Open Space Commission - Special Meeting

We call the meeting to order at 50:05.

I have a motion to approve the minutes for the May meeting. I'll make a motion Maria and seconded by Christine. Uh any discussion, any corrections that we may need? Okay. So, shall we vote? Uh those in favor of accepting the minutes say I opposed abstain minutes are accepted. Um public comments. Is there anybody on the phone that would like to comment?

Okay. Let's uh move on to open space business. So I I moved the agenda around a little bit. Uh to start uh with Evan, uh we we had talked in the past about a town owned property that is located on Mile Creek Road. Uh and Martha asked open space and affordable housing to each vote whether uh they would be interested in using the property or whether they would pass on the property. Uh she was contacted by a new resident who was interested in possibly purchasing land. Uh so I have not been there but I will rely on Mr. Benton who has uh and he's talked to both Evan and I and and I think Evan Evan said in his discussion Fred described it as kind of a mom site I guess dug up there's a lot of holes and pits in it totally invasive it's it's not a particularly attractive property just was mine for travel or something and the way friends describe like you know I guess

so um let me interrupt you for a sec there. So when we were we were looking at that land I noticed that there was a lot of wetlands immediately adjacent to it. Um, and I think I might have sent you a map that has fun in the Black Hall River that's owned by a family. Uh, Evan had talked to it around. Yeah. Land is is directly north of it. Um, is is owned by a family husband passed away last year and it's an interesting piece of property because it has fairly extensive weapons, but it also has um the ground for the ground shorine and um I talked to the owner um and she and her children um She says our children want to keep keep the property is that because of the uh property town own property even if it's town own property isn't always great it could be an anchor for um legal restrictions or conservation ement on properties north but um I don't think is absolutely necessary, but it's usually better if you have an easement that's attached to a property that's owned in fee. In other

words, you own all the rights to it and which the town owns that one piece.

No, it would be a space that would not be really

you can pass this around. This is this gives a little better idea perhaps. So this is the town property in blue here. That might be what I'm talking about.

And this is the the property for the family that Evan is talking to. And you can see there's a lot of love ones in there. So um one of the things that that um Jim Lampos is particularly interested in is trying to conserve marsh land in town. And this would be a way to preserve a really nice stretch of of marshland right on the river. Uh so even if even if we don't keep that piece uh I think it's something that Evan might pursue. By the way I wanted to tell you when I t contacted land use they did not have a survey for the property. I contacted Vicki and Tom Clerk. She's looking but she said unless somebody applied for something they probably wouldn't have a survey unless the owner provided it to them. Well, I I walked this property years ago,

the one on stroll. Um, and because the owner at that time thinking maybe if we get access to the up portion of that marsh complex,

we should sell it as a building. We have to get permission in terms of PP build probably would be a bridge over the marsh vehicles across the marsh and that would be quart of a million dollars and that was more than abandon the family wife and the children are going to inherit the property want to keep keep it the way it is and also have the ability to keep some issues of people that can scooters and kayaks fires.

Are the people that own the property? Do they still live in local? Yeah, they live they live in they live there. So they live in a meadow that goes down to the marsh. Okay. pretty. Yeah, it looks nice and big. And I was thinking that we could start acquiring conservation along the river. It would be great to keep development back from guess.

So the excuse me the blue is the town land and the blue is the the town land and the orange is the private property. Okay. And that orange is the family the family's property. Yes. And but the little blue square is what we're looking at. or so. I I know that we've talked about them since I've been out of commission. The town apparently owns a number of conservation fees on private property. This would be just one more and they don't necessarily have the anchors you talked about.

Not necessarily. Um it the attorneys that I've worked with um over the years Nation conservancy. We started some of the first ever United States. British using years. The conservation conservation is brand new with me early and um and the actually the attorney who wrote the first easement adapted the easement British language do it to the American philos he was not sorry So in in the for this particular property, do you have a sense if uh the heirs would be um in sync with um Mrs. your own about keeping any have an easement on the property if she decider we need further that would be something that we haven't discussed and have so I think it's

I just had a question by having agreement on privately owned land does that mean that if we did own the acres people could use. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. It would be how the easement would be written. That was the reason the town actually bought property because even though it had an easement on it, the public had no right to access the property.

