Parks & Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

Is it okay if I get started with while you do that? Okay. Um, so first matters is taking the attendance in the room. So we have Mary Ellen, Sarah, Ryan, Brendan, and Don. And I don't think we have anyone joining by phone. Then we'll move to approve the prior meeting minutes of February 5th. Does anyone want to make a motion to approve? Make a motion to approve the submit the second. Brandon made the motion. Ryan seconded. Any discussion? Right. All those in favor of approving the minutes of February 5th.

I. All oppose. None. The Mary motion carries. Okay. The next order of business is I'd like to invite Denise Savo. Savage. Savageo. Thank you. to present to us on goose mitigation. And thank you so much for being here.

Let's say I think I made just enough for everybody and I'll call the presentation up on my cell phone. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. I wasn't sure how many people there were. You picked right. I know. I just happened to, but just give me one second. I will have

I got it off. There we go. So, just quickly, um, again, my name is Denise Savage. Um, and, um, I was the conservation director for the town of Greenwich for 20 years. And as mo with most municipalities um we had challenges that you know coastal communities we had challenges with geese. Um, most people know, you know, some of the background on on on Canada geese um is that they used to uh when they were migratory waterfall and with the migration what they used what the hunters used to do is they would clip the feathers of the birds so that and that and they so they had you know regular geese. So they'd have the geese clip the feathers and use them as live decoys. Eventually that ended up having resident populations of geese that don't didn't know enough to migrate because of that. So that was pre the migratory water fowl act. So when water so um when the water they had to release them. So they had these geese that they were you know flipping and using as live decoys and when they had to release the wild geese guess what they so there was this whole population and it took a while for the population to kind of explode. Um, but that's kind of what we're dealing with now is the geese kind of got, you know, stopped migrating like they used to. So that like happened like in the 1930s. Um, and then um, so they are but they are a regulated uh, species. So we do need need to be aware of that with anything we do. Um, and but there's but there are things that we could do. Um, and um, Greenwich went through all types of things. Um, prior to my coming to Grenwich, our the Department of Public Health uh did some roundups of geese. Roundups basically they corral them and

they slaughter the geese that the it was used for food. So, it wasn't a waste. We made sure that the food was donated, but let's just say controversy major. As you can imagine, the animal writers come out of the woodwork. So, there's a couple of different things that you can do um you know with geese. Obviously, you want to there's there's three things and I got to talk about the the egg oiling, but I just just is, you know, hazing. And I know that the town is doing some hazing with u kind of a mechanical drone type thing or whatever it is. Um, but you could do hazing with, you know, it started with dogs, but now of course we've got some other types of things. Um, you can also haze with noise and whatever to various levels of success. can always make al also when you're doing things you want to um you can do some landscaping work and uh because and I'll get into the biology of the geese real quick um so you do so you could do that and then you do the the egg oiling and that's really about population stabilization um because geese have got are so good at this now understand they don't migrate anymore so they really not subject to the predation they have a very they're very long live because they don't do this big migration which takes a lot of energy and puts a lot of stress on the animals. So instead of an adult animal living 7 to 10 years in the wild, now we're looking at resident geese that can live 18 to 20 years every, you know, and and they mature by the time they're 2 to three years old. Three years old is probably when they really start uh reproducing. Um and that's you know so that that's your problem because they're not going anywhere and they're very faithful to where they've uh bred um in terms of coming back to reest because they were successful. So if you were successful why wouldn't he come back there? Um what you're going to find in areas is that like all of a sudden you have a lot of geese golings and but

where's the nest? And so they do look for areas that are um uh where there's no predators. So we have a lot of predators, you know, we've got coyotes, we've got other types of predators, fox, whatever that will prey on them. Um so that's what they love islands. And that's a lot of times why we don't see them until the g the goings are hatched, right? Because all of a sudden, you know, they're just like, you know, they're not we don't see big flocks like all of a sudden where are they and whatever and then all of a sudden we see them. So, um, couple other things about their biology is that, [clears throat] um, they lose their flight feathers. All of the geese lose their flight feathers at the end of May, early June. So, if you don't have them out, if you haven't hazed them by then, you can haze, you know, until the cows come home. They're not, they can't go anywhere because they cannot fly. Most people don't know that. They see them like running to the water and whatever. They can't fly. And this is a a you know a evolutionary thing that happened because it's like they they they take care of the glings. So when they when the glings hatch and they lose their flight feathers, they now don't gain their flight feathers till mid July, August. Then they can fly. And that's when the g that's when the the the golings don't look like cute little gosslings anymore. They now look like adults and they all fly and they can all, you know, migrate if they were going to migrate. I mean, they'll migrate in Connecticut. They'll go, you know, they might migrate to the shore to different ponds and lakes and whatever, but basically they're resident to the state to the state or near areas. So that's kind of what we're dealing with. And so that's where when you're thinking about what you need to do, you need to think about like these months when they

