Property sale saved Winchester a lawsuit

It would appear that, at least for now, Winchester has dodged a bullet — or potentially millions of them. The sale to a third party of the property upon which Ridgeline Marksmanship Park intended to build its paramilitary training facility has put an end to its current attempts to impose itself on Winchester.
Ridgeline should be grateful that it has been saved further expense in pursuit of an unlawful goal, and Winchester citizens should stay alert should a phoenix arise from the ashes.

Neither of the company’s applications, for a special exception or for a variance, could be legally granted. The people of Winchester should also be grateful. If the applications had been denied, no doubt taxpayers would have paid to defend the decisions against Ridgeline’s high-powered legal team. If the ZBA had approved the applications, opponents were prepared to contest the decisions, thereby paying the tabs for both their own attorney and the defense of the ZBA, through their taxes.

With regard to the application for a special exception, the law as expressed in the guidelines for zoning boards, as published by the state Office of Economic Planning, is absolutely clear. On page II-5 it states: “Unless a particular use for which an application is submitted is stated in the ordinance as being explicitly allowed by special exception, the board of adjustment is powerless to grant a special exception for that use.” The operative words are “explicitly” and “powerless.” The proposed use is not permitted explicitly anywhere in the ordinance, either by special exception or otherwise. That means a variance would be required for the property in question.

Standards for variances are set out in state law, and all of five criteria must be met. Reason dictates that there are solid legal arguments as to why none of the criteria would be met, but an application need fail by only one. Space doesn’t allow for those arguments to be printed here, so I will limit myself to two that are simple and inarguable within the law.

The third criteria is that “substantial justice is done.” In order for justice to be done, there must be injustice to be remedied. No unique injustice was ever done by the ordinance to the applicant (landowner) or Ridgeline. An applicant can’t seek redress from a non-existent harm.

The fifth criteria is that “literal enforcement of the law would create a hardship.” Hardship has a special definition in this context, as settled by case law. Essentially, in these circumstances, it means that the property cannot be used as zoned, the proposed use is the only reasonable use, and the property has unique qualities that distinguish it from surrounding areas. None of those circumstances apply in this case.

Those who are so inclined may wish to say a small prayer of thanks for deliverance from a facility that could do only harm to the town of Winchester.

SUSAN M. NEWELL
Winchester, NH

By Isaac Stein Sentinel Staff
 
WINCHESTER — Two pool cues are the trick.
Thwack, and two pins holding the spring ladder are unlocked. It descends from the ceiling in sections. A lot of head-ducking and a few newly added steps later, you’re in the antechamber, or crawl space. There are lots of spider webs. A bit of heat wafts up from the church floor below. Then, you see it swing.

E. HOWARD & COMPANY, BOSTON, MASS.

Emblazoned in an old-timey caps lock, the lettering hits you right in the face. It’s not just a ho-hum pendulum. It’s connected to a clock, which is connected to a system of weights. When it’s all set up, the weights power the clock; more weights power the bell above.

It’s all very elaborate, and the setup was purportedly first installed in 1877, at the Winchester Meeting House.

Robert Leustek, 47, the volunteer maintenance man around these parts, notes that it’s hard to tell if that date’s accurate, because E. Howard was known to falsify installation dates in its records — allegedly, as attempts to protect trade secrets.

This is no ordinary venue; it’s the clock tower at the top of Center Church, in Winchester. And it’s even got a neat legal history.

As is precedented in some parts of old New England, the town owns the clock. The evangelical congregation of about 25-30, led by Pastor Jeremy Miller, occupies the building below, which Miller said is owned by the Universalist Heritage Foundation. Miller added that he’s excited about the work going on upstairs.

On a recent afternoon, Leustek took a Sentinel reporter and a photographer to the clock tower. From the crawl space, every 30 seconds was punctuated with one-liners.

From three feet above, Leustek jested about an incident in his past life, in New Jersey: “I had to catch a vulture in the boiler room one time!”

A few hours every week, Leustek is up here, cleaning clock parts, figuring out how to restore parts that are missing or broken, and winding the mechanical beast.

He’s not affiliated with the church below him; what Leustek does is just good, ole’ fashioned Yankee volunteerism at its finest. But who is this guy?

The man, his wife

During the week, Leustek is a driver for Bob’s Fuel Company, LLC, in Winchester. He lives with his wife, Gloria, a little less than two miles from downtown. She works in Chesterfield, at United Natural Foods, Inc., as a customer care account specialist.

The couple is heavily invested in the Winchester Indoor Farmers Market on Main, and table as their business, Porcupine Acres. They divide the labor involved in selling a variety of items they make and harvest — herbs, produce, eggs and honey among them.