You can't access And it's still private property and the owners of underlying interest in the property. The actual ownership have the right to even people off. And it's coming taxes. should have been the state taxation back in there. Yeah. So there's a benefit to donating these lands there. property more. What it what it does it makes the it makes the property unrestricted property and that's maybe that's so what would your suggestion be about that property should be well I think it's worth having sitting down then having a discussion this situation Does she seem interested?

She she quite interested to know how much of the property boundary line looking at somewhere here. Vicky was just still looking. She may still have a survey.

Yeah. Um, I'll probably know better tomorrow. So, let me throw this out as an approach. We could I'll tell Mark that we're looking at we're talk we're in discussions with an adjacent property owner about a conservation use in favor of the town. Uh, and if that goes forward, open state would be interested in hanging on to this anchor piece. And if she if it looks like the conservation is not going to go through with them, we will we wouldn't have interest in that property. Consider selling it. Does that sound fair?

Would you make a a motion to that effect? You you would parrot my words. move that we have a discussion. It doesn't look like it's going to hang on to the property. Second, any other discussion? All in favor? Why would the town want to sell that? Why would they want to sell it?

Yeah. Uh if if it doesn't meet any of the town's objectives and being of open space value, affordable housing value, uh probably not buildable for any town building. Um, it's that's kind of above my pay pay rate Fred, but I guess if if someone is willing to pay the town, that's money into the town's coffers. Who would like

someone that has someone that's new to town that has adjacent properties, you would add that property to his existing? I don't I don't know I what the person what I don't know what prompted the the person's interest the person contacted Martha about the same time existed the the other property was purchased I understand he hasn't pursued that and hasn't gotten back there so maybe he no longer has interest in it I really don't know

it's a small piece of property Yeah. Yeah. It's a good buffer between the houses on Mount Creek Road and creeks that feed into and so it's a good biological in that sense.

I I I you know that's an interesting point. So I I will come back to that later in this meeting. I can't jump around because this is a special meeting. We have to go through the agenda as if. So, um any other discussion? All in favor?

Opposed? Okay. Andions. No. Okay. Thank you. Um, would you like to discuss uh your visit to Champlain North and your in your talks with uh STS and Tom? Um, in June 9th, um, there were a lot of representatives from it, but a lot of representatives from the source, um, Tony Benetry, um, who were discussing the whole that were put in in 1962 from and they're decommissioned telephone poles and wires that aren't um operating with the that are planned. remove all those holes between Champagne North and East Hole and then um through uh Whipper A if I remember correctly. And so um Tom Heath I think it is had a very good meeting with everybody who they were all on the same page saying not if there's going to be any breaths in the holes from the machines coming in but there it's not a gift it's going to be so he wanted people to be aware that they're going to maybe

create some rust and that they are responsible for repairing it uh putting up signage say a working area Um when I walked later, I didn't see any signs out on the street or by the trail head. Um but then I wrote to Susan and said that she was going to inform Tony Street people and ever get up and put some words in Martha's behind the line. Um, so Martha had put a note. It's on the uh town website. Um, I don't know that anything was written up for the local line. Um, but Monday through Friday, basically the trails are going to be closed um with them being accessible in the on the weekend for the whole month of June and then they're going to update me on the next phase of their project. Did you see the email from uh Suzanne Colton Carrie?

I did not.

Okay. I think I CC. She wrote to me and said, "Who's cutting trees down on Champlne North?" And I says, "Were you hiking there?" She says, "Yeah." But and the tree company I guess was on a lunch break. And she chat with them. So I will write her back to see if there was any sign saying don't hike or be careful hiking. And they're walking. power company ever source is supposed to put up the signs when they're doing their actual pole removal. Right now, Tony Bennett from Bed Tree is doing the tree work to kind of clear the path so that every horse can get in. So, are they using not necessarily that's like a last resort if they think they could shave the fold down to a few feet and um use a make it into a thank you and so it there may be one or two but right now that's not

um if they chip the polls I I don't know Would there be creo or something in the polls that they chip and leave on the ground? Would that be an issue? Do you think they just leave that tree doesn't tree doesn't know if He's just getting Eversource action. Exactly. Is this a line that's being

It has been abandoned and there Eversource wants to remove it. I Greg had follow kind of found out about it and I ended up following it up. Yeah. Susan Stock contacted me a long time ago and she gonna be doing this in a couple of years, you know. But then as they got closer by countless contact with it, they they did have Tom Degen come out um Fred from your work with the commission. What's his um authority like over open space saying can he tell Eversource not to leave the chips there?

