Open Space Commission - Regular Meeting

So I have 5.33, I'd call the meeting to order. And the meeting is primarily, because it's a special meeting, we have to talk just about what was on the agenda, and that's the Fairy Landing Wildlife Project. Eric Hansen, who will be assisting us through the application, and I hope if we're approved through the project itself, is here to answer questions. Anne, did you get a chance to talk to Peter Pecone?

Yes, I did. I spoke with him briefly about an hour ago.

Yeah.

And, you know, if you want to begin with that, I can fill you in on what he had to say.

Yeah, why don't you do that? So one of the things we're concerned about is that this project, this property is, we hope to position as a wildlife refuge. And I think we're a little bit taken aback by the fact that the upland portion of the property is going to be completely denuded and then basically replanted with 450 shrubs and 450 trees. But we'll probably be small specimens. We'll be a while before it gets to be the habitat it is now, albeit with a lot of invasive. So Peter Picon works for DEEP. I think he's been involved in wildlife restoration. I'll let you talk about what he had to say, Ann.

Okay, thanks. So it was a brief call and he's keen to reschedule the site visit. He's interested in our project and he was, you know, I filled him in briefly. His background is he's a wildlife biologist with deep and has been working on a number of habitat restoration projects in other parts of the state, but is familiar with this area and is aware of the deep marine property. So he had an idea of what the situation is there. He said a lot of tree in heaven, huh? And I said, Yeah, yeah, that's the problem. So anyway, I mainly because he really felt like he wanted to provide his insights on site and to have a proper visit, which unfortunately, we couldn't schedule before this meeting. But I mainly wanted his feedback on some of the concerns that have been raised earlier. One of them watering and density of planting and also deer management. And he told me that he shared with me that he's worked on, I don't know how many other projects, but two in particular that were similar in many ways to what we were proposing for Ferry Landing. He worked on a project at Charles Island. which is a 14-acre property where they put 700 trees in after a similar removal of invasives. So he says that, you know, he was, just to sort of jump to the end a little bit, he seemed largely supportive of this project and felt like we could most likely have a good chance of success and but that we needed to understand what our goal was for the property. He says it's not going to be perfect, but it will be better just getting those invasive trees primarily, you know, the tree of heaven off of the property will give the rest of will give the property a chance to regenerate. And some of which on his own, on its own, excuse me. And so, you know, the degree to which the survival rate of the plants that we introduce, we didn't get into like likelihood or specifics on that. But he said that, you know, maybe the biggest problem maintenance because my other concern was in addition to the watering you know deep's gonna walk away after two years not even really and we'll be in charge of maintaining that property going forward what's that look like for us and he said mainly you're going to be looking at just keeping after the stumps from resprouting and the runners that may have been left behind you know and um But he was positive. He felt like it was certainly worth applying for the grant. And he shared that on Charles Island, the project that he did where they put in 700 trees, they did no watering at all. And they had a major deer. challenge there that they fenced for and whatnot. So many of the same concerns as we have at Ferry Landing. And he said, unfortunately, I forgot to ask him how long ago that project was initiated. But, you know, he seemed to think that it was successful and that, you know, it had been worth doing.

And did he mention anything about a survival rate for the 700 trees they planted in that example? He did not.

He did not. He literally called me at like 4.30. It was obviously the end of the day for him. He'd been out in the field all day. And I tried to get as much insight as I could from him. But he's looking forward to meeting us. He can meet at the property next Wednesday, I think it is. Excuse me, July 29th. at 10 a.m., so I can make that time, and anybody else who would like to join and talk to him would be very welcome. What time, Ian? 10 a.m., Wednesday, July 29th.

Thank you.

Is there any other, I mean, it was a very brief call, so... I think he has more to say and would be happy to make recommendations for the management aspects of it and going forward.

