LETTERS: Secretary Collins up to speed

To the editor:

As I read Gary Kennedy’s Veterans Corner in the Sept. 4, 2025, issue of The Town Line, I wonder where he’s been for the past eight months.

The Trump Administration’s policies to reduce waste and fraud led to massive reductions in the federal workforce. Within the Department of Veterans Administration, this reduction includes core medical staff as
well as ancillary staff leading to longer wait times and more community referrals to an already stressed medical pool. Budget cuts
halted some vital clinical studies, affecting thousands of Veterans, and forced cancellation of contracts for waste disposal and record security services. These issues are not limited to Togus VA but affect VA facilities throughout the US.

Contrary to Mr. Kennedy’s speculation that DVA Secretary Doug Collins cannot move “at the speed of Trump”, I think he is, indeed, on board and up to date with the administration’s policies.

Mr. Kennedy is right in pointing out the problems now facing our veterans. We can help address these concerns by contacting our Congressional and Senatorial representatives,

Deborah Marlett
South China

No contests in China election

by Mary Grow

China voters will have no contests on their Nov. 4 local election ballots. Town Clerk Angela Nelson reported residents who submitted the necessary signatures for their names to appear on the ballot are:

For two select board seats, Brent Chesley and Natasha Littlefield; and
For one position on the Regional School Unit #18 board of directors, Heather Neal. Incumbents whose terms end this year are Wayne Chadwick and Jeanne Marquis on the select board and Dawn Castner on the RSU board. None is seeking re-election.

China planners approve only application on agenda

China Town Officeby Mary Grow

At their Aug. 26 meeting, China Planning board members approved the only application on their agenda and postponed discussion of two pieces of town ordinances.

Natasha Littlefield, who operates Nash’s Gym in part of the building at 9 Legion Park Road, in South China, has approval to add a small restaurant or café in the building.

Littlefield compared her planned cafe to the Green Bean Coffee Shop, which operated nearby until February 2017. The menu will include coffees, smoothies, pastries and other breakfast and lunch foods, but no major cooking.

Littlefield plans mostly a “grab ‘n’ go” operation, with inside seating for 16 people. Hours will be 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

If all goes smoothly with the state permits she needs, she hopes to open Nov. 4.

Planning board members debated whether a public hearing was needed on the application. Milton Dudley and Elaine Mather said no, because changes affecting abutters, traffic or anyone or anything else outside the property will be minor. They persuaded chairman Toni Wall and Natale Tripodi to agree.

Board members therefore reviewed the 15 criteria in China’s ordinance, finding Littlefield’s project met all of them. Changes she plans will be non-disruptive; the well, septic system and parking space are adequate.

Littlefield said she had discussed her plans with three of her four neighbors, all except the one whose house is for sale.

The two ordinance questions board members will consider at a future meeting are:

Whether to draft a new site plan ordinance that would replace current review procedures for new developments; and
Whether and if so how to amend Chapter 2, Section 6 of the current Land Use Ordinance, which deals with administration and related topics.

Any new or revised document board members recommend would need voters’ approval.

The next regular China Planning Board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9.

History comes alive at Killdeer Point walk

More than a dozen history enthusiasts gathered at Killdeer Point for a walk through local history led by longtime resident Richard Dillenbeck, right.
(photo by Eric W. Austin)

by Eric W. Austin

Richard Dillenbeck

On Thursday evening, August 21, in China, more than a dozen history enthusiasts gathered at Killdeer Point for a walk through local history led by longtime resident Richard Dillenbeck. The event, sponsored by the China Historical Society, offered attendees a chance to hear the stories behind this historic corner of China Lake, which has been tied to Dillenbeck’s family since the 1920s.

During the tour, Richard Dillenbeck explained how his uncle, Eli Wagner, launched an ambitious project from 1925-1927 by purchasing three adjacent farms, dividing much of the estimated 200-plus acres on both sides of Route 202 into 50-by-150-foot lots when he established the Killdeer Corporation. His vision was to create a lakeside community for city dwellers. To attract buyers, Wagner converted a 19th century barn into Killdeer Lodge, a rustic cedar-log lined hotel plus a dining room perched on a ridge with sweeping views of both basins of China Lake. Guests were brought in by bus from Boston and New York City, provided meals, and taken on property tours.