don't have flight feathers and and and looking at that. So that's where you want to try to haze them in the early spring before they nest. Once they nest, they're not going anywhere. They they lose they not only lose their flight feathers, but they're going to be very loyal to the nest. Um, so, um, like I said, they they just won't go anywhere because that now they've got glings and you know, and you kind of have them hanging around and whatever. So, you can you when you haze them later in the spring, they just kind of move from one place to the other, but again, that once they lose their flight feathers, they're not going anywhere anyway and they won't they won't leave the glings. So you have to think about so so if you haze early spring that's to like keep them out so that they don't nest and you want to do that because you don't you want that to create an unsafe space for them to nest. So that's the best time to be most effective with your hazing. Now the other thing they do is okay you know you're going to haze like let's say Rogers Lake which is the my understanding your main concern. I know this town may have other concerns and there may be some beach concerns you have as well and Long Island is a challenge. Long Island Sound is a challenge for that reason. It's like they can, you know, swim in from anywhere because that's what happens is once they nest and they'll find these like islands or whatever. Now they once the, you know, once the goings hatch, they can they'll go someplace where they can swim and then where they can walk on shore to eat. So that's really what you're looking at and that and they can go up the littlest tiniest stream to where they want to be. Um and uh you know or any cove or whatever. Um so that and that's what you'll and that's what you'll see them and they tend to then gather in flux because now the bigger they you know the more adults that are together with all the other you know gslings that they're safer from

predators, right? But they want they want that water habitat because on you know and they'll stay close to the shore. They'll they'll go, you know, upland a little bit to, you know, eat the the newly mowed grass. And we'll talk a little bit about that in a second, but basically they'll, you know, go um uh you know, they're looking at the water because that's where they're safe from the predators. So, for them, it's all about avoiding predation. So, um, like I talked about, so you could do the hazing, you can do, u, you know, some landscape thing, and we can talk about that a little bit towards the end that that that has some limited success. It it it can be successful, and there's some things I've looked at Rogers Lake near your beach area, and there's some things you could do that would probably be successful. Um, because understand they can't fly. So if you do vegetated edges, they can't get and and you make it so they really can't get through the vegetated edges or or fencing, they can't get to the lawn where they want to eat. So it's like how do we keep them out because people, you know, it's not like they're flying over. They now have to walk over and that's, you know, so it's always always think about like we have to do something to stop them from walking from the water to, you know, where they're going to feed and then back to the water. So, that's what you want to think about when you're thinking about landscaping. So, um, but let me just talk about the stabilization program because I know I think I was told that Rogers Lake Authority was looking at doing this. As I said, they're regulated species, so you do need to know the federal law. And there's a registration program that um I was working with um as well as the gentleman who created the program that I that I train people on is called uh the geese peace program. And he developed this or community just like this wealthy community right out of DC in Virginia. And you can imagine there's a lot of affluence down there. And like people are going crazy. So it's like okay what do we do around this lake? So he started

with the you know hazing the geese so they weren't nesting in the first place. Uh but then what but also this population stabilization and trying to reduce their numbers and it does take a while. It's not a miracle. But if you I mean how many years have you been dealing with geese? Many. So, it's going to take a while, but if you I if you don't have any glings, the population will be stable for a while, but eventually it starts going down because there's no more there's no glings. So, that's what and once they're not successful, they'll even think about like, do I really want to nest here anymore? And so, that's, you know, your main goal is basically to get them so they're not nesting. And that will, you know, after four or five seasons or whatever, they'll stop you, they'll stop nesting and your numbers will go down. I know I had um we helped on we were doing work on town properties, but we also worked with neighborhood folks who had small ponds and whatever and had every anybody register who had had geese. And we would help them either by going out and egg oiling because we would train volunteers and we could send a volunteer out like just you know help this person because they can't do it themselves. Um but but the legal thing that we did was we registered their property. We would get a permission slip from them signed and we would register so that you know there was only one registration and it could be a neighborhood association although they a neighborhood association it should be within the association and that doesn't take the whole town. We did it as a town. So the town could just then any property that was in the town could then you know you could you you and all you would have to do is register that property but you can multip you could register as many properties and you just have to do it the day you're doing it. It's not like you have to register them ahead of time. You can just go in and somebody calls you up and you just say okay we've registered your property and as long as we have the permission slip and you don't have to send the permission slips into anybody.

It really is something you just keep in your file that somebody let you go on their property and then at the end of the day you have to say how many nests and how many eggs and you have to report that to Fish and Wildlife by now you usually do this in May, April and May. You don't even have to get that paperwork into them until December 31st. So you have a whole lot of time to say like for somebody to look and say like okay we did 10 nests and you know you six eggs per nest. So it's like, you know, so we had did did 60 eggs. So that's kind of where we were. The reason that I use the geese piece program and I'll is because this is approved by the Humane Society and that's a good thing for you because then you don't have the animal rightist coming after you because of this. Three ways that US Fish and Wildlife let you um predate eggs under this permit. One is egg oiling, which is what I recommend, but you can also do addling. The problem with addling is very timeconuming. You're supposed to shake each egg for five minutes.

Five minutes. Okay, so think about six eggs times five minutes. Now you spent, you know, a half hour in one nest. Like, no, [laughter] nobody wants to do that. Um, you can puncture, but if you break the egg, they will reclutch. So, they'll relay an egg. So, if you take the eggs out, which you're not allowed to do, can't take the eggs and you can't harvest the eggs. What you want to do is, you know, if you can add the eggs, you can puncture the eggs, but you want the egg intact to keep it in the nest so that they don't relay. And if you because if you do this early they'll come in and say like you know and if you take the eggs out or if the eggs get predated very early what you want it and that's why the egg oiling is so good suffocates the you know stops the the process because it it coats the egg so no oxygen exchange but they don't know it right away and so they're not going to reclutch and then by the time that the egg is you know not viable they're not going to reclutch anymore. So leaving those eggs in the nest is critical. Um and uh you know so so and the way the reason that this is with the humane society is okay so you go out find the find the nest and like I said I can train on how to find the nest do all that stuff. You take the egg [clears throat] you float them in water and you know almost all the ones you if you're there at the right time they're going to sink. If they float, that means that they're gonna turn into a they're already far enough along. So, with the geese teeth method, you don't supposed to oil the egg or addle the egg if it floats because that means it's too far along in development. It's it's