I want to make, I'm sorry, I lost contact there briefly. Apparently, Teams is a pretty sensitive program. I want to actually turn up the volume and I lost the screen that you guys are all on. I want to do that again. In terms of the density of plants, Ann, it's my impression that we have a little bit of flexibility. Perhaps not a lot, but a little bit of flexibility in that if Eric recommends that we use fewer plants because of the site characteristics, or if we put in a few larger plants And they don't have to be, you know, full site specimens. Maybe they're just a couple feet tall. That they would consider modifications to the plan that Frank Servo wrote up. The other thing which I thought was a real positive is that whatever type of deer protection we come up with is a allowable expense through the grant. so the town would not have to pay that. The one thing, obviously, is going to be the water issue. And the other issue, obviously, I don't know if you had a chance to mention it, is the really quick timeframe that this occurs. And Deke talks about two winters, but it's really basically going to be about a year and a half by the time they go through the application approval and awarding process. One thing I wanted to mention is that we were at the property with a gentleman who might be able to bring some goats onto the property. And after we had done a fair amount of work, maybe it was that maybe over the course of a couple of growing seasons and the project, the invasives and the flora in there is completely regrown again. And it made me feel that it was, really kind of an impossible task for us to go in there and chip away at the edges of planning as opposed to getting in there and maybe taking a shot at wholesale restructuring of the landscape.

Right. Well, I think, you know, worth realizing is that that regrowth that you're seeing was... herbaceous invasives because we took away the canopy and things just popped, right? They've got plenty of sunlight and they're coming in like gangbusters. Now, if we take away the rest of the canopy, I'm concerned that that's a possibility too. I think that if there's an herbicidal treatment component, how long do we want to be committed to that. You know, if we only do it maybe for one or two years, what are we looking at three, four, five years down the road? I don't know. Because these trees, if they go in that small, they're not going to be providing any shade. They're not going to be taking up any room, you know, for quite some time.

Let's ask Eric the question. A lot of what we did, Eric, was at least what I did dealing with the multiple rows and stuff was basically cut back what was above the ground and the root structure was undisturbed and we didn't use any type of chemical treatment to further damage that plant's regrowth prospects. If the property is treated with chemicals, I presume what we'd be doing is treating what's left above the ground after it's been chipped and knocked away. How much do we have to worry about what's not visible coming back and reestablishing itself?

It's a good question and a very important one, and it's going to come from two sources, and I'll directly answer your question in just a second, but there's going to be latent seed in the soil, which will germinate once that overstory is removed, once we create that disturbance, and there's likely going to be both stump and stump sprouting and root suckering that's going to happen from the trees of heaven that are cut and probably other invasives that are mowed over when we're in there. So the short answer is there's going to be a lot to respray, which I think is why we're going to need to do the mechanical treatment first during the dormant season. And realistically, our best chance of being able to do the successful, as successful of a treatment as possible is going to be in August to give the sprouts and the stuff germinating from seed enough time to show itself to be able to successfully do an herbicidal treatment, a foliar herbicidal treatment in late summer. that gives us basically the window that we had talked about to do the planting, which would be fall after an initial August treatment and the mechanical treatment during the dormant season. That was a lot of words. Did that actually answer your question? Yes, it does.

I'd like to follow up on that quickly. So Eric, that treatment in August, Will that take care of the invasives going forward? Will that kind of clear the ground? And will we have to come back later in the spring to mop it up, so to speak?

So with an invasive plant density of what you're looking at right now, normally I would suggest to people that they have at least a three-year regimen of treatments scheduled. And we are, as Greg mentioned, we're looking at with a DEUP grant, We're looking at a very compressed timeframe that is less than the year and a half, even, that Greg had mentioned. Basically, if the signing happens in December, end of March in 2028 is when all the work has got to be done by. And most of that is going to be dormant season. We're going to get one growing season to do everything that we need to do. in terms of invasive plant stuff while the foliage is out. And that's it.

Quick question amplifying on what Fred just said, Eric. So if we're talking ideally maybe a three growing season use of herbicides, is it possible to apply the herbicides and not damage the newly installed seedlings? Going in there with like a backpack sprayer?

