Littleton Select Board Orders Simplified Lease RFP for Town Orchard Property

LITTLETON — July 8, 2024 — Littleton Select Board votes unanimously to hire a new assistant town clerk and spends two hours deadlocked on the future of the town's 50-acre orchard property. The board approved hiring Andrus Marko, former Harvard town clerk, as Assistant Town Clerk at Grade 10, Step 5, with an annual salary of $69,906.24. On the orchard, a same-night appraisal from Cali Associates pegged the farmhouse on its 1.17-acre lot at approximately $600,000 if structurally sound, or $500,000 to $550,000 as a teardown — triggering debate over whether to sell the house separately from the Agricultural Preservation Restriction land. Tree-removal estimates ranged from $2,000 to $10,000 per acre depending on stump treatment, with full clearing of 50 acres potentially consuming the entire house-sale proceeds. Orchard Working Group member Amy Tarala Lewis told the board it was "going in circles" on questions the group resolved over three years, and argued that "all farmers want to own land" and that a lessee who found a property to buy "is going to leave." The board reached no votes on the orchard but directed Select Board members Matthew Shepherd and Karen Bray to redline a simplified lease RFP for Town Counsel review, and confirmed a Friday meeting with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to plan public outreach ahead of a fall Town Meeting warrant deadline.