Town eyes ‘right of public access’ sign at Estabrook Road
Lawyers say a new sign could reaffirm that the public “has a legal right” to use the long-disputed trail.
People who might be intimidated by a landowner’s wall of billboards on their way into Estabrook Woods should get a different message, town officials say: It’s OK to walk here.
Lawyers told the Select Board on August 31 that a new sign could reaffirm that the public “has a legal right” to use the long-disputed trail that starts where the pavement ends on Estabrook Road.
The Select Board didn’t take a vote, but members informally supported the idea. The sign could go up in “a couple of months,” Town Manager Kerry Lafleur said.
After that, town leaders hope they can move on.
“We’d like to stop talking about it,” Lafleur told The Acton Bridge.
High court ruling
The town sued several neighbors in 2017 to affirm the public’s trail access. The neighbors fought the case up to the state Supreme Judicial Court, which sided with the town last year.
Homeowner Brooks Read says his billboards present information that supports his side of the story.
Town leaders previously considered posting their own signs. They decided to go ahead after Read and his wife Susannah Kay sent “notice of trespass” letters warning certain elected leaders and other residents to stay away from the trail.
The town’s markers could be about the size of a speed limit sign, Lafleur told the Select Board.
The proposed text said “no landowner may prohibit or interfere with use of Estabrook Road by the general public.”
Town lawyers suggested the sign should say the public can’t use motorized vehicles on the unpaved path. Their mockup also urged visitors to “please be respectful of our neighbors.”
The new signs will stand not far from where the unpaved Estabrook path begins. “We’re absolutely not putting signs on private property,” Lafleur emphasized to The Bridge.
‘Not going to lie down’
Read said he installed his billboards because officials have “lied to the public” and he’s trying to correct the record.
He said his signs aren’t meant to discourage people from using the trail, but Select Board member Paul Boehm told The Bridge this summer that they are “intimidating.”
When The Bridge visited recently, piles of cat litter lined part of the trail.
“It’s got to go somewhere,” Read said.
Read argues the individual trespass letters he and his wife sent out don’t violate court orders. Town lawyers disagree, and the Select Board met behind closed doors on August 31 to discuss “potential litigation to enforce the order of injunction” in the Estabrook case.
Lafleur told The Bridge “there was no action taken” on the Estabrook matter during the closed meeting.
Estabrook co-defendant Anna Winter Rasmussen told the board in open session that her family has faced “public vilification and the profound loss of our right to protect our home and our family.”
Rasmussen asked members “to consider whether additional litigation against your fellow citizens” and posting signs “is the direction that best serves this community.”
“We remain willing to work with the town,” she said.
Read, for his part, lambasted the town in his pre-meeting conversation with The Bridge and also underscored the role he says dog-owner groups played in the lawsuit.
“I’m not going to lie down while they’re abusive and the dog people run roughshod over us,” he said. “The moment we gave up, they’d just run us over.”