“We are both exceptionally busy,” Gloria said, pithily.

In addition to his regular job, Robert is also a jack-of-all trades mechanically. He honed those skills over several decades of all-purpose maintenance work at a Catholic convent in New Jersey, before he was a full-time Winchester resident. In addition to the aforementioned vulture, other animal control tasks included protecting frightened nuns from some resident bats, he said.

But he never worked on antique clocks before this past fall, when he was contacted by Jack Marsh, a Winchester selectman, who’d heard he was handy.

Marsh gave Leustek two pages of handwritten notes — all that was passed down about maintaining the Center Church clock — and a request: Try to figure out how to fix it.

The clock, the town, the church

In a phone conversation Monday, Marsh explained that the clock had fallen into poor mechanical condition in recent years, as the previous maintenance worker retired a number of years ago. At some point, it stopped tolling.

Marsh identified as a “traditionalist,” saying he appreciates historic Winchester, and therefore supports the idea of restoring the clock.

Mechanically speaking, Leustek explained, the clock needs more work than the bell. He said that while the bell could use a little polish and cleanup, it’s in fine structural shape; the clock still needs replacement parts, some of which are no longer manufactured, and more meticulous cleaning than the bell.

Figuring out how to do it all was a challenge; Leustek, after all, doesn’t have a formal background in clocks. But he was able to connect with Brian Tanguay, a Gardner, Mass., jeweler, on an online forum about clocks. The jeweler, Leustek noted, has proven a sage source of advice.

Since their friendship began, he’s learned about where one might find spare parts from decommissioned clocks, and what kind of oil to use on the gears. It’s 30-weight oil, for the record.

And once Leustek manages to have the setup up and running again, he’ll definitely make some folks happy.

Other Winchester residents, like Miriam “Mim” Johnson, 57, expressed a sentimental attachment to memories of the church bell tolling. She recalls the sounds it made when she was a girl growing up in the late 1960s, staying at her grandparents’ house at the corner of Michigan and High streets.

Johnson added that her parents married in Center Church in 1950, and that she married her husband there in 1986. She’s a member of the United Church of Winchester, at 99 Main St., which used to own Center Church.

Her aunt, Winchester resident Mary L. Johnson, 87, who grew up in the church, added that the congregation that became the United Church of Winchester changed names over time. She originally belonged to the Congregational Church, which was one of three churches that became the Federated Church of Winchester, in 1931. Then, she said, that congregation became The United Church of Winchester in the 1970s.

Eventually, the United Church of Winchester sold Center Church to the Universalist Heritage Foundation, which leases the space to Miller’s congregation. They’ve been holding their services there since early last year.

Then there’s the history of the church building itself, and how the clock got there.

Leustek, Marsh and Mary Johnson corroborated the same general story: the Winchester Meeting House, which housed the clock and bell, burned down at some point between 1900-1910; Mary Johnson offered 1907-1908 as a specific date window.

Then, when Center Church was built in 1912, the apparatus was moved there. Winchester’s current town hall was also constructed right around the same time.

The warrant, the plan

Leustek added that the structure below the clock has aged to the point where a renovation is needed. Further roof waterproofing and supports for the thousands of pounds of metal above might be in order.

To help draw funding for such a project, he said, the town of Winchester has a grant writer position on this year’s warrant. If voters approve the position, the grant writer could hunt for relevant funds.

As for Leustek’s personal plans — he’s running for a one-year appointment to the Winchester board of selectman. He said he ran unsuccessfully last year.

There’s an unusual vacancy this year because of tragedy; in December, Selectman Raymond C. Williams, 59, died of a sudden illness. For the one-year post, Leustek is running against Dean Beaman and Gene Park.

Brandon J. Day, incumbent Chairwoman Roberta Heinonen Fraser, Barry Montgomery and Richard C. Pratt will vie for the second seat, which is a three-year term.

A big part of Leustek’s platform is a focus on featuring and raising awareness about historic Winchester amenities, like the town’s covered bridges.

And by this time next year, he hopes that he’ll be finished with his volunteer project on the Center Church clock and bell. He’s still looking for some tough-nosed volunteers to help; he pointed out that many are fine with coming up to see the clock tower, but fewer want to de-gunk machinery.

In any case, he plans to outline the E. HOWARD & COMPANY, BOSTON, MASS., on the clock with some gold etching.

Chuckling in good humor, he said he might be the only one who gets to see it, but that’s fine with him. On top of form, his main goal is that the bell’s function — tolling for ceremonies, hours, and community members lost — comes back to Winchester.