basically, you know, already a a chick or a gling. So, it's about two to two and a half weeks into. So they takes about four weeks I think for the eggs to totally I think it's four weeks can't remember if it's four or six but it's about you have about a two week window to to oil it to oil the eggs um once they finish with with the clutch. So um and have to use 100% corn oil. Why you can't use another vegetable oil? Why why you can't use olive oil? Not that I want to use olive oil because it's more expensive. Probably the corn oil, but you have to use, it's probably some, you know, somebody probably lobbyed with the corn oil people. Um, but you have to use 100% corn oil. So, so this is where the regulatory stuff comes in. I can just make say you have to use 100% corn oil. That's not a big deal. You get your corn oil and you know, you oil your eggs and you know, and pretty much that, you know, anybody can learn how to do this. It's like, okay, how do I, you know, um, get the egg? Um, in terms of, um, you know, how do I find them? How do I just When you find find a nest, there's going to be a goose on it. And they're big and they can be very aggressive. Um, but they have they developed this amazing technique with an umbrella where you open up the umbrella and you walk to the nest and it's like it's like a big wing and they just go off the nest or at worst case which we have had happen they fly into the umbrella, you know, because they will they will go after but it's like you're behind the umbrella. Usually you do two people, one person's holding the umbrella, the other person's oiling the egg, so one person is always kind of protecting you with the umbrella. like a simple simple technique that pretty pretty much anybody can anybody can do. Um, you can't hurt the geese. You can't touch the geese. You can't do anything. You can go in and oil the eggs. I mean, if they come after you've got the

umbrella, you can't be swatting it at them, but if you got the umbrella and they and they attack the umbrella, no one's going to say that you attack them, but you can't be like swatting it at them and whatever. You're protecting yourself with the umbrella. We've I done hundreds of nests. [clears throat]

um and and and adults, you know, we used to do 100 to 200 depending on the season and whatever and we ended up having a lot of volunteers, but we would do 100 200 nests a year and you know at all you the nests average six to eight eggs. You're doing a lot of think about now those not golings. And if you look at your um your handout, it kind of shows you um so it talks about the season and the molting. So you're so look so that that that's really important to understand what's happening. So right now you're going to start looking at that meeting season. Um so you've got a a h your chart is the second thing on the page. It talks about that season. So that's it's really important for people to understand that. Um, so it kind of goes through that. But then if you look at, you know, over eight years, you know what, four adult adult geese result in that many babies

and then they're coming back and by the time they're in their third year, they're now. So this is the problem. If you don't stabilize the population and you just do acing, right? Or if you just do landscape management. So, this is why this is so important because you need to get the numbers down. Will they start going other places? If they can't find nesting sites, they'll start looking at all the little ponds around and whatever. Um, but that's really what we want to do because those numbers are crazy. Um, you know, it's it's so it's very simple, you know, to to train people on how to do this. Usually I do a training program takes about two and a half hours at the most. So I usually say two and a half hours but a lot of times we're done before that depending on how sophisticated the audience is. So I can go in I do the PowerPoint presentation talk about some of the other strategies. I just limited this you hand out so that I didn't have to print up too much paper. But I usually start off talking about like, okay, we want to talk about hazing. We want to talk about this just quickly to let them know that, you know, like I did with you, that there's other things. But really, um, you know, we're there to to teach people how to do the the the egg oiling and make sure that everybody is, um, you know, uh, registered and whatever. So the way I would recommend, you know, is to making the decision if the town is going to do it, if Rogers Lakes Association is going to do it, who is going to be the um, you know, the the reg, you know, reg to register folks? Because if you go on private property, now if it's town-owned property, you're you're good because you're a town agency. Similarly, if there's association and I don't I know what the lake association, if there's association property, maybe like where the clubhouse is. I don't know anything about your association, but if there's association property or the pro or

common property that's part of the association, then you can do that. But once you're on individuals, you need to have permission from that land owner. You can't just say and and you know, and um I didn't bring them today. I've got to I've got to actually um I thought I had I've got to look at my files and see, but we can either make up new permission slips or I'm going to see if I can get the ones from Greenwich. Um, I'll I'll let Sarah's my who I hired is still there and I'll just have her send me the uh, you know, the forms and we can, you know, get the permission slips and also and you can see I think the last page is probably the, you know, just the reporting form where we reported on what the uh, you know what Yeah. So we just had the the reporting form you know egg just the data and what you the point couple of things like we bring black magic markers with us so we mark the egg

