OLD LYME—On Thursday evening, Lyme-Old Lyme High School seniors drove down Lyme Street in a joyful parade to celebrate their upcoming graduation the following day.
We will have more photos of the parade soon. If you would care to share some of yours, please email them to editor@lymeline.com. Thanks in advance!
Editor’s Note: We received the following op-ed from George Frampton Jr., who co-owns12 and 19 Tantummaheag Rd. in Old Lyme, with his wife Carla Darista.
Old Lyme First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker has now acknowledged in a published interview [with The Day] that she misrepresented the press release she issued Monday on the Town’s plans for Tantummaheag Landing as a decision discussed and voted upon by the Board of Selectmen. To the contrary, it was entirely her own doing since [she says] “as the CEO, I can ask the town attorney to do anything that I feel is right for the town.” And she also now reveals that the promised new “survey” will not be an actual or honest survey of the original 1701 right-of-way, but simply a re-embrace of the fraudulent 1931 survey that remains the sole basis for the Town’s claim that our back driveway has been a public highway for 320 years. This is laughable since the 1931 surveyor admitted in a signed memorandum that he moved the actual 1701 route onto our driveway to “give the town what it needed” in order to access the river, the original route (as he pointed out) having run over our neighbor’s property and been destroyed thirty years earlier by an ice-pond. Piling dissimulation onto fraud can’t erase the original fraud.
More central to the matter, Old Lyme’s two selectwomen continue to hide from the inconvenient truth: the 1701 right-of-way could not even be found by 1712 and was turned back over to the owner Richard Lord and replaced in 1713 in a deal the Town made with him to create a different right of way (which is now tracked largely by Tantummaheag Road) and which also never went across our property – – and on which public access rights would end at the owner’s death in 1727. This bargain, recorded in Town deeds, is indisputable and enforceable and must be honored by the Town.
This pair, however, have now apparently declared their plan to once again bulldoze our property just as they bulldozed the “peace agreement” their fellow-selectman Jim Lampos (an expert historian) and town counsel negotiated with us after a deep review of all the evidence, an agreement that seemed likely to lead to a long-term resolution. This “deny the facts and law, but bulldoze the property” strategy has failed miserably and is likely about to result in even more unfortunate consequences for the Town.
CEO Shoemaker seems intent on moving toward an inevitable endgame in which we have to close our property permanently to all public users including pedestrians, which we have the absolute right to do based on official Town records, and the dispute will then shift to federal court in New Haven where the Town and town officials as well as individual defendants who knowingly worked with the Town to threaten our safety, security, privacy and legal rights over the past three years work to resist the compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees and injunctive relief to which well-established case decisions entitle us and which we will be seeking to prevent similar overreaching by Town government on our private property and the property of others in the future.
The CEO may be able to do “anything that I feel is right for the Town,” but is the bulldozer approach really what is in the Town’s long-term best interests?
OLD LYME—The Old Lyme Rowing Association (OLRA) is hosting the following summer ‘Learn to Row’ programs. The OLRA is home to the Blood Street Sculls and Lyme-Old Lyme High School Rowing. The following programs are all currently open for enrollment:
Adult/HS Learn to Row courses are offered Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6-8 p.m. on these dates:
Middle School Learn to Row courses are offered Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:15-10:15 a.m.. on these dates
The Junior Competitive program is for high school students entering grades 9-12, recent graduates, or with the approval of the head coach. Find more information at this link. Registration opens around March 1. Summer juniors actively train and race for a period, starting June 19 – Aug 2 on weekdays from 6-8 a.m.
Scholarships are available for all levels of OLRA programs. If you have a financial issue, contact Paul Fuchs directly for a confidential discussion. For more information on all aspects of the Old Lyme Rowing Association, visit www.oldlymerowing.org.
FAIRFIELD, CT—UPDATE: Although ahead 4-3 at the half, sadly the Old Lyme girls ultimately fell 9-6 to Lauralton Hall on Saturday in the Class S lacrosse final.