Yeah. So, there's two yeses that I'll say to that. Number one is selective herbicide treatment and just being really careful around the seedlings. And by doing that, we'll have to make it clear where the seedlings are. So, we'll probably want or need to put some sort of barrier immediately around the seedlings so that nothing grows up right adjacent to them, whether that is mulch or black plastic or something to create a perimeter around them where nothing is growing immediately adjacent. That's one yes, and the other yes is the type of chemical that is used and the type of trees that are planted. So all that is kind of, it depends, but the short answer is probably yes.

May I add a question to that? Sure. Would there be a concern of runoff of those chemicals into the pot?

Yeah, that's a really good question.

Especially because it's elevated.

Yeah, really good question and a very important one. Not only is it elevated, but there's really not much distance or buffer in between where that slope is going to be and the and the water itself. Unless I am mistaken or misunderstanding, I think that that pond is at least somewhat impaired already in terms of the chemical treatments that have happened in the past with the Phragmites and other things, which may make it at least immediately a little bit less of a concern. But depending on the herbicide that gets used and the concentrations and the weather before and after, there are, with some of those chemicals that we've typically used, there are fewer concerns about mobility. And some of them supposedly, if you believe the EPA, they bond to the soil and they don't translocate very much. I don't know if I believe that or not, but that's what they say. I don't actually know if that fully answers your question or not, but I do think, just to piggyback on something that I said earlier, doing the best we can to maintain a vegetated buffer like we currently have, even though it's not wide, but maintain a vegetated buffer between the area that we're going to be treating and the pond. I think that's going to be our best bet, especially because it flattens out at the toe of the slope there.

Yeah, I would just say that I don't feel that the pond, well, we haven't done extensive water quality surveys in the pond, but I actually feel like the pond is doing so much better than it used to be. It's way less eutrophic and is... showing a lot of signs of improved health because the Phragmites have been removed. And our application of aquatic herbicide is steeply declining so that because there's so many fewer Phragmites left to treat, I would place protecting the pond water uh, as a priority. And, you know, if it's a vegetative buffer and, or I don't know, like those choir mats or something that you can, you know, you see around erosion control sites or some, I don't know what else in addition can be done, but, um, but that would certainly be something that I think we want to include in our planning.

Well, one thing I, yeah.

And, um, The person that I've spoken with who would be a potential contractor to do this, he's very easy to work with, very knowledgeable about all this stuff, and very sensitive, especially when he knows this stuff is important. So all of this stuff can be taken into account. And he's eagerly awaiting the results of this meeting so that we can schedule a meeting with him so that we can get the pricing going. So as soon as he gets on the ground, he'll be able to answer those questions better than I. Okay.

Quick question, unrelated question. I talked to the first select woman today, Eric, and if the town goes out, the town has a job that costs, exceeds $20,000. We have to do a request for proposal. It is not a request for quote, but we do ask for pricing. There's a clause in there basically said a vendor is going to be chosen who will be best for the town's needs, which allows you to basically, I think I was told it was basically a means to deal with people that are not very capable, but submit a low ball that how many people do companies would you say are available to, to do this kind of job beside the few that you recommended? Is this kind of a more specific task, Eric?

Yeah. Interesting question. Um, the, the particular person that I had in mind, uh, is no stop shop for everything. Um, that is the, um, the forestry mower work, the planting work, um, the herbicide work, and although they're not currently set up to do it, he said we would find a way to do the watering if need be. So all of that stuff could be done with one bender. I think the deer stuff would be different. But in this situation, I think their skill set is unique to the contractors that I work with otherwise. That's not to say that those other people, but I think they'd probably have to sub it out.

Okay. That seems like a good answer. And I would think that given the spectrum of responsibilities the contractor would have, might put somebody who's just an arborist, for example, and didn't want to get into the installation or whatever, be less interested if we bid it as an entire job. And that's frankly, I mean, that's in my mind that picking a particular vendor is going to be a good problem to have because that means we're approved to go on the project too. Does anybody else have any questions about Eric? I have a question. I'm sorry. Okay. Fred and then Bill. Go ahead, Fred.

Yeah, going with the three-year regimen for treating the things coming growing up. So does that mean that the open space would need to be able to cover that third year of our budget? It sounds like with the timing of the grant money.

