Open Space Commission - Regular Meeting

I vote to. I vote to. Call the meeting to order. I haven't seen it as a voting number for today. Okay. Given Maria's absence and Bill and Joan's absence. Does anybody have any additions or changes they would care to make to the agenda?

Maybe this comes under mid-summer, but it's swag.

Okay. Okay. I'm convinced this . Anyone wish to make a motion or two? Second. Second. Any discussion? Any questions or corrections or anything needed? All in favor of accepting this?

Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions?

And mission budget.

So we are now officially in a new fiscal year.

We have basically the same budget this year that we had last year.

spend almost all of our carryover funds. I think we have out of $4,500 that we had for . We have $10 left. And the other accounts that we had were basically spent down to either zero or one case. I'm not quite sure, accounting-wise, how that happened. We had thousands of two cents.

And

I spoke to Anita this morning, and the Land Acquisition Fund has a balance of $232,000, and we will have a deposit of $5,000 at the end of July to reduce 737.

Wait, that's over? We have, what's the current balance? 852?

732.

732.

732. 642.66.

We have not a lot of money, but we have about $2,500 in stewardship that was spent in the current fiscal year that I will probably have to carry over I don't think I'm going to ask to carry over any other funds. Basically, I would kind of connect towards some of our projects, including particularly .

We're still kind of doing a spring this fall, am I correct? Depending on doing a spring, yes, in the fall. It should be, and I think he already gave us an estimate.

Yeah, we already paid for the permit, but we have the permit.

Yes.

And then possibly, you know, the project we'll talk about. Yeah.

Do you want to basically talk a little bit about the Stuart reports, Annika?

lots of poison ivy, briar, a number of fallen trees. I think both Peter and Jason are coordinating well with each other. And I had spoken with Jason about up to 10 hours and he understood. It's been hot, so they've been on the trails, not as often this last month than they had in the past.

We've also had some pretty severe weather.

Yes.

All the time, but just events, I went and we're here for the last one, which was one over the weekend.

Mm-hmm. We've been lucky. There's a lot of towns around Connecticut that have had significant damage. Trees coming down.

Yeah, it was a freak tornado to take events. I have a friend, but couldn't fall in his house and he was in like a three block radius where this thing came out of nowhere. Literally fell this huge tree. I was recently in the Hoffman Preserve because I'm one of the students there. I was amazed how many fallen trees we had. I was in the midst of cutting one because it fell right over a trail, marked trail, and electric chainsaw ran out of battery. So I had to go back and get to it. But it's a huge trunk. Where was this in? The Hoffman Preserve. So now part of our open space. Part of the, you know. Are you a sewer? I am. Okay, yeah.

Speaking of trees, we had spoken through emails about certain leaning tree policy. I mean, I don't really have one, but right now when there are trees that are leaning, Peter and Jason, particularly Jason, because he's still newer, will evaluate the trees. It's been here, I'm shaking it. It doesn't look like it's moving. It's pretty wedged in and they seem to be able to make an assessment. But it's just something we need to circle back to, I think. But otherwise, trusting judgment or Peter and Jason to say, yeah, this one looks unstable, that it should come down, whether it's them together to do it or a tree service. They would have to report that in any one of us, but also go out and evaluate the trees. That's definitely that.

Maybe I'm wondering if the way to handle it would be for them to, I mean, I don't know if they have been, but to identify meaners in their reports so that we can go out and decide as mission members whether we think, whether we agree with them. And, you know, I do trust their judgment for the most part. They often send me pictures. Yeah. Exactly, with a picture and just alert folks, you know, maybe sooner than the end of the month reporting because, you know, we have had so much extreme weather that something that looks like it's hung up solid and isn't a threat right now could probably get shifted around.

Whether it's heavy snow or I score in the later time, would bring a leaner down. And I know when I took the game of logging course, there was a whole section that didn't attend on things like leaners and situations where there could be dangerous to fail. I think there's an education opportunity. I don't know if they have an education parking lot, but I've had a couple of conversations with people in the Hoffman Reserve where we've had discussions around a lot of the trees that are leaning, but none of them close to the path. So I don't know what the open space.

It wasn't a question of leaning over the path.

Anything that could potentially come down on the path. These are hands.

They're not open.

ones on the trail yeah over the trail yeah the one thing i mentioned is it's been alluded to that if it's a big tree or it's particularly it looks particularly tricky that they consider flooding or snow they think they need a tree service they both seem like they're inclined to try to give give a shot take it down but they should know that if they have any hesitation or a little bit anxious about what tree the tree is going to come or whatever, you know, take rather than sort it. I wanted to ask if either of you two, in looking at Jason's report, it looks like he spent a fair amount of time in Prairie Landia. He talks a couple paragraphs about clearing a tree at Edmond. Is that Sprouts or what is he doing there?

Yeah, I met him down there before the trip and identified it and so that he was, you know, familiar with what needed to come out. You know, it was actually, so I did point out the tree of heaven to him, but I think we were also looking at the, that means not we, but coming in down pretty, down there pretty fast. So, you know, I need to, I need to get back down there. that he was going to be away for a long time. But that was one of the things that after we had Wilcox take some trees down, we were looking around and saying there's some stuff that's not too deep in that is small enough that either singly or together our stewards could start to work

So it's either small so he's not taking down sizable tree.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. In fact, you know, stuff you can do with a pair of Canada. And what's he doing. Now he's cutting it. Okay. Yeah. It's this kind of like it's

Like we're all, we're all- It's a PM. Yes, that's one of the things that happened. You have to treat the roots somehow so it keeps up with the sprouting.

What's the procedure there?

We're not doing that there. I don't know.

I agree, because it is not like treating Japanese knotweed would have any success. I think the only thing that I've ever heard people like Sudan, that you just have to keep at it. And three times a year, what you're trying to do is wear out the roots. But I heard horror stories. You can do it three times a year for three years, and it should take care of it well.

I will say there was a solid stand of knotweed on the state property and Shippen Pond Park that we've passed. And when they put down the two that they did take down, they started going after that. And it looks completely gone to me.

Yeah.

I should reach out and ask. It was a short period of time.

It would be interesting to ask them what they did.

I know they were cutting, I'm sure, but it doesn't seem to be coming back.

I don't know if anybody goes over to Pasta Vida. If you go to Pasta Vida and you're getting back on the highway, there's a bank on the highway. of knotweed that they cut down every fall, and it looks dead as can be, and then extended growth by the end of the summer. Oh, absolutely.

It's got big, deep roots. My son had some in his backyard in Maine, and he was there on the house for about five years, and he was cutting it every year, and several times this summer, and he never got rid of it.

