The Peterborough Select Board voted Tuesday night to move forward with the town’s eminent domain acquisition of Elm Street parcels for the municipal campus project.
“We are finally at a point where we can acquire that land for the municipal campus,” said board Chair Tyler Ward.
The land is currently owned by the Harris Center with a conservation easement held by the town Conservation Commission. According to Conservation Commission co-Chair Francie Von Mertens, the land consists of 3.36 acres, including a fair amount of wetlands, and is “busy” with birds, deer and other wildlife.
Discussions between the town and the Harris Center on this topic started in 2019, according to Town Administrator Nicole MacStay. In 2021, the Select Board voted to move forward, and Tuesday night’s vote was a confirmation of that decision.
Part of the discussion includes a separate process to give another parcel of land to the Harris Center, but according to MacStay, the center has requested that this process be kept separate. Von Mertens said that land would likely be the Sawmill Lots, which she said had a great deal of natural resources and would connect with existing conservation land.
“It’s all a goodwill exchange,” she said. “The ConCom approves giving the Sawmill Lots to the Harris Center. It would be a plus in terms of natural resource protection. The town is really doing the honorable thing.”
The land that would be acquired through the eminent domain process would provide necessary space for the municipal campus project, but Von Mertens noted that the town has already said it would not encroach on the wetlands.
“The town is doing the right thing; they’re not going to impact the wetlands protection overlay, and they could, but they’re not,” she said.
Select Board members also voted to add a new holiday to the town’s calendar – Juneteenth, which commemorates the day federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865, taking control of the state and ensuring all slaves were freed. Juneteenth is celebrated June 19,
“I would be on board with recognizing that day,” said Ward.
MacStay said that the topic came up as a result of a procedural matter, as the town was coordinating with the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Department about on-call personnel lists for holidays, and the question of Juneteenth came up. As it is a federal holiday but is not an official state holiday, the town reserves the right to decide whether to make it one.
“It’s a very important date, of course,” said Selectman Bill Kennedy. “Most people didn’t even realize that it existed. I’m on board with it as well.”