From the Falmouth Enterprise · May 16, 1975
In a referendum on Tuesday, May 13, 1975, Falmouth voters undid Town Meeting’s April vote to borrow $2,750,000 and take Washburn Island by eminent domain. Of 4,956 ballots, 2,945 were against the purchase, 2,009 were for it and two were blank, a turnout of 42.5 percent with no absentee voting. Opponents needed at least 2,331 no votes, a fifth of registered voters; supporters needed two-thirds, the same margin required at Town Meeting. It was the fifth referendum since Falmouth adopted representative town meeting in 1936.
Reached by phone, Dr. Washburn said no sale was being negotiated but that selling to a developer was “a possibility.” In 1981 a limited partnership agreed to buy the island and proposed about 50 houses, and neighbors organized as CPWB to fight the plan. The state took South Cape Beach across the bay in December 1982 and Washburn Island by eminent domain in June 1983. In 1988 Waquoit Bay became a national estuarine sanctuary, now the Waquoit Bay Reserve.
This is CPWB’s summary of a news article. The full article and its photos are published by the Falmouth Enterprise. The page is in the Falmouth Public Library’s digital archive of the Enterprise.
Drafted with AI assistance from the linked source.