Well, I presume there's an herbicide treatment for it, because if it's existing in furies and in wildlife refuge, it deepens it to that. Part of the discussion we'll have later is if we decide to go with that, how much interim work should we put in there? We can talk about that along with the goals in there.

What was that, Fred? AI. You told us it's great. You said it can be used. Yeah. Well, we all know the problems with latency. I don't think we want to pretend that we really want to look at this. Oh, I'd be happy to. I'm a pharmaceutical guy, I don't forget, so. Okay. Chemicals are my business.

I don't know whether we'd be on, which is not what I'd say. Okay.

And that also doesn't kill the grass. If there's any grass around it. Whereas around it will kill her.

Yeah.

Okay.

Moving on.

If you want to talk a little bit about the eagles.

Yes. Bill and you, I think, have been in the loop, but Bill and I reached out to the scouts initially with one project, and then it's now the bridge on Ames. And I believe Bill has submitted to Inland Wetlands Commission the application. I think so. And then we had not been hearing back from the scout. So I reached out to the scout leader just yesterday or earlier this week, and the Jackson chap said, wrote back saying, you know, he's all in and just apologized for his non-communicating and was interested in a walkthrough and to figure out some time. So Bill is copied on that. I know he's not back until Wednesday. I don't know if anyone else, and I think you're copied and the scout leaders

But he did some prep work, was he working in Peter, maybe? Did he cut some cedars?

Bill.

Yeah.

Yes. I don't know what he did, but he had some prep work there. But I think Bill would be the best person to respond, unless, I don't know, Fred, are you familiar with the Ames Bridge?

No, I don't think Bill's going to be there.

All right, so I'll write back to the fellow, because Bill's... not back until next Wednesday to say, thanks for your interest, and Bill will be the one to reach out and make a date and bring you up to speed.

Yeah, that's like the 15th or something like that.

July 15th is what?

Yeah, he's back. He's back. Oh, I see. And so we have, he talked to Eric now, and he submitted a form to Inland Wetlands, and then... that leads to a deed form and they'll submit that. So we're all set with forms that needed to be submitted to land use. And you guys, I believe, are gonna go for a sidewalk at the end of the month, Michael?

We've done our sidewalk for this month already. Okay. But we'll schedule a sidewalk at the July meeting. Okay. So it'll be early in August when we visit the site. Okay. But I think it'll just be a routine agent or administrative approval.

And Jason mentioned that it's still report that the water level is fairly low. Not the same, but three or four inches we just got.

I'd like to

talk to George Ryan and Randy Campbell at a zoning rewrite meeting about Ned Pfeiffer and Russ Flack's concerns about beavers around town that I had brought their suggestion to the first select woman. And she said that would be terrific COULD KIND OF COME UP AND DO A QUICK OUTLINE OF WHERE VEHICLES MAY BE PROBLEMS AND WHAT ARE SOME SOLUTIONS THAT COULD BE DONE TO DEAL WITH THOSE PROBLEMS. I SUGGEST THAT CONSERVATION MIGHT BE THE BEST AGENCY FOR THAT BECAUSE THEIR MANDATE IS NOT LIMITED TO COMMON PROPERTY LIKE THIS COMMISSION AND THEY COULD ALSO involve the land trust should land trust choose to participate and also private landowners they were they thought about the idea and they need to think about it further i don't think they were crushed to take building on that but i mentioned to george that i would like to speak before the commission their commission uh hold that i have the leader there plan to do a for your species around the county. But I think they're not going to be able to attend that meeting or make a pitch or something to do with it. If they wanted to take a lead in just kind of doing a quick study with beavers, you know, if there's any cost, like I said, we could kick in a little bit close out. I'm sure they have a lot of their own. Would you be interested in given your availability and your mobility. I think I'm gonna be immobilized for a little while, so.

Are you getting a license or something?

New parts?

I am in fever about that.

Sure. You know, and it could, it's, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be something that initial things could be kicked up remotely.

Zoom or whatever. Yeah. Thank you.

So, and Fred and I met briefly with Eric Hansen, and one of his assistants there was, is a forester, the Millfield, highly recommended by, I think, Porter from Land Trust there, that responded to a query that I posted on the Land Trust list. So, I also contacted Claire Kane from Connecticut Forest and Park. a great recommendation. We've met with him on site.

Do you want to talk a little bit about it? Sure, and try and feel free to come in. So we basically met with him and his assistant, his name?

Will.

Will? Okay. And Fred was there for the meeting where we were essentially, Eric is familiar with this grant and the and sort of the typical type of recommendations that he's met with some other towns that are considering applying for this same program. And so he, it sounded familiar to him what Deeth was recommending in terms of creating a resilient forest by means of removing invasives and introducing new units, which you know, on the scale that this grant would enable us to do it. So it may potentially move that goal, you know, move us a lot closer to that goal faster than our current, you know, piecemeal efforts. But he, you know, he was, you know, we pointed out to him our concerns about the steepness of the site and the water and We had questions for him largely about what was his opinion of the number of trees that they were thinking needed to be used. And it was very interesting to hear that that number is kind of likely based on a calculation, a per acre calculation that they just use when they are. So because the portion of trees probably three quarters of an acre that I'm talking about. It was simply, literally a calculation, not like anything sort of tailored to that site.

So they said 600 seedlings per acre.

Yeah.

That seemed really dense. I asked the eye about that. So there would be eight and a half feet apart So it's actually, I thought they'd be closer together.

That's what it would work out. It's, yeah, it's, as Ann mentioned, it's definitely based on a formula rather than any analysis in sight. I'm trying to recall, you mentioned PA-490, but I'm not sure how that would be connected with that. You said that was a regulation, I think. Yeah. It must be for reforesting. They're paid for it.

They want 600 seedlings per acre. So 0.75 acres would be okay.

Just quickly, there's quite discrepancy between the boundary lines that DEEP based their plan on and the boundary lines Eric Hansen's company came up for the property, which shows the upland portion that would tend to be slightly smaller. And I wrote to people about that variation. They said, well, you know, you can scale it back to whatever the land size you think it is, but it still has to be proportional to that 600 number, you know, and just justify why you're scaling it back. Say this is what your map of the forest or

Did you talk to Eric about them? Is he going to appear or we haven't asked for a forest management plan or anything?

Not yet. So we could intentionally have what they consider to be a Good first draft of a plan for the property. Okay, that's the document that I think I sent you all around. And they talked in that plan about what type of stock they'd like to see reintroduced there and so forth. And they, I think, would very much like to have that reviewed and maybe edited somewhat by the forester. But the general parameters of the plan, I think, are pretty rigid. They want all the invasive cleared out, mechanically cleared out, chemically treated to prevent them, and then replanted. One thing that I was pleased to hear, read about, and ask them is that it last required, okay, this program said there'd be some protection from deer going in there and browsing the new seedlings.

