PROCTOR — Town meeting voters Monday night overwhelmingly opposed a $1.5 million private offer for 1,650 acres of watershed this Rutland County community owns in nearby Chittenden.
“You don’t sell your assets,” resident Justin Carter said during a nearly half-hour string of speeches by taxpayers against the proposal. “Once it’s gone it’s gone.”
Proctor, population 1,668, put the state on the map nearly 150 years ago as home of the Vermont Marble Co., one of the largest U.S. corporations at the turn of the 20th century and supplier of stone for such national landmarks as Washington, D.C.’s Supreme Court and Jefferson Memorial.
During that time, Proctor drew its public water supply from land that reached past neighboring Pittsford into the next town, Chittenden. To protect it, the municipality purchased the property from the Champlain Realty Co. for an unknown sum in 1929.
Since then, Proctor has moved to tapping a local well that’s part of a $6 million water system launched in 2014, leaving the Chittenden land to loggers and leisure time enthusiasts who work their way around maple and yellow birch trees that make up a larger 200,000 acres of conserved forest.
Enter Florida businessman John Gerlach, who grew up on a Rutland Town farm and owns nearly 600 acres of Chittenden property abutting the watershed. A frequent Vermont visitor, he made an offer this fall to buy Proctor’s 1,650 acres to add to his view.
“We really like the property,” Gerlach said in a recent interview. “Right from the beginning, it was my intent to expand my holdings. That’s why I’m pursuing this piece.”
In response, local leaders asked town meeting attendees whether they should pursue a sale. Monday night’s consensus was loud and clear: “We have to fight to keep our land open,” resident Matthew Trombley said to applause.
Speaker after speaker noted the benefits of a watershed that requires the town to pay Chittenden more than $4,000 a year in property taxes but reaps an estimated $40,000 annually in profit through periodic logging.
They added the property offers other payoffs as a corridor for wildlife as well as for cross-country skiers, snowmobilers, hunters and hikers coming off the nearby 272-mile Long Trail from the Massachusetts-Vermont state line to the Canadian border.
Gerlach, noting almost two-thirds of Chittenden is owned by the federal government — either as part of the Green Mountain National Forest or a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hatchery — has argued that a private purchase could help taxpayers in both communities.
“I really believe this is a benefit for me and the town of Proctor,” the businessman has said.
But only one resident spoke in favor of the offer.
“I think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide our town with some financial footing,” Frank Urso said.
The rest of the townspeople who took the microphone questioned why they would sell resource-rich land at a price of about $900 an acre and speculated about the possibility of Gerlach developing everything from a bottled water plant to wind turbines — all which he has deemed “absurd.”
In the end, only a few residents softly voiced an affirmative vote while the rest of a crowd of about 150 shouted a strong “no.”
Meeting moderator Ray Ault, a real estate broker who recused himself from leading the land discussion, saw a silver lining in the debate.
“This is the largest turnout I’ve seen,” Ault told the crowd.