I'm not sure about that. He basically says it's okay to cut you down. Okay. just removing the poles there.

Maybe I misspoken the poles are not going to be chipped, but the trees trees will be chipped. Trees will be chipped. I think are going to be cut and Okay, that would be better. [Music]

As as I recall, but I don't know exactly what lines are taken out, but some lines go up some pretty steep slopes and pretty rocky areas in Champlain North. I wonder if that's what that's that line that goes all the way over to There's a um there is there's a line that traverses town and I think that's where they put that 12 acres far. I found trimming at each pole location throughout the rideway to allow the removal of poles and wires within the east area of the electric rideway. Pendant tree will complete this lightweight track equipment with lightweight traffic equipment and foot access. All brush to be chipped on site where access uh with the track is here allows limited trees trimming along the open space trail. They had these big rubber mats along to the right of the farm on oak for the sher machines to pack. Um uh care will be taken to not damage the trail. Transition crews will access the pole location to the same trails as the tree trimmers. They will track equipment uh to lower wires and poles. proposals be cut above ground about 2 ft in height very portion remaining to momentize the right of way for nonacessible by tractor and UTV may be used to bring out cold sections transition crews will utilize lane parking area for a wire pulling

area and also by pole road if any poles are accessible only by foot they will be lowered and flown out by long line helicopter at the end of the ABI helicopter from New Hampshire is a is contracted to complete the work.

Thank you, Andrea. We should move on, but that's it. We'll give everybody a heads up on what's happening. Um, Russell, do you want to talk about where we're at with our mapping project? This is a second version. Oh, okay.

This is this is a version after all. We have some other trails you can barely see from open access data and our But he created these maps. I went through I walked every every piece of the trail. I'll point out some errors that are not correct. He's actually taken those notic There's one of these part of our trails. You can still see them.

That's going to be important. [Music] I think it's interesting. You haven't seen the final version. version two. I don't know how much additional interest you captured all the comments I made looks pretty good. So close.

Did I send everybody out kind of my comments and notes on these maps? I forgot what I said. If I did, I'll probably send it around again. So, in looking at this map, one of the things I would I would want him to do is to differentiate better between the fact that these are actually two distinct properties as opposed to one property named ACE names dash noise. Um, and the other thing that I was I've been unsure about is is uh back a long time ago and looking at the maps maybe you can have some insight on this. John noise was was surprised that there was a Native American cave on the Noise land. Yeah, I always thought that u that was on Steve Ames land. Uh given the kuruffle between Ranchos buying it and saying at Johnson kind of well understand the long range between a lot of material out of those games. Where would she pledge be on this map? I think it's right in here. Okay.

Is it the one on the red trail? No. Okay. on. Okay. So, um because I know that was the property that the town eventually bought from Ames that included she's ledge. So, it's probably right on the on the borderline between the two properties.

Yeah. So it looks like it's so on the border of the noise propert [Music] [Music] the roads. And um there's evergreen on there, but it does not show up particularly well.

Well, I just like it would be nice for people to go. There's two parking on that one question. So, as we're as we're we're um going over this um I hope that we'll have comments like Ann just made and if you can all email Russ and CC me with the comments that would be terrific. Um I'm looking at that

yeah kind of runs around it. And the other thing about this property is he's got the driveway that we don't have access to. And this looks like the is this Bucky Brook over here? And that's not Tom.

The fact is that little cut through the cedar come. Russ is this like part of the preserve but

yeah that's the B and that access to Jerich much of that is private property bill there's a little piece of land trust land at the very right about where that brook touches whipper small little world piece. Okay. And he's he's got the the Ames roadway in here which is we don't have access to. That's a private road that has to be taken off as well. It in looking at this map does do any does anyone find all his little structure shown outside the property to be excessive detail or is that not B?

Yeah. It could go away.

And one one last point while looking at the Ames map. Um you can see kind of bicting the property kind of in the lower third uh right here actually the property the uh power line is going to be taken out the other partis trail there. across there last week. [Music] Yeah, that is

that's actually where the spot here that was here on our original map. and figure it out. The only way to get that way anymore not that's one That was helpful. [Music] Let me currently have this one.