His plans stalled when the Great Depression struck in 1929. With sales drying up, much of the land eventually reverted to the financing bank and the corporation eventually dissolved. Later, Dillenbeck’s grandfather acquired the property. His parents reopened Killdeer Lodge in the early 1950s. Richard worked as a busboy, remembering the bustle of the dining room and the excitement of visitors. It was closed again in 1957 and it sat unused for many years. The roof collapsed, and in 2018, it was burned in a controlled fire by the fire department. Traces of chimneys and other remnants of both buildings can still be seen in the woods.

The walk wasn’t just about history – it was also about memories. Dillenbeck, five years old at the time, said his father built a family camp in 1940 and he was provided a log, a hammer and a bucket of nails and was told to hammer nails into the log, keeping him out of the way of the builders. On Killdeer Point, the western-most tip of the peninsula, he pointed out a towering pine tree he would climb like a ladder. The estimated 200-year-old tree has survived lightning strikes and an unknown winter visitor, arriving on the frozen lake, who built a fire amidst its giant roots. Before the property was known as Killdeer Point, many called it Lone Pine Point.

The current Killdeer Landowners Association with its 25 owners is legally considered a private community with yearly dues for insurance, liability and maintenance purposes.

The Killdeer Point walk was part of the Historical Society’s summer program series, which earlier this season featured a walk through South China Village and an annual meeting focused on the town’s first settlers. A tour of China Village is planned for next year.

The Historical Society encourages residents to follow their Facebook page for updates on upcoming events and programs. Annual membership is just $10 and supports not only these community events but also the Society’s museum and ongoing preservation efforts. Whether you’re a longtime resident or new to the area, the China Historical Society’s programs offer a wonderful chance to connect with your community’s past – and with your neighbors who are keeping those stories alive.

(photo by Eric W. Austin)

LETTERS: Affordable by whose standards?

To the editor:

I believe it’s said that America is the richest country on earth. If so, why do we have such a homeless problem? We have friends who are living in a tent in the woods right now. Why? Granted they have made some poor life choices, generational alcoholism, lack of education, lack of health and dental care, etc., but now at 50 or 60 years old…unemployable, on disability. How can anyone live on $700 a month? A one bedroom apartment in Waterville is over $1000 and can be over $2,000 – $3,000 to move in. I was told that just a one room (hotel type) rents for at least $220 a week.

They’re tearing down buildings in Waterville to make way for ‘affordable’ housing, wondering what is meant by affordable…affordable by whose standards? The Maine Housing Authority website says the wait for assisted housing is several years…the homeless shelter helps a few, but the need far exceeds what is available.

I’m not talking about drugs or alcoholism now, but people who are trying to get their lives together and have no way to get started.

I have no answers, just a lot of questions…

Linda Morrell
China Village

China select board sets tax rate at .01170 mils

China Town Officeby Mary Grow

China select board members have set the 2025-26 tax rate at .01170 mils, or $11.70 for each $1,000 of property valuation, as recommended by assessor William Van Tuinen.

Meeting Aug. 25 in their capacity as assessors, after the special town meeting and before their meeting as a select board, they listened to Van Tuinen’s explanation, asked a few questions and unanimously adopted the rate.

It is the same as last year’s, Van Tuinen said, and the town has not adjusted its valuation. Therefore residents whose property is unchanged should expect to pay about the same amount as in 2024-25.

By town meeting vote, the first half tax payment is due at the town office by the close of business Tuesday, Sept. 30.

Van Tuinen’s report listed the three main expenditures the taxes will help cover: China’s share of the Regional School Unit (RSU) #18 budget, a little over $5.989 million; municipal expenditures approved by town meeting voters, a little over $4.812 million; and the Kennebec County tax, $809,689.

Reconvening as the select board, members approved the warrant for the Nov. 4 local election. China voters will choose two select board members and one member of the RSU #18 board. Signed nomination papers must be returned to the town office by the close of business Friday, Sept. 5, for candidates’ names to appear on the ballot.

As of Tuesday, Aug. 26, no papers had been returned, Town Clerk Angela Nelson said. Cathy Bourque, Brent Chesley, Gordon Riordan and Gail Tibbetts had papers out for two seats on the select board. Incumbent Dawn Castner and Heather Neal had papers for the RSU board.

Select board members unanimously approved buying a new “can” – roll-off waste container – for the transfer station, from Thompson Fabrication, LLC, in Wheatland, Pennsylvania, for $13,414, including shipping.