I think it sounds like it would be two years because the grant period is so short. By the time we were ready to make the first application, we'd only have another nine months. Am I right, Eric?

You would have less than that. realistically, because it would have to be a foliar application. So you're going to get one shot at a foliar application if you do the mechanical treatment first, which I would recommend in this case. So you're going to get one shot at that. So if you're doing what I suggested at the beginning there with three successive years of treatment, then you'd be on the hook for two years. And I do think that doing a mechanical treatment first will reduce the amount of invasives that you have. So perhaps two years will be good enough, but there's going to be sprouts and follow-up treatments and spot treatments necessary afterwards for the first five to seven years. I don't think it's going to be very costly, and I don't think it's going to be very much work, but there is going to be stuff coming up based on what I saw when I was there, which was invasives everywhere.

Yeah, I wanted to comment on that. It seems to me that the difficult work is going in there with mechanical treatment, clearing the property, and then also doing the planting. And unlike when we work with... pond and lake to get rid of the aquatic invasives, the phragmites, there's not going to be a need to bring a big machine and big marsh master machine. And if you can do it with a backpack sprayer, I think that we can address that with a somewhat reasonable cost.

Yeah, I think so too. And I know Bill has a question and I don't want to skip over that, but I wanted to mention also this doesn't seem like that high productive of a site based on what I saw when I was there, which means that if my gut is accurate, that the seedlings will be growing not very quickly. And if that is the case, that can in some ways lengthen the amount of time that invasives are a bigger deal because the slower those trees grow, the longer it's going to take them to get to a height where invasives won't be able to compete with them, if you understand what I'm saying.

Let me jump in with a quick question. Excuse me, everybody. While we're talking about that, one thing we hadn't talked about, we're talking about taking care of the vasos and watering the seedlings. Would you recommend doing any type of fertilizer to help the seedlings get a jump like in the second year or something?

Well, you could do that. And that's not a terrible idea. Usually in the past when I've done plantings, there's a root dip that you put the seedlings in, and that's relatively inexpensive. It can be just mixed on site that you just dip the seedlings or saplings into, and it helps with a little bit of fertilization, but mostly the water retention, actually. So one thing, and I'm going out of order here, but I did want to mention this sooner than later so I don't forget it. I think it's going to be important to go out with either a planting bar or a shovel or both sometime in the near future to just get a sense of how difficult or not it's going to be to put seedlings or saplings into that ground. Because if we're looking at just a bunch of rocky stuff, there's no way anybody's going or perhaps even be able to put the amount of seedlings or saplings that we're talking about in there, irrespective of size. And the bigger they are to reduce the amount that we have to plant, the harder it's going to be to make those holes. So I just want to make sure that somebody is able to, and if you need us to do that, we can do it, but that somebody is going to be able to get out there with some kind of implement to do some test holes.

I think that's a great idea, and I think that what you'll find is it's mainly roots, but there's definitely rocks. For sure there's rocks, but having planted stuff there, it's roots, roots, and more roots. So I don't know if an auger is less bothered by roots.

So a tractor-mounted auger? might be a handheld auger you're going to get thrown as soon as you run into the root. Or at least I would. I don't know if you would. So that is something that Greg or another consultant could help us out with.

Just a quick response to that, and then we'll get to Bill, is I did some planting down closer to the water, and It does take a little bit of work to get into the soil, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by the quality of soil seemed to be pretty good.

That's good. That may be a function of being at the toe of the slope there, and it might be different a little bit on the slope, but hopefully that's uniform.

That'd be great. Yeah, I had two questions. One, and excuse my ignorance on this. I've never seen this before. We come up with a pro forma budget and then apply for the grant. What if, like, we get into it and the soil is just too rooty and costs a lot more than what the grant provides? Is the town stuck for the additional amount? Or anything going forward 5-7 years worth of herbicide treatment.

