Founders Tell The Story of T3C’s Beginnings

ELIZABETH: So where did the idea for The 300 Committee come from?

ERIC: It was 1985, and Chris Cowan was having a dinner party, and I was there, along with members of the conservation commission, and we’re looking around and saying, “Hey, the town just approved 500 house lots and this place is going to go to hell if we don’t do something—so what can we do?”

ELIZABETH: The Cape was in a housing boom.

ERIC: Big time. So we came up with the idea to get the town to buy 300 acres to celebrate its 300^th birthday, which was the next year. And at that time on TV there was this evangelical Christian program called The 700 Club. And we thought, “Well, maybe The 300 Club would be  a good name.” But we couldn’t call it a club. In Falmouth, you call things committees. So, okay, The 300 Committee.

ELIZEBETH: And then what?

ERIC:  Vicky and Bruce Tripp and I got together and wrote a letter asking people to join. And the three of us signed it, and then we said, “Well, let’s send this to every property owner in Falmouth.” And we needed membership, so that was the hook. People could join for $3, $30, or $300 dollars, whichever they felt like giving. And the mailing piece got interesting because postage was cheap if you were a non-profit, and we had this major envelope stuffing effort. And people would come to my parents’ dining room to stuff envelopes.

VICKY: Wait, you’ve got it a bit wrong.

ERIC: Oh?

VICKY: Elaine Tripp organized a mass mailing and we did it in the Conservation Department room at Town Hall, but we were not savvy enough to get it sorted by zip code, which you have to do if you want the cheap rate. And so the postmaster said, “We can’t take them this way.” So then all the envelopes—boxes and boxes—went to your dad’s house and we had to sort them by zip code.

ELIZABETH: How many envelopes?

VICKY: It was like 17,000.

ERIC: And the good news is that almost 1,500 people responded.

ELIZABETH: Wow.

ERIC: And so that got the thing up and running.

VICKY: And then we sent letters to the biggest open space property owners in town saying, “Will you consider selling your property?” And this was before GIS, so we spent a lot of time in Mike McGrath’s office.

ELIZABETH: Who’s that?

VICKY: Mike McGrath of Holmes & McGrath, surveyors. He was very helpful. He’d done a lot of subdivisions, and he had plans of practically every property in town.

ERIC: He knew all the players and who owned what. And he got blow back from some of his clients, who didn’t think this was a good idea. So he kind of went underground after that. He’d still help us, but he didn’t speak about it publicly.

VICKY: Two of the biggest parcels we got were the Coonamessett Reservation, all that land, around 200 acres, south of where Hamilton Tree is now. And then the Mares Pond parcel. That was 80 acres. Bruce was responsible for negotiating with Francis Daddario  for Mares Pond. And we had the deadline of town meeting, so we’re on the phone a week before town meeting, “Like, Bruce, how’s it going?” And he’s like, “I’m trying.” It was nerve-wracking not knowing if we were going to be able to pull it off.  But one thing I’d like to put in is that the Enterprise was so helpful.

ERIC: They were wonderful.

VICKY: They just kept talking about it in the most positive way. They did no investigative reporting, “Like, oh my God, this is down to the wire.” Everything they wrote about it was good.

ERIC: So then we went to town meeting. And I’m going to tell this part of the story because Vicky will be modest. We went there with $8.3 million worth of land for them to buy. Nine parcels. Over 400 acres. Vicky was the spokesperson. And she was brilliant.

VICKY: I explained about the 300, and how, for the 300^th birthday, you know, we could build a statue, or we could do a library. But there was just so much development in every part of town, with everybody’s favorite places disappearing into subdivisions, and so preserving land was the best way we could celebrate.

ELIZABETH: And people liked that?

ERIC: Yes, you could feel the excitement.

VICKY: And then Bruce went through every parcel meticulously and I thought, “Oh my God, don’t put people to sleep.”

ERIC: It didn’t put them to sleep.

VICKY: And then the vote came.

ERIC: It was 175 to 18.

VIKCY: You know, I’m better at moving things along than being the creative spark. I mean, when I was county commissioner, Rob O’Leary would always have the ideas and I’d help him get where he wanted to go. Same with The 300 Committee. I didn’t have the idea for 300 acres for the 300^th anniversary. Somebody else had that idea.

ERIC: She just made it happen.

ELIZABETH: Did you have any idea that T3C would continue past that initial purchase? What were the conversations like about whether to keep going?

ERIC: None of us had any idea, until that town meeting vote, whether the town would support such an ambitious purchase. But after that, after such an overwhelming vote, it was clear the town wanted large-scale land protection. So there really wasn’t much debate about whether to keep going. Of course we would.

ELIZABETH: What has it been like to watch T3C grow as an organization?

VICKY: What pleases me most is how the excellent partnership with town government has endured.

ERIC: Absolutely. And I’ll add that while it’s been great to see T3C expand into land stewardship and other things, like guided walks, what’s most heartening is that it hasn’t strayed from its original mission: to acquire and protect open space in Falmouth. The 300 Committee is still peerless at putting together the financial and political support for significant land deals.