Which one are you on? the moon trail that remove what's shown here. So the yellow the red to yellow

that should be red corner park there. really access.

The other thing is that we have a map of our maps on the website. Yeah.

I chose First I did only show you too. Now that's wrong. He does have suggest

I'm gonna pass while uh Russ is talking. I'm going to pass around a page here and there's a little snippet of the land trust map which shows their layown and and and uh McCullik not really colored in but showing adjacent to that. So that's one of the options you have.

Yeah, we could we could we have the resources to pay looking at this after printing it out. I I got a better you get a better idea than looking at it on screen. This is this is a nice size map and to fit this property on it, it's going to have to smooth the map down. So, we're going to lose some granularity in our map.

I have a question. What is open street match? That's what

it looks like there's a bench up on the top here, but then it's not in the key, right? So like up in the top portion, you look at the this one, we're also distances. [Music] on this one.

Can I can I ask you a question while we're talking about distances Russ? I know that you had been obviously the subjective you've been talking about trying to rate trails as being easy or whatever. How how would he do you know how he would try to convey that? I didn't answer that.

That's what I when I do the trails, wet rocky trails are actually compact. Just getting back to your question too, Andrea, on the open street maps. One of the things we found early on in this process was I don't know if that's LAR based or what but but uh Steve was picking up a lot of walking trails and McCullik and other things and he couldn't determine whether those were hiking trails or walking trails that we just ignored was still a lot of broken ground but somewhat shows. So we had to eliminate a lot of those from the map.

Yeah. All those other people questions on the call get trail just beyond the red and intersections as a small way that you try to walk it between yellow. You can't get there. probably do that right up here.

I didn't try to create another bridge. Is there on. Maybe you mentioned this. If you did, I apologize, Russ. Um, does the yellow trail not run to the parking lot? I think that it was at one point we had an agreement with them that they would maintain that trail so their guests could just jump right out from the end and start walking. road. So you start at the line for end up in

Yeah. Well, if you look at this here, this somewhat somewhat the same issue as with mullic land. You have a land trust property in here. Perhaps we want to identify the body whole number. Oh yeah. Yeah. And and You were speaking about this yellow. Yes. That I think it used to look that but that this part of it I think was there was there was but

and then we just it goes out from like the barber on to the back of the old I think your your less Yeah. I think your echo warriors had worked on that. Yes. At one point. Yes. Well, I think we we knew it was there, but then we bypassed it unintentionally. So, it doesn't I don't think move back so much as where that eye is. It goes to the back of the old man.

But we talked we talked about champ. We'll get to that. But it looks like this trail really skirts the property boundary on this one, too.

Yeah. So the white trail I think I think very few question extension of the yellow trail there. What's the road name off of this?

What's that? Um the name of West Rose. Um nearby. Yeah, there's a it comes off of group one. Yeah. Isn't that is there an outlet from there? So maybe it's mentioned Oh, Hill. That's what I'm thinking. Hillwood. Yeah, we should that road needs to be named there too.

Yeah, it is under but it's under the name. Yeah. Give you an example. out of our properties. Let's focus on the upper right hand corner. Blue, yellow, white, and red. Our original white on the white trail. That is not the redistri [Music] red. trail that anymore can't find heater had done a little bit of rerouting

on the other end from meeting house of the Yeah. Okay.

Yes. Exactly. No longer there. Same thing is true for up here. Now this is what it is now. These are the colors that you see. There's light and old. Okay.

Okay. I think that's all over here. But other than that, I think we have hopefully not That blue yellow the blue yellow brine. How much how confident are you in the accuracy that the trail actually goes off property? Can we can we just assume it is or should we have a survey or double check or I have no idea the next spot on it. That's the whole area.

It might be appropriate to just have somebody double check with the survey. So, you if we're off the property, we know exactly how much that we need to move it. That's actually the prettiest part. I mean an option you could recreate the red but really bridge on the trail closer. Right. Yeah.

But there's another bridge opportunity. Okay. the new white. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what I just asked, Russ is it even if you survey that?

Are are we confident that this map is correct about property lines or should we have a survey or double check? Maybe it's appropriate to have dictates or somebody go there and make sure our original junction that's also property. I I sus I suspect some of that property is owned by by Chris Kerr behind the high school. Yeah.

