Discussion Materials
PowerPoint Presentation 1
PowerPoint Presentation 2
Smith v. City of Westfield Decision
The REBA Environmental Law discusses the state of Article 97 of the Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution following the Supreme Judicial Court's precedent-setting ruling in Smith v. City of Westfield.
Article
97 protects public land taken, acquired, or designated for conservation
purposes by requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature before such
land may be transferred, disposed of or used for another purpose.
In
its Westfield decision, the SJC
rejected the notion that land not originally taken or acquired
for Article 97 purposes would need a formal recording in the registry of deeds
in order to gain Article 97 protection. Reviewing courts have been
instructed to consider "the totality of the
circumstances" in weighing whether a municipality clearly
and unequivocally dedicated land to use by the public as a
public park, thereby triggering Article 97 protection.
Our
guest speakers are Luke H. Legere, who
co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of MACC in support of the Plaintiffs in
the Westfield case, Seth Schofield, who
authored an amicus brief on behalf of the Attorney General and argued in
support of the Plaintiffs in the Westfield case, Kathleen M. O'Donnell, and Robert W. Ritchie.