Apparently they,

that is a refundable, reimbursable expense, which is a plus for us, yeah. So.

So to get back to Eric, one of the nice things that he brings, in addition to just being, I really got a good vibe from him, he said he would be, but he would be A, totally managing the project, you know, so that he would be the GC or whatever you want to call it. Eric Knapp. No, no. Okay.

That's your thoughts. Okay. GC's general contractor. He's going to be the project manager.

Exactly. So, you know, we wouldn't be kind of constantly making, making sure all the funds were looking in the same direction. leave that to him, he would keep us in perfect trust throughout the project. And he also had at least two contractors that he could recommend to do the removals, the chipping, and the application treatment, as well as the planting, so it could be simplified greatly by not having three or four or five. One thing we maybe need to ask our own finance department is whether, you know, whether we have to go out to bid for something like this.

I think that's the question.

Yeah.

I did ask Martha if she would envision any issue with the town had to pay out money, which could be, you know, multiple thousands of dollars. and then wait for teaching rehearsing. She didn't think that was an issue. She thought the finance couldn't handle that. It basically backtracked it a little bit. I found it really interesting to listen to Eric's general impression. His general impression on first coming to the property was, wow, God, is this a mess?

And it kind of really hit me

and thinking, if we nibble away at the edge of this like we've been doing, it's gonna be an insurmountable task. It's really gonna be a tough task. And the more he started, and he basically was pretty upfront. He says, you know, the town had to pay for this, or you were gonna try to do this on your own. I would tell you, don't even start. It's not worth the effort and the trouble it's gonna take you to do it. And then the more he started thinking about this, and mentioned this briefly before the meeting started. He said, you know, this is really, you're never going to see an opportunity like this come down the pike again. He was surprised, number one, at the resources that potentially could be available. You can ask for it for $150,000. That it is specifically geared to the smaller towns as opposed to, you know, a lot of the deep grants have an urban component, even if it's not based in an urban area, you have to show that the component will have people not exposed to nature, they have the opportunity to go out and enjoy the outdoors or whatever. The thing that Dan mentioned too that really, I was a little bit positive about is, as Dan mentioned, he's got two vendors. But one was in Thompson. You recall, one was in Thompson. A guy who repaired this fair amount of work along the shoreline. So you know he's in the northeast part of the state. He comes down here now. He has the equipment to go in there and clear the site, take down the trees, chip up everything, take down the shrubs and grind them up, do the spraying. He has been doing basically land clearing. But he's very, very interested in getting into planting and reforesting, too. And he would kind of love to take that task on. And then beyond that, which I'm not sure how this would work, but it kind of looks like the best of all worlds, he has some kind of tank truck that he can come in and water. So he could basically handle the whole thing with Eric overseeing him.

Right. The irrigation aspect of the project is not a reversible expense.

That is correct.

So I don't know what it costs to get some to come in with a tank of water and do the watering, but that would be something that would have to be ongoing because of the sequencing of when the planting would be best undertaken. We'd only have another six months at best of grant funding before So really, at least the first year, if not the first two to three years, makes sense to the yearbook somehow.

So that part, it actually doesn't, I think, have to be a tank truck and do it in rows.

Right, right. So we'd be looking at a town that's certainly... responsibility for potentially two to three years of whatever that is, which it might not be a lot of money.

You know, I mean, it could be in line with what we spent on drug removal or whatever. I really have no idea what it would cost. So back me up for that just a second. The one thing that is very original, I answered, there'd be any flexibility on that, I just basically don't know, is you can you have flexibility within a time period as to what, when you want to do the work and can optimally try to sneak things around. But the project's gotta be wrapped up by the end of March, 2028.

When you have to be spent with it. Yeah. The project will be unveiling. And that was something that Eric pointed out, was that they're gonna leave you having given you this money to do this. And then, you know, then, The idea is, does it thrive? Does it think?

He thought the time frame was real quick. I'm trying to think of that.

He mentioned something huge.

So the idea is to go in here and cut the trees first and then trim the stumps.

The idea is to go in and basically or kill the trees, kill the worms, clear it all out, except for the valuable species, which totally cleared out.

So, and as we plant, so you wouldn't kill the trees first and then cut them down.

Well, so Eric said that he would recommend that approach.

Eric's approach actually said, you know, if I get to do this, and it was no French, I said you would use basil bark oil for like three years to take out a lot of the trees and don't lay land, so you don't have to worry about it restarting. And then then start the project. But that's not an option.

It might take three years.

He's repeating it multiple times.

I think I mentioned to you that there was a thing in the Society of American Foresters that had an article on basically a new way of teaching it, which was drilling into the trees.

squirting, kind of getting around that water. What is the bark basil? What would that be? I don't know. Maybe it sounds almost like a comparable treatment to you, like you'd ingest something in the tree to kill. Right. You continually do it to kill the tree.

Yeah.

And still to the extent that it's not going to respire.

Right.

I do think that another aspect to this is the public average that's going to make this, if we were to do it, intelligible to people, because I think it's pretty drastic. And the approach has to be justified

I just wanted to mention that. I think basically completely denuding that landscape is going to be a shock to everybody in the neighborhood.

The guy with the new house across the street is going to love it.

But this is the team's response. The intention of this forest management practice is cut the existing overstory to increase available sunlight and forest floor so the next generation of trees can grow. Where's the bottom eight class and species class? That's why the deep forester recommended a cap on the maximum amount of trees left uncut. And they say three centimeters, which seems ridiculous to me. But then they said, you can adjust the size and amount of native trees shrunk based on what was recommended by us. If you think planning larger specimens will garner buy-in from neighbors, you may do so, but we suggest you include a brief explanation for why you vary from the plan recommended by our forester. And include a recommendation from your forester that this is an open practice, basically.

And then they put up a site agenda.

put in bigger trees, we need to water it more.

Yeah. And bigger trees take a longer time to respond to replanting. And so I've been planting trees that are, you know, pencils. And they often help grow things that are, you know, three inches in diameter. fall and burlap takes them a while to adjust. And that's what they do at Kew Garden in England. They plant little beany ones.

I think it's a public education role. People are staring at this nested piece that's across the street.

I don't know how many people realize that's what it is.

I think that's the point. I think the end point here, as someone sitting on the outside looking in representing the public, I think the end point has to be so clear to the public. And it could be, too. It could be there's a forestry element here, which is a great opportunity for O-Line to be the recipient of something exciting, and we're trying something. But at the same time, the other end point is, you as John Q. Public, you can go take a walk. You're landing now on a beautiful old garden. I don't know what that is like.

Well, there's going to be a refuge, so.

A refuge or whatever. They're burning. But I think to be able to shame the PR in this, it has to be done personally.