“I just want this (clock) to outlive me by 200 or 300 years,” Leustek said.

Isaac Stein can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1435, or Istein@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @ISteinKS

Winchester shooting range plans thrown into chaos by sale

Thursday, February 23, 2017

By Ethan DeWitt Sentinel Staff

 

WINCHESTER — A surprise sale has put plans for a Winchester shooting range into upheaval. As Ridgeline Shooting Sports LLC is in the middle of trying to get town approval for the shooting range, the land it proposed building the project on has been sold to someone else.

The landowner terminated the purchase agreement with Ridgeline, and the property was sold to another buyer, who quickly withdrew the application for the shooting range that’s before the Winchester zoning board.

Caught on its back foot, Ridgeline is now suing both parties involved in the land transfer: N&M Winchester Properties LLC, the seller; and Ashuelot River LLC, the buyer.

Ridgeline is alleging that N&M breached the terms of its sale and purchase agreement by terminating the agreement, and that Ashuelot River knew about the prior shooting range agreements and was thus not a buyer in good faith.

Alex Hartmann, president of Ridgeline Shooting Sports, did not respond to calls for comment Wednesday.

The land was deeded to Ashuelot River LLC by N&M on Feb. 15, according to records in the Cheshire County Registry of Deeds. Two days later, a lawyer for Ashuelot River, Suzanne Brunelle, wrote a letter to the Winchester zoning board announcing that the new owner “does not consent to the continued application of Ridgeline,” withdrawing its variance application.

On Wednesday, Ridgeline filed its lawsuit against the two companies in Cheshire County Superior Court.

In the lawsuit, Ridgeline is requesting that the court enforce the previous purchase and sale agreement, which would allow Ridgeline to continue the variance application. Ridgeline is also asking for the court to reverse the termination of the agreement by N&M and nullify the land transfer to Ashuelot.

The property transfer and legal challenge are sudden developments in a process that’s drawn on for nearly a year, bringing in strong opposition from Winchester residents concerned about safety and noise levels from the proposed shooting range.

Ridgeline and N&M had originally signed purchase and sale agreements on March 20, 2016, for three parcels of land in Winchester, between Route 119 in Hinsdale and Fenton Hill.

But closure of the deal — including the actual purchase and the deed — was based on approval for the shooting range plans from various authorities, including the town zoning board. And as concerns from citizens mounted, hearings for the zoning board were delayed, first to allow for studies on noise levels and effects on property values, and then to allow for citizens to air their opinions.

The protracted process meant that Ridgeline and N&M had to extend the deadline for the final sale of the property three times throughout 2016 from its original deadline of last May, according to the Ridgeline lawsuit.

The third time, the deadline was extended to Jan. 31, with the expectation that final proceedings by the Winchester zoning board would take place Jan. 30. But after not everyone was able to speak at a public hearing on Jan. 12, a followup hearing was scheduled for Feb. 2, and then rescheduled to March.

On Jan. 25, N&M made its first move. It sent a letter to Ridgeline announcing that it had “decided to terminate the (purchase and sale) agreement for now.” N&M said that it would be getting in touch with Ridgeline “sometime in the next two weeks with an update.”

Three weeks later, N&M conveyed the property to Ashuelot River LLC, according to property records. Ashuelot River LLC was incorporated in Manchester on Jan. 19, according to records with the N.H. Secretary of State.

The records indicate that Ashuelot River has a principal office address in Brattleboro and has as its registered agent Anu Mullikin, a lawyer for Divine Millimet, a Manchester law firm.

The ownership of Ashuelot River LLC is unclear from records.

Now, Ridgeline has centered its lawsuit on what it says is a reasonable interpretation of the purchase and sale contract: that given the two parties’ earlier conduct, it was reasonable to expect the purchase deadline to be extended after the zoning board hearings were delayed further.

Lawyers for Ridgeline and Ashuelot River LLC were not available for comment Wednesday. A lawyer for N&M Winchester Properties LLC could not be immediately found.

The next public zoning board hearing on the Ridgeline variance application is scheduled for March 2. It is unclear whether that hearing will go on as planned.

Margaret Sharra, Winchester’s land use administrator, was unavailable to comment.

Ethan DeWitt can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1439, or edewitt@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EDeWittKS

Ridgeline Application Withdrawn

The property that the Ridgeline Marksmanship Park was to be on has been sold and a representative of the new owners has sent a letter to the Town of Winchester's Zoning Board requesting that Ridgeline's application be voided..

So just who is this new owner and what plans do they have for this property if any?  Ashuelot residents still need to be vigilant, seems there is some secrecy behind this sale ..

Candidates for Office.. 2017

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