They approved a catered event for Maine People’s Alliance on Sept. 6, from 5 to 9 p.m., at 901 Neck Road.

All China municipal departments will be closed Monday, Sept. 1, for the Labor Day holiday. The next regular select board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8.

Town voters overwhelmingly approve discontinuing public easement of Old Rte. 202

by Mary Grow

Ninety voters filled the town office meeting room for China’s Aug. 25 special town meeting to talk about discontinuing a public easement and giving to The Landing, LLC, the town’s interest, if it has any interest, in the land over which the easement runs.

By the end of the hour-and-a-quarter meeting, they had approved both articles. The easement was discontinued on a vote of 76 in favor to 12 opposed; whatever interest the town had in the underlying property was given to The Landing on a vote of 72 to 13.

Town officials hope the action put an end to a dispute that has bubbled up repeatedly since 1972, costing taxpayers uncounted legal fees.

The meeting warrant was accompanied by a street-level photograph of the area in question at the head of China Lake’s east basin, a short distance east China Village; an aerial photograph; two diagrams; and a copy of Town Attorney Amanda Meader’s Aug. 23 comments on resident Carrol White’s opinion piece in the Aug. 21 issue of The Town Line (see p. 3, and also p. 1).

The meeting began with the election of Bob Kurek, from Palermo, as moderator. His explanation of usual meeting rules was followed by three decisions by show of hands:

— To allow non-resident town attorney Amanda Meader to speak;
— To limit speakers to three minutes for a first comment and two minutes thereafter; and
— To vote on the two articles by written ballot.

The most common question from voters was “Who owns the property?” Meader explained her opinion, based on extensive review of decades of files, that the land belongs to The Landing and its owners, Kimberly and Tory Stark.

The Town of China has only an easement, that is, a right for the public to drive or walk through the property on the former roadway.

The Starks have been paying taxes on the land. Kimberly Stark explained they did so because they believed they owned it, and therefore thought it only fair to pay the taxes, despite the uncertainty.

Meader, select board chairman Wayne Chadwick and board member Thomas Rumpf said they thought approving the articles would be good for the town.

Meader said she could see no reason to keep the easement, since two paved roads have replaced it. Without resolution, the issue keeps coming up, creating “legal fees you don’t need to pay again,” she said.

Chadwick agreed the easement has little if any value to the town. Rumpf said if the Starks have clear title, the questions that have impeded them financially and in terms of lot size will go away; they will be able to proceed with expansion plans; and the taxes they pay the town will go up.

Approving the discontinuance, including counting the paper ballots, took almost an hour.

After moderator Bob Kurek read the final question, whether to give away any interest the town might have in the land, people again began asking “Who owns it?”

Others shouted, “The Landing.” The question was repeated so often that one voter urged Kurek to refuse to recognize anyone who wanted to ask it.

Several people asked whether China was giving away a piece of shoreland that might become a public beach by giving away any interest in the land. Meader thought not, saying again the town had never owned the land, only an easement.

When there was briefly a public beach in the mid-1970s, Meader said, the town leased the land from the people who then owned the restaurant.

LETTERS: China Area Golden Agers

To the editor:

The China Area Golden Agers has no structured organization or agenda. We do what gives us enjoyment and have a good time with neighbors and friends. If we had a product it would be laughter. Laughter is great medicine. During our Wednesday meetings we have lots of fun and our troubles and cares are put aside for a short time.

We like to do activities as a group that we probably would not do as individuals, like trips. We have taken several bus trips over the last three years and are planning our annual trip to Cabbage Island for the traditional “Downeast” Clambake. Twenty Golden Agers have signed up for this year’s trip on August 24. These trips are open to anyone that may be interested in the China area. You do not have to be a member of the Golden Agers to enjoy getting in on our excursions. For the second year we are planning a trip to Boothbay Harbor to the spectacular show of “Gardens Aglow”. We will be starting a sign-up sheet for this event in September. Please try to put this on your calendar and join us on this beautiful adventure. More information will be available in September.

We also plan on going out to eat lunch as often as we can. We go to MAJEK Seafood & Grill, two or three times a year and enjoyed our third BBQ and potluck lunch on July 30, with 34 attendees. Will try to keep the China area folks informed of all our activities so you can plan on joining us.

Stay safe and enjoy.