That's the thing. I think we can do a good job pitching it. It is going to take some explanation. You know, one of the things, and I will give Eric a body, And he said that this is this is great this wonderful habitat for all the. Asian population, the other population here, but yet we're going to. destroy the population, do you have the right, you know, and I don't know those those little pencil trees, how they will they be before they can support and that's it's yeah people have to appreciate nature's time yeah yeah. Yes, it happens over hundreds of years.

Controlled burning and those kind of management policies.

But that's hard in this environment and this general social media piece. That's where the education needs to be good. Yosemite is not Yosemite until hundreds of years. One other issue that Eric mentioned that

I think indirectly respond to is we really have no idea what, getting up on the higher part of the hill, what the geography is, if there's legend there, how much roots are gonna be back. After you clear the site and chip everything up, how easy is it to get a plant in there? Can they get a machine in there with an auger? Are they gonna do hand planting or whatever?

That's a huge gift. That would be the hand planted, which I think it does.

I don't know how you can get machinery on that hillside. And that would indicate that you smaller growing stock would, that's what you needed. Right. It's also easier to get a smaller tree. It would also be less expensive to protect it from the deer. Right. You know, instead of having a cage this big, you have one this big. Right. But you'll need to replace those cages.

Yeah. And the deer protection, that's another issue to do. He has to do an assessment of rainbows.

And the environmental assessment.

Yeah, so we're working with the Environmental Association for one day and it assumed that they're telling us we use chemicals that we're going to get open located chemicals. They did suggest that we do a preliminary, preliminary MDGB.

But I think it's confusing to me what they were really suggesting, because it almost sounded like they were sending us to the MVDB map, which is available and is intentionally vague so that people aren't collecting or disturbing these areas with their nature and species. So I'm not sure how super useful that's going to be.

Well, it's interesting that we We had that done and we had to take precautions. As it was my point, I was getting the herpetologists to watch out for caught animals, but there doesn't seem to be certainly enough from the state forester, even from Eric to an extent, that's much concerned about any of the upland being made available.

And judging from what we saw from the remote camera, I don't think there was anything I knew you all.

Well, they could be invertebrates or, you know, not on mammals that they're not seeing. I don't, I think you're right. I don't think there's any exotic mammals or birds there.

Yeah.

So as far as this point goes, we're due to meet a week from this Saturday with Peter McCormick. I'm wondering if I'm

I think he might know some better than I do.

He's a neat wildlife person, but he suggested I could contact to get him down to look at it. I'm not sure what we want to ask him.

My understanding is he's been working on habitat restoration. He has.

He's been doing stuff up in the northwest corner where the deep owns farmer's fields that they're having trouble getting farmers to the farm. And so he's been converting it into kind of shrub lamb, you know, maybe corn. And that's what he's been, I've actually seen him doing as he's doing, putting in shrubs and releasing seeds and things like that. So he could give us, information on once it's, you know, you explain what's going to happen, that we get this, and then we might be able to do other things other than just planting to get understory in there, other than the trees. Foresters mainly focused on the trees, but we would like to get good understory and stuff. And that's what he would talk about, I would think. So I was going to ask you, Michael, what's 1130 on the 18th, right? He wanted me to confirm but it's still on the 17th.

That's perfect because what I'll do is I'll send you the plan that Frank Cerro, the draft forest plan that Frank Cerro suggested we do. Some of the additional information that he responded to and maybe some other questions. Yeah, that was a hell of a conversation for him.

I think the I think we've already had the blob map analysis.

Yeah.

When we were doing, well, mainly it was focused on the wetland side of it. So this is now maybe the blob map analysis with focus on the outland. Because we know that the species that I didn't think was there, we didn't see when we were doing it, spotted turtle. I think I took the wrong hand at that. Joette Waterside. It's a wild one. I was I was having that now thinking.

I'm sure i'm sure i'm someone did anything Nancy America i'm done with everything you can provide any.

First, she's now she was looking at just doing something was selling it plants and he's really. Which is another concern of mine is this. Frank Serbo, deep source German, felt that by chipping everything, you'd be suppressing the herbaceous invasives. But they're pretty tenacious, those guys. For instance, if there's not meat in there now, there's plenty of other factors in there.

Well, the chipping would, depending on how much it's gonna, would prevent invasives. I mean, mulch my garden heads and weeds will grow. Right, exactly. It might provide the main benefit of my crop is holding moisture in a little bit.

So, you know, that's a question I guess I would have for Eric. It's, you know, if, you know, in maintenance terms, going forward, you know, we do all this... and shipping and planting, you know, in year two and three and so on, you know, how do you address the herbaceous stuff?

Well, Eric kind of basically said, you know, you're going to have to continue to spray for a while. Keep that plant going over the back, spray it or whatever.

Really? Okay, thank you.

And, you know, along those lines, and that's who kind of, rather, you know, state property, the whole refuge is on the Right. So I would feel a lot more comfortable about this project if we will. So that's, there's two issues. Number one is there's a lot of evasives on their property. Roughly adjacent to where we're going to treat the land. As you say, it seems kind of crazy.

Don't they give us money to cut ours down and leave their standing.

Yeah. And then the other issue is if we could, you know, I don't know what kind of relationship they can build. They do have a well and there's a power source right there. So theoretically you could tap into water and run irrigation lines all through there.

Well, and then I, it was interesting. I kind of had this aha moment when we were working out with Eric where I, You know, I thought I had remembered somebody saying to me that that well was the water supply. But it just doesn't look right to me that they would type it underneath the pond. Why would they do that? You know, it seems kind of strange. And it may be. So again, it's a research question. But then I remember that that land was donated to the state by the issues. And it was that your wife, Patricia, wanted to be playing with her husband, and there were plantings put in for that. And I'm thinking that maybe, and you know, there may have been a whole well on site that they just sort of reconfigured so they could water, because there's like this little grouping with birches and stones. I love seeing that.

Maybe there's this pump down there.

Yeah, I could hit it.

Well, this goes a while. Good question. Presumably, there's a ton within the water.

Well, there's a reason. I mean, there's a tower there, too. I mean, so why would you have a tower there?

It's a very, very odd placement for a water source, for a building that's a good waste of water.

Yeah. It could have been done by the ship, because they were thinking of building a house there.

I don't know what I'm really thinking. But they did a land swap with the state.

So when was that?

I think that really said, well, maybe even certainly later.

She's not still alive.

Oh, she is.

Thanks for seeing. Can you hear us? It's Christine calling you. Okay.

Hi, everyone.

So sorry about all of that. No worries.