and oil if you go to a a nest and it only has two or three eggs it's a nest you might want to go back to because they usually lay more than that now they might not you might go back three or four days later and if they still have three eggs in there they'll lay one egg a day until they're done and usually you know most nests are anywhere between five. I said six to eight, but actually it's probably more like four to eight. A lot of them are around six. So, um, but it's like if you only have two or three eggs, you probably it's like that means you got there early, which is a good thing. You oil those eggs, but then you go back and check um and see if they've laid any more. Give them three or four more days. Understand that, you know, we're going to you want to be out there once they start nesting. Um, and that's in this area is going to be end of March through April. And I would say this winter is going to be a little challenging with what, you know, they may be they may delay with until we have ice out. I don't know how soon. You guys probably know your lake better. probably don't didn't see this much ice in a while, but once you have ice out, you're going to notice the geese pair pairing up. And, you know, if you're seeing a flock of geese that's, you know, five, six, seven geese all together, those are young ones that haven't paired off yet, they're not laying eggs. Um, you could haze those. Try to see if you can get them to. But if you when you start seeing one goose, then you probably have another goose on a nest. Especially if you have like a if you have one goose just in the water by themselves. What's that goose just doing by itself? That's kind of an indication that it's like I probably have a female on a nest and that's the sentinel male. So those are the types of things that I train on so that you can look for this is how you identify. You guys probably know where some of the nests are, like islands or whatever, but it it's you know, you can train this year. It takes a couple years

to gear up, get the people who really are interested in helping with this. U I have to say it's fascinating, you know, doing it. Um if you have people so that you need to get out to islands with people with boats coordinating that. Um I'm assuming the Rogers Lakes folks know that that that's not a problem. So which is a good thing. Um, but don't but we want to you want to do it and don't ignore. So it's the big lake but if but all those little tribes that come into your lake or anything else where they can even if they can walk. So if somebody has a pond a little pond but now they can walk you know it it if they can walk across two or three yards across the road and whatever to get to the big lake because that's where they eventually want to go. So, don't ignore those smaller ponds and even those private ponds. I found that once we've told people, it's like, "Oh, yeah. I've got a goose nesting." I'm, like I said, I had one people, one set of couples, and we we did their nesting and all of a sudden they said they're not back this year. So, we had oiled for like three or four years in a row and then that the pair just stopped coming,

which you know, some people don't like. So that's why it's like you have to but they were like they were dealing with you know now you know all the glings and all the goose poop all summer on their yard and they were you know thrilled. They really liked I mean they kind of they kind of liked controlling the population and just having the two adults there but eventually the adults will say well you know either you lose the adults because they they do age out eventually or they just they realize this isn't a safe place to nest anymore and they you know they won't figure that out in one year because predation happens but they'll do it. So any questions? I'll leave it there. Um that's kind of my spiel. It was fascinating. So

I learned so much. I know. They're very smart, those geese.

They Yeah, they are. I mean, it's a fascinating I mean, when you go up and you're oiling the eggs, you're so I mean, like I I have to say it's amazing process. It's like you feel a little bad in some ways, but it's also like, oh my god, this is up close and personal with wildlife. So you have to have people who are interested in that. But there are people who and like I said, one of the things you can advertise this is this is you know when you if if you're going to do training or wanted to advertise that this is sanctioned by the humane society and that's why we're doing it this way. This geese piece training the guy who put this together David from Virginia he's a friend of mine. He was an engineer and he figured this out. He was like did this whole engineering thing. It's like okay. So he'd like, "Okay, let's look at the life cycle. Look at this." He he just, you know, he worked for he was an engineer, but he worked for USDA and he just was like put that engineering mentality to this. And it was it was genius what he did really.

Um that some of the there's big communities on Long Island that are using this. Um uh oh, what's what's I trying to think of some of the names there. I mean, some of they have, as you know, they've got some of these like um tidal wetlands with all kinds of islands everywhere. Some we have some of that, too. Um and Rocky Neck is one of the places we're trying to get. It's like we'd love to have the state like do some of their work because that's one of our challenges is there's a lot of geese nesting at Rocky Neck. Um that said, uh you know, some of the people on Long Island, they that some of the communities were really going in and doing all this because this is it's like now Rogers Lake, if you just want to take care of that, that's it's like, okay, that's different. But if there's coastal stuff that, you know, or where they can, you know, where they can come upstream anywhere, you need to be thinking about that. So, think about those areas that because they are not nesting at Rogers Lake Park. I'm not saying they wouldn't nest there, but they're not going to nest with this predator. They're going to nest where predators can't get at them. So, they love these little, you know, hummocks and whatever. You know, it's it's interesting where they nest.

Now, where do they go during the winter if you're not what? They're here. They're here. They're here. See, I never realized that. They're here all winter. Go by the dam. You'll see them more in the Yeah. And you see them more out there at some mornings

and they're more in the coastal waters because, you know, once the ponds freeze over, they'll be in the coastal waters and then they do. So, not all the geese who are here all winter will nest here because they'll disperse to all the ponds within Connecticut, but we will have some that. So, it might be that the ones who end up nesting at Rogers Lake may be, you know, coming from Long Island or wherever, you know, by winter. So they'll winter somewhere, but then once they come back, but you know, like I said, you know, you we need to look at those individual geese. We need to look at, you know, like how to how to spot pairs. And that's what you're going to start looking for now. It's like, I'm seeing pairs and then where are they going? And I think educating people about what to look for. Yeah. Um and and doing that. So, you know,

I have another question. As geese, do the geese come to say to old line from other areas? They can. But is it normal or is it just the gosslings that reproduce and grows that way or do other geese come and join them here?

