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Select Board member Bill McGonigle, who once spent two years handling land takings at a law firm, told Winchester Town Meeting on Monday what he would do if he represented the owners of Forest Ridge.
“If I was the plaintiff’s attorney, I would most certainly file a lawsuit,” the Select Board member said on Nov. 9.
Members sided with him.
Article 26, the Conservation Commission’s request to authorize the Select Board to take Forest Ridge by eminent domain, failed 36-122 with one abstention on a clicker vote in the Winchester High School auditorium. It needed two-thirds.
The vote leaves the board with no authority to take the roughly 13 acres of Forest Circle, beside the Middlesex Fells near the Stoneham line. Under Town Counsel Karis North’s Nov. 3 memo, a taking requires both a two-thirds Town Meeting vote and a Select Board majority.
In May, Town Meeting rejected a voluntary $3 million purchase of the same land, 105-59.
Hardly anyone argued against saving the woods. The fight was over a price nobody could pin down.
A price without ceiling
Conservation Commission Chair Tracy Olson described high-quality habitats and a wildlife corridor to the Aberjona River. With the parcel under agreement with a developer, she said, a taking was “the only available path to retain this land for the public good.”
Her numbers rested on a June appraisal of $2.85 million, a $250,000 legislative earmark, a $425,000 state grant and a federal grant of up to $1 million she said is likely in early 2027. By her own account, the federal money can be used in a taking only with the landowner’s agreement. Delay, she said, risks up to $1.7 million in grants and earmarks.
Opponents doubted $2.85 million would hold. North’s memo calls the town’s offer “the floor, not the ceiling,” with a jury setting the final price if the owner sues. The assessor values the parcels at $4.9 million.
McGonigle said Bell Point LLC, the buyer under agreement, had told the board it could present a valuation close to $5 million.
He predicted a split jury verdict, 12% statutory interest, outside lawyers’ fees and the loss of the federal grant.
“Once we take it, we can’t go back, and that’s just not a risk that I’m willing to take,” he said.
Maura Sullivan, of Precinct 1, cited Nahant, which won an eight-year taking fight yet still owes a court-set price.
“We could lose even if we win by locking ourselves into a price that we cannot afford,” she said.
Select Board member Michael Bettencourt, a co-sponsor, said the town’s eminent domain counsel sees “very low risk of litigation,” citing the Swanton and Washington streets taking.
Brian Vernaglia, of Precinct 4, countered that the appraisal on that parcel jumped $2.15 million in a year.
“It’s been a failure,” he said.
The Select Board split 2-2, leaving no recommendation. The Finance Committee recommended unfavorable action with one dissent, and the Housing Partnership Board voted 7-3 to urge delay. The Winchester Committee on Community Preservation offered conditional support, capped at the appraisal.
Woods versus classrooms
Diab Jerius, of Precinct 8, said his neighborhood has grown hotter as trees fell.
“I cannot go around my neighborhood and remove the houses and put back the woods that used to be there,” he said.
Select Board member Michelle Prior said community preservation money, unlike the debt the town still pays on Wright-Locke Farm, would not touch the operating budget.
Opponents kept returning to classrooms.
Norah Cooney, of Precinct 5, at her first fall Town Meeting, noted voters rejected an override in the spring and called the financial risks “incredibly irresponsible.”
Pamela Cort, of Precinct 5, said she would love to see the land conserved, but would not take this risk with her own family’s money, citing bad air in Town Hall and the lack of a math curriculum.
“Students are getting harmed right now,” she said.
Late in the debate, Select Board Chair Anthea Brady read Bell Point’s request that eminent domain authority be removed while the town keeps open a voluntary purchase or conservation agreement. Its Sept. 29 memo cites land Bell Point preserved in Essex but commits to nothing at Forest Ridge.
Brady said the company had made no such offer.
Bettencourt said the developer does not own the land and that its letter “was withheld from us” until a couple of weeks ago.
Reserve filled, trust halved
Members then passed Article 29, moving $400,000 from free cash into the special education reserve.
School Committee Chair Timothy Matthews said the fund held $3,780.55 as of Sept. 30, down from about $413,000 at its peak.
“That isn’t prudence, friends. That’s austerity by habit,” he said.
Megan Blackwell, of Precinct 7, echoing Finance Committee opposition, moved to cut it to $200,000.
Superintendent Dr. Frank Hackett said an out-of-district residential placement generally runs $250,000 to $300,000.
The amendment failed on a voice vote, and the full amount passed.
Earlier, Prior’s amendment halved Article 19, the free cash transfer to the retiree health trust, from $350,000 to $175,000 on a 98-46 vote.
“We are reducing the flexibility to fund next year’s budget by taking out free cash in this and other articles,” Prior said.
The amended article passed unanimously.
Members approved seven of eight community preservation projects in Article 25, totaling $870,500, including $400,000 for construction-ready design of the Packer-Ellis clay courts. A $50,000 Nutile Field master plan failed 65-93, with two abstentions, with members wanting one plan for all fields.
Article 24 passed unanimously, ratifying a police superiors contract, moving $60,500 from free cash and $130,500 from the unallocated wage budget and creating an unfunded budget director position.
Town Meeting adjourned at 10:44 p.m. It resumes at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 12, with the Sanborn Carriage House study, the sidewalk snow removal bylaw, the Committee on Names, five citizen petitions and a fiscal 2027 tax levy reduction.
Will Dowd is a Massachusetts journalist who covers municipal government and community life for Winchester News. He is also the founder and editor of The Marblehead Independent, a reader-funded digital newsroom.
