Open Space Commission - Regular Meeting

call if I have 5:00 right on the button and I'll call the meeting to order [Applause] 5:00 hear the when he calls in would someone make a motion to approve the minutes for the December meeting oh yeah you can believe it or not whether or not you even attend the meeting you you can make you can vote i v second first motion I will uh I guess we we El we don't need to really see see any alternates unless Russell doesn't show up I'll give him a few more minutes to see what happen uh did you get a sec do we get a second on the second okay uh were any corrections or questions or anything about the minutes one thing I wanted to mention mes uh when you do that cannot I don't know this part I tried to take it off it's okay I have tried honestly it's hard to get if you can't get it off keep trying that's fine keep try it's not a big deal not a big deal at all you tried it I have tried it so would someone moved to approve the minutes Evan did Evan okay so um let's have a vote on the minutes all in favor uh I any minutes opposed I who's on the phone hi that's Christine yeah hi this is open space housing it's around the corner here um okay uh are there is there anybody from the public that would

like to comment uh okay and I moving on to open face reappointment I I saw excuse me Fred are you there Fred no [Applause] [Music] [Applause] PR hello hi Elon can I call you back okay thank you bye cot I had hi are you not able to get on said between 5 and S oh here she is okay huh and that's a 605 number 605 oh Fred says he's being charged for it what 16 went right through did you get that too Christine no who's one went through oh not at all it just went right through 5727 with an access code 3819 718 that the one yeah that's what I use he can call myel if he wants yeah no I wouldn't do that I could put you on speaker yeah that not at all all right Fred you're on speaker Fred Fred are you there I'm here yes great okay so reappointments Andrea Joan Ruff and Evan I believe you all have submitt your reapplication um and submitted oh okay Maria I forgot were okay and then I came in and I filled

everything out and stuff and I didn't I didn't know when I thought it was after you um put your application in that you go into the town C office and I went they said oh no have to wait till 27 okay well I don't think the board is actually me to make appointments yet um and and they I I believe they'll do it for all of all the various commissions and boards and so forth uh and I recommended that all of you that applied uh be reappointed uh in addition there's an unfamiliar face at this table uh and that's Bill rule bill I I talked to to Ann uh this afternoon Ann said what was that picture that you got you shared with everybody and so I I shared a picture of a work party that bill organized uh back in 2019 uh shortly after the town acquired the molic open space where he had a group of a hiking group that helped take down a lot of the horse fence there and think you had about 25 people yeah that's pretty good done I should say say bber been in town I think 40 years next year uh don't get too involved in much I do run one of the larger hiking clubs in the state um we do hikes all over the world in Connecticut not so much the loc we need longer hikes than what you guys have but um typically like last weekend we were in looking at Eagles at chog and South Barry and then they did a 10 mile hike out there at the oton thing um they uh we do we've done Trail work for the cfpa I've been a volunteer at cfpa for a Dozen Years um they do about 300 hikes a year and uh so I think that's maybe why Greg asked me to we're now affiliated with the Sierra

Club as of September uh we have about 4,000 members not from them but they're they like the fact that we brought a lot of people and uh is that it well Bill had written uh uh to Peter Norris and to and to me uh about would there be a way to connect Malla to AMS uh and and um I I that was maybe a couple months ago and and um now that we're perhaps going to be looking at a bridge again I I contacted Bill and said would you like to uh participate in that project and he said he's interested I what do from the commission and he expressed an interest in that too so that's and and he's applied and I recommend it to uh the first select person that that he'd be appointed so let's hope that he'll be a member as of a next meeting nice welcome Bill how do you sp your last name uh are you EO are you EO thank you so and the other thing that is coming up uh is is we are due to meet with the first the board of Select actually Monday um best of my knowledge we are uh to talk about our budget um and I would I've asked Ann to sit in with me on that uh I think it's going to probably be a remote a meeting where um will go through a number of different the board of Selectmen will go through a number of different agency budgets and talk to them about their asks ours is pretty straightforward board uh with a couple of exceptions uh one of the exceptions I if you could pass these around I think I've got some budget documents in there for everybody one of the exceptions is is I understand that

um there's going to try to be an effort to avoid a lot of carryover funds uh but we do have one carryover uh in capital of accounts of all and just basically taking care of the Fred Mighty fa Landing we had um 11,000 coming into this year we spent $6,200 uh for pond and Lake for treatments and that included also the uh the in kind of recognition of the fact that the Project's been pretty successful as as has suggested that we not do a fall mowing is that correct Dan correct and so we'll do one maybe one more treatment next spring which would would basically uh fit money that appropriate for that project uh and then kind of see where we are going forward so we'll ask to carry over those funds um will there be be no bring mine and there'll be a follow application the and then they'll see um you know the valuate essentially if by the time they're I I don't know the idea is that there's just not going to be a need for a full mowing with the marshm but there could be you know um piece work done by hand essentially I see okay I I was there uh in the fall when they they were working on I was talking of the technicians and he said he he really really pleased with how uh the frag is

well how the fragment is is being basically uh not quite eradicated yet but really pushed back by the trence between the Mowing and and he thought that he thought um the the project was really going well um in terms of our our our other um budget documents um [Applause] we we are I I just got actually this morning uh our budget figures for as of the end of December which is half our year um we're doing pretty good uh we have um a little bit under 50% a little bit um a little bit under 50% we spent on steward ship which is our main U line item uh some of this some of the information is not really up to date I'm triy to add some of it um but we just got a legal bill uh so we spent a little bit of legal money uh we spent money on the beaver deceiver at Bartholomew which does not show in the car I uh build that to the carryover funds and I think that was a little over the 2400 that was mentioned in the minuts of last month yeah well the so there was two expenses Andrea one was the 2400 for the actual installation and one was for was a I think it was a $400 charge for him to come out and inspect the two sites I asked him about that he gave us a discount on that so it came to a little bit less than that we'll get back to that a little bit later um so that's kind of where we at so I I uh I think most of the discussion uh when we meet with them it will be about two

