Letter to the Editor – Open Letter to Casey Ellison

Dear Casey Ellison,

I’m writing to publicly implore you to rethink your plans for the land you recently purchased from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. In a meeting you had with the community you said you wanted to do something lasting for Montpelier. While acknowledging your passion for a planned hydrotherapy facility, I have an alternative suggestion: use your land and buy Sabin’s pasture to create the Casey Ellison City Park.

Here’s why I am asking you to reconsider.

After a snow, your property is a pristine and sparkling place, with a classic Vermont view of open meadows and mountains from the top of the hill. A well-worn path winds down to a valley and meanders right along the Blanchard Brook. It’s quiet in the hollow—just birds and the brook.

There are four-dozen wildflower types that grow there in the summer, and monarchs, bees, owls, turkeys, deer, and foxes that live there and on the adjoining Sabin’s Pasture. There, paths lead uphill through an aspen grove to a spectacular view of the college and our town, with Camel’s Hump mountain in the background. There’s even a path through forget-me-nots that leads to a hidden slot canyon. This land is a beautiful resource treasured by its many users, already the park that bookends, along with Hubbard, our beloved town.

A park created with your land and Sabin’s Pasture would not require a water pumping and circulating infrastructure and increased use of our city’s aging infrastructure. A park would protect trees and prairie, creek and mountain views. It could be, along with the glorious Hubbard Park, another permanent pride of our small city. The founder of Casey Ellison City Park would be revered, as is Mr. Hubbard, for his generosity in providing a permanent gift for all to enjoy.

I ask you, humbly, to please reconsider the nature of your gift to Montpelier. A park, please, Ms. Ellison!

Your neighbor,

Cindy Bogard, Sabin Street, Montpelier