns family and the town has taken private property for purposes of recreation in violation of the Vermont statutes.”
The appeal notice contends the Selectboard is “well aware no such documentation exists in the land records or elsewhere specifically delineating the acreage involved, and although they acknowledge that they have ‘no idea who actually owns the property’ have proceeded with this illegal and unwarranted taking.”
Reached Friday by phone, Wysolmerski said: “The bottom line is that our position is they are trying to build a trail on land that is owned by Mr. Burns.”
He added that some of the older property deeds involved in any survey of the area are difficult to interpret. “It’s pretty complex,” he said. “And to be fair there is an argument on both sides.”
Wysolmerski said a status conference has been scheduled in the appeal Nov. 13.
The Selectboard, in its 21-point list of findings following a public hearing on the trail proposal, says land surveys done in connection with the town’s acquisition of about 255 acres in 2016 for the town forest concluded that a disputed section of the traditional access trail does not cross Burns’ property.
Still, the findings say the board and town manager determined “it would be in the best interests of the town to reroute the Dorset Trail for the 1,200 feet that it does not cross Dorset property to a location further from the Burns property to make access and hiking to the Owls Head parcel safer.”
The nearly half mile of trail from Black Rock Lane off Route 30 to the Gettysburg Quarry was preserved as a right of way during the purchase of the quarry parcel in 2016. That transaction involved grant funding from the U.S. Forest Service and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, along with private fundraising and easement assistance from the Vermont Land Trust.
From the quarry parcel, which was so named because it supplied headstones for soldiers killed in the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, the trail extends 1.6 miles to Owls Head and Gilbert Lookout.
The board’s findings also state that in 2014 Burns posted no-trespassing notices and “blazed a line on and across the Dorset Trail,” after the town disclosed its intent to acquire the Gettysburg Quarry.
A land survey determined that the signs and blaze lines Burns established “were encroachments on the Gettysburg Quarry parcel and were not located on the property owned by Burns,” the board stated in its Aug. 2 findings.
A second land survey, commissioned after acquisition of the Gettysburg Quarry property, also found that the Dorset Trail didn’t cross the Burns property, the findings state.
The Burns appeal contends, however, that the town “has no authority to take by eminent domain any property for purposes of recreation” and demands that the court “declare title free and clear to Burns.”
Burns also seeks compensation “for the taking of his land, for damage to his property and for all costs and fees associated with the defense of this claim.”
He also wants the town ordered to pay him an unspecified amount for every day “that the ongoing trespass to the plaintiff’s property occurs.”
The town is represented in the matter by attorney Joseph O’Dea, who could not be reached Friday for comment.
The hiking trail continues to be used, including the disputed section, according to a person familiar with it. The municipal forest and its trails are promoted on the town website.
The Selectboard says it found it necessary to establish the new trail “to quiet issues with regard to access and to assure that the public has free and open access to the town’s lands.” It also says the proposed trail section would be more convenient than the existing trail and allow better access for emergency personnel if needed.
During a public hearing in July, the board says, no one “provided claims for compensation or proof of record title to the lands where the public trail is to be laid out.”
In tracing the history of the trail and forest area, the board states in the findings that as early as 1920, the Dorset Science Club, led by George H. Gilbert, had blazed a trail to Owls Head, and that in 1928 the club published a hiking guide to what was referred to as the Dorset Trail.
In 1963, Dorset was granted a parcel referred to as Owls Head or Owls Head Forest by the club, which had acquired title in 1932, the board states in its findings. And in the 1970s, the Owls Head trail was listed in the Green Mountain Club’s “Day Hiker’s Guide to Vermont.”
The town Conservation Commission began working in 2012 to conserve the quarry parcel and ensure access to the forest, the board states, leading to the purchase and conservation agreements in 2016.