two items one would be about uh being able to store documents digitally um uh we've asked for that I I was looking at the open space plan actually uh this morning and I hadn't realized we had asked for for that as uh something that we'd like for the commission back in 2019 so we've been asking for that for a while and I still think it's we can make a strong argument for that I think we can distinguish ourself from other commissions of towns have too many Cloud accounts um then the the U the other item that that uh I think that we I will be better prepared this year than I was the last budget year was would be to ask for $75,000 to be put into the open space acquisition fund one of the arguments I I'll make that uh we bought the fund we bought the mullik property uh we paid roughly $680,000 out of the fund uh if we were to buy that property today we would have insufficient monies in that front uh and I've been told that um the board of finance and the board of Select will support future Acquisitions um but it makes it a little bit more complicated to do a real estate deal if you don't really know how much money you're working with uh and you have to go back and forth and if um there's some dispute over what the what uh some people think the land is worth uh we would certainly try to get appraisals before we do something but uh it just makes it a little bit more conversome so uh I don't think that we're looking for an open-end fund we're looking for basically monies that could allow us to uh take a look at some of the properties that that I think are really uh advantageous to open space that may

or may not be available ailable in the future uh and uh that allow us to get to the point where we can go after some of the larger properties with uh deep help um deep uh asks for 35% minimum Municipal contribution if if you use their open space acquisition Grant uh we're looking if we look at properties that are adjacent to um molic uh and and lay island or properties property that's available to champag South we would not have in were to buy those at the asking price which I think may be a little bit High I think everyone would agree with that uh we wouldn't have the 35% to to do that so there's some good arguments to made for that as well Greg just just as a comment I've been doing some homework for my one of my other commissions of the Planning Commission because the hall the road thing is coming up actually tomorrow night so I've been reading the plan of conservation and development PD and there's a comment in there I don't know how true it is Evan might know but they said the Planning Commission in 1997 got that account started um it was probably before we existed but the Conservation Commission certainly did and had an open space committee but anyhow the the not both both of it is um I think the Planning Commission should be doing more to implement some of the recommendations even though they're vague in the PCD and so I'm going to try and get some of them there at the appropriate budget hearing to say that I don't know I'll be able to accomplish that but I I I think

the I mean the Planning Commission may have a had some approval but I think the actual idea of getting this a fund started uh which unlike a lot of other town that towns like that bond for open States we we have no bonding capacity right in Old so they came up with this idea and I think it was Diana Atwood Johnson but in any event it's it's um I mean I've not to criticize my commission but I've been on a year and we haven't really done very much we certainly have done nothing to advance any of the PCD goals from 2020 and so this would be one of the ways to advance those goals so look like we're doing something I don't know if I'll be successful it's been a it's been a little bit of a Winding Road in town as I recall doing a little research when we did the open space plan uh planning was initially involved and Inland Wetlands was and then it was thought that both agencies may have a little bit of a conflict uh with looking for open space and and regulating properties and so forth and it was moved to conservation uh and then from conservation they out with Johnson sought to make this a separate commission um so that's where we are It's s of strange that planning of any sort seems to be sort of a NAA to this that's the question I asked the last me this this town it wasn't well received I mean we at one point we hired plan I remember to hiring a planner and

he lasted about 6 months ago yeah well I don't know what's what's done before but um we don't meet very long two of the meetings I went to it took me longer drive there and back home meeting was shorter than the trip and I'm I'm only a mile and half away and we've done we do administrative stuff and oppose with the Z commission proposes so I got a number of different things in my email box today one of them was the the budget report the other was from Amy Patterson saying that the state is looking for comments on their CND which I guess must be the conservation development plan at the state level so I'm courag to look at that I had a conversation with with an about what the state's goals for for land concervation might be in the future and uh it's my understanding I'm talking to Allison Amy Patterson from clcc Allison is the Deep open space Grant coordinator that deep really doesn't know how much land is conserved now after there are several rounds of ranting uh between um private organizations the state itself the federal government and municipalities so they're going to hire someone to basically try to come up with a a as accurate a figure as possible this year and then use that to develop a new goal uh but that may not even be ready for the next Grant round which will be in the fall so does um clcc know how much the land trusts have did they keep track that's an excellent question I I'm not sure Evan yeah I'm not sure although it's interesting I I had asked uh it's it's it's it's interesting how

this is a nebulous figure I asked Wendy Hill who was the open Stace coordinator for Li I said I understand that your town has roughly 50% of its land conserved she says what what I've heard but I I can't give you an exact figure yeah I had heard 51% but that was off the top of someone's head I think I mean but if it's true that's that's remarkable and but my guess is that that lime has conserved between the state the town the nature conservancy and the land trust um that they've they've preserved a a significant part of the town uh which was the the Harvard professor IO Wilson said that 50% of the Earth's surface should be in preservation I I asked Amy uh Patterson what are the other towns doing you said it's all over the place but the towns that have active open space programs are many of them done a goal of around 30% which I think is probably a fair and reasonable amount of land you know and and I I think if this that seems to be a reasonable goal for this town because um I think that it it the one objective measure we have back in 2019 the economic development commission did a survey of all the town residents and they asked one of the questions is why do you live in this town and the number one answer was the natural environment you know and so and I think that a lot of people like the fact that it's a rural town you know that's everything I keep hearing in terms of development we don't want any costos or Walmarts and town you know we want to want to be

a town with some open space so we'll see how that goes would you like to talk about stupid sure um Peter and Isaac have been um busy this last month uh lot of number of Fallen trees um uh fairy Landings roow a tree fell near the initial sign um Isaac cleared it uh champ plain South has some big trees that Isaac can't get to with just a hatchet so that's going to uh be Revisited um uh Peter dragged a down tree off the trail to down trees on um as um and he had a reroute some to go around because it was just so big um and at this juncture they're switching their properties between them um I won't iterate what those are but I have that uh maybe I'll just tell Su well I could tell Suzanne later basically they they divided their properties basically in two and and so Isaac's going to walk what Peter walked and vice versa yes yeah so they'll each have a different perspective exactly um if the the two trees that Peters did not remove because they were too big is that something we want to have Willcox look at um it was Isaac and I think um from the picture I think Peter might be able to go back and um address it with the chainsaw okay um but

