Editor, Gazette-Journal:

After the June board meeting, I looked up a copy of Conrad Hall’s deed of gift for Mathews Heritage Park and was surprised it says nothing about camping, greater public access to the water, or creating a community park. The gift was “to be used in perpetuity, only as a nature park and waterfront center for the purpose of teaching about the history of the people of Mathews County, Virginia, and the ecology of the land and the surrounding waters …”

The deed restrictions run with the land, so county supervisor Janine Burns was mistaken when she said at the December 2014 board meeting that a nonprofit has “the right to develop the property as they wish, within normal zoning guidelines,” even though Lewis Lawrence of the Public Access Authority confirmed it. Why didn’t any other supervisor or our county administrator offer a correction then or at any time since?

Any grantee or successor is bound by the deed’s restr...