The Woodstock Town Selectboard on Tuesday evening endorsed the start-up of a $1 million, community-based fundraising campaign to supplement a conservation easement grant of an estimated $600,000 that the town hopes to receive in January through the Vermont Land Trust (VLT) via the Town Forest Grant Program of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB).
Town officials entered into formal discussions with the VLT and state about conserving the vast majority of the Vondell Reservoir property last January, following a special Town Meeting in December 2024 at which voters decisively okayed the purchase of the reservoir property off Grassy Lane in West Woodstock as part of the municipality’s purchase of the previously privately owned water utility, the Woodstock Aqueduct Company (WAC).
Selectperson Susan Ford, who has been integrally involved in the conservation easement grant application process with the VLT and VHCB, updated the town governing body on the status of the conservation grant process at the outset of Tuesday evening’s regular meeting of the board. “We have applied for the grant,” Ford said Tuesday night. “They’ve told us that our portion of the grant — nothing’s cast in stone — but it most likely will be $600,000 for the property. They automatically exclude the reservoir, the area with the water tank and offices, and the parking lot, and they’re also willing to exclude 10 acres [for town use] — everything else would be conserved for that $600,000,” the selectperson stated.
Later in the meeting, Ford spearheaded a discussion of the potential total cost of the Vondell conservation effort and suggested that the selectboard authorize a private, community-based fundraising drive to raise up to an additional $1 million above the $600,000 grant to fund the conservation effort, needed infrastructure upgrades to the reservoir property, and to compensate the town for most of the purchase cost of the Vondell tract as part of the WAC purchase.
Ford reported that longtime community leader, farmer, and former WAC trustee Tom Debevoise, whose family owns land in the vicinity of the Vondell Reservoir and who has extensive experience in putting properties into conservation easements, would spearhead an aggressive fundraising campaign between now and the time when the conservation grant is expected to be finalized by the VHCB in January.
Following a brief discussion of the proposed fundraising effort to supplement the anticipated conservation easement grant for the Vondell property, the selectboard voted 5-0 to move forward with a public fund drive, effective immediately.
For more on this, please see our Nov. 20 edition of the Vermont Standard.