I'll follow up with him about that um well after this wind boy oh yeah going to be a fair amount of stuff to do um but I do have some discussion on future work parties um one is um a bench on Brooks Meadow because the one that Jim milden built has deteriorated and I have the plans and the wood requirements that we borrow from uh fining and Ned Freeman from the o land trust and on the 20th Peter and I are going to go pick up the wood and for Just Two benches one being on the Rooks and the other is um I suggested on the end of it's on flat mulic off of Flat Rock and you take it to the end of the Red Trail if you go left you're going to lays if you go right you're still on um the theic property and it's on a high ledge it's a clearing um so we thought that might be a nice place to do it but the first one would be um proposed dates or the 25th and 26th of January the environmental Club suggested that date and um Peter can pre-cut it with his chopped saw and because it's close we could do one of two things we could construct it potentially at the high school inside if they let us I mean basically just hammering and Nails um and and walk it in cuz it's not too far or cart it in um alternatively we could hammer it right there and then um it's one bench will'll

be you know four to six kids and three or so of us um it's not complicated but it's just a little cumbersome um and um Ted Freeman offered to help as well so he might just come to the work party you might want to do Andreas is uh Wayne abrahamson didn't didn't really want to work as a steward any longer it just it's too many other things going but he does have equipment and he does have uh the ability I think to probably move a bench from the par train Gap park parking area to Rooks meow so I it's not that far yeah yeah still it's a lot easier to put it in a bucket in a tractor than to have carry it by hand but I don't know you got you you I didn't think of that number of young workers well the second bench would be um carried in by Parts which could be done sometime and I have a cal schedule here so um once you've got the closer one under your belt then the second one should be easier um but pencil in January 25th which is a Saturday or Sunday the 26th um day and time to be determined but it's that weekend um in February um we could reroute the mulic trail the Red Trail that Evan and I had walked um even though affordable housing is still going to go ahead with another surveyor um but we have enough of an outline and according to one of the commission members um it should not conflict with the reow of the route of the trail so that could either be for February or March and then the bench could be the second bench could be

done um on one of those other dates and then April 5th Chris vargos is going to um give an invasive species identification and work party talk at Champlain South that's the one off of all my men right no that's nor North noris I continue to do that so um that's that's been booked since the fall okay um and that's and then may it's kind of like that's done because they graduate in early June so we might be able to squeak one in for May but I'm not making a projection just um Peter has also identified a few other um uh bridges that could either be done by Stones by him and Isaac or uh we'll also get material for another small Bridge off of [Music] um of champagne South Red Trail uh uh sorry green trail off of Mullick that um I think he and Peter could handle it's just it's small it's maybe it's similar to the ones that we did uh on the yellow Trail at mull yes okay cuz I've I've got some material if you need you don't want to buy it I'll I'll take or tell me whatever you got so that we don't CU we're going shopping on the 20th so when you when you go to beard U you you're going to beard yeah so I think it's less exp you can charge us a Tracy there uh you may already know this and and I'm not going to be here so that you can sign off on that bill and send me a copy please oh got to get a copy yeah wanting a new shed no just kidding just kidding nothing against Finance but I like to basically keep track of everything that's being built

because um not not for our regular budget we had we had one expense M on a rockfall grant that was charged to our town budget rather than Grant allocation and the material you have are those the fence railings from the yeah and and you might want to swing by and see if they you think they'd be appropriate but they're it obviously they're just fence railing so they're not they're not 2 in thick and sturdy but if um and I've also got the posts um which could be the under lay and you know the the risers yeah yeah yeah okay while we were talking I just uh had another thought too um I can't does anybody recall the name of the G Mr is it t that bought the U so I have I have not talked to him since we were we were discussing in possible lease with that allowed him to access the trails with horses but Wayne AB Hansson has told me on multiple occasions that he really wants to be a good neighbor to open space he has equipment and he would help us if we needed equipment so that would be another option too for maybe for the one that's farther away from a parment enter h okay I would imagine that he has a tractor if he's got you know a horse farm yeah mhm I I think that he's probably got a variety of equip maintain the fields and stuff okay good and um maybe I could segue to Bartholomew Bridge no not yet okay I was just going to say I have uh four 4X yeah 4x4 post yeah pressure treated

for signs I have a 4x4 peret treated 8T or two Andre post yeah you know these are all these are all the commissions so if someone wants to store them I can bring them all or I mean I don't mind keeping them either but just so you remember that I got four of okay not so while we're still talking about U stewardship uh one of them the pages I passed out uh all right is um Gary Gregory sent me a copy but I also saw something that uh Christina White sent out for lime land trucks was basically saying with the winds if if people notice uh a tree down or something like that let us know um at present I I kind of embarrassed to say that we still have Wayne and and Jim mildrum up as steart Center open space home page uh but we have Peter as a contact for anybody uh that spots an issue on open space do we want to keep Peter that we want should we have people contact [Applause] sure we have contacting the open space email address uh I don't need I don't know that we need an answer tonight but something we might want look into would be easy enough to do a little Report Form like that simpler for people to it's a little catchy I saw this too and I think sent it on to you and Peter who said well there's something but I don't know that Peter gets a lot of requests but I know he does definitely get some cuz he he forward on to me as well and uh sometimes Ed will send me the email that came to her though it's

open space property and then I for to Karen do you have you have folks that U Steed each of your properties but do you hear from the public saying hey the tree down here there every now and then I'll get an email on you know on from our website you know contact information and I'll forward them on to E do they they write que um the old line Land Trust website okay we'll do a site you don't have any type of formal thing where just people look for your contacting right yeah just from the website you know just how often do your folks U walk the trails like if especially this time of year when there maybe less traffic at this point um I believe Ed has asked all of the stewards to give us a report so we can kind of plan things and they're starting to come in they come in with me so I'm seeing like two or three of the stewards have already reported on you know five or six of our pres to what you know do they do they set their own schedule or you don't tell them like once a month or month I Don't Ed pretty much is you know in charge of that and I I'm not quite sure what she does you know how she monitors them throughout but you know I know she has a schedule I think so yeah I don't know how how often the rotation is or I think you you guys do you guys have like main stewards and then backups if you need them we do people are s for whatever that's how I first got involved in conservation you get sucked in one of the gentlemen was was going to Florida for for the winter she walk [Applause] this do you have any more intro just Bartholome update okay well we can jump ahead and that you you