Sheldon Goodine
For the Golden Agers Group

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Revolution effects

Boston Massacre

by Mary Grow

The American colonies’ war for independence from Great Britain had only limited effects in the central Kennebec Valley. With one important exception (to be described in September), no Revolutionary “event” occurred in this part of Maine. No battles between armies were fought here, although there were some between neighbors and, most likely, among family members.

Many men (your writer found no recorded women) enlisted or were drafted, leaving wives and children to run a farm or business. The war’s economic effects, like taxes, high prices and shortages, percolated this far north, though probably they were less damaging in a mainly agricultural area than in coastal Maine.

One major consequence, however, was the effective elimination of the Kennebec or Plymouth Proprietors. That Boston-based group of British-descended, and often British-leaning, businessmen lost most of its influence in the Kennebec Valley by the end of the war, as Gordon Kershaw explained in his 1975 history, The Kennebeck Proprietors 1749-1775.

The historian summarized two changes wrought by the war and American independence. First, he said, the Proprietors became divided, with many putting other interests ahead of the company’s.

Among the Proprietors were several whose names are familiar today. One who decided to join the rebellion was James Bowdoin, II, the man for whom Maine’s Bowdoin College was named in 1794.

Dr. Sylvester (Silvester) Gardiner, Benjamin Hallowell (and family) and William Vassall all had riverine towns named in their honor. They chose the British side in the 1770s, Kershaw said, as did most family members (except Briggs Hallowell, one of Benjamin’s sons whom Kershaw called “a maverick Whig in a family of Tories”).

Kershaw wrote that several Proprietors, including Bowdoin, Gardiner and Vassall, continued to meet until March 1775. Gardiner and Hallowell holed up in Boston and left for Halifax, Nova Scotia, when the British evacuated the city on March 17, 1776. An on-line source says Vassall went to Nantucket in April 1775 and in August to London, where he spent the rest of his life.

The second change, Kershaw wrote, was that the settlers on the Kennebec took advantage of American independence to ditch not only British control, but control by the Proprietors.

During the Revolution, he said, a group led by Bowdoin and others tried to meet 25 times. Fourteen meetings failed to muster a quorum, and at the other 11, “no important business was transacted.” But after the 1783 Treaty of Paris ended hostilities, the Whig members reactivated the company.

By then, two developments in the Kennebec valley challenged long-distance control. The first local governments had been established, Hallowell, Vassalboro and Winslow (and Winthrop) in 1771, and local leaders and voters were making more and more decisions, especially imposing property taxes to support development. The taxes fell most heavily on the largest landowners, often the Proprietors.

The second development was that during and especially after the war, new settlers, including veterans, moved into the area.

“They sought out the land they wanted, and occupied it. Later, many dickered with the Company for titles,” Kershaw wrote. Others rejected Company claims.

The Kennebec Proprietors continued to make land grants after the Revolution, including in Whitefield, Winthrop and Vassalboro in 1777. They continued to try to deal with settlers who did not have, and often did not want, titles from them. Violence sometimes resulted, including the “Malta War” in 1808.

A few years later, Kershaw wrote, a Massachusetts commission reviewed disputed properties between the Proprietors and the settlers. Its report, approved by the legislature on February 23, 1813, gave the settlers all their land; and in compensation, gave the Proprietors Soboomook (Sebomook) township, north of Moosehead Lake.

Kershaw saw this decision as fair to the settlers, many of whom had made major improvements on their land and who, had the Proprietors gotten it, would have had to pay more money than backwoods people were likely to have.

It was less fair to the Proprietors, he thought: developing their new property would have been expensive and probably unprofitable. The main thing they gained was “the satisfaction of knowing that a festering disagreement had been settled at last.”

Kershaw surmised that the 1813 ruling was the final straw that led the Kennebec Proprietors to disband. In June 1815, he wrote, they voted to sell their remaining land at auction on Jan. 22, 1816 – including lots in Augusta, Waterville, Albion, China, Palermo and Windsor.

The sale was duly held, bringing in more than $40,000. Other business was completed in following years; and on April 26, 1822, “the books of the Kennebec Purchase Company were closed forever.”

* * * * * *

Local historians paid varying amounts of attention to the Revolutionary War’s effects on their towns and cities. James North, in his 1870 history of Augusta, devoted about 45 pages to the years between 1774 and 1783, writing partly about the Revolution and partly about local developments.