Yeah. I that's I I don't know. I don't know. It's either going to be Chris or it'll be um Ogden because she owns basically right in front of the trailer her house like a big stone house

and then that goes pretty far and then it morphs into the back of Chris's property. So those two properties are adjacent and they go pretty I don't know how far you know into the trail head but but I think it's probably both of their land when I found this spent a lot of time trying to find the red [Music] Maybe there's someone involved. I'm not sure what you mean by trick. You want to get seriously establish a boundary lines.

Yes. Yes. I I Yeah. I you know I I survey right? Yeah. I I would start by talking to the surveyor and asking and asking him before we actually had him go out there. How would you determine this? Are the pins iron pins somewhere or how how is that property marked? I mean, would that be with the town record of like maybe like Chris's property or the obvious propert that that would be another step in the process too that that you know Dick Gates has got all these maps in high detail.

Yeah. much better than you know than what we're looking at from town and ask I would talk to Dick and say looks from what our ctographer is doing that one of our trails may go into private land. If we wanted to to confirm that was the case, how would we go about doing it? How would you determine that? GIS. Yeah.

Well, that's the other thing I was going to ask. Did when you walked along the the white trail was using that to place it on the map or what? The trail that goes out of bounds. So, did Steve have Avenza data for your your travel on that trail?

I don't know. We can't do we can't we can't leave it like that. So it's even our own bill to so I I think we need to move move on because we still have a fair amount of agenda left. But as we said before, if anybody has comments, please send them to Russ. I'm going to look at these in more detail on

Well, kind of you talking about Bartholomew which we'll kind of segue into now. Um just a a quick um summation to this project. Um we are not going to get this project done this fiscal year. I think we we will have a substantial amount of it done. Do you know what the timeline is Fred when when board of finance might start looking at carryover requests? Is that usually in July or so? Sorry to put you down in January. So I mean for the money that are unspent in in 2425 that we want to use in 2526 generally the process is then submit a request to Anita and then it will eventually go to the board of finance. But I think you guys roll on that. You can talk about that. Okay. So, uh let's move on to Bar. I will call on Bill and Andrew and Bill and talk a little about his trails. I think I sent you all these signs.

I think the idea is to try to make more of the which the other trailers a little bit.

I think I sent them off. And the there's two trails actually there. One is adjacent to button ball and it goes under the overass but it gives you a view right toward the lodge and the second one um is right at the existing parking lot. It goes right along the water, goes past the finger, the dam, big tree that tried to chew out and then another drop and then um continues along the water. I think there markings and then it continues all the way to the first bridge where it's open. But we were hoping with the science was to kind of have bigger quick educational points, some fun facts from speakers. Maybe they make how they build it with the trees down. Um, you know, their teeth are orange. The scent mounts are territory. You know, a lot of marks on their tails. Of course, fantastic. That was idea of course in pretty

much upper dam that trail between the well and the upper Louisiana where on the map

map is not correct. So, but it's about

So you you could when when you would enter you could go either way. Yeah. Either way, you won't miss it. Did you when Andrea talk about sign? Um yes we what I saw you had given me the and then um the question was was what kind of material might we use for them?

I I kind of if it's not prohibitively expensive I would kind of prefer to go aluminum rather than you know plastic covering. Yep. So these are the aluminum that was used for the uh the horse. Those are really those are cold.

Yeah. Um the other So this to do two of the same from a cris $55. Um, as it turns out, um, Facebook has an alternative for $13, but it's like a, um, almost like a styrofoam, but a harder styrofoam, but um, water resistant, not necessarily, even though they say circle it outside and that has a year's guarantee.

My my own, excuse me, answer my my own feeling is that you're as the municipality and you're trying % a image of a town that's taking care of it properly. I think these work much more professional paper kind of thing. I just the one thing I wanted to ask you both and Bill is so the one of the trails that you go up button ball a little bit and then you kind go around the beaver to see her. Do we need are we going to need directional signs to get people to go from parking lot to there?

Well, the first sign that goes to the as you're as you're facing into the property, the one that goes to the left of the beaver deceiver, that's pretty much right there. But so you walk up a road, yeah, some kind of directional sign so people can find that trail head. And the other thing I I mentioned is we did prepare two quite nice beaver signs uh at Ames. So we can because all the artwork and everything is done, we can get those reproduced again with aluminum and the mouth and everything like that for around $800. Uh and

maybe one of each. Oh, one of each. Yeah. For both. 800. Oh, wow. There's no artwork. There's no Yeah, graphics and just reproduce what they already have. And will be able will we be able to restore the QR code from the original?