want to go ahead well I okay um oh I see I'm going over goals and projects shall we yeah okay so on December thir December 16th there was a site visit with the Inland Wetlands commission and Mike was there it was a rainy blustery day and I have to say I've never seen a bunch of people move so fast and my my appointment or Logan was at 515 or 5:00 and every 15 minutes there was one and Evan was concerned about the the light anyway they were there and in and out in like 2 minutes it was remarkable and kudos for Mike for um bringing the approval to a point it's like uh-huh uh-huh it's like well shall we vote what do you say so um that was much appreciated I know by Logan so the Wetland inlands Wetlands commission approved his project administratively um and he I wrote him um I thought that this happened in November but he corrected me that it was in fact in December so my email to him may have sounded a little Curt or like I expect you to reach out to me again not me reaching out to you that kind of thing but he said it's only been 3 weeks I'm sorry I'm but anyway so I recognize that I was a little ahead of the gang but he has received the telephone polls he has made a material list his dad spoke with middle sex tree about the Locust log pickup and um the week of January 5th um he has he was supposed to start to go to the lumber yards ask for money

and um and figure out what remaining materials and costs we would be responsible for and to prep the the Locust logs um before he organizes a work party which I asked him to keep us in the loop of because um some of us will be there and Peter Norris is of course available and um to clear around some things so that it's not a they're not wielding having an unwieldy lugin of those telephone Poes and um things of that sort so um I informed him that our next meeting is today and then the next month by February so that um when he reports out well I'll have something more concrete hopefully as to when his work party will be does the uh does the trail in to the bridge area need some work not really I not really I I was trying to think about how to get the how do you get the phone call around the corn he apparently they have like a VC cart maybe two and I think it's a v cart and then you're going to have people on the either end of it to kind of move it there's it's pretty okay when we went on the flight there's one corner might be one one or two spots um but I don't think you're going to necess know until you're there with the yeah well thinking it's just brush that that need so loppers would probably help yeah well I'm not a I've not been involved in the voice CS of Michael that's part of the process is to use for figure out pred there's a lot of Fe your pants planning and boy that's

something I'm learning that's the length of the PO that's a good question I'm g 25 ft I recall said oh that Oh I thought you did that's his that's what he told the weapon oh right right right I thought you meant like I so I guess a real a full telephone pole is taller but so they're going to have to cut it down to like 25 ft so Bill just do an FY I that we had a bridge washed up wash out in bar primarily because I there's a lot of beaver activity in the property the water levels have risen so uh but a young uh resident uh looking to be an eagle scout came to us and said he'd like to make this is project so he his father has ACT connections with the utility so he's going to get telephone poles to stretch across the length to horizontal pieces and make a little Bridge so the interesting project and his brother actually built a really nice Bridge uh for the land trust on one of their properties I believe yeah mesh yeah yeah the so we we have a little like I can't let my brother um yeah that's it okay great um I'm sorry I have one um because of the upcoming event schedule magazine schedule that you put out um in the notes uh I just want to kind of give a heads up to hiker happy hours so that we know by March um the um March May no later than May for

the events magazine what trails we're going to do and I would just I I asked Peter to weigh in on that but anyone else might have an idea and I think Bartholomew fingers crossed would be a good one and should be in that would be great no one's walked it in a while and the idea of these like your happy hours are not to necessarily do the whole Trail because nothing really is in a 45 minute loop it's 20 15 minutes in 15 minutes out um with the idea of exposing people to where these trails are and giving some um a head and tail and have we have we done Champlain south from from meeting house yes I believe we've done them all okay um I'd have to look at the list to know with what frequency I think we did one a couple years ago were actually you and Mike were I think you were and they and there was the comment that it was very steep wait this is from me house oh no I was thinking the thebr I think we've done both yeah both yeah but I can look at the last rotation too but um just keep it in mind when you're out walking in of course I've asked Peter um and Isaac and they could in but great um moving on ahead question any sense historically have these been more popular less popular the numbers stayed about the same over the years or the hiker's happy [Music] hour I'd say I'm not I don't know of the whole history but i' I'd say they're pretty well attended um some of the land

trust ones um maybe it's the timing of the location or just um I think there you had 25 on one Karen and um when we had a special one with Fifer and other ones so I think we have at least a dozen um Without Really Trying to scrape up anybody that walks by um well and sometimes people come just for that true don't have not necessarily Hiers especially if it's if it's wet it's raining they meet us at the the end do do we have any sense uh that uh the kits want to continue this are we haven't had that conversation but I think they feel proprietory towards it at least on our last iteration of trying to expand it and there's a special relationship that the kitchings have with the old lime Land Trust so I don't think they I think that if we're going to do this together that the land trust would prefer to do it all with Chris if I say that yeah properly um I think you know we had had some discussion about using other places in the the town and and we basically decided we it it it's um it's good to maintain that relationship and and um we can baby when we talk talk about doing it again just kind of say little reminder that they somewhat committed to keeping the yellow Trail uh in great shape from their parking lot to where it joins the plan at with Johnson

Trail the last time we walked it I think you and I were on it right it was pretty good is it good you say didn't Ro the whole thing because we veered off to look at the look at the possible um re outing part of the Red Trail um because of the the current Red Trail is on the on the proposed affordable housing lots no this is a champag no champ so this is from the back of the old line into the barbes on Oak just that little stretch I think that a little bit of a Remnant maybe Foundation of a barn or something right yeah that's that was in pretty good condition I've been on it within the last couple of months yeah could be a little wet at times in the spring but it's it's fine I thought Ken had somebody mowing it that was my understanding if that's what maybe we want to basically check to make sure that's still on the radar yeah it's kind of like we'll bring some people to you but kind of work working with us yeah good point that mean that would be something we've certainly done that property but that would be a possible starting point right from their parking lot out into that property and back right to the parking lot I was wondering if if the town doesn't let volunteers run chainsaws um on on Town property what did they that apply also to um to weed whackers and brush Cutters and that sort of thing anybody know we have kind of decide that weed whackers were our game we well iing we we provide we provideed one to Isaac I know with the cfpa that you have to be certified and for changea but you I know

I've used to take my brush cutter and weed cutter and just yeah just just looking at a at a ad for a new blade that that does you could do around trees and not and not damage a Tre screw up my Park and uh sounds pretty good so I thought I'd try it for the weed whacker but uh yeah I I've taken the taken the chainsaw course but um didn't seem to make any difference to the town of all want I think the town attorney said no or the town insurance company said not way well one of the things we can do is is I contacted is I I forgot what's the name of the course you took EV uh game of logging yeah I I contacted the guy that did that who was not from this area yeah uh and he it seems like he mayy puts on one course in the southeast part of the State per year and uh I I think last time he came down here at the request of the LEL trust and I could see if they're going to he's going to be doing something down in this area so have Isaac and Peter attempt yeah for some reason February sticks in my mind actually for when they had the last Workshop yeah I did I did two of them and then there were supposed to be three or four and then Co came and that was the end of that for a while would you have time to look into that or should I I I can look into that I think I think I try to find the uh gentl contesting I don't know well that's the land trust I don't know about the the uh open space in line but everybody seems to be carrying chainsaws

around what what's your uh I I don't I don't I I'm sorry to put you on a spot I don't know as the people that use the chainsaws have been to I don't know I I see photos I saw older photos of an and her husband and he's he definitely decked out from head to toe yeah he definitely gone through the training yeah well you guys can do it you guys are f it so um so are you all set yes so moving on uh we we are obviously in a new year uh and even though it cut in half by a our fiscal year um like to talk a little bit about some of the things that that I hope we can get to this year uh and [Applause] um briefly a little bit already about I know we talked a little bit about uh continuing with drag might's eradication at fery Landing uh but one of the other things we've been talking about was the possibility of of looking into a grant to continue that work in the future here uh once the time Fones are extended did you hear anything from Michael I mean no I just I just contacted him so I'll I'll probably call Friday if I don't hear from he's probably he's probably calling the core trying to get a hold of iten find out what can you just give us a little Refresh on what that program was and um how we might use it right well the Army Corp of Engineers has a program that's administered by aaban

Connecticut not Connecticut of auton and annually they have funds from people that do things in wetlands in Connecticut but they can't build mitigation at the site so if you fill in an acre of wetland and you can't build an acre of wetland that's your location replace with looks lost they get money that money goes into an account and there are a variet even just go online to the aabon Connecticut site and see the map and we're in the Connecticut River Watershed and there's like $700,000 available so we put in you have to put in a letter of request intent or intent which we did and came down and they visited the site and it sounded negative the core gal wasn't too excited about what we were doing Anthony thought it was the greatest project and he sees all of them because he works for a company oton doesn't do the work they contracted with environmental land Solutions I think I forget the name of the company he works for but it's a contract and then they coordinate all the activity for all of Connecticut and view various projects and issue money and there's really except for that annual deadline um there's not there's not really all that much review so someone initially comes down and then I think they actually have a team that looks at the site it's a two-tiered yeah if if if we get to go ahead um and what we're waiting for to hear from the core is is they I'm just going to say forget it or if you did this this and this we'll give you some

money we're sort of looking for guidance and I an application yeah and then we would submit an official application find the application anywhere on no there's there's no app you know so they have to give us the application and hints as to what they would approve and then I think we would they have no feedback from it yet no no so what we had on site during the visit and do you I have't of how much money but there's 700,000 we we ask for 20,000 I think and and the town would kick in 20 2,000 and it was you know it was to do work within 150 ft of the Wetland and it was interesting because when we started at um where we you know where you go to the state where Shippy Pond is she was all that impress but then we went to the deep side where the training center is and looking at the southern end of the property and it looks pretty actually good cuz they've also mowed down there we own the property right to the fill line at the D property we own the whole road is yeah yeah and her tone kind of changed surprisingly enough very differently from that yeah and it was like so we're expecting some suggestions and do you know when you're going to hear back that's frustrating there's no deadline so I remember yeah we're kind of like there's no dead well if they accept it there's really no further deadlines we put together an application and then some independent folks evaluate it and we get some money

theoretically but it was more manage in now the Upland to enhance the habitat adjacent to the well yeah I'm introducing plantings wet plan and one of the other things we talked we been talking about um defer to an and Michael what this might be what it might be part of any project was when we uh what do you call it the Rings at atan girdled at LAN trees would and and conceivably kill them would they be unstable would they cause a risk in falling down right that that could be included some cutting if we needed to do cutting and invasive trees and things that would all be included if it you know I think we right now we can probably adjust the buffer from the Wetland to do more work if if it looks like they're in favor and then if we needed in the future to do additional work you know that come from this I think hello hello Christine yeah still there okay sh thank you we we just got a strange noise sorry I'm still here oh no I'm still here I heard a weird noise too but I'm here so kind of kind of in in in conjunction with with that Grant um uh and and for something we wanted to do anyway uh was if we were to get monies uh we need needed to perhaps and I I'll defer to an quickly um ensure that the proper would be permanently preserved and an has been working into and finally managed to talk to our new time attorney

about conservation e yeah well you didn't he wasn't able to tell me much except that he knew what he would have to find out so um I told him we were looking to put a conservation eement oning and bartholomy yes and um I would advocate for that and you know potentially for any of our other properties that don't already have some sort of you know um in perpetuity protection placed on them uh but he was he was saying he would have to look at whether there were any existing restrictions on those deeds as they stand currently and he doubted there would be but you know look at that first certainly I don't anticipate I do that there are I don't see that they would be um you know that they would in any way prevent putting a conservation on there um but uh and then I said well we're really interested in the process like do we you know selectman approval do we have to go for the town you know is this something that have a a townwide vote or anything it is it is uh we would be essentially conservation is is giving away certain rights that belong to the property part you know bundle of Rights um and so we would be we would also need to have a nonprofit of some sort to hold the easement and um that would be either land trust or addition like naturey um so so the the to my knowledge that

it's interesting uh it seems that both sham plane properties in my have easements on them um and U Evan and I have went for basically walk the property with the nature conservancy who holds the Eastman my colleag um they may have some form of easement I know that the state was involved somehow in in the town's acquisition of the two champagne parcels and consequently they're under amazement but I never heard about having to have any inspection on that or whatever but that would be one thing I think a goal is to make sure all our properties are permanently conserved which is something the state is really pushed for and in that line one of the things that that we've been negligent on I would really like to get to this year is come up with a with a comprehensive open space property listed I mean we know our main properties but we don't know where all the properties that were given to the town um via planing CTI sdes or for uh I really I really strongly believe that that's something we should be able to ask our yes yes so you're saying the history of the acquisition the history of the acquisition and yeah I I'm I want to do a little research on that uh before we go hire somebody to do it it it's worth at least asking um so would you be interested in try of taking Le an would anybody like to work with an doing a little investigation on that I have I have some some some work that Amanda started on uh and she got about halfway through it and um she ran into the same issue that we would run in right now in terms of one

