CRAFTSBURY — Mission New England can keep its gate at the end of Coburn Hill Road as long as remains unlocked, and people who open it and drive or walk another hundred yards or so are treated decently.
That was the gist of a motion passed by the Craftsbury Selectmen at their regular meeting Tuesday night.
It reversed an earlier decision, made after an ugly confrontation between mission members and a group of dirt bikers, to order the mission to take the gate down.
The selectmen made their decision over the strenuous objects of one of the dirt bikers, Jeff D’Amico of Wolcott. His objections were so strenuous, indeed, that at one point the board’s chairman, Bruce Urie, threatened to throw him out of Craftsbury’s town hall.
“The discussion is over,” Mr. Urie told Mr. D’Amico, banging his fist on the table. “If you open our mouth again, we’re asking you to leave.”
That came after Mr. D’Amico said he would exercise his right to use the public trail through the mission’s property by going up there every weekend and riding up and down the road past the gate four or five times.
“There’s a pissing match going on there,” said a disgusted Mr. Urie.
For his part, Mr. D’Amico said there should be no question that the gate must be removed and the town trail through the mission’s property marked for public use.
“You have a bunch of delusional people blocking off a road,” he said.
The mission was represented at the meeting by Roy Ward and R.C. Kirk, who let their lawyer, Steve Adler, do most of the talking for them.
They and the selectmen were able to agree that, at present, no one can exercise the right to use the right of way through the mission’s property, because nobody knows where it is.
Coburn Hill Road approaches the mission property from the south, and after it goes through the gate and runs a few hundred yards to the group’s collection of houses and barns, it disappears. The road was wiped out by floods in 1997, Mr. Urie said. But he has a clear memory of the old road, he added. “When I was a teenager we snowmobiled through there.”
The selectmen agreed to find out how much it would cost to have the old right of way surveyed, so it could be marked for the people who wanted to use it. Wayne Mutrux, a local surveyor who has made a study of old town records on the road, is willing to do the job, Mr. Urie added.
Besides Mr. D’Amico, two Craftsbury residents came to the meeting to say they would like to use the right of way.
“I used to ride my horse through there 20 years ago,” said Stacy Burke. Last summer, she said, she rode up to the gate, assumed it was locked, and turned around.
She met one of the group’s leaders, John Maniatti, on the way down Coburn Hill Road, she said. “He was very cordial. I said I would like to ride through. He told me the road had washed out. I said I’d like to try to go through.
“I would like to see it surveyed and kept open,” Ms. Burke told the selectmen. “It would be a good route for a lot of recreation — walking, riding horses, dirt bikes, anything.”
Ray Adams Jr. said the trail would provide a link to other dirt bike trails that go all the way to Lowell, via the Bayley-Hazen Road.
But until the trail is surveyed and marked, Mr. Adams told the selectmen, “there is no point in us being up there.”
“As a board,” said Selectman Susan Houston, “we should postpone any decision until we have the price and feasibility of the survey.”
In moving that the gate be permitted to stay, Selectman Jim Jones said his brother had received a cordial reception when he walked past the gate last week.
However, he said, “we have heard some complaints in the past about townspeople, including elected officials, getting harassed.
As part of his motion, Mr. Jones said the town would post a sign at the point where the town trail disappears, to the effect that the town is unsure where the right of way is, and visitors should please turn around.
The mission has tried for years to resolve the problem by having the town abandon the town trail once Coburn Hill Road crosses its property line. Its spokesmen asked about the mission’s offer to deed more than 84 acres of its property to the town, if it would throw up the trial.
That would be up to the voters, the selectmen said.
“You need to get five percent of the voters to sign a petition,” Mr. Jones said, to put the proposed deal on the Town Meeting warning.
Before the mission did that, Mr. Ward said, “we’d want to know if you’d be willing to support it.”
“The general feeling we got is that people do not like to give up rights of way,” Mr. Urie said.
If the mission sought the voters’ support, Mr. Jones added, “you’d have your work cut out for you.”
The selectmen did accept Mission New England’s invitation to hike the area of the lost right of way and the land that is on offer.
“It’s a nice hike,” said Mr. Ward. “Bring your boots.”
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