Great to have you join us. So as far as this goes, I think we'll move along to work on the application. By the end of August, we should try to receive them. I think that's a preliminary. If we decide that it's something that we want to look into, I would send all of Dave's response to Eric Hansen, because many of the other questions that we had, see what he said, see if they're still on board. He seemed interested in working on a project and told me that we would reimburse him fairly enough for any time he put in prior to the receiving of a grant and then after it's up to that, he'd be paid out of the grant. That's kind of our contract with Project Manager, So it's a quick question. Is there enough money in this grant to do the job right? That's the main, that's, you know, so if we decided to go ahead with that, again, we'd be going ahead with it.

Buying in and number two, talking to his vendors and figuring out his own costs for what this would run us.

I'm hoping that this grant will pay for all the major work in this plan. Cutting and chipping the trees, cutting and chemically treating the shrubs, doing the planting and paying for the different- Buying the trees. Buying the trees. Buying and taking the trees. And some sort of health protection, some sort of health protection.

paying Eric for his stewarding of that passage.

I don't recall. I've got to go somewhere. It's my impression that DEE will allow the Swinson's Grant program to get trees on wholesale basis. Well, small trees like that are like a buck apiece.

I was thinking whether or not a sailor will sell to you.

Like the trees are going to go to wholesale, like Pricewater and said, you know, we want about 8,000 trees from there.

But I do not, I don't, I don't know that he has any sway over them.

They don't have any sway over them. They were just offering business. That's their business.

But I just didn't get the impression that Dave was going to be doing anything but answering our questions. You know, I feel like they're, they're out of, got the sense that it was, here's your money, and we're willing to advise, you know, and they might recommend a couple of wholesalers, but Eric might have relationships with.

I don't think the cost is going to be minimal. My sense was that they were going to, that it was

not hands-off in that they were happy to respond, you know, throughout the project. But I didn't see them, like, getting any, taking any action on our part. That, I was, that seems what they were saying.

What about the diversity in the planting system? All the same trees? No, not the same trees. It's a pretty broad portion of the population.

Yeah, that's about a dozen hardwoods. Mm-hmm. I don't know any shrumps yet. They talk about black cherry, black gum, black oak, chestnut oak, red oak, peanut, hickory, sweet gum, tulip, white oak, yellow version is among the trees, and then buttonbush, bayberry, black shrubberry, red shrubsberry, marsh elder, high tide bush, and round salt and other shrubs too. Okay. High tide bush is an intertidal plant.

That's a freshwater environment, so you're not going to get saltwater plants there. Right. Unless we have a big flood.

Well, hopefully, Aaron, we have, yeah.

Yeah, we should. In 50 years. Those are just suggestions that they toss out. And we would obviously go for waterless and try to invest in that. Right.

I think the other variable, and maybe I'm wrong, but I know you spoke about it in a previous meeting, was reaching out to those individuals living near the property. If I was the CEO of this endeavor, that would be one of the first questions I'd ask this group. Have you gone and chatted with the people? How much opposition? What do we need to do? Are you comfortable? I think that's part and parcel of that.

That is actually a requirement. It's actually a requirement of the grant. They've had at least very few outage sessions, which I'm not keen on that word. the two public sessions to let people know exactly where to go. Should we do something preliminary before we submit the grant to see how people are likely to get more?

We've already done a little bit. Maria, one of our commission members, is looking right across the water at it. And there's definitely a couple of other people to reach out to by email. Yeah, I think that it was sort of informally sort of taking the temperature of the neighborhood, but even as much as the neighborhood is, you know, more directly impacted, I think that ultimately things can be about really selling this why we would take some of your time.

What I like about getting in front of some of these neighbors is that we could use some of these talking points with them and see what resonates with them. Are there certain terms that they prefer, certain things that they like better, and we could use that and in our general public peace so we could learn from them.

Always good feedback, yeah. Yeah.

You know, one other small... We would start these grants. I think if we said we had done so already, you know, ideally, I think there's excited support for it, yeah.

Well, one other, speaking of the neighbors, one other concern, which is probably not as significant as the in place of some state property that insurance us, is that the privately owned property that joins, possibly. there's, you know, a good chunk of property there that they didn't clear that is definitely .

So I think, what I would like to see is to have this group come together with consensus. If we decide to continue to investigate this, I don't see that as a, definite no. I then go to Eric and ask him any of our questions on the concept and the idea of what kind of budget we can see we need, and that budget's going to fit with what the grant parameters are.

I'm very interested in what to hear.

Yeah, and basically, probably about the third week of July, we're going to start working on the grants. We have about six weeks to put together six of

I think it's I think it would be a really interesting experiment because so much of so much of old mine as it's over the last century a lot of land has been that was farmland in the 1920s It's now forest and looks a lot like everything.

It's so peculiar to me what happens where, why certain areas get really tested and others, they're not managed in forests.

My own thought would be, you're not here to get we have a global embarrassment. There seems to be a fair amount of interest across the state for this.

But he also said a couple of towns have already said, no, they can't. Yeah, too much.

And so, you know, I have mixed feelings about it.

I think we put a lot of effort into it. We want to restore that.

I mean, it's a lot of effort for people who are in the issues surrounding it. Well, I mean, but

On the other hand, if we just got this piece together, it would never happen. But it's one of our most visible pieces of property, non-property. And to have it look the way it does, covered with canases, I think it would be a whole lot more attractive if you took the front of the street. And basically, we're not inviting the public about that moment. So it's not as if people are going to be wandering through graves of folk and stuff like that. It's all going to be what you see from the street.

My thought was that we've always, always kind of portrayed this property as a pyramid or a cousinry. Yeah, let's get through. We said we were going to try to walk the track. This is a kind of demonstration we can do. And this continues exactly in that vein. I think we've got to recognize it's going to take a sustained effort over the years to keep that energy. And so this is a sizable investment of time and energy that we've got to maintain it.

One thing good about it being a smaller property. It's still extensive in that.

It's a smaller property and For better or worse, you're right on the roadway, too. It's not like you have to bring your federal resources to take out the tolls. You have to make a path into an area that you want to work in.

I guess the biggest concern is chasing properties. Existing stands. To spend all this money, two years later, encroachments high enough. Really, how do you sell that as a lack of better terminology? As far as transition, what's going to work out?

Well, I think what I would try to do is, once you get in the game, so to speak, and you have a grant, you know, do our darndest and try to work with a deep, real, it's, you know, we're doing this. You just can't basically say, there's a, probably doesn't want their yard next door. You want your yard to be your yard or whatever. And I think that there's a peril in having some terrible standoff or next to us, but there's also, I think, a potential that it could help us in this project because we're working in these neighborhoods. We could work with them jointly. I think that could have a nice into it. The other thing too is it fits in with the effort that Jim Lampos is doing in town resiliency, this whole grant, this resilient forest grant. So it puts the, again, the place that the town is trying to react to climate change, which I think is a plus for the town.