of the people you we work with would work with would be Melinda crownfield the town assessor and Melinda is just all out right now um trying to basically factor in the new assessment into rates and everything like that so I think she's bulletproof witness protection I think she's tied up to to March and actually she suggested last year and we have not a great head start we have a head start that she was amenable to work to us working with their V their uh GIS vendor um does changes to map that on town website in March each year and she was amenable to seeing if we could post info on actual Trail so you could go and get a flow up of a property on that map and have to see the trails on that so that would be something to look into as well and and kind the other thing that you know we should be doing and I I just comment on land use um Kim Groves is retiring this week and so the chance of um something happening until they get a replacement or person and with you know is town is going to be losing a lot of organizational memory you got yeah regardless of individual opinion of Kim but um so how how is she what is how has she worked Visa Craig are they they work together as a team or he doing something different and well it's not clear I think Eric supervises both of them but I think he's been here two and a half years and she's been here like 30 years

so it's an interesting relationship there because he just doesn't know a lot certainly about I'm concerned about this the history of land use activities on properties I won't say it's I haven't really done all the research but it's it's very light so that and but they're starting to photograph the files or I I scan the files um that's not to say the files are in any order to be scanned but don't no you know but but if you were I was looking for we have a major thing on this quarry on Mile Creek we have a hearing coming up this month actually and and um so the Conservation Commission dealt with it in the year 2000 I know cuz we it was in a file a very disorganized file and then the the current Inland wetlands and watert the Conservation Commission was the in W's agency initially but then they created the order course agency Evan was probably on both yeah and um in 2022 before I got on the Wetland agency they went after the the Quarry again and did some enforcement type stuff which well there was some stuff going on that needed to be but there's no map of the property there's really disorganized records there's not all the minutes of so you can't just go and say oh what have we done on this property we there should be a record every time you deal with something you know you should have a database or even at the minimum just a spreadsheet that says oh you agency issued the permit such and such and I suspect you know ours isn't as

sophisticated we only have not 900 acres and what n Nish properties maybe but we should have like the digitize D the any easement so that cuz we don't want to dare put it in a p paper [Applause] f one one of the issues that in one the issues I I recall Amanda bringing up to me and I I'm sure I mentioned this is is when the property has been uh given to the town in fee as a as part of a planing set aside and this was most recently for the Joseph property which was maybe two or three acres would you say yeah I think that's about 3 acres it it's de it to the town of old lime and there's no mention on the DEA of open space so that's a little bit problematic and trying to track those those Parcels down well you have to go in and look at the subdivision files and those you know so when I'm looking for the minutes of the Inland LS of the water for I can accept what's online it might be I don't know 5 years everything else nobody has a copy you've got to go to the town clerk and look at the minute that the down blur go what oh my god well one one one of the things that was really upset about was was this agency had an online archive of every minute that was the minutes of every meeting that was ever held and everything more than 5 years ago was blown away when the website was was r that used to be a searchable archive I mean the town clerk still has the records but now you got to go through and look at paper copies which is just it was not anybody back that up before

they the website yes okay so go into the way back machine or whatever I mean agencies were not given a say in the development of the new website so they came up with what they thought was an appropriate Organization for each agency's website which but they they backed up the old website before they load up right to the of my knowledge no they did not or they made a made a conscious decision that we we don't need the old stuff quote [Music] quote but that's important for history for all the properties and stuff yeah well you know it said if anybody we have the records you know the Tom has the records um whatevered a lot of work yeah I and and even more frustrating to me because one of the jobs uh that that I did U when I first came on the commission was the the the files and the old archive minutes were were were so messed up that they would have like three July on there uh for 1984 I went through and and worked with um the the Bonnie's secretary drawing a blank under um and they gave me limited access to the website I went through and spent dozens of hours cleaning up all those files that were that have been disappeared anyway moving on uh I have to apologize to Russell Russell say that he would be involved in mapping and that kind of put Russell off and put rff off he wrote to me about it today and that's

going to be a priority for the rest of this fiscal here because we have the Monies to do something uh and an said that she would work with you on that Russell and I would be willing to meet with you and an initially to start you guys off and basically talk about that uh over a cup of coffee at the library to start that process and we could see where we're going to go from there so long story short uh we had a photographer who had did done all our work for quite a ways back she had been Mission Stewart and then she mov from she did still did the mapping she did the mapping CRI interest she finally decided I just can't do this anymore so she sent me a couple of gigantic files that I managed to put onto my computer and put onto my personal Dropbox account uh and that's one of the justifications I'm going to use to ask for a cloud account because um I had to do quite the workaround to get that file transferred I had to go we transfer some special thing with I think it was like a 120 gigabyte log of files that we transfer over so I have two terabytes in Dropbox but so I had plenty of storage space but actually getting the thing to move through the ether was a was a job it's a big file big big folder I should say multiple multiple files in there you know one thing I notic because I'm looking for information on planning commissions and Zoning commissions and planning and zoning commissions the the Council of Municipal what the CCF yep has they offer services for GIS and I don't know if we've are are we're independent of them ever investig we are not

independent of them I will tell you that we're members I know uh Martha referred me to them and they have done and doing our Printing and they do a great job at an unbelievably cheap price well it might be they do a they they they printed 500 of the flyers for horse n Creek the coal Force Flyers 500 flyers at about a quarter of the price I could get a local printing company to do it yeah so I'm going to suggest that they post the job that we're looking you know to replace Kim you should read the job description and we only pay like $32 an hour max whoa um but they post jobs too and it would be a good you know beond I would assume Mara knows but I saw they have GIS and they got back right back to me I'm going to get the data on planning commissions for the whole thing well thank you for for refeshing my memory Michael so the the other thing um Russell and and an that we can talk about when we we talked to Mr Perry I believe his name was is that Nancy mer did a number of flyover sports for Fairy Landing in bar when she did it with basic well she did she did a number of of flights a number of files that again I have in a prettyy gigantic file which to stitch them together to put together an arrow map of properties requires argis which we don't have access to I it's a fairly extensive program um cost I would say roughly $750,000 but beyond the cost of that to get up to a speed that you can actually use it need a $75,000 a year technician

