NEWRY — Selectmen Tuesday agreed to send another letter to the Mahoosuc Land Trust regarding complaints about conditions at the trust’s Step Falls Preserve property.

There have been complaints about visitors parking on both sides of Route 26 near the entrance to the parking lot, creating a traffic hazard on the curving road.

There are also complaints about sanitation. There are no porta potties, only a sign referring people a mile up the road to facilities at the state’s Screw Auger Falls.

“Something needs to be done,” resident Brooks Morton told selectmen. He speculated if it “was going to take someone getting killed” before the Land Trust would do anything about the parking situation. He wondered if it could be expanded.

Morton also said people are relieving themselves in the woods near the top of the trail. He suggested a letter to MLT.

Selectman Jim Largess agreed that a letter asking for help was a good idea. He also suggested talking to the state.

Selectboard Chairman Gary Wight said two previous letters on Step Falls had been sent to the land trust.

Town Administrator Amy Bernard had a copy of a letter from 2012, which said the parking lot had not been maintained, the entrance had a large dropoff and parking and boundaries were not clearly defined. All those issues were addressed by MLT, she said.

Bernard went on to say she recently went up and walked the falls trail.

She said 23 parking spaces provide “a lot of parking for a half-mile trail.” She also said she deliberately went off the trail near the top to search for evidence of people relieving themselves, but didn’t find any.

As for litter, she said, she found two T-shirts and a coffee cup.

The board agreed to send a letter with “our next list of concerns” as Largess put it, to MLT, and to also contact state Rep. Fran Head and the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office.

Later in the meeting, the board noted the town had proposed a traffic ordinance to address parking issues, but the OCSD said town ordinances could not be practically enforced by the department. It was voted down at a town meeting.

Bernard said a parking provision was recently found in an existing ordinance. The board will discuss it at its Aug. 2 meeting.

Last summer, when similar complaints were made about Step Falls, MLT Executive Director Jim Mitchell said that a volunteer steward, who Mitchell said had hiked the trail every other day all season in order to pick up trash, had “remarked how little trash had been left over.” And, said Mitchell, the volunteer “had not seen any evidence” of human waste problems.

Mitchell also said the parking lot holds 12 to 15 cars, and only overflows a few days a year.

In other business at Tuesday’s selectmen’s meeting, Largess, a member of the SAD 44 funding formula committee, said a recent approval vote by that panel to recommend a local formula change had been worded incorrectly and needs to be revoted.

The committee is expected to reconvene again in August for that purpose, he said, with the hope the proposal can still be on the November ballot in district towns.

The plan would shift some of Newry’s current share of the budget to other district towns in two steps over three years.

(Note: The writer is married to Joe Aloisio, who is a member of the MLT board and designed the parking lot for Step Falls.)