A letter to the LLSAC and Select Board members by Mark Marchionni, PHD

Dear Committee Members,

I’d like to offer a brief perspective as you move toward making your recommendation. At the end of the day, we all want the same thing: to get the most out of Liberty Ledge for the Town of Sudbury — we own it and we should use it in a way that strengthens and supports the community, and protects the land for future generations.

To get there, I think it helps to keep three simple questions in mind:

1. How can the Town get a bigger, better Camp Sewataro that delivers greater benefits to more Sudbury residents?
2. How can the Town best take advantage of year‑round access?
3. How can the Town preserve and steward this land for decades to come?

These questions point toward long‑term thinking. That is what the Select Board asked for, and that is what the Committee asked of residents in the Town survey. This is what a vision is all about. The good news is that the Town has the flexibility to pursue it.

As you consider your options, here are a few structural parameters that may help frame the recommendation:

1. The Committee may recommend any term length it believes serves the Town.
2. Long‑term agreements with private partners are legally permissible.
3. A new RFP is optional, not required, after the current extension.
4. The Agreement — not the RFP — is the governing document.
5. The Select Board has full contracting authority.
6. Leverage comes from contract negotiation, not from issuing an RFP.

One final point as you prepare the advisory report: it’s hard to imagine the Select Board convening a committee on the future of Liberty Ledge if the expected outcome were simply a return to the 5‑year extension and another round of studies. Those options were already available. The purpose of this process was to explore a better, long‑term path — not to circle back to where we started. And it was hard not to notice, in the last meeting, that the Committee is beginning to redefine its remit in order to justify inaction — shifting from long‑term vision to operational steps and hypothetical future RFPs. Those paths were already available to the Select Board. They did not convene this Committee to return to square one.

I hope we can all remember why this matters. A long‑term agreement would make a great many residents happy; more studies would not. And most of all, it would give our children the stability they deserve — a place they can count on, year after year, as they grow.

Thank you for your work and your commitment to the community.

Best,

Mark

Mark A. Marchionni, PhD

28 Julians Way

Sudbury, MA 01776