So the geese that have laid nests here will the gauings. So now the glings are being raised here and they will try to come back to this area. Now they're not as faithful necessarily to an exact nesting site, although they can be, but understand the parents already have that nesting site. So now when the juveniles decide to nest, but because they're going around, it could be a, you know, when when they when they made up, you could have a male that like, you know, was born near Rogers Lake and somebody else was born in Clinton because in in the winter time they kind of do pond topping and they also go to the coast. So, but then when they so then when they pair they may come back once they nest then they're faithful to that nesting site, but they'll be in the area. They're not going far. Um, and that's that's one of the things. I'm not saying that all of the geese that were born, you know, like let's say around Rogers Lake will come back there because it could be that they decided that, you know, so and I don't know if it's more than female or male who makes the decision, but they could decide like, oh, we're going to Clinton, but that's that said, there's enough that are coming back here because there successful nesting sites.

Good question. It's a mechanical one. Um, so when you go out to oil the eggs Mhm. the goose is there all the time cuz they're nesting. So when you talked about the water with like the floating test, do you have to bring a bucket with Okay.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. So you can kind of see there's one that has all the equipment in it. So you have a you have a bucket. The bucket has your umbrella in it. Although, you know, some stuff you just keep in there. We have You want gloves, you know, like you know, rubber gloves. I you how many extra athletic bottles do you have? You know, like the real cheap ones that So, you just put the oil in that so that then it's just, you know, you put on the egg, you rub the o rub the egg. Takes like two seconds to to oil the egg. You make sure they got to have they have to be completely put them back in the nest and you're done. And the and the you know, we we take a we usually we take a a permanent magic marker. We mark the eggs with just with you know any just an X that

just that it was oiled so that you know that this was oiled so if you go back or if somebody else finds the nest because you know and the goose has no they go right back on the nest after. I mean as soon as you're gone they're back on that nest. They could be like you know you you put don't put down your umbrella back away. [laughter] It dep some geese are like don't care. I mean they're not that they don't care, they'll squawk, but they some are can be, you know, and you could tell it's probably an age thing. It's like they're a little bit more mature and they're like, "Oh yeah, you're not coming." I I have one more question. So when the oiling process because these geese live so long to actually start the remediation takes years. I think I heard you say that, right?

Well, yeah. I mean, you'll see you I mean, first of all, you'll see that you don't have you don't have the number of glings. So that means that until they lose their flight feathers, if there's no gosslings, you can still haze until they lose their flight feathers, which they lose their flight feathers at the end of May, sometime in June. If you have glings, it doesn't matter. They won't leave. Once you once they have glings, the adults will not leave. You cannot I guess my question would be though is if the oiling is successful so that they don't have any glings,

how long do they still stay around? Well, the I mean as adults they'll just stay around, but that like I saying that's means you that that means you can haze them. And what you want to do is haze them away from the lake before they lose their flight feathers because once they lose their flight feathers, they're there.

But you can also then, you know, haze them after that. So that's why the end of, you know, the end of August, you want to haze them again and make sure they you just want to make the area so that they don't want to come back here and nest. So that's where if you're going to do hazing, thinking about hazing right from the get-go first thing. And you know, um, and there I like I said, there's a couple we can talk a little bit more about hazing if you want, but there's, you know, this is when you're successful with the hazing. But if you just do the haze, so this is the problem, though. towns hazing off of their, you know, the school athletic fields appropriately. So, so then where are those geese? So, you're just going back and forth and if no one's taking care of the population, it's basically like who's got the best hazing program, you know, is it that is does Old Sabbrook have a better hazing program than we have? You're sending the geese back and forth. This is why the population control is really important.

Isn't that though part of the problem with the goose is its resilience? And what I mean is unless there's coordinated efforts between the district, the school, the town, that's why it's great for the town. Is it feudal?

Yeah. And see, and that's where in our town, so the town I turned because now I'm I'm in this town. I live in this town, but when I was in Greenwich and I was a coordinator there, that's why so conservation commissioned, I was the conservation director that we had staff. I worked very closely with parks and wreck, but we took we took this on. Um, and uh, because we had the the staff that kind of knew wildlife and that kind of stuff and could do the training and whatever. Um, and we set it up so that we were the ones doing it on all town properties and were coordinating, we were coordinating the hazing, we were coordinating that. So that's where

So do you recommend that if this town is going to take on this type of process that there is a body to oversee all of it. In other words, everybody has to be on the same page. I mean, it should I think it I think it's good if they think it's just like, you know, the hazing like you can keep them off the athletic fields at the school, but then the the geese going somewhere. So, it really is good. Now, that little piece of it, because we had some of that, we had a couple of schools that had to do that. They weren't nesting near the schools, so them just hazing them off. Was it it's really is the more coordination is everybody who's got geese nesting on their on their land.

You know, it's really because it's to stabilize the population. It's all about these little ponds and these, you know, a little pond with a little island that looks just so beautiful and every year there's a goose nest right in the middle of that that island. Um those are the the that that's our challenge and there's a lot of them, believe me. I have a question. When you say they lose their flight feathers, that means they can't fly at all or they can fly shortly. No, they can't fly. Can't fly at all.

