As the new president of the Fort Williams Charitable Foundation, Joel Russ wants to mend bridges and refocus the foundation’s efforts towards its primary goal of raising money for the park.

Russ said the charitable foundation would be moving on from its pursuit of a conservation easement over of Fort Williams Park after the Fort Williams Advisory Commission and the Town Council unanimously rejected the foundation’s proposal for a conservation easement over the park.

The foundation’s former president Clint Blood stepped down shortly after the council indefinitely tabled the foundation’s request. Russ said any relationships strained during the sometimes-heated debate over the future of the park should be fixed. Blood has not returned calls seeking comment.

While the foundation will be moving on, Russ said discussion within the town about protection of the park should be encouraged.

“It’s such an important resource, not just for the town but for the region,” Russ said.

Formed in 2001 to raise funds for the maintenance of the park, the foundation’s members were surprised to discover the park was controlled by the Town Council, rather than being protected by any other permanent legal status. They and town officials later discovered parts of the park are protected by federal restrictions resulting from grants to improve or maintain the park.

The group began a campaign to obtain a permanent conservation easement over the park. Russ said the pursuit was within the foundation’s mandate and the foundation made the attempt for the right reasons, but said it did divert the group from its primary goal of fund-raising.

Glenn Israel, vice president of the foundation, said the group would be focusing more on its fund-raising activities now, regardless of the lack of an easement. The foundation had maintained that without an easement they would have problems attracting the major donors necessary to meet its long-term goal of creating a $4 million to $5 million endowment fund to make the park financially self-sustaining.

“There are lots of things we can do before that happens,” Israel said. “Maybe that won’t ever happen.”

Russ has been on the board for a year, but has a history of leading nonprofits dealing with preservation and conservation. And he has dealt with Fort Williams before. In 1974 as the executive director of Greater Portland Landmarks he tried unsuccessfully to interest the town in preserving the old brick buildings on Officers’ Row as housing for elderly Cape residents. He said it fit with the town’s plan of passive recreational use of the park, but in the end the project didn’t have a very good chance of succeeding.

Today Russ lives five minutes from the park and has a “keen interest in its preservation.” As the new president he thinks the foundation needs to reexamine its mission. At a recent meeting foundation members discussed the things they should be considering to be successful.

Russ said building and fostering close working relationships is important for the foundation to succeed in its goals. He plans to sit down with each member of the council and advisory commission, as well as anybody else willing, to discuss the direction the foundation will go and how groups can work together more closely toward the common goal of the maintenance and preservation of the park.

Building closer relationships with the advisory commission could allow the foundation to raise money for specific projects, which he said would be explored in the future.

Charlie McCarthy, chairman of the advisory commission, said he was looking forward to a closer working relationship between the two organizations in the future. “Both of our organization’s goals are the same,” McCarthy said, “preservation of the park and improvements whenever necessary.”

McCarthy said the biggest problem faced by the park is lack of funds, something he hopes the foundation will be able to help with. “There are many things we’d like to do at the fort and don’t have the money for,” McCarthy said. “With a closer relationship with the charitable trust we’ll be able to accomplish those.”

Other fund-raising possibilities the foundation is considering include developing a big annual “signature” fund-raising event in the park to attract residents of the town and region. And of course the group will “keep our eye on the long-term goal of building an endowment fund.”

The foundation is also be looking to recruit more board members, as well as taking better advantage of the skills board members have.

For now, the foundation is about to begin its third annual appeals campaign, which Israel said has raised $20,000 each of the past two years. The group’s donor list has approximately 430 names and is growing every year, Israel said.

Joel Russ, the new president of the Fort Williams Charitable Foundation, said the organization would be reexamining their goals and move past the issue of permanent protection.

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