North was an unabashed supporter of the Revolution. By the spring of 1776, he wrote, the British colonies’ residents “had attained to that state of feeling which precluded all hope of reconciliation, and made exemption from colonial servitude a primary law of political existence.”

“Unequal as the contest for independence was seen to be, the great body of the people readily committed themselves to it, with full determination to undergo its sufferings and brave its dangers.”

The Tory minority, whom North described as “connected with the long established order of affairs,” soon realized they were witnessing “the efforts of a great people struggling with hardy enterprise, under unparalleled difficulties, of individual freedom and national existence.”

Henry Kingsbury, in his Kennebec County history, was also on the revolutionaries’ side. He mentioned the March 5, 1770, Boston Massacre (when seven British soldiers, facing angry Bostonians, fatally shot five of them and wounded others) as the first event that “sent a thrill of horror up the Kennebec,” despite the miles of wilderness between Boston and the river settlers.

Boston Tea Party

North’s account of Revolutionary events began with the Boston Tea Party on Dec. 16, 1773, and the British retaliatory measures in the spring of 1774, which led to first steps toward creating local Massachusetts authorities to replace the British government.

“These ominous events aroused the sturdy yeomen of ancient Hallowell to patriotic action,” Kingsbury wrote. But he and North agreed that a strong Tory presence – mostly from the Plymouth Company, in Kingsbury’s view – frustrated early reactions.

At a Provincial Congress in Massachusetts that assembled Oct. 7, 1774, and adjourned Dec. 10, North wrote that Gardinerstown Plantation, Winthrop and Vassalboro were represented (the last by a leading citizen named Remington Hobby or Hobbie). No one went from Hallowell, North said, “probably through tory influence which may have paralyzed action.”

Hallowell residents began redeeming themselves early in 1775. In response to a Provincial Congress call to organize for defense, they held a town meeting at 9 a.m., Wednesday, Jan. 25, “to choose officers and to form ourselves in some posture of defence with arms and ammunition, agreeable to the direction of congress” (North’s quotation from the warrant calling the meeting).

North noted that this meeting, for the first time, was not called in the name of His Majesty, the King of Britain.

North said no records of the meeting have been preserved, perhaps because of Tory influence. That influence was also shown at the annual town meeting later in the spring, when voters elected surveyor and Loyalist John “Black” Jones as constable (see the July 24 issue of The Town Line for more on Jones). They promptly rescinded the vote – and then elected him again.

A month later, North reported, Jones had hired a replacement, confirmed at another town meeting. But this same meeting’s voters chose him as a member of a five-man committee, one of whom was to represent Hallowell at a “revolutionary convention” scheduled in Falmouth.

Kingsbury wrote that early 1775 actions included forming a military company and a safety committee. The latter consisted of “principal citizens” and was given “charge of all matters connected with the public disorder, including correspondence with the revolutionary leaders.”

In Kingsbury’s view, “A town of so few inhabitants, however willing, could not give much aid to the continental cause, and its part in the war was necessarily small and inconspicuous.” (Later, he wrote that in 1777 or 1778 Hallowell had only about 100 heads of families listed on its voting rolls.)

North’s account of the early days of the Revolution focused on local issues. Beyond the Kennebec Valley area, Massachusetts organized three provincial congresses in the Boston area: the first from Oct. 7 to Dec, 10, 1774; the second from Feb. 1 to May 29, 1775; and the third from May 31 to July 19 (“a month after the battle of Bunker Hill”). North wrote that Hallowell voted not to send a representative to the third congress; he was silent on participation in the first two.

However, when Massachusetts officials decided to re-establish their legislature, the Great and General Court, and hold a July 19, 1775, session, Hallowell voters elected Captain William Howard their representative.

North said local and provincial government had been pretty much suspended. The new Massachusetts legislature effectively recreated it, including organizing the militia and issuing paper money.

The Continental Congress was doing the same for a national government. Its achievements included renewing mail delivery “from Georgia to Maine” – but only as far as Falmouth, Maine.

Hallowell people got their “letters and news” by ship as long as the river was ice-free. In the winter, North wrote (quoting Ephraim Ballard, who quoted his mother’s account), for several years residents near Fort Western got mail brought “from Falmouth by Ezekiel and Amos Page, who alternately brought it once a month on snow shoes through the woods.”