I mean, could they, you know, can they maybe I don't think they could fly at all. I would they be able to like kind of glide from one place to the other? I'd have to ask. I' I'd have to get into technical stuff with with I' I've seen them during those months and they'll like get a little air. They'll go like 20 feet. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They might defense or something. They might be able to do a little bit, but they really get into the water as fast as they can. Yeah. But they can't but they don't fly and they will not leave the gauz. That's the big issue. So So it's critical to get to the eggs be like [snorts] because it's a one time a year thing. Yeah. Right. If you don't deal with the eggs y

there's nothing really you can do. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean that's the that's the number one thing. I mean you can apply as a municipality or as an association or whatever for a predation permit um with US fish and wild well US fish and wildlife I don't think I think you have to get a permit from them but USDA will do goose but let me just tell you it has it's a very public process and how do you prove that you will bring every animal right as crazy person not not interested um how do Hopefully we don't have any animal rights crazy people anymore. But let's just say you will. [laughter]

How do you prove that it's sanctioned by the Humane Society? like is there literature or something that if a group is doing this they can say look here's the you know I can check with uh u I I'll see if Laura still has that but it was actually the humane society that we you know there was when I was asked to come in it was because the department of public health was doing a couple of things and in conjunction with parks and wreck and let's just say so the humane society came you know because the animal rights went crazy and whatever they said we can help you. And they've helped us by introducing us to um you know to this to the geese peace program

and I've trained people in Rhode Island. I've trained people all over Connecticut train you know. So I have a question. Do you suggest from your own expertise that it's if if this gets going and we start the process that we do have something to educate the town's people as to what's going on? Yeah. I mean I think you know I think I think I think advertise I think advertising it because people are going to think they only think everybody thinks the worst. Yeah. I I mean I think you know you do the training program you advertise it. you let people know what you're doing and the success, you know, like and if it's on your own property, I forget what you said like

so, you know, act anybody on their own property can register themselves. They don't have to involve anybody here. The registration allows someone who's on their own property to just do it. That said, you know, there's so many most people who a lot of people on their own property, they just have no idea how to handle wildlife. So that's why doing the train and you could have you know we training people come in they just want to take care of that nest on their own property and they they don't want register with you they'll just do it but at least we've given them the tools

as well as the legal tools so that they don't get in trouble you know by somebody reporting them. Um but you've also now offered them the support by like oh let's register as a town and it kind of get lets you know what's what's going on. Um, and you you you get that, you know, that handful of people who are going to call you, you know, it's I hate to say it, but it's the classic little old lady. I'm I should I'm in that category now. I wasn't when I first started this. Um, but it's like and just can't do it anymore or, you know,

or whatever. It's like, you know, and I mean, I talk about the islands, but it's in but geese if if they if you're in an area where there's not predators because maybe there's no coyotes around there because people have dogs. Well, the geese don't care about someone's dog because they dogs don't go after them necessarily. I mean, they will, but they won't. It's hard to explain. It's one of those things like dogs are on leashes most of the time, right? So, if you're in a So, if if you're in an area where you don't, you know, that's very congested, um, the geese will nest on docks. They'll nest, you know, on roofs. They'll nest in weird places really,

and they don't care anything about coyote cutouts. If it's not a real coyote, they could care less. But they do like this, you know. But we I mean, we actually had So, so this co coyote cutout and geese like to nest with something at their back. So, where do you think we found some nests? Coyote cutouts with the geese using the coyote cutouts. Um, you know, as their as their back stop with the swan decoys looking at them. Yeah, with the swan decoys looking at them. Uh, just this is for the panel here. Do where where do we think the nests are at cross lane? I can tell you because we we analy registered. Okay.

Uh well, and we've also been oiling. So they're on Blueberry Island, Whale Island, and Picnic Island is where we found them last year. He's talking across Cross Lane Park. Oh, I'm sorry. At Cross Lane. Yeah. Sorry. Oh, I don't know. Cross. I think they're right on the on that rock right in the center of the pond. That's where they go is on the rock. Yeah, they do. How big are the nests? I mean, are they easy to spot? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're big. The nests are big. They're easy to spot. Wow.

And and and one of the things is like, okay, when you start walking and there's a nest and you know you're near a nest, you all you hear the the the male will start going crazy. The female will lay low so that you can't see her if you don't know what you're looking for. But the male will start going crazy trying to distract you. Come over here with me. And you're like, "Oh, I'm in the right spot." The more noise he makes, closer you are to the nest. So, do they stay Does the male stay like kind of in the vicinity? So, like a a single goose is like a good indicator that Yeah, we call it the sentinel male. It's a good indicator.

And sometime, you know, because there's one I mean, it might not just be, it might be one male. They don't like congregate. So there won't be three or four males hanging out together while the females are on the net, but there'll be a male over here. So because on on an island, we may have multiple nests, but there'll be a male and a male. And if you're on that island, they'll start, you know, they'll start making noise when you're near the nest. Um, is there any truth to um like swans or in particular black swans chasing geese out of an area? Yes, they will chase you out of that area. Well, let me ask you That was one of our challenges was like, "Oh, I got to go on the island where the swans are also nesting and there's a goose that I want to take care of the goose. I'm not going to touch you guys." Yeah.

I had a swan chase me in Rogers Lake in my kayak one time. Yeah. No, they're aggressive. Yeah, they're really aggressive. They can be very aggressive. Well, is that an option? Swans. You don't want to go there. But but can I just ask why, though? Um, just messy. You know, you're not going to do you're not gonna you would end up with a swan problem. No, that makes sense. You don't want You don't want to It's like let wildlife be that and you've got a goose problem. Let's just take care of that. It's like geese is swans are not the way to manage geese. Okay. I I think I mean it's a good thought, you know. Um and are there predators? You know the you know it could bring in more predator

how successful were you in Greenwich? We were we were pretty successful. I mean we had you know we have the same problem you guys have. We are on the shore so the geese are coming from places that we couldn't control but we would but we were you know making a dent and it's yeah it was getting pretty successful and it was definitely successful on our inland waters um because um it's easier than the the shoreline the shoreline. So we're trying to handle like you know we had a lot of coastal properties and trying to get them under control because the geese you know like okay if if your neighboring community isn't doing it but the inland properties it you could be very successful. They were a little Did you do the north country as well?

