Groton Open Space Association

GOSA Holds Fundraiser For Merritt Property

By Sidney F. Van Zandt, GOSA Board Member

GROTON — A fundraising dinner to “Save The Merritt Family Forest” was held by the Groton Open Space Association (GOSA) on April 24, 2008, at the Fisherman Restaurant at 937 Groton Long Point Road on the shores of Palmer’s Cove in Noank, CT.

The forest is the Keystone of our Groton Greenbelt. It joins large open space parcels to the west with those in the east. It is a haven for ground-dwelling and aquatic wildlife and for birds that survive only in woodlands. This fund drive is being conducted by the Groton Open Space Association 41 years after GOSA’s first fund drive in 1967 to Save the Haley Farm from duplex development. Through GOSA’s efforts, the farm became a state park in 1970.

The speakers at the Merritt fundraiser were Gina McCarthy, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, and Sidney F. Van Zandt, one of the founders and the first president of GOSA, who now is a GOSA director and the Merritt Fund chairman. Approximately 150 persons attended the dinner.

The fund drive follows a recently ended five-year court battle against a developer’s efforts to put a housing project on the 75-acre Merritt parcel. The DEP awarded GOSA a $650,000 grant on April 8, 2003. GOSA signed an agreement April 14, 2003, to buy the property. The court struggle began the next day and didn’t end until the developer bowed out in January, 2008, after its appeal was turned down in the Connecticut Appellate Court in Hartford.

To complete the $1 million purchase and pay associated costs, as well as to create a fund to maintain the property, GOSA needs a total of $1,080,000. That figure includes the state grant and a $90,000 deposit already paid to F.L. Merritt Inc.

Commissioner McCarthy emphasized in her talk the importance of contiguous open spaces, as well as the need to fully implement her “No child left inside” program. Ms. Van Zandt gave a short history of the efforts of GOSA to preserve open space in Groton, including Haley Farm, Bluff Point and now The Merritt Family Forest. GOSA wishes to thank the benefit committee, headed by Lis Raisbeck of Noank, and John Williams, owner of the Fisherman Restaurant, for providing help in this very successful fundraiser.