Thoughts on East River Preserve

Town meeting tonight for the East River Preserve (Goss Property) at the community center at 7.30pm. This is a mandatory town meeting prior to the referendum scheduled for January 27th. The referendum will allocate up to $15.45M for purchase of over 600 acres, including over 60 acres for "future municipal use", with costs likely to be offset by federal and state grants.

I will personally be voting in favor, and believe that preservation of open space is good for Guilford and the world as a whole. However, there is one side of the argument for the purchase that I think we need to be careful of. I have heard from various people in leadership positions as well as a recent letter in the paper reasoning that can be summed up as: "preventing development will keep families out of town so we don't have to pay for them to go to school"; i.e. that it is financially prudent for Guilford voters to approve the East River Preserve because it will keep those expensive families away. In my opinion this is a dangerous argument and we should be careful of invoking it or supporting it. While it may be fairly easy to quantify a per pupil cost for schooling, it is less easy to quantify what comes from having a vibrant community of all ages, whether that be through purchases at the Purple Bear and Page's, sports programs, or the many ways that young people and their families contribute to a community. Guilford needs to be careful that we invest not only in open space, but in education and resources that make it an attractive place to live for persons of all ages. Certainly Guilford doesn't need to be overrun by the little ones, but we don't want the pendulum to swing too far in the other direction either.