Plymouth Select Board votes 3-1 to sell Symes House for $40,000

PLYMOUTH — May 12, 2026 — Plymouth Select Board approves $40,000 sale of Symes House over member's objection. The board voted 3-1 Tuesday to execute a purchase and sale agreement for 29 Manamet Point Road, the Symes House, a property acquired with Community Preservation Act funds and estimated by dissenting member Harry Cohan to be worth over $1 million. Cohan argued the board lacked authority to sell the building without Town Meeting approval and that leasing — the model used for the Centers for the Arts building and the Spire Theatre — should have been pursued instead: "The building is worth in excess of a million, possibly more. And it's wrong to treat the taxpayers and the people of Manamet in this manner." Members Alyssa Iaquinto and Chair Derek Canty voted yes alongside a fourth yes vote; Vice Chair David Quintle was absent. The board separately tabled action on the town's Chapter 61A right of first refusal on approximately 130 acres of conservation-significant land off Hedges Pond Road, placing it on the next agenda, as Buzzards Bay Coalition presented a $6.25 million purchase and sale agreement to protect nearly 400 acres of cranberry farm land at the town's southern border and requested $750,000 from Plymouth's Community Preservation Committee toward a conservation restriction on the Plymouth portion.