For those people who live in town who think climate change is a hoax. Some do, for sure.

Before, so, I'm sorry, did you want to, I mean, I feel like we have to come back. to this either, you know, we don't have complete information since we haven't met with Peter yet. And I'm kind of on the fence that I have that missing piece.

Pete's going to talk to us about after this is done, how in the world do you keep it the way you started? He's doing that. So he'll have knowledge about going to the cornfield. that's probably been treated with all sorts of chemicals for heaven knows how many years. And he kept that weight, you know, the soil becoming viable enough to let something else grow.

But also, you know, in terms of habitat creation, I'm hoping he can weigh in.

He can certainly make recommendations on what we select.

You know, what are we, know because there's the habitat that's there right now is not great but it's something and um there'll be a period of three or more years at least where that piece of property is not he can he can comment on that you know habitat of a cornfield to what he's trying to do and he's dealing with i'm sure invasives coming in right

on the edges and how's he, you know, how's he dealing with that? And he has limited staff, as you can imagine. So it gives a feel for kind of after this is done and we're sort of waiting for good things to happen as the trees go bigger and are we really going to have significant problems from the adjacent neighbors with their plants? They could do what we did, you know, if we're successful.

Let me suggest this then. I think we all have some questions. I certainly have some questions on leading towards getting this shot. But let me share the information that we've gotten so far with our cancer. If he's still on board, we can walk the carpet with Peter McComb. I can see if I can get some additional information from Dave regarding the source of the plants and so forth. Talk to Eric about about what you think is a rough budget might run. And then we convened for a special online virtual meeting towards the end of the month. And this is what we found out whether to go or not.

And you asked the question about bidding for the town hall. Right. That's just something that's cleared up before. UAA.

The list of when you had communicated with people in general from the passing that we were to write a blogger.

Yes, and I never had a response to any of my one of the neighbors did. reach out to me. You know that I get. outreach from another one of the neighbors. So. You know, but the letter approach didn't seem to hit me.

How about our one board member who is an active landowner?

I was there too.

Maybe do a nice little house thing, like camp all over and say, we'd like to talk to you about, you know, come for cheese and crackers. And we'd like to talk to you about a very important project that we're thinking about.

That tends to get people. How much do we want to try to involve the public?

Well, I think it's a question of whether we're weighing in on this. Before we even talk about it.

Yeah, I think we need to go down a little bit of a ways. And at that point, I'm happy to write a letter basically saying this is what we're shooting for. Yeah. I hope this is.

You won't think the public's going to care much about it. Yes, the neighbors are going to be. It's going to be mostly the neighbors. Yeah, the neighbors. Yes. Do you want to talk about the goats?

Sure, sure. So, meanwhile, we've been talking about goats. I've been talking about goats for a couple of years. I have an abysmal track record of actually getting through to anybody who has a goat grazing operation. Spoken to a couple people that were like, oh, no, you're too far away or whatever. Finally reached somebody who does this, and they'll do it in our area. He's done a lot of work. His company is called Rome. For some reason, he chose to spell it R-O-M with a line over the L, but okay, fine. It's Danish. He's, you know, he gave me some information on how he's done a lot of work for Weston Westerly. He based in Westerly. But apparently, unlike another Rhode Island provider that I spoke with, he doesn't seem concerned about bringing goats over state lines. I don't know. But he seems very professional and, you know, described his approach. He comes in and he digs a line for the fence to keep the goats in the area where you want them to graze. It's an electric fence that he has a solar energizer, he called it, for probably a car battery to make work or something. He says typically, for a piece of property that size would be one to two weeks. goats would be on site, he would, getting access, he would need to come in through the state property with his trailer and then leave the goats up to where we want them.

Two weeks ago, for the .75 acres?

Sorry? One to two weeks.

For the whole plot?

Yes. So the other thing that he said, though, which is interesting to me, was that he described the goats as defoliators. In other words, they're not taking stuff down to the ground. So there will be stems and things left over. That surprised me because I hadn't thought that goats ate like everything. But he was clear about that. But it certainly would make the property more inevitable to get in and do other things. He charges $1,750 a week.

would the goat stay left there all week or just get back and forth? It would be left there without him being there at night. Can I just say, to refresh people's memory, that goat grazing is a very well-recognized approach to handling invasive and underbrushed problems.

Central Park, or not Central Park, but Riverside Park uses it in Manhattan, and many other municipalities and land trusts use it all week every day.

So the one question I had is, I was talking to Marie Marchand, the septum, and she was telling me there's a quite healthy tiger family she sees every day. I don't ask about that.

It's actually a really good question. I mean, there's an electric fence around your area, and that's where the goats are. I think he said he leaves some kind of a little shelter for them as well or something. I'm not sure. I don't know. I didn't write that down if he said it. But I would imagine that the fence would keep things out as well as keeping things up. But that's an excellent question. So I would definitely ask him about that. He's willing to come down and take a look at the site and tell us what he thinks. you know, whether it's manageable to get Boone to have that himself out there.

It's a different company than what I read about in the Connecticut Land Conservation Council.

Right. This is, there was another group called, called Raptor Ridge Farm. And then there was, no, this is the one that the Pequot Seapost Nature Center used. So it is the same thing. the other guy that I caught.

So you said some 50 a week. That's not much. No. And they can do this in two weeks. Sounds pretty good. Yeah.

From a PR perspective, I think it would be very exciting for people, actually. Rather than telling people, oh, we're cutting down everything, people get, I think, a little more... Excited about the idea of goats. And with just one of many different approaches to forestry management, I think it would be great.

Yeah, this would move the grant board. It could make it easier to get the work done. Yeah, it could be cheaper to do the cleanup later on. Right.

And easier to kind of get people on board and buy into it if you're talking about a different management practices and watching them action and put our cameras on it. Cheese crackers.

It's growing. We have $1,500 on our stewardship account from the last year.

So we now have about two years. Mike, you're Bobby.

No, he's booked through the inbox, but I think you could probably come and just do a site visit.

Would there be a cost for the site visit? Yeah.

I think we should reimburse him in some way because he's coming from West Virginia. Yeah. So anyway, I think that sounds like something worth talking to him about. I think so.

If he can come out and give us a site assessment at a decent price, sure.

And it's good to know about some of this. We could use it on some of the other properties.

Correct. Well, I said it might be more than one property.

So we'll end up eating some of the things we planted.

Right, well, I told him about that, and he said we would create, you know, a channel for them to enter, and then close it up.

Protect the belly oil and stuff.

They don't eat on their day. I was just going to piss them off.

And if you talk to Eric Hansen, you can ask him if there's some clean cleaning like that.