That's the one thing that's Yes, that's one thing we would have to change. Actually, the QR code should work because we did a with I worked with Jen and Katie and we redirected the page to an existing page. So, that QR code does work. and it's a little it's not straightforward. So, we might put those signs right by the parking area. I I think it's think they're kind of nice, too.

That's the other thing we want to talk about. And are we still judging that as the September half hour, right? I think so. Especially um so Andrea being the resourceful person she is, she didn't just stop whatever sources going on Champlain North. She managed to talk to them about possibly replicating what Logan did and give me a couple telephone. I would just need to contact the person at the corner of Cedar Hollow because as Bill pointed out getting no matter how getting the hole across uh Logan's bridge would be

gonna be a headache

challenging especially with the water. So if they drop that champ Cedar Hollow on the other side it looks like there and I believe and maybe you told me this that you thought that was the fellow who was kind of casually monitoring button ball I mean follow you. If not, we measured it here, which is huge. up to five. So by pressing and by six that way but if they can't [Music] The ones they pull out of out of Champagne North. Excellent. Not very So, um, he's already in a meeting, but, um, Mike Aurelia was going to meet with Bill, uh, and take a look at that because we we'll certainly have to go to

Inland Wetland once again, but I I don't imagine it'll be more of a problem, more of an issue than having Logan's bridge approved by them. So, it'll just it's probably a sidewalk. they can take a look at it, look at our plans and and give us a an opinion then. So I think it's doable by that.

Yeah. with the fever situation changed especially lower through there. Yeah, I want we're going to get to that eventually. I have to go by over. So, um I I think we're all set for I do want to move on hand. Would you like to talk about Willox and our stewards on Barry? Yeah. So um we had come on June 11. Were these the Atlantan that were

gert at given the number of stoms we had but we really felt and some of them had already not really we had a number of that had one of them things and um so we decided that clean up. Not that there's a lot of traffic on the property, but um when they should come down on their own, it could make um And that means somebody going forward we think about managing we want to get rid of them gradually. um you know down but um anyway to be extremely problematic and so they came up I think down the way they had been requested uh and didn't damage anything during it, which no small fee, but um didn't actually cut them into a small chunk

on the property. The idea was to kind of keep them out of the way enough and no more need to roll them out of the way. So I was thinking about he said, "Oh, I think it's good for reiterating me and but um So that should be also brought one maybe two

and you know in terms of One of the biggest scient ground cover. Little bit more. Although most of the other not issued. anymore.

Was it you or Evan that said at a certain point that they need to be on their own,

which was also a major factor not although I did do with permission I did a little transplant from South the landing took out probably but anyway um they came with So anyway, last time I looked they were really I did it two weeks back when we were getting lots of rain and it was cool Thank you again.

We have the stewards report next um agenda, but they're pretty straightforward. Uh, and I think we can move on to Bill and Fred Bill with Fred and and also I I would mention to you also so Rob McCarthy was very interested. I don't know if you know Rob. He's on planning. I think he's on the fire department as well. Yeah, he was very he he's he's your equivalent on a bike. Okay. He likes to go biking, right? Yes.

Yeah. Long long bike rides. So, and he was he was the one that first suggested to put a bridge or something through there. So I looked into it was it's fairly dry where the rocks are there's that much water but the where the edges cleaned out much then you get the where it gets dry again and then the beaver for some reason went to the south side of that road to the next couple of property parts or on the lower end.

Well, the one thing I would I would suggest when you're looking at this is not to discount the, you know, the more tech higher tech processes because this the state has a a more traditional grants program. uh that they timing will probably be late fall. Uh and and if we could give that a shot and and this is right up their alley. It's exactly what they're looking for. They're looking to extend trails and have trails cross towns and go multi towns or whatever. So I think this suits the goal of the program. walk. So they cut a little trail there. We're actually there's not the town white trail is actually within reach. Uh there's a lot of little segments left, but there's things going on for each of them that we'll talk about that a little later in the meeting. number.

