By Davis Bushnell
Globe correspondent
LITTLETON -- The Littleton and Harvard boards of selectmen will soon press for a resolution of a complaint they filed Dec. 21 in Massachusetts Land Court against the Boxborough Planning Board over Cisco Systems's office park plans in Boxborough.
"In a couple of week's after we're through with budget matters, we're going to ask our attorneys to try to reach an out-of-court settlement" with the Town of Boxborough and Cisco, said Ronald Caruso, chairman of the Littleton selectmen.
William Ashe, Caruso's counterpart in Harvard, said, "We're hoping that this [matter] doesn't go to trial."
But, Caruso and Ashe agreed, everything hinges on settling a thorny, central issue: a proposal that would allow office workers to use an entrance and exit at the rear of Cisco's Boxborough property, near the Harvard and Littleton town lines. The main entrance and exit would be off Swanson Road in Boxborough.
Opponents in Littleton and Harvard are contending that Whitcomb Avenue in Littleton and Littleton County Road in Harvard would not be able to safely handle the more than 2,000 cars a day that they estimate would use those roads. Littleton County Road runs into Whitcomb Avenue.
What makes sense would be to restrict access to the rear of Cisco's office park to "emergency vehicles only," said Harvard Selectwoman Lucy Wallace, echoing sentiments of other officials and residents of Harvard and Littleton.
"Cisco paid for the widening of the Route 111 interchange and Swanson Road last year, and those improvements will accommodate access to the main office park entrance off Swanson Road," Wallace said.
Cisco, a computer networking company based in San Jose, Calif., that has been hit hard by the recession, is completing the construction of three office buildings in Boxborough. They are expected to be finished in 18 to 24 months, said Mojgan Khalili,a regional spokeswoman for Cisco.
Cisco officials have estimated that more than 3,500 cars a day would use Swanson Road after the office park is completed. The company also has plans to construct five office buildings, totaling about 640,000 square feet, on a Littleton site at the intersection of Route 119 and Interstate 495. Work has yet to begin at that location.
Martin R. Healy, a lawyer with the Boston firm of Goodwin Proctor & Hoar, which is representing Cisco Development Partners in the state land court case, did not return a phone query.
And Katherine Goree, a lawyer for Kopelman and Paige, a Boston law firm that is representing the Boxborough Planning Board, said she couldn't comment "because of the pending litigation."
Last year, the Boxborough Planning Board gave its OK to a Cisco office park that eventually would have 10 buildings and 1.4 million square feet of office space.
Caruso, the head Littleton selectman, said he's hopeful that "Cisco will reconsider what it's doing," referring to plans to allow employees to access the office park from Whitcomb Avenue and Littleton County Road.