Westwood Voters’ Voices Remain Unheard on Hale Opportunity

Publisher’s Note: This letter was submitted to the Westwood Living team after our conversation with Eric Arnold from Hale Education was shared on the Westwood Living Podcast Network and excerpted in the February issue of Westwood Living magazine. The views expressed in this letter are those of the author.

Some Westwood residents may be unaware of the issues surrounding the purchase of a Conservation Restriction (CR) to protect Hale in perpetuity. Hale is a privately owned educational organization in Westwood and Dover. Hale’s 1,200-acre property of land is made up of woods, hiking trails, ponds, and spaces for camp and enrichment programs, with approximately half of the land in Westwood and half in Dover. It provides not only invaluable recreation opportunities and greenspace mental health benefits to people from Westwood and many other communities, but also irreplaceable animal habitat, carbon sequestration, protection from flooding due to storms, and water recharge.

In 2019, Hale offered the towns of Dover and Westwood the opportunity to purchase Conservation Restrictions, held by The Trustees and each respective town, that would forever ensure the protection of Hale’s land from development. A Westwood Hale Task Force was formed in late 2019, and a similar task force was formed in Dover. The Dover Hale Task Force meetings were public; Westwood’s were not. In January 2022, the Westwood Hale Task Force recommended to the Select Board that the Town pursue Hale’s offer. The group also held a public meeting on the Hale CR in June 2022. Discussions with Hale began soon after that meeting. Since that time, the Westwood Select Board has demonstrated an almost total lack of transparency in this process.

Most recently, the Hale CR opportunity appeared on the agenda for the Select Board’s January 22, 2024 meeting. The treatment of the topic was perfunctory at best. Town Counsel reported that the Select Board had reached “an impasse on several points” in the Hale negotiations. There was no elucidation of what the obstacles were. He added, “We are hopeful that with some hard work, that we’re able to work through those impasses and creative thinking…. We’re hopeful that we can find some resolution to the places where we’re at an impasse at this point in time.” At the same time, multiple sources, including Hale’s own website, indicated that the Town of Westwood is not participating in the Conservation Restriction. The door has closed on Westwood’s opportunity to participate, while Dover moves forward and anticipates bringing the question to its voters this spring.

How do we reconcile these contradictory messages? In short, Westwood residents don’t have enough information to understand the issues at play because we were not informed about a decision-making process that should have been public. The question of Westwood’s participation in the Conservation Restriction should have been brought to town voters to give them a chance to voice their opinions. Instead, the Select Board, with the Town Counsel as its only apparent spokesperson, have taken it upon themselves to decide for us. At the very least, they should be candid about the opportunity they (and Westwood voters) have missed.

Respectfully submitted,
Kate La Croix