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.