09/28/1998 SELECT BOARD Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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09/28/1998 14:29 781-235-8888' CHATHAM ASSOCIATES PAGE 03 24 Cornell Road Wellesley, MA 02482 September 28, 1 998 Mr. Robert Whritencur Executive Secretary Town of Mashpee Mashpee Town Hall Mashpee, MA 02649 Dear Mr. Whritenour: I am writing to you on behalf of my mother, Dorothy G. Kagan, who owns property on Pickerel Cove Road. I am hoping that you will have this letter, which represents her views and those of our family, read into the record at tonight's meeting of the Board of Selectmen_ Earlier today, I spoke with Joyce Mason of your office concerning discussions that are now underway in Mashpee about the possible paving of Pickerel Cove Road. As I explained to Ms. Mason, my mother never received official notification of these discussions, and she found out about them by chance last Friday through some neighbors in Mashpee. As Joyce and I discussed, my mother would appreciate it if you could add her name to the list of people who receive notification about the progress of these discussions since she has a personal interest in the outcome. My mother's view is influenced by her long history in Mashpee. Over 50 years ago, when Mashpee•Wakeby Lake was hardly inhabited at all, she and my father built a simple summer cottage on Mashpee Lake along with some cousins. At about that time, the waterfront property along Pickerel Cove Road came up for sale. My father, the late Jacob Kagan, decided to purchase it in order to preserve the rustic, simple nature of the Lake, and to protect it from the "progress" of citified construction. He and a cousin became the Trustees of the Wakeby Shores Realty Trust, an entity which sold one-acre waterfront lots to people who were of a similar mind, people who valued the quiet beauty of the lake and its untouched forests. My father never looked on this as a commercial venture. He made no substantial profit_ He was a conservationist at a time when the environment was not protected by most people or most laws. Now today, some of those people who purchased land from him, or perhaps their children, want to pave the dirt road leading to their cottages. It is ironic that the very same people why bought into my father's dream now want to begin the process of diminishing it. My mother knows, and our family knows, that times change- But, we believe that it is just those changes we have experienced -the advance of technology that intrudes on us in even our most private moments, the fast pace of life that leaves us so often burned out, and the disappearance of so many of our priceless wildernesses - that calls for us to