Arlington Conservation Commission Continues Winchester Country Club Hearing, Seeks More Data

ARLINGTON -- December 18, 2025, Arlington Conservation Commission debates fishing waste at Hills Pond and continues Winchester Country Club hearing to January 8. The commission's December 18 remote meeting, chaired by Chuck Tironi and staffed by Conservation Agent David Morgan, centered on whether the town's wetlands bylaw gives the commission jurisdiction over fishing line, hooks, and bobbers left by anglers at Hills Pond, a stressed water body that has suffered recurring algal blooms. Town counsel issued a memo the same afternoon concluding that authority over fishing rests with the Park and Recreation Commission, but members Susan Chapnick and Brian McBride pushed for a town meeting warrant article to impose a temporary fishing moratorium, with Chapnick calling existing Park and Rec cleanup efforts inadequate and most fishing line receptacles "vandalized." The commission referred the matter to the Water Bodies Working Group and voted unanimously to support a Community Preservation Act letter for a native garden project at 21 Pond Lane. On the Winchester Country Club notice of intent for fairway and tee-box reconfigurations within the Herbert Myers Brook riverfront area at 468 Mystic Street, the commission requested an alternatives analysis, a climate resilience narrative, an operation and maintenance plan for areas near the brook, and a copy of Winchester's already-issued order of conditions, flagging that approximately 7,500 square feet of proposed work falls within the inner 100-foot riverfront buffer.