yeah so it would be nice to to try to make use of of the that that product that we already have done uh and that would give us a she was there here last winter a year old view year old ear view but I think it's still valuable view of of what bartholomy looks like what the Beavers are up to and parts of the property that are well off the trails and so forth which is kind of a transition into so Andrew talked a little bit about uh bo Scout Bridge the other issue that was going on there was that the be would completely block the culber and U I have to commend Ed Dante and Public Works are working with us on that they opened it up uh close to when we we had be Solutions come out they put in a uh Beaver deceiver uh we paid for that uh so now this the question that we have now is um they offer us a uh fail save guarantee but that comes with our use of their maintenance contract so the maintenance contract runs $401 per Beaver deceiver now we have actually two we have one at bartholomy we have one at Jimmy's pong and mccullock uh they would give us a 10% discount if we were to do two I would be probably not inclined to to have a maintenance contract for molik but I think it might be worthwhile to have one at least for a year on on Bartholomew so we can see exactly what they do uh and after when they come up and do it um we can have our stewards be there and see what they do and and tell us yeah we can do that or that's that's something I don't want to do um and the other nice

thing about that that maintenance contract is uh a lot of what we pay is for their time and travel so when they came down here to look at that to give us a recommendation and we also Fred night Bing gr I also went over to um Ames uh where beers are working and and John Ean from be solution looked at that uh he charges for that but if he's coming down here for maintenance he'll do a site inspection at no extra cost which is a little bit of another benefit if we want if we see any areas that are interest so Fred are you on on line yeah I'm still here can you hear me yeah what were your thoughts so you have a be deater what's your thoughts on possibly doing a a one-year contract thre well U you know first thing I I wanted to mention is um you know I did look at the installation and I'm a little concerned that the outlet pipe is a little bit higher than it should be and I don't know if anybody else has taking a look at it but so let me address that Fred from the start so uh Fred wrote me uh today and I talked to John Ean if you look at the the verra deceiver uh kind of kind of an anti physics point of view the outlet of the pipe is higher than the intake of the pipe so you think how how would that work so what John explained to me uh Fred and he said to look at the the fact sheet that he had with the device the flow devices is beavers sense sense sound Beaver sense running water okay and he said uh you if you have uh less than 2 to 3 fet of water at the intake pipe you have the what happens is you can often get a little Whirlpool going and if the Beavers hear that Whirlpool they'll start to Dam at that point which is

where we do not want them to Dam uh and and he said that the water gets above that it will flow uh it'll keep the the the pond at a at a reasonable height probably no higher than three or 4T but well below it before it would begin to flood the road and he put it up kind of a little bit higher also because he wants it to kind of water flow into the caged area that goes into the cover because that's what will draw the beaver's attention and you want them to basically Dam against that cage there and the M what the maintenance does it checks to make sure that uh their Dam work doesn't go too high or whatever uh and they kind of adjust that but but that's basically the the concept he had had that you want to basically keep the Beavers from damning the interior fenced area and and have them if they're going to Dam and and we fully expect they will given what they've done over the past multiple years you want to have them d by that cage that's closest to the roadway into the Calver is that I understand that and um it just seems to me that um by the time to that level the water level is going to be quite high and I know there's not a lot of distance to work with there and so it's not a very deep area to begin with so you know I I noticed that very same thing Fred I mentioned to him I say how is the water going to flow if you have the outtake higher than the intake and he said you know the water will build up and he actually took it down about 6 Ines more he was going to set it oh he did yeah he he he's con he said that's the way it absolutely was designed to work I I I have his numbered I would you he's he's a he's a great guy he's very very patient and Cooperative I I would have no problem if you feel like giving him a call Fred and talking to him about that and if you have any have any concerns after that we can address

that so that that was my question if it could be lowered a little more it just seems like the way it is now it's going to be quite High yeah higher than it was before you know before that that that for for my mind that would be one reason to to enter into a oneyear contract because they would guarantee the water flow is not going to come not they guarantee the cover is not going to be blocked which is what the issue was before and at the water level it's not going to be to a height that it's going to cause any issues for the roadway or the or the property they see it just for putting it in you know contract go ahead yeah I mean I was elant to go with the contract I think M should be very minimal on something like this but um obviously you know the lowrisk decision is to go with the contract for a year yeah I I don't think that that it's it's economical to have that have a contract for Jimmy's Pond um and I I'm really I I almost feel like the $400 part of that $400 cost would be tuition to teach our students what they need to do frankly well I mean you know the um mull just indicates that you don't these things don't require much maintenance the way the way it all works out so my my only my only issue is that that we have had some pretty severe problems at Bary according to Ed it cost them $2,000 to to bring a piece of equipment in here to fow out that Culver you know and it's been great he hasn't given me a hard time over that in fact he we kind of told hey we're

going to take care of this you w't have to deal with it anymore Ed and he's he's quite happy about that so um I I would I would I would say let's would be my recommendation that we go for a one-year contract and see how it goes from there I agree I agree I understand it makes sense would someone make a motion to uh to a motion to do okay a sec there a second um any any other discussion all in favor onee contract I I I opposed um opposed uh obain okay so I will contact okay yeah you got that suan yeah I'll give I'll give you uh uh John's number Fred give him a give him a buzz I'm curious to see uh you know what your thoughts are after talking to him again he's I think he's I think they're pretty much um at home I I don't think they're too active anymore I think it's kind of a seasonal business uh because he thinks the Beavers are basically kind of hunker down now and you know they're not they're not going to be doing much more Dam building but he expects them to come back roaring back in the spring and and start working against that uh calber fence so we shall see how that goes that'll be interesting to see yeah okay okay moving on um the rockfall foundation uh PL [Applause] are we did everything we said we were going to do uh I sent a report into rockfall Foundation I got a what a terrific job email back from Pete Weiss however we spent $800 $ less than we planned and the reason for that was