I mentioned that to him, and he said, oh yeah, those are great.

Okay, but I mean, that would reduce the cost of his project.

Right, right.

Would it?

We've got to have something newer that we can use actually. Right, right. Yeah. Yes, yeah.

Go through a couple of drafts. names, but what they've done so far is just a website, you can paste it into there's that doesn't work for me. To talk to her next week, I mean all my travel, I didn't get a chance to kind of get home. So things are worthwhile doing, but it's not really. Our website's interesting. It's a very little description of the trails themselves, but it's a history. Very interesting, actually, period, just for the sake of being something about the land, the history of the land. Beaver descriptions on the Ames property website are very nice. There's nothing at all about beavers on my phone. Yeah, the website needs work.

We had talked about

And I, because I volunteered to do a piece.

A portion of folks in the NFL.

Yeah, I'm going to be more focused on the description of the trail, which I did a lot in the mapping piece. I didn't put that into a verbiage. I didn't use it that way. I think it makes more sense. Our website should have details of the donations, history, unique attributes of the idea. Indian presence. That's interesting for somebody to work for our website. I'm not so sure it's best for anybody else. So I haven't answered some of those questions yet, Greg, and you'll essentially know, including if you can show it up with me next week. I think we've done one, and I suggest that we hold off to decide what we're going to do in terms of how we do the website. We do the separate entity, I'll call it, but you have the scriptures themselves. I guess it's on the website. I think that in terms of different, because different people will look at it and be drawn more to the surrounding area and the immediate area. We're all blind, blind, blind people in the immediate area. If I look at our website, I can't really be that interested in finding a new trail by going to a news-based website on the The overall structure of the website there were a number of decisions made on all the components of the town website by the vendor.

when they migrated without really any conversation with the folks that worked at the various agencies. And they just made a lot of decisions that don't make sense. I was going to mention, and I was going to look at where it posts the pharyogenic map and send it to Katie, but I wasn't quite sure where to stick that, because all we have is one PDF on the website now. Right.

We have a lot of good information.

We have a lot of good images. We're getting there. I'm going to try to start listening to some of that stuff.

Connecticut Trails also was asking for a few pictures that we could discuss in terms of what we might want to do more interesting.

I have one. I could see if I can find some for various properties.

And the events of mapping, he also told us, things like planes were, didn't seem to be working. I spent some more time in the event, just like, it's changed now, so there's this merger. I don't think there was a solution. Steve is retiring, so he isn't... I sent him a note yesterday, so... Christine, are you still there? I'm here. Hi, Christine. I'm sorry. I'm having a very hard time hearing, but I am here.

We can hear you. We'll try to talk up. We'll try to talk up particularly getting about midsummer. So do you want to talk about your sign-up sheet? Then when Andrea comes back, we can talk. She wanted to talk about SWAG.

Sure. So yeah, so I sent out the sign-up sheet to everybody today. So hopefully everybody received it. With the doc, you should just If you can open it, you should just be able to type your name and you don't need to save it or anything like that. It should just automatically update. But if anybody has any trouble opening it, like if you don't have a Gmail address, if it doesn't open nicely for you or you can't type nicely into it, you can just email me back and I'll happily slide you into a spot. So we already have a few spots taken. So thank you for everybody who has already volunteered. So I think probably the best thing, I think usually in the past what we've done is had two volunteers for each time slot and then if somebody else pops by, fantastic. But we don't necessarily need the third person, but the more the merrier if anyone comes by. It's usually busier I think in the morning and then it kind of tends to taper off a little bit. by the afternoon. And then we were going to do basically the same setup that we did last year since sadly because of our location, nobody got to enjoy our beautiful setup last year. So, you know, we had those nice posters made that talked about like the beaver deceiver and different things like that that we've been working on around town. So I think that those are in storage. I know Andrea said that she went to the storage, so I don't know if she can talk a little bit maybe about what she saw in the storage. So we'll make the safety whistles that we had planned for the kids as well. I think the only thing we might be short of is the whistles, but I can easily order those. if we do need more, if we didn't have any more in storage. And I know Andrea said that she got the raccoon from the antique shop, so we'll set him up somewhere.

Christine, can we talk a little about infrastructure? I haven't talked to him, but in the past, the Art Association provided us some tables Do you want to see if we can borrow a couple to use again?

Sure. I can definitely check on that. They didn't say anything in the email about what they're providing, but I will definitely ask that.

Yeah, I think we specifically asked for that. Evan, you're going to be kind of on the mend, but is there a way that we could still borrow Lyme's test? Well, I'm going to ask that question tomorrow. Okay.

I'll take that back. and up there and before surgery, my surgery isn't until after a couple of weeks. So I'm here, you're serving before or after the festival before. Okay. Yeah, this is 23rd. And, excuse.

What? 25th, come on. Yeah. So I'll,

i'm sure it'll be fine and um and if i can bring it home and just store it in my garage or is that fine i can either pick that up or you can drop it off in my house and then store it and bring it over there and then tell me where to bring it to return yeah yeah and chris uh christine we can set up friday night okay so my friend we always have in the past so i'll but i i will certainly double check

And my friends can help with either set up or break down if need be, especially. Okay.

Last year, but I am and yeah, three of us.

Yes, I look this year. I'm not sure. You know, so. Maybe we have Peter. Right, right. Good. Okay.

I'll just have to coordinate.

Yeah, right.

McCurdy Salisbury's doing a tent this year. So you've got me. And that pretty much, yeah. But I can come up in a couple hours and help with the setup and tape down and coordinate. That'll be good. I think we'll be in the same area. I'm in the same venue. I can help with the setup and tape down with the visa, but I help to kind of help my wife set up across the street, too, because she's...

Are we going to do your bulletin, your spending thing again?

The quiz board? Yeah, we've had it a couple years.

Just check me on it, Sherry.

I couldn't hear who was saying that they could volunteer to set up and break down. I know on the sign up, it's Greg and Russ set up and break down Greg. But I heard some people talking, but because the sound is so bad, I couldn't recognize voices. I know you said Fred Senton could help.

We'll have a crew for Friday night to set up. Okay. And if we could get the tables at least on site Friday night, there would be less money around on Saturday. If you could find out what time we could come by there and put up the tent and if someone could tell us where to set it up, what location we'll be at, that would be great.

Okay. Yeah, I know in the past they set up like a, I think they sent out a little map when we'd set up at the Lime Art Association. So maybe they'll do that again, but I will check. Yeah.

Is the land trust all set, Karen?

Yeah.

Yeah. Are we going to be neighbors soon?

You know, I can see the map, but I think we're like on, I think they switched sides that we're not up against the building, that we're on the outside, but I'm not sure on that.

Are you guys going to have any rafters or? Yeah.

