By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — First Selectwomen Jennifer Tooker, in a letter to more than 120 members of Westport Community Gardens last week, confirmed the garden site on Long Lots Elementary School’s campus is now off limits — for at least three growing seasons — and reiterated her offer “to build a new and fully accessible community garden at the Baron’s South site.”

The gardeners, who waged a lengthy campaign to maintain the existing two-decades-old plots, are being moved from their current location as plans to build a new school on the Hyde Lane campus advance. Approved plans for the new school do include an unspecified site for gardens on the property, but the smaller footprint would not be accessible until after completion of the school project, estimated to be 2028. 

(The first selectwoman’s letter to the community gardeners is attached at the end of this article.)

Gardeners: Baron’s South unsuitable

But many community gardeners, including several members of the group’s steering committee and its chairman, say they are not interested in the Baron’s South site, adjacent to the Westport Center for Senior Activities, contending it’s not suitable for gardening.

A location for the gardens must have “ample sunlight, adequate parking, flat land and accessibility,” none of which the Baron’s South property offers, according to Lou Weinberg, the steering committee chair.

No guarantees relocation would be OK’d

In addition, Tooker, who notes the process of securing approvals for the move to Baron’s South will “take some time,” cannot guarantee the town will ultimately approve or pay for resurrecting the gardens there, Weinberg said. “How much will the cost be?” he said. “There are no guarantees that it will be approved.”

Jeff Schorer, another committee member, agreed. He called what the first selectwoman is proposing, and what it would actually take to move the gardens to Baron’s South, “an enormous chasm. I’m not sure how committed the town would be in that process.”

During a tour of the proposed Baron’s South site Tooker led last October, concerns voiced by gardeners included the shady location, hilly topography and their belief the land had previously been used as a dump for construction debris and chemicals.

In her letter to the gardeners, Tooker wrote, however, the town had hired “independent environmental scientists and soil experts” who tested the soil and deemed the property “perfectly suited for a community garden.” 

“Win-win” or lost cause?

Calling the proposal a “win-win” for the gardeners, the first selectwoman also cited the central location of the new site, provision of water and electricity, and unrestricted access as advantages.

But several gardeners blame Tooker’s stance as the primary reason the gardens are being moved from Hyde Lane.

“We are hoping she goes away and that there’s somebody in the first selectwoman’s office that understands that bridge building is much more constructive then vilification and divisiveness which has been allowed to flourish on this issue under her watch,” Weinberg said.

He is particularly angry the gardeners were blamed for construction delays for the new Long Lots school, and that “suddenly, after that after gardening there for 20 years, we’re a security risk. It’s ludicrous.”  

At times during debate over the school project, charges were made that the gardeners paid for a national award they won. Other critics said having the gardens adjacent to a school was dangerous because the gardeners “wielded pick axes and rakes,” and that “the gardeners love tomatoes more than kids,” which especially bothered Weinberg, who is a teacher.

First selectwoman’s “tactics” decried

Gardener Toni Simonetti, a vocal critic of the garden move, sent a response to Tooker’s letter on Thursday.

“Your proposal for relocating the Westport Community Gardens to Baron’s South fails on multiple levels and it feels like you are trying to end-run garden leadership and divide gardeners,” she said. “Honestly, your tactics are obvious and frustrating … Will there be a photo op of you driving a bulldozer over our garden?”

Others, including garden committee member Sally Kleinman, said although Tooker’s plan to move the garden to Baron’s South “looks good on paper, there are many problems with the Baron’s property. It’s a non-starter,” she said because of the topography and lack of sunlight, among other issues.

“I am no longer cautiously optimistic — I’ve given up the idea that I’m going to be gardening for the next few years,” Kleinman said.

Some gardeners also feel their loss is due to Long Lots planners’ belief that an athletic field is more important than gardens.

Schorer, the father of young children who has coached baseball, said the original plan called for a Babe Ruth baseball field for older youth, but later was labeled simply as “a ballfield” when critics complained the field would not be used for the school’s elementary-age children. 

“Baseball is kind of a tough sell and kind of a dying sport in youth sports today,” he said. “We’re going to lose our garden to a baseball field when there’s a lot of other fields in town.”

He still believes that it is possible to rework the Long Lots plan — final designs have yet to be approved — so the new school and athletic field as well as the gardens all could be accommodated.

Installing a new field and removing the gardens doesn’t make sense, he said, when the Long Lots property is large enough for all three uses. “I don’t understand why that’ s not a possibility,” he said.

Garden campaigners exhausted

Other gardeners said they are exhausted with the two-year battle to keep their gardens. 

Nick Mancini, a longtime gardener and author of “The Complete Organic Garden,” said he looked carefully at the Baron’s South site. He visited the property at several different times of the day, and found that it is always too shady. Plus, he said, “I had to walk 200 feet uphill,” which would be difficult to carry equipment, soil and other supplies for gardening.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” he said of Tooker’s plan. “I will not be part of it.”

Kleinman agreed. 

“We’ve been fighting this for so long and just hoping against hope that reason would prevail. But I think that there are too many people who think we are obstructionists rather than a reason to be in Westport,” she said. 

“The gardens are an asset to the town. … We’re getting pushed out and not having any say.”

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.

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First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker’s Jan. 29 letter to members of the Westport Community Gardens follows: