Opinion

Opinion: Essex can't undermine '99 vote


Published: November 9, 2009

Most folks have long since lost count of all the hearings over the last 15-plus years regarding the future of Essex' Conomo Point properties. And residents will indeed be called upon to cast two more votes along those lines at a special Town Meeting tonight.

One warrant item asks taxpayers to kick in another $3,000 to cover consultant Horsley Witten Inc.'s cost of its $90,00 study of subdivision options south of Robbins Island Road; the other calls for spending $25,000 for a "recreational and residential planning study" for the area north of Robbins Island Road — the area on the town's waterfront.

Voters should see through the final recommendations for the southern sites. But they might consider holding off on diving into a new study for properties north of Robbins Island Road, for a very basic reason.

In 1999, Town Meeting voters emphatically backed a measure calling for the town to keep the land north of Robbins Island Road for public use — and that remains the vote on record. If town officials want to take that issue to residents for a new vote — and if voters indicate that they've had a change of heart — that's fine. But until that happens, no town officials or consultants should be studying any "residential" planning for those parcels. Indeed, even raising the question tonight reeks of a move to undermine the town's last vote of record.

The 2011 expiration of the Conomo Point leases is a thorny problem — and the town must weigh the impact of any alternatives. But studying a use inconsistent with a Town Meeting vote shouldn't be an option.