Yeah, so I think I think that's a really important question and whoever we work with as a as a contractor. I think they should be able to help us figure that out beforehand and perhaps whenever it is that we have them out on site will let them know and I have already. especially if you end up working with Greg. And I keep saying Greg. I know there's another very important Greg here, but the other guy's name is Greg Corso, and he's based out of Thompson, Connecticut. But he knows that planting is going to be a part of this, so we can ask him to make sure that his methods are going to work there and be able to give us an appropriate price for that.

And the second part was just the, there's some very expensive homes adjacent to that property, particularly that new one going in. I think we're going to have to deal, we might have to deal with a pretty negative public relations issue if we, they take down all the trees, et cetera. And I don't know if we like come up with a strategy to deal with that or not. Well, yeah, that's really, really good and important.

Yeah, let me respond quickly, Eric. One of the requirements of the grant bill is that you have at least two public outreach sessions. So that would give us a chance to basically explain what we're doing and what our goal would be. And we're fortunate we have Ann and if Maria is still on the meeting, two neighbors. So Maria, are you on the meeting? Maria?

I don't think she was, Greg.

No, I think she might be. Are you the 73 number, Maria?

No, that's Joan.

Okay. Hi, Joan.

Hi, Greg.

Yeah. Well, if Maria did say that she wasn't sure if there was going to be much really negative reaction. I think a lot of it is going to depend on how well we sell it and how well we explain exactly what we want to do and where it is now and where we hope it'll be in the future.

Well, I agree. I think that the public outreach is going to be a big part of it. There's some folks in the neighborhood that are pretty clueless about whatever it is we've been doing there that will be looking right at the property that live right across the street. And they may be thrilled, who knows? They may be thrilled to have a better view. Maybe they'll have a better view. I can't say, but I did copy you, Greg, on a outreach from one of the neighbors that I received. She noticed in the last minutes of our meeting that we were looking at having goats over there potentially. And she wanted to know what we would be doing with them and where they would be, et cetera, et cetera. So there are inquiring minds that in the neighborhood that will potentially have something to say. But I think you know, I think we can. All we can do is make a case for what our objectives are and. You know, make it clear that there there is a lot of, you know, documented examples of this approach that have been successful, so.

I have a question at some point too.

So I think it's also important to keep in mind when we're talking to people that we have a pretty good sense of what's going to happen if you don't do anything. And that doesn't serve your goals or the land very well for the near or long term. One other really important question or important point that gets to Bill's question is we I think in Greg correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we got confirmation recently that the. The boundaries that we had originally on the. Map from Frank servos report are inaccurate and that the that the land area that we're actually talking about would would have shrunk if we use the real property boundaries, which I think when Ann and Will and I were out there after Greg and Fred left, if we use the real boundaries, that area, if we use basically the same footprint, but the real boundaries, it would have gone from 0.75 acres to 0.61 acres. So that's not a small amount of change. Will seems to think, as long as everybody's comfortable with this, that we, in the upland forest, we probably could find an additional 0.15 acres to keep us at the 0.75, if that's important. But yeah, the reason that's relevant to Bill's question is because that boundary there will not end up going right up to the neighbor's house. There's actually going to be maybe 40 or 50 foot buffer between the town's boundary and where the clearing is for their house. That's the good news. The bad news is that it is all tree of heaven on their property as well, which makes our efforts a little bit more, maybe more than a little bit more difficult over time if they Don't decide to do something same way as if the state decides not to do something on their side. I didn't want to make sure to say that out loud so that everybody hears here's that.

I've been thinking about that Eric and 1 of the concerns people have is is the state property next to us, which has a lot of the same invasive stuff in there and I would definitely. anticipate making a good pitch to the state about trying to rehabilitate at least part of the property that abuts onto where we're going to be working. And I would perhaps talk to the new homeowner. The house that is just directly adjacent is being sold now, and it's being sold for just a shade under $4 million. So one would think that whoever is going to buy the house is going to have the capacity to to kind of maybe do a little work on their forest. And one of the things I wanted to mention is when we were there last, we saw spotted lantern fly on there, which I guess the tree of heaven is a great host for that. And I use that as kind of a motivation to try to clean up the property too.

