Tensions Run High
At Wellspring Hearing

By Cornelia Cesari

At a contentious hearing Monday night, residents of Densmore Road in Chelsea continued their battle to prevent the approval of Wellspring School’s application to build a new school at its property on the East Hill, at the site of the old "Mattoon farm."

Tensions ran high at the meeting, the latest in a process which has stretched over a period of months. The ongoing conflict between "the neighbors" and Wellspring has spawned insults, prejudicial generalizations, accusations of dishonesty, threats of lawsuits, and appeals to the Environmental Court.

Testimony at this hearing was confined, by order of the Development Review Board (DRB), to concerns about traffic safety. Local residents had raised a host of other concerns, but none that were deemed adequate to prevent approval by the DRB using its standard criteria process.

The steep dirt road, which joins Route 113 at a sharp angle, would need to support an increased level of traffic, predicted by some to reach 250 trips a day.

Wellspring representative Craig Byrne urged the DRB, if it denies the current application, to determine a safe level of traffic, explaining that carpooling is already taking place and that there are other possibilities for limiting the number of vehicle trips into the school.

A safety study completed by Chuck Wise, the transportation consultant with the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission, states that in order for the road to safely bear the increased traffic of Wellspring School, "the town must prep the road and pave two-tenths of a mile, from Route 113 past the point of the severe road grades, to provide a safer traveling surface and to allow for winter salting."

Wise also recommended that the town "should strongly consider gravel road reconstruction from the school access to the pavement using additional base materials and geotextiles."

When a resident expressed concern that Wellspring was going to "bully the board into paving the road," accusing them of being "sneaky and underhanded," DRB member Neil Kennedy addressed the assemblage emphatically.

"I just want to say, on behalf of the board, nobody’s bullying anyone into doing anything," Kennedy said. "We will take all this stuff, weigh it carefully, we will be honest and fair about it, and we will render a decision. But we won’t be bullied."

Later, DRB member Ed Kuban observed, "Your avenue out is to appeal it to the environmental court again. If you’re not happy…well, no one is going to be happy, but, if you’re not satisfied, you appeal the decision again."

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