On Saturday, June 8, the second-seeded Lyme-Old Lyme High School girls’ lacrosse team will face top seeds Lauralton Hall of Milford at Sacred Heart University in the CIAC Class S State Championship final. The game is scheduled to start at 10 a.m.
In last Tuesday night’s Class S State semi-final, Old Lyme were 6-3 down against third-seeded Canton at half-time.
Things were not looking good for Old Lyme at Windsor High School when Canton came out to start the third quarter and almost immediately scored twice to take the score to 8-3.
Coach Emily Macione takes up the story from there, explaining in an email, “We took a time-out at that point and tried to regroup, the message being – one goal at a time, one possession at a time…just keep working together.”
She continued, “We responded from there, scoring the next five goals over the balance of the third quarter, and into the fourth … while also holding them to zero goals in the process.”
That five-goal run tied the game at 8-8, with around four minutes left on the clock.
At that point, in Macione’s words, “Canton’s best player #21 Heather Delbone ended up firing one in not too long after, and Canton went up 9-8. They won the next draw and tried to run out the clock. With about a minute and a half left, our #9 Sydney Goulding was able to steal the ball from Canton and ran it back up on offense for us. We took a few shots, and they were wide of the goal, but with about 10 second left, our #20 Alexis Antonellis was fouled and got a free position shot, which she made.”
This tied the game again, with six seconds remaining. Old Lyme won the next draw, and tried to run it down and shoot, but the clock expired, taking the game to overtime.
Macione pointed out, “Overtime is sudden death, so whoever scores first wins … which is why getting the draw is really, really critical. We were able to win it, went down on offense and after about 30 seconds, Alexis was able to score the game winner.”
Asked how that felt, Macione said simply, “It was … surreal.” She continued, “I have imagined the girls running off after a win like that so many times, and all season, I’ve been talking to them about that feeling and what it would be like. Everyone stepped up and kept their heads in the game despite a pretty considerable deficit … they just kept working, one play at a time.”
She concluded, “[You] Can’t ask for more than that as a coach. In some ways it’s hard to believe that we are playing in a final … It is just so rare to make it this far, and it’s really special. But since we have made it this far, our attitude is why not us? Everyone is going to be good at this point, we just have to outwork our opponent.”
Macione’ said she is now experiencing a great range of emotions about the final, saying she is, “So excited (and nervous) to have the opportunity [to have her team play in the first ever state final for Old Lyme.] Just one more!”
OLD LYME—We received the following ‘Press Statement’ related to developments regarding the Tantummaheag Landing situation from Old Lyme First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker late yesterday evening. It is signed by all three members of the Old Lyme Board of Selectmen.
We publish it below in full and unedited.
This evening, we are instructing our town counsel to send a letter to George Frampton and Carla Darista regarding the Town of Old Lyme’s steps moving forward regarding Tantummaheag Landing.
The letter informs the property owners that the town maintains its claim that Tantummaheag Landing is a public highway as is reflected in their deeds.
The letter goes on to explain that we will be completing a survey of the property. Any pins and/or markers which were previously in place which may have been removed will be reestablished by a licensed surveyor.
Upon completion of the survey, the town will determine which plantings interfere with access to the highway/landing. The plantings will be tagged, and the homeowners will have 7 days to remove the plantings they installed. If they are not removed, Public Works will remove or cut down those plantings.
Once the survey is complete and the plantings are removed, the Board of Selectmen will determine the best management to maintain the highway/landing for users. We hope to have this completed by the end of July.
The Board of Selectmen would like the visitors to the landing to be respectful of the property owners. The landing will only be accessible from 9 AM to dusk daily during this period. If you are planning on kayaking from the landing, please note that you cannot have direct access to the landing at this time. Please back up your vehicle to the planting line, drop off your kayaks and return to the street to park. Due to the plantings, parking is not permitted currently on the property. We ask that you take every precaution not to disturb the plantings
The local police and Troop F have been provided with this information and have been asked to instruct their officers of the current situation and our process to resolve it.
As always, the Board of Selectmen believe that our residents will be respectful of the property owners and their abutting land.
Editor’s Note: We will have more on this developing story shortly.