We did we did the whole town. Wow. Do you think in your opinion that most towns, the percentage of towns maybe in Connecticut that have have a problem and had to deal with it and what you're suggesting for us? Most of them have not. They tried hazing for a while or they tried different things, but they they haven't made a long-term commitment to it. Okay? You know, when you're dealing with wildlife management, it's always about long-term commitments. Anybody thinks it's like a quick fix, like, you know, don't even bother. So you have to make the long-term commitment.

I I mean I know Ro I know the Rogers Association had started the the oiling that's and that's you know getting the population down. It's the crit but it's long term and you guys probably already learn I don't know how long you've been doing it but you've probably already learned. I've been doing it for a while but um I think the issue we I think we see is that we can get the nests on the lake because that's the ones that we do but these birds fly around all the other areas here. So you really need a coordinated effort. So many Yeah. other places to to do it because we can reduce the population here or keep it st stabilize it and they'll come in from other places.

Yeah. And that's [clears throat] what's happening. So you might not have you might have the same birds come in, but let's say eventually those it's not those birds, but if you don't take, you know, all the way down Lieutenant River, if you don't take care of all the nest on the Lieutenant River, all those birds are just going to go all the way upstream. You know, it's like, okay, they might not be able to swim all the way because there's a couple of dams or whatever, but they'll just walk around the dam and eventually they're back in Rogers Lake. How much money does something like this cost to really coordinate and like really do it properly?

You know, we did it very I mean, basically it was me and one other staff person who did it for the town, but it could easily have been done by a volunteer group. It's doesn't cost a lot of money. It's like it's a very short season when you do it. So, it's about the training and just keeping keeping up with it. See, when I hear this though, it sounds very daunting. I mean, finding I mean, we have so many waterways here and so it just seems like a big effort, but you're saying that a couple of volunteers, well, not a couple, but like a volunteer group could handle that.

Well, the volunteer group handles the coordination. It's like you then you you know you need to be advertising and getting people to understand like okay if you have property you got nests you know and and those are the those are the types of things you need to kind of start figuring out like okay which which water bodies do we want to tackle and where you know what so let's say you have the Rogers link association that's committed to this are there enough volunteers there and I don't know I don't know anything about the different organizations I'm fairly new in town I don't I retired from Grunch in 2018. Then we moved here. So, um, you know, the it's it's all about like, okay, what do we have for volunteers? But I have found that, you know, you end up with a core group of volunteers and they're willing to do it every year, you know, walk different sites, advertise, you know, it it will take one or two years to get it up and running, but when it's once it's up and running,

you know, the coordinated effort is is, you know, I I think worth it. Yeah. And then it just becomes like routine. Okay, you know, this is what we do. And everybody's kind of knows, you know, I used to have people calling me up, hey, I want you to register my property again. I mean, you know, they'd call me before I'd be ready to go. Did you do a survey of because, you know, I don't know what the population is locally. I know it moves around and stuff, but I think I don't know if we have any idea of how many

the population. Yeah, the population in terms of the number of birds is is tough because they fly in and out and even, you know, a even after the glings hatch. It's like they could be coming from anywhere. Like I said, you know, one of our challenges is rocky neck. I I know that for a fact. So, um because there's a lot that happen there. That said, um, what most people look at in towns, and I know like the folks on Long Island who are doing this, is they're looking at the number of nests and trying to figure out how many nesting sites they have. So, how many nested did you do this year? How many nest did you do? It's like, and every year you find more nests and then it's like, oh, it's like they're going to be in the same area. if you start seeing like they're not in that area anymore because they've now like oh that hey they're not nested on that island anymore because I mean you want to always check that island because if you you want to be diligent but eventually you find that they're not nesting there anymore and that's what we were finding is they're not nesting there anymore they're not nesting here anymore um I'm not saying you know like you you still have some challenges but um you know you want to keep them on a on with the Rogers Lake situation you want to keep them from getting into the waterway and be and be anywhere close enough where they can walk to the water or walk to the stream that enters into the water. So

now do you would we find them all along the Connecticut River too? Like is that a there's the potential to be along the Connecticut River? Um the w it's you know because there are those you know little pockets where it's like you know think about can a coyote get out there easily and understand that coyotes have a lot of food. So like did I want to mess with a goose? Right.

So that it's it's not you know goose could be geese can be pretty formidable just like swans. So um I'm not saying they don't predate and that and and the geese seek areas where they don't where they aren't predated as much. Um that said, um if there's easier prey, whether it be rats or some you know other types of rodents, they'll do that, you know, like the bunny population is exploding and that type of thing than the coyotes. It's rocky neck. So

because of So if you know how um the back waters are rocky neck, all those island toughs in there, that's like that's perfect because like you know now I'm not saying a coyote won't go out there because they could if they were that desperate, but they're going to go out there and mess with I mean you know there's hundreds of geese out there all the time and the geese are just like I just think of like our back rivers and stuff down.