Yeah, that's important. And whenever it is that you end up meeting with Pete, This may go without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Just do what you can to have him be a supporter of it, doing something on the state lands there, and maybe he can help be an advocate for what goes on there.

Yeah, Mike, one of our former commission members, Mike Aurelia, has worked with Pete in the past and seemed to think that perhaps he could have some contacts that would be willing to hear what we're saying and really the rationale for why they're not doing anything about that problem on that property is pretty full of holes. So I would be hopeful that they might do that. But the neighboring property owner, I don't know. And for what it's worth, I will be shocked If that house sells for what they're marketing it for. But we'll see.

Interesting. Eric has been really, really kind in taking time out of his vacation to jump in with us on here. And I don't want to hold him up and keep him away from the beach too much longer. Does anybody have any questions? We can maybe take a quick vote on this.

I'd like to ask a couple of quick questions. Go ahead, Fred. So do you think 150K is enough to get this job done right? What was that? I'm curious if $150,000 is enough to get the job done.

Yeah. On 3 quarters of an acre, jeez, I hope so. I will find out how much it's going to cost when we have the contractors there, because they're going to be the primaries, irrespective. I mean, the fencing will be a different thing. they may be interested in doing that too uh you never know uh and the goats would be a different thing as well um but uh i would really hope hope that 150 would be enough to be able to do this for three quarters of an acre or less let me let me respond to that question too fred um we would we need to come up with a budget for the application and if in

The process of talking to vendors and to Eric and for his time and so forth, it looks like it's going to be significantly over that, which will put the town basically in a position where it has to kick more funds in itself. At that point, I think it's worth basically reevaluating whether we want to go ahead with this. One of the things that makes this grant attractive to me anyway is, number one, it's aimed for smaller towns. Number two, I think Eric has said This is really kind of a unique opportunity for us to apply for funds that I don't think have been available and may not be available in the future. And then thirdly, that the town is not required to match, that the DEEP is going to pay for 100% of this project to the extent that the activities are covered. And pretty much everything is covered except for the watering.

So when we get the estimates from the contractor, Craig, we will have longer-term costs to the town.

Yeah. I'm hoping, Russ, that those won't be too onerous. You know, that if we have to do some spraying or whatever, that perhaps we could have our stewards do it. Perhaps we can have... Mark Warren, A company do it without bringing a lot of machinery if it's kind of basically three quarters of an acre is not a big prop property walk back and forth with a backpack sprayer I mean I. Mark Warren, walk around my my my yard, which is a half an acre little push fertilizer spreader putting organic fertilizer down so it's.

John Potter, Just be good to be able to earmark how much money potential money to times in for over the next two years on the grant. And that's why the application of the urban size, does it need to be a licensed person or can our stewards do it?

You do, you do. I know, well, that brings up the definition of a landscaper these days. You know, the guys that are mowing the lawns are probably not going to have that license, but true landscapers would.

Yeah, I've done a lot of talking here. Will, are you still with us?

Yes, I'm here.

Is there anything that you and I talked about that I have missed that you want to fill in so that everybody hears it?

No, I think you've covered it. Yeah, primarily the acres discrepancy with Frank service map I think was covered well.

So what I would suggest is that we take a vote at this point whether to proceed with the application and I say that given that the time put things together to meet the deadline is running along at a good clip. We need to get some quotes. Again, I would also, and many of the hesitations that you've recommended or mentioned here, I have as well. And if it turns out when we're putting a budget together or whatever, when we sample the property, when we try to put a spade in there or whatever, If we encounter some significant difficulties in the preliminary investigation to putting together an application, what I would do is come back to all of you and say, look, this is a little different than what we expected. What do you think? Do we still want to go or do we want to say, hey, it was an interesting concept, but it's not going to work for us? Does that seem fair?

I just wanted to make sure that Fred got to ask all his questions. You said you had one or two more. Did you feel satisfied?

Yeah, sure. Before we, obviously, anybody else have any questions? Now's the time to fire away.

Thanks, Ann. I mean, this has been a long enough conversation. So just a quick recommendation from Eric on how we would protect against the deer and how would we best do that?