Yeah, he had he had an idea for a walkway and Russ Fox sent me an idea from something soft in Sweden that was some kind of a walkway through there too. And Russ had the advantage as I recall of minimal disturbance. that almost kind of floated on top of things. Uh so you I I don't know that you have to put a lot of peers in the ground. Rob was talking about a machine that can go in there. Yeah. In into the muck, but still put peers down. I think I don't know what kind of project something.

Uh no, I think the state a lot from what I can see. I to be frank with you, I haven't looked at the exact details of the projects, but the grants seem to be in the 25 to $40,000 range. So, they're not they're not just throwing a log across a puddle of water.

Yeah. And and I I think we have a little bit of advantage in that. Um Lori Gianati who is the who used to be the administrator of that program and is now president of the Deep River Land Trust was an associate of the Gateway Commission and I maintained contact with her. We could consult with her and talk to her about what what Allison Bradley successor what's going to be looking at in the next grand round. So that would be a thing to help for us. Moving on to community. Uh, is there anything that you wanted to say about happy hours? Did you talk to one or two?

I was not at the last happy hour, but um, Hypers happy hour, but Mary Evans was was not at the first and Joe was. And Mary, who was reluctant to criticize the advertisers, said this is terrible. Oh wow. Um

um my approach and we're waiting for Chris to get back to us about talking. He wanted to meet who is I think a new employee there and Lesie um away for a family emergency temporarily. so in their courts they are waiting to have to find a date that's convenient for them to call Mary and myself in my approach would be to ask them what is their feedback and their and they're thinking and um but then we haven't been charged this means we're not paying for these appetizers if we're not like okay thank you and if we are to pay for going forward then I would like to suggest that they um work to their strength and make cheese sandwiches

and have them in fours and and I know it's important to take care of overheads and staff and things, but they should certainly they're great. So you pick up eight is great for two and not the whole thing. But if we're not paying then we're not paying and um and I think other things want us to just we'd like to pay and this is what we'd like to have. It's not working out otherwise you know we can do that and save money but we could also it happened as hard as either of us with this year and I If they if they charged us last year, it did not come to be. Um

I think they charged us one of the two. They didn't charge us from the second. So So it it has to be worked out and she's a business woman and she knows and I you know and and I recognize the relationship between Chris Kitchings and who are very and who are very generous and I wouldn't do it. I know I'm a little more Friday, but that's not how I was shock.

Um, anyway, well, we have we have some time to we do. Yeah. And I So, midsummer, I wanted to thank Christine for letting me know about an oversight and filling out a form. Uh I unfortunately both Frankie Neville and Elsa were not at play today. I think Elsa's going to come in tomorrow. I I know her fairly well be between my wife working with them and we we've consult all their fundraisers. I I I don't think I don't envision a problem being there at all, but but we do need to cross our tees and dot our eyes. Christine, thank you for that.

Yeah. Um we're processing them. Um so I know is going to be actually this year. So I kind of we be next to them again instead of the land trust is going to be auto. Yeah, that's that's what um so is that we would be over there too or I assume so. Okay. So um so how how how is that working? that we're not working seems to be like in a very different relation last night. Um,

so one of the things that we I talked about was Elizabeth last year, but I'm drawn to blank on her last name, but she's the Lime Art Association executive director. Yes, thank you. um is that Ottabon had the pay paid admission car show and we were thinking we we don't want we did not want people to have to pay the admission to get into our booth. So that's something again. [Music]

I know they're accepting more people this year. conservation again is going to have a booth. I understand Harvard management wants a booth this year too.

I I'll know more within a day or two. I I I think I'd prefer to be where we were in the past. Yeah. It's kind of a nice spot to be right along that sidewalk, right? Yeah. So then we may not be with our friends. Um, so in terms of of putting together um some type of table or whatever, we do have one more meeting before midsummer if you wanted to talk about that.

Yeah, so we have um we kind of have a lot of supplies from last year. We still have like the beans and the ripples so we can use um safety bracelets that we did last year. There's lots of coloring pages left. Um, Andrea had found you with her some posters that former members made

um that I think just a little tidying up. They were really good information about the trail. So, more than that like this. Um, and then one about uh Beaver specifically, which is um I think I'd like to be receivers.

Yeah. Well, we I was actually ask one up there. Um but I can talk. Um but yeah, just I think need a little updated but I'm happy to um Yeah. And then we've got the signs up, but we have provided us, right?