Yeah. I mean, we have I mean, you have this have the same challenge and that's what you have to think about like how do you get in and that's what I'd have to look at exactly. That's what the um uh folks I'm trying to think of. What's the It's like Bay. What the heck is it on Long Island? Can't think of the name of the town. I should know this. Anyway, they have they're very similar to here and they, you know, basically had a really big program. That said, I think they did use state, you know, their parks and recreation staff to help with that. So,

we'd need state permission to go under Rocky Neck, though, right? Yeah. Rocky, but that's where, you know, I don't think anybody, you know, I don't think anybody around here has basically challenged I don't think anybody anywhere has challenged to say to do it. they haven't done it because they don't want to necessarily deal with animal rightist, but it's like they have the right to do this and there's ways for them to get it done. Um, and they haven't they haven't done it because the population hasn't demanded it of them and it's so it's and and understand they if they started doing it it I mean they could just do it. It's very very quiet. It's not like because it doesn't require any permitting and whatever. Um, but they have chosen not to manage even even though if I if you called the wildlife biologist, if you called men right now and had him come in and talk to you about the geese, he will tell you exactly what I'm saying and tell you how to do it and that you should be managing your geese and yet the DEP is not managing the geese on their properties. So it would have to I think it would be one of those opportunities to start having conversation about you know them managing the geese on their properties. [clears throat]

I know you have other stuff on your agenda. So, if you're interested, you know, think about it. If you're interested, um, I would look at we, you know, do you could do a training program like the Yeah, you got to do it. You can't do it too early because people, you know, they really start thinking about this like, you know, so the end of end of uh March is a great time to be thinking about this and whether you wanted to do it on like a Saturday morning or, you know, or an evening, you know, um the training if you know and I, you know, and where you'd want to do it. I don't know if you want to do the boat club or wherever you want to do it, you know, wherever you think the people would come together. And

this would be to train volunteers. Yeah, this would it would be to train volunteers, but also to train people to do it on their own properties and also let them, you know, just kind of say like who's interested in this so they understand you're doing this program and what it involves. And I think it's, you know, um because you can quietly do what you're doing with the oil egg oiling, but if you get the community to understand, then you're going to start picking up those trips down the trips. Yeah. Do um just thinking about timing. I mean

this year I'm concerned there's going to be ice on the lake till like April. Yeah, there there will be and you know most of the nesting I mean can you get the you get the guys who are coming back and they really like you know you have those handful of of geese that are like ready to go like you know March 31st you know uh but most of the nesting takes place the second week of April and that's really when you want it to go out second third week of of April this year it's going to be but I think but training people so that you're ready and and and you know like inviting people like do you know that you know it's amazing what people like they know they've got a nest on their property. Um, or sometimes they don't, but when you start bringing it up, they start thinking about it like, "Oh, I've got a nest on my property or I heard that my neighbor does or whatever."

Or, I heard that my neighbor does or you know, um, people who are snowbirds. That's where we get we had a lot of nests with people who were snowbirds because they weren't back until there was nobody on the property including their potential dog who you know until the geese had nested and now they're back because like you know they sometimes they come back for Easter or whatever they come back for and it's like all of a sudden I've got like you know geese so it's like identifying all of those but that's where but I think having people ready to go so like kind of doing stuff the last week in March is a good time to you know so that you can kind of gear up. So, it's it's fast in terms of the time frame um for us to to do it, but you know, just think about how you might want to do that.

Yeah, that's really helpful. Thanks for all this information. Have a good day. Could you send this to me digitally? I can send if we put together even that you can really read it. I would [laughter] we might be able to put it on the on a website with a link as we advertise at least piece as just to get people interested in it and recognize that it's short term for this march. But yeah, as the years go on, hopefully more and more people will be interested and bring them in. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. So much learned a lot. Me too. Okay. Next um topic is done on the director's report. I will

Oh, did you have Yeah. No, no. I'm just I mean we're um I mean what I think would be helpful is a you know like I said a joint effort because we can do it here as soon as we can get boats in the water but unless people are doing it either now next year this year the following years all around you're not going to have a big impact. Yeah. what really what you're looking for. I agree and actually I wonder if trying to partner with the conservation we have a conservation commission, right?

So that could be a nice branding and joint effort and they probably reach a bunch of populations that parks and wreck doesn't reach, but that could help partner in this. Makes sense. Okay. So, I'm not saying it would be easy to get a group of people to do all this stuff, but looking at the other stuff, like all the open space in town. There's a lot of volunteer groups that take care of all those trails and stuff. And there's there's a there's a large number of people who do that stuff. And it's similar. It's something to do with your town and protecting something. And yeah, I think there's a lot of people who do that. If you look on some of the sites of all the open space, there's a list of people who are responsible for that property. the stewards the stewards of their property.

Yeah. And plus they would see the nests if they were open to looking for them. Yeah, that's a good point. I think you're making the point that there's a lot of people that are interested in doing this kind of thing, but also the the um the land trusts and stuff like they're aware of water bodies of water on their properties and you know that's something that they can potentially help with too as they're checking on down trees over the trails and stuff. I [clears throat] mean, I think that's basically what they do. They clear keep the trails clear down there, but they're out there. But they're out there in a as a citizenship type thing helping. Yeah. And there's a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. Great idea. Okay. Well, thanks.

Thank you for coming. Really appreciate it. No idea. The goose is such a formidable opponent. I mean, it really is. Yeah. Very resilient. Yeah. just shut. Yeah. And then they're loyal. They're just like us. We live in town and they're here to stay. We're all very similar to 20 years. All ducks. I mean, today when I went by the pond, it