(North earlier named Ezekiel Page and his 17-year-old son Ezekiel as moving from Haverhill, Massachusetts, to Cushnoc in 1762; the family took two lots on the east bank of the Kennebec. WikiTree says the senior Ezekiel was born in May 1717 and died about March 1799; he and his wife, Anne Jewett [born in October 1725] had five sons, including Ezekiel [born April 30, 1746, in Haverhill; died May 10, 1830, in Sidney, Maine] and Amos [born July 13, 1755, in Hallowell; died Dec. 26, 1836, in Belgrade, Maine] and four daughters.)

The major events of 1776, in North’s view, were the British evacuation of Boston in March, “to the great joy of the eastern people,” and the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July. The Massachusetts government had copies of the Declaration sent to every minister in the state and required each to read it to his congregation the first Sunday he received it.

Kingsbury put more emphasis than did North on how hard the war was on Hallowell. He said that “its growth was retarded and well-nigh suspended,” as the wealthy proprietors abandoned their holdings. His major piece of evidence:

“So great was the depression that even the Fourth of July Declaration was not publicly read to the people.”

By 1776, North said, other instructions from Massachusetts officials made service in the militia compulsory for all able-bodied men between 16 and 60. Anyone who refused to serve was fined, and if he did not pay promptly, jailed.

Lincoln County raised two regiments whose companies drilled regularly. North wrote that some of the enlistees were on an “alarm list,” “minute men” who could assemble “on occasions of sudden alarm.”

North summarized the 1777 equipment of one 26-man company based on the west bank of the Kennebec: it included 15 guns, five pounds of powder and 107 bullets. The bullets were shared among seven people — but some of the seven had neither guns nor powder.

To be continued next week

Main sources:

Kershaw, Gordon E., The Kennebeck Proprietors 1749-1775 (1975)
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892)
North, James W., The History of Augusta (1870)

Websites, miscellaneous.

OPINIONS: Don’t let them give away old Rte. 202

by Carrol White
China resident

The people of China, and indeed all citizens of Maine, should be alarmed: the Town of China is considering giving away the abandoned section of Old Route 202 “free and clear” to The Landing, LLC. But here is the truth the town cannot ignore – China does not own this road and therefore has no right to give it away.

Let’s remember the history. In 1994, the Town of China voted to discontinue this section of Route 202. By law, when a town discontinues a road, ownership of the land underneath it reverts to the abutting property owners. In this case, those abutters are The Landing, LLC, on one side and China Lake on the other.

And here’s the key: because China Lake is a Great Pond, its lakebed – including the portion under the old road – belongs not to the town, but to the People of Maine, managed by the Bureau of Parks and Lands. The Town of China is not the landowner here. China Lake is not private land. It is a Great Pond, defined by Title 1, §2 as any natural body of water larger than 10 acres (China Lake is more than 3,800 acres). As Title 12, §1862 states, “All great ponds are public reserved lands,” held in trust for the People of Maine.

At the same time, when the road was discontinued, the town wisely chose to retain a public right-of-way over the roadway. That guarantees residents and visitors may continue to use it. The town has no obligation to maintain the road, but the public’s right to travel it is protected.

So let’s be absolutely clear: the town has no ownership of the old Route 202 strip. It cannot give away what it does not own. Any attempt to hand this property “free and clear” to The Landing, LLC would not only undermine public rights but would also directly contradict the facts of law.

This is not a small matter. If the town proceeds, it sets a dangerous precedent: public easements and public trust lands could be erased by a vote or a handshake deal. That is how public access is quietly lost – not in one grand gesture, but in small, bureaucratic giveaways.

The people of China must act now and attend the special town meeting that is scheduled by the selectmen to be held on Monday August 25, 2025, at 6, p.m., at the town office to vote on this matter. Speak out. Demand that the public easement be respected and protected. Remind town officials that their job is to safeguard the community’s rights, not to dispose of land they do not own.

Old Route 202 belongs, in part, to the abutters – but the right to use it belongs to all of us. The Town of China has no authority to strip away those rights or to hand public trust property to private owners. If we remain silent, we risk losing something that can never be reclaimed. If we stand together, we can ensure that Old Route 202 remains open, public, and protected for generations to come.

The town cannot give away what belongs to the people. It’s time for the people to make that clear. I urge you all to attend the meeting and vote against the actions the town is trying to take. Again, please vote on August 25, 2025, at 6 p.m., at the town office.