You know, I don't know. We have made arrangements with them. I don't know what they will bring, just because of heat issues.

Yeah, exactly. I remember one year ago, it was owls, basically. I felt bad for the school. I remember it used to cool off.

So I'm not sure whether it'll just be snakes and turtles, which I think was what it was last year, which they kind of scowled and wouldn't even let them in our booth. I mean, it was really disheartening for the school.

Andrea, how many of the brochures do we have? No, not those, the ones underneath the maps.

Well, let me just tell you what we have because it's a box and we can determine what we're going to look at.

I got a request for those.

For these? Yes. We have a lot.

Okay. And I have them here. California would like some at the economic development.

We've got plenty here. We have invasive species in your backyard. We have porcini, creek landing piece. We have the Connecticut River Valley brochure. We have 60, I ordered 60 whistles, Christine. Well, perfect. Okay. And I have two, which I have. These are two photographs of just the beaver, which Because it was on Instagram, it's not a copyrighted thing. This is my photo of just tracks and a coyote tail. We have coloring with crayons and four different animals for coloring. We have beads, lanyards. And then there was a question of some swag as prizes for the bingo thing. for people who submit. So I have some quotes of numbers and prices for hats that we could talk about briefly here. And you and I will have enough time to brainstorm some other ideas of prices and I can get some coupons from ice cream shops around town and Things like that. I was going to say a lottery ticket, but.

Well, so since the parents would be walking. Who's the typical bingo player and potential winner?

It would be, I would guess, a family. Good question. So it would be a, it could be teenagers. It could be a new, a younger person or a couple that moved into town. And it's someone who has a, a 10-year-old in total, for example. It could be a troop, a Girl Scout or Boy Scout troop, perhaps.

You know, specifically as a prize situation, I think the ice cream sounds really good. I'm a fan myself, but I think most people like ice cream.

So that would be my vote. We can get more than one depending upon but also, I mean, I think the ice cream is open until Hallmark is open until the early September. Yeah, it's usually right around Labor Day. Yeah. And so we would, between that and the carousel. And then the swag, I'm not anticipating that would be available for... The Midsummer Festival, because there's a three-week turnaround, but it may be one or two could be a prize. But otherwise, it could also be as a giveaway for our stewards or ourselves when we're on the trail. We're not, but we had talked about it. I was following up. Yep. Maybe a pair of even sunglasses.

What would, like, an ice cream thing take like that? for homework or something?

Yeah, like whatever, like the $5 ice cream.

Would they donate? Would we buy?

To be negotiated. Okay.

To negotiate.

Yeah.

Hopefully they'll donate. Interesting. You couldn't even sample.

Yes, I do sell a couple of burgers there.

You say, should we have it Sunday or milk shake? Yeah.

Tough job.

I still haven't been here. Oh, nice.

Did you have more?

No, that's...

Okay. Perfect. Well, thank you, Christine and Andrew, for your work on this, and Joan, too, if she's involved in this. You were not at the last meeting, but we did talk about your educational ideas. And I think one of the ideas is getting to be really relevant because my wife is an osprey monitor and she goes on the osprey boards and everybody around the state is really, really freaking out about the osprey population this year. She said that they flew a drone over Great Island and they found dead chicks in seven nests. because there's two abandoned nests on our land alone. So all spring, we had seen an adult pair of white horse that had crept on Amanda's property. We saw a baby, it hatched, its head was sticking up, and there's been no activity for a week now. Nothing. And that's not a good sign.

And I've been getting a friend who grew up here, got his PhD in ornithology at Cornell, and he's down in the Chesapeake, in the Choptan River, and he says, what's going on? What's happening? Overfishing and hay.

Yeah, the last phrase, they're very, they really wanted me to have the character capacity. Yeah, there was an article in the newspaper.

Right, Bunker's, right?

Yeah, there was an article in the day, and I guess, I have a neighbor who's a commercial fisherman, and he would go out in the river, and that meant Hayden for Hayden, so I can't find him.

I guess the other, well, you know, the Alewives and the Blueback doing, Are they undiagnosed for osprey? The problem is that the Menhaden are so catchable for the ospreys because they are surface eaters. So the ospreys can see them even when they're three or four feet down the water. But the others, I think, are

Does it affect bald eagles then, the lack of food?

I don't know whether there has been any issue about bald eagles.

Most of the concern, most of the blame seems to be on lack of food. Just the inability to feed the chicks right.

It's tragic.

And then hay is just so important. They're only 95% of their Yeah, I mean, every once in a while you see an osprey with a flounder or something like that.

What's affecting the fish?

Fish oil. All the fish oil.

Overfished. Human overfished.

It's a prime source for fish oil supplements. And I guess, and they have that hard to looks out there.

Something else, and most of it's said overseas called reduction efficient yeah.

yeah. So I think john would be happy to.

I'll work with John on that.

Is there a global sardine shortage? A global what?

Sardine shortage. Oh, sardines, yeah. So zoning updates, Anne and I, were you there, Frank, too, for the zoning?

Yeah, yeah.

The first part of that, yeah. I wanted to put together something I'll send it around all the person and into the zoning commission. I have to say, I was really, really impressed with the quality of the presentation for erosion control. Did you hire somebody to do that or did your folks do that?

I couldn't go, so I went to the first one. It was very impressive.

I think it took some zoning members back a little bit by some of your suggestions, and I don't know what helped, but I thought it was a wonderful job, and whoever you heard from, the gentleman was that spoke on behalf of your commission, did a nice job, very nice job.

We spent a lot of time, that's a document that didn't get posted. That whole effort's been questionable in terms of how effective, how efficient, and there seems to be some tension between what the CMS is doing, what their consultants are doing, They're ahead of what they're saying. They've already written. And they're asking for input. You already wrote that piece up. Why are you asking for input now? That's just my impression. It's getting done. It'll be a very good effort. But it seems there's a lag in these workshops. I think probably should have been dated a little earlier. Well, we got kind of segue.

I was going to ask a question. I was one boy workshop and environmental issues and goals. So he was going to share, but what was said at that with people, but we didn't get that until the next meeting.

We had nothing before he had to look at, but I mean, they also, meanwhile, they've been dealing with getting the housing deadline.

So I just got an email from Craig, but I late this afternoon, there's another session for the public. I think it's on. July 29th, I'll share that with you.

National Resiliency is going to have a hour and a half meeting. Yeah. It's kind of up in people's minds.

I saw that you shared some stuff in that too. I got a call, Jim Lampos said I missed him. I'm not sure what he was calling about, but a nap. I was calling a little bit about, it was pretty interesting. Yeah. I didn't have anything else other than the executive session. Does anybody else have anything? I'll move that we go to executive session.

Yeah, cool.