WELD – L.L. Bean granddaughter Linda Bean Folkers had foresters erect steel gates across private logging roads on her property Friday, sparking more controversy among townspeople and other former users of the land.
“I very much care about the land,” Folkers said Friday. “This is my private property and I can do with it what I want. We have gates on all our forested properties.”
Folkers owns 8,000 acres in Weld, most of it former paper company land that the public was allowed to use. She banned camping, fires and motorized vehicles on the property, which has been host to Boy Scout troops, hunters and other campers for more than 60 years. She also had a decades-old shelter dismantled.
She does not prohibit access to hikers or hunters on foot.
More than 100 townspeople voted May 17 to deny Folkers’ request to gate Morgan Road at the intersection of Byron Road, which provides access to Tumbledown and Jackson mountains. Folkers cited a serious trash problem and damage from ATVs as the reason for limiting access.
Some of the more than 400 town residents admit that the privilege was abused by some who left used diapers, toilet paper, beer cans and other trash in the traditional camping area known as Tumbledown Field. But many also felt the manner in which Folkers handled the situation was disrespectful.
Resident Bernard Rackliffe Jr. said he believes her representatives will find more trash in the area as an “in-your-face” reaction by some people.
“I’m sorry they have that unchristian attitude,” Folkers responded Friday. “Retaliation is not my way of doing things,” she added.
“I don’t blame her for doing what she did; people left a mess there,” said Bennie Bowie Jr. of Carthage, who was on his way up Byron Road to the former camping area Friday.
“People are people, and I feel bad that people would step on a landowner like that. I deeply feel people abused the privilege of being a free American,” the self-proclaimed partier said. “It was just a few select people who ruined it for everybody else,” he added.
The new gates block ATV access to traditional hunting grounds, according to Rackliffe, and detract from the natural beauty of the area, he said.
“They’re closing the door on everybody’s face. They’re putting up these ugly steel barriers that say keep out’ and go away,'” he said.
Sitting in the Weld General Store on Friday, fellow residents tended to agree that Folkers has a right to protect her property, but they also agreed she could have handled it differently.
“After coming here for years and years, you grow fond of it,” said Douglas Bonney of Falmouth, who has spent almost every summer of his life in the area.
“To have someone come in from outside and raze the shelter, it showed a lack of respect for the people who live here,” he said.
“It irks me that an outsider is coming in and making changes to the landscape,” Rackliffe agreed.
She could have handled it differently by making an announcement that she was going to make these changes, said Ted Simanek of the town Planning Board.
“She has the right to do whatever she wants to do with it and protect it,” he said, “but there’s a tradition there that’s come to a complete screeching halt.”
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