twofold number one is that uh I anticipated that we were going to get somebody to come over and kind of do a uh biological survey of the property and I based it on roughly what Chris mangles uh worked at fery Landing for and and I ended up having Juliana Barrett come out and between Juliana uh Michael who company us uh Fred and Evan and other folks that provided a great survey what was located in our property we got that done for free so that was $500 that we did not spend I also anticipated uh having some graphic uh design costs uh for the project and uh Ed Twining did a design on a on a flyer for us and she was quite reasonable so that cost us less than I anticipated too she did a great job uh so we had $800 left so I wrote to Pete Weiss and said you know there's some other things we can do with the project one of them was uh we had a uh presentation uh with Juliana Barrett talking about forests and Marshland and Joe Atwater talking about Resident Aven populations uh Joan was um helpful enough uh generously agreed to figure out how to videotape that and she recorded the meeting did it work did it did it looks good I mean it needs fixing up but I said that you know we would we I I said to rockf some of the things we could do would be to maybe do another brochure to make that video available and so forth I said so we would give you some specific ideas if you if you tell us we can go ahead and spend the rest that night so ke Weiss who is the associate director of rockfall that the staff can't make that decision but they have a

grants committee and they will give it to the grants committee and see if they'll let us use the the remaining balance of that fund and he seemed pretty pretty meable to to having that done seemed reasonable to him if if they don't accept it do you have to send the money back it's a good question I would I would expect we may have to uh but hate to do that I might use some of it to cut some of the fragm mighty to improve the view you do that yeah that's an idea have the Ste or have some take yeah yeah just managing some of the I don't think there much is there muchis at at Creek there absolutely is some frag which you know that would be with a weed whacker it' be some time I think need boots and you could do that with a weed whacker you could all I wonder if you could also get somebody like I don't know P lake with their big marshm in there but who the the uh company for landing prior to that is I um with my company individual individual yeah maybe he might do it might the same type of machine my hand as well where he came I recall that that that he had problems with the water levels High land is very temperamental yeah yeah the only issue with that is you're kind of like chasing your tail again with the frag M's Michael because it's go right back come back can we train the beaver tee fr

[Applause] yeah it's just so but you know we could well we be making Ventures I guess bu material to make benches well one of the things you know we we we said that we were going to put a bench there and I think Michael Barnes uh came up with a bench from somewhere but that's a better quality it would be nice bench with the back make it moreable so that would be something we could at least buy the material for the benches and we could assemble it my material but I I I when I sent the report and saw we had leftover funds available I did a quick search for like um Ocean State Job Lot in places like that for tiker eucalyptus ventes whatever you can actually buy a pretty nice bench now for 250 to 350 yeah price range off season and on sale true so I think so long as we fix it to the ground so it can't be picked up that's exactly what I was going to say it it would make a nice little present in the back of somebody struck the Barnes bench has not disappeared Flo away has not yeah but that easily could Beed chucked we haven't had any significant vandalism not wor we've the check in time that's the one that actually deterior I don't know it's interesting I'm not sure why that was the case because the other ones the the the other benches seem to be holding up okay three other benches two two others on as and one champ North looked rotted to me like it had kind of

roted I didn't get right up close but for my where I was it looked like it had just Fallen apart yeah moving on uh as far as PR goes I wanted to mention that uh the website needs work if if anybody has the ability the the time to go through it and spot some things that need to be updated you know let me know we can I can kind of put together a list of pages we need to go over and change um I know I'd love to be a part of like PR stuff I think that's something I feel pretty strongly about that would be terrific that would be wonderful Christine I'm I am working on the fair Landing okay section um and also I I think I mentioned last time that the uh wild camera videos are up on the website now with the exception of coyote which for some reason they just don't seem to be able to get access I going around in circles on that one but um you have to my complaint my complaint yeah they're accessing them from a a Google Drive and for some reason they were able to get permissions or whatever I gave permission for all of them but when they get to the coyote one it says you are not authorized for this so anyway um but my issue it's a YouTube channel for open space you know section for the town that's for open space is that it's just chronological so it's dumped in whatever the first you know video that we ever posted is at the top and you have to get pretty far down like 10 videos down before you get to the more recent ones and um and they're also

named really badly and there's some there's some videos there of me meetings like that that were videotaped and I'm like really why would you want to look at those I mean I you know they're public record and but I would think you know you could contact the the town to to see that type of thing while you're to go on YouTube to watch it but um anyway so they most of them are up great I was going to ask actually tap my neighbor here Evan if I could ask you to to put together some notes um we have two properties um that I would like to highlight how they how the town came to possess them one would be barol where land was donated to the town and the other would be noise where margain sale was made to the town and they just put a little something about you know if you want to donate land or Orgain exactly what they manages to do that might be for tax consequence whatever that would be terrific sure um and the last thing would be uh I think I shared a schedule for events magazine uh if anybody would like to put try their hand at writing an article for a frory that would be terrific Christine if you yours was terrific last night would you like to try a another oh thank you yeah I I really like writing um any suggestions yeah one topic I had I was thinking about um I was talking to to u to my wife about that uh I guess she knows somebody that that had a runin with their dog and a coyote and I and I my understanding that right now is particularly dangerous sign for dogs and coyotes because the coyotes are made it U so oh okay we've also seen a lot of

bobcats in our neighborhood like going to be P the coyote mating season when this comes out but we're going to be coming into the the season where where the pups are are born and that's where historically we had issues on open space where people let their dogs run loose and if they get close to a den you know the the mother is going to be very very protective and we had a couple of dogs that have injured uh when they're running loose so it kind of could be a a double prong thing watch out for your for your for coyotes best way to do that would be to keep your dog on a leash which we would like to do yes you talked about and I can send you some information on that Christine too that'd be great okay uh and there's some information on in the coyote video If you ever get a chance to VI it if we if we could only have a link to it I I so that's all I have on the agenda the public agenda as far as old business anybody else have a topic they'd like to discuss or bring up okay so I would like to go into executive session so let's talk a little bit about how we can do that so Christine we're going to have to cut off this line no okay but I would like you to to be part of the discussion uh so if you want to call into my cell phone uh you can do that sure I pretty sure I have it but want to give it to me real quick I'm I'll give you the number so it's 860 300 [Applause] 9743 okay perfect I'll call back in a minute okay and Fred you're still on the line yes I'm here okay thank you so should I have to ask you to leave unfortunately I want to

grab me next month I I can send you his email I have it ex said you're out need to exit first that's so funny how to exit then motion to go into exec yes so would someone uh move to go space and