A meeting to further discuss the idea of developing a land trust in Mountain View County will be taking place on Dec. 5 at the Mountain View County office.Two meetings have already taken place regarding the idea and the next one will be a further opportunity to discuss what a local land trust might look like, said Jim Smith, the facilitator chosen by the county to guide the process.“It will basically be a followup meeting to discuss the feasibility of creating a land trust for our community,” Smith said.Smith added that while there are several different types of land trusts focusing on different values such as habitat preservation or scientific value, no such determination has been made about a land trust in Mountain View County yet.“There will be discussion along the way as to what kind of focus … a local land trust might wish to take or whether it might want to keep its options open in terms of things that are important to the community. It might not be really, really narrow. Citizens might determine that here are some values that are important to our community, so why would we make its focus too narrow, for example,” he said.There is no timeline in mind, at this point, for decisions to be made about a potential land trust.Land trusts are charitable organizations that seek to preserve a specific piece of land for a specific purpose. Once a trust is incorporated, its focus is defined. Trusts are one of the best ways to preserve lands because of the ability to rely on several individuals with various areas of expertise rather a single individual. A trust also has fundraising vehicles at its disposal that individuals do not.The meeting on Dec. 5 is due to start at 7 p.m.
