JAMAICA — Three trail counters have been stolen from the Jamaica State Park trail system. At about 3 p.m.
Thursday, the Vermont State Police received a report of theft of several items from Jamaica State Park. "This occurred after the issuance of the Master Plan for the Hamilton Falls Natural Area where the trail counters were used to monitor foot traffic in the area," a news release from police states. The popularity of Hamilton Falls, a beautiful but dangerous waterfall on Cobb Brook in Jamaica State Park, increased during the pandemic and has prompted the state of Vermont to plan for its safe future use.
At a meeting Thursday, community members from Jamaica and Windham expressed dissatisfaction with the plan. "A primary goal of the master plan is to identify the level of site usage for Hamilton Falls. How many people should we be trying to accommodate on site? That is one of the questions we are asking the public to weigh in on at this time," Jeff Dube, a landscape architect with VHB, a consulting firm hired by the state to work on the master plan, previously told the Reformer.
"We know that outdoor recreation has increased significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic and the public’s desire to visit Hamilton Falls is no exception. To address this question, we have developed three alternative scenarios for varying site usage, high, moderate and low." Dube said the alternative scenarios "test what potentially increasing access to Hamilton Falls would look like and to see if that is a desirable future outcome.
" "At the end of the process, the effort will create a single conceptual plan that improves access and safety of Hamilton Falls," he said. Anyone with information regarding the theft is asked to call Trooper Timothy Alibozek at the Westminster Barracks 802-722-4600..