So there's, there's, two main methods that you can use, maybe three, depending on how many seedlings or saplings you plant, you can cage each of them, or you can fence the area. And if you fence the area, you can do it really tall with like 8 to 10 foot tall fencing that they can't necessarily jump over, or you can do something slightly shorter that is electrified with solar solar-powered batteries. If you go that route, I think you'd probably be clearing enough area so that you would be able to get enough sunshine to be able to make that work. So those are the three ways that you can do it. There is a fourth, which is something that we're experimenting with on a property in Woodbridge right now, but I wouldn't rely exclusively on this. And it is a spray that is kind of a combination of lanolin and half and half that the experiment station is working with. Supposedly that has been extremely successful in Europe. I haven't had enough time with it in Woodbridge to be able to tell you whether or not it's going to be successful here, but that is another thing that you can even potentially put into the grant in terms of maybe trying to keep them away from even a fenced area.

I've heard Richard Cowles talk about that.

That is the guy. Just one quick comment. I have a very good friend who has a large garden up in, not garden, a large produce farm up in West Gransby, Connecticut, and he has to, basically fence a number of his fields to keep deer out of them. And it's kind of curious that deer go for things you wouldn't expect like jalapeno peppers. They just love to eat them. And so he uses a lot of fencing and I can talk to him about what he does. And it's basically uses solar and kind of a shock fence. And I found also when I lived in Wallingford, I used to have, there used to be just so many deer around and I had a vegetable garden too. And I put up a four foot fence and they jumped over that quite easily. And what I ended up doing was the poles went up about seven feet. Above that four-foot fence, I strung a fishing line, and the deer knew it was there. They didn't know what it was, and they never once jumped over the fence when I put that up. So it's a fairly inexpensive barrier it can perhaps foil them to. Great. Any other questions?

Nope.

Would someone like to make a motion? Ann?

I'll make a motion.

Okay, go ahead.

I make a motion that we approve going for this grant. All in favor?

I second.

Any discussion?

Well, can we reword that and amend that? Because I don't think we're going for the grant. We're agreeing to pursue Writing the grant is my understanding. Yes.

Let me try a shot at it, Fred. That we begin the work to make an application deep for a resilient forest grant, putting together a budget and investigating the specific work that will entail. And if we determine at some point that the funds, the cost will be higher than we expect, or there will be difficulties in implementing the program, we will revisit whether to continue with the application and submit it. That sounds good to me. Can we get a second for that?

I will second that. I will second that motion.

Okay. So let's, any other questions, any comments? All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Those opposed? Any abstentions? So the motion passes. So, Eric, you're back after this week. When are you returning from vacation? Monday. Monday. Okay. I'll contact you next week and we can start talking about budgets and meeting with the contractor and so forth.

If you want to talk to Will beforehand so that you can kind of start that process. Okay.

Are you and he connected via email yet or no? I have an email from him when he forwarded his map. Okay.

So if you want to start that process sooner than later, that's okay. And Will and I can talk because we will be in conversation periodically during the week here.

Terrific. Thank you so much. Thanks for taking time out to jump in on this caller. Appreciate it.

You're welcome. I'm 20 minutes late for dinner, so I'm going to go. Okay. Take care.

Ulster County Transportation Council Chambers. This is not part of the meeting, but if the people that are involved in organizing midsummer would like to do a quick Zoom, maybe Christine, Andrea, Joan, I can try to cut that out for around this time. Well, tomorrow is the town meeting for around this time on, say, Wednesday. Is that sound like a fair thing to do?

I'm not going to be here. I won't be back until Thursday afternoon.

Okay.

I'm also not available. But I wanted just to tell Christine, I got an email about some confusion about the sign-up. Is that...

So yes, so I can say this reminder, but I'd sent the wrong link. That's in last year's link. So I resent this year's link.

Okay, well, I'm not sure if you got my sign up. The only time I can work is in the afternoon. Yes, I did. Yes, you're on it.

Before we go any further, I just want to let's let's let's follow FY guidelines. So we'll make a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second. All in favor?

Second.

Okay, the meeting is adjourned.