Yeah, they they that's another advantage to me. They to give us the tables and Evan has arranged for again from land trust. One thing question I was over looking at these posters and we want to like how many we really want all together. You know, I was going to kind of condense into one fairy road. Okay. One on Beaver and one on our trail. And the speakers in the uh down to then you have the I mean the easel for your and then there was a talk about maybe the video thing, right? I I did I did I did

I did find that like electronic um picture frame thing I can look to see how appropriate that would be how long it runs and so forth. Would you do that? That would be great. I can get some videos on a thumb drive. Do you still have your quiz thing? Yeah. And did did that seem like it went over well? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. You'd like to do the questions or Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I'll send out questions we had last year. Okay. Terrific. So we have our post maybe we don't need to trail one I don't know because you have we have these now we have to get out I don't know landing in a

so I I would I would just mention I guess everybody is welcome to take some of those they're not as quality is not quite as good as our last printer but they're done by the Connecticut municipalities and they're print I don't know they don't make any money I don't know if they're governmental thing or what I I I have thousand printed up for less $100. The P they did a nice printing job. The paper's not quite coated and quite quite not quite as nice. [Music] Do we put any of these at the library?

I just got them in. So, we need to start pulling around. I actually need to run around town with two hats on for the road safety survey, too. Oh, that would be terrific. Thank you. And the map was was uh edited by Steve Perry. Unfortunately, that creek is on there, so I can't say we're not publicizing it. Uh Fall Events magazine is due the end of more or less the end of July. Christina's offered to write something. She had suggested maybe kicks, but more of a fall.

Listening to our discussion tonight. I wonder if about the updates that we're making in terms of remapping trails things like that. That would be that would be fine. That would be interesting. Yeah, great idea, you know, people how busy we are. suggested that maybe we could find a log from one that looks like it's weird.

So, um since maybe you're close to it and you walk it frequently, you come across one maybe display. Yeah.

Yep. Speaking of Bver is a nice segue again is we conservation um has written me back and forth and it's kind of an interesting relationship between Randy who was one of the co-chairs and Gary Gregory is not even on the commission anymore but wants to stay involved in promoting these talks. Um, but I I identified a woman, Jenny Apple, who I had seen um on a Zoom presentation with the Farmington Valley River Association. She was fabulous talking about beavers. So, we'd see if we can maybe get her to in town this fall. Yeah.

And are were you interested in working with conservation? I think they'll probably do a lot of the light work together like whatever. Sure. I think that should be great. But this fall we're thinking at this point I we need to come up with a schedule. They they have a number of speakers and I'm not sure what their schedule is. I'll just wait. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

And I I think I shared this with you. I was invited uh a little bit of to attend this session on on hazard mitigation planning that Russell will probably be quite active in in another one of his talks. Uh apparently open space um participated in that probably in 2020 and it was Amanda and Bill Dunar and uh some interesting things were in the old plan. Uh speaking of the property that the town owns that has these little bomb holes in it. One of the things was in the plan was um old line has a tree warden tree commission and a budget in place for tree trimming and removal of debris. The town should evaluate whether an open space property can use be used to store the dead or dying trees.

There was a dump for their a new house. Yeah. is that is that dot or the everource people doing that. I mean a lot of what you're seeing is I mean yeah I I know on

Yeah. Well they they give people the opportunity if they want to use it for

problem. The other thing that was interesting too and maybe um whoever is going to work on it next can consider it when we do an open space plan but um said that open it's interesting they show there's a consultant that that presented the program they were showing um houses that were repeatedly flooded that towns could buy uh level and just leave that property to be open space uh where we're talking about tidal rise flooding and uh SLR which is what Russell sea level rise. Yeah, sea level rise are are issues. So um I had heard local space being involved in mining properties that that might be inundated. I

I had been contacted um a couple of times maybe once every six months by this gentleman called John Newstead. He was working on what he called the Atlantic circuit where you could hike, I don't know, maybe from Africa up through Europe and then North America down to Chile. And apparently he's still pursuing that. He's he has a Zoom speaking with land trust and towns in Massachusetts and he's going to try to schedule one for Connecticut. Would you be interested in operations? Yeah, I guess it's been changed to to from the Atlantic Circuit Trail to the International Recreational Route. Thanks. Okay. The last thing I wanted to talk about is is to go into executive session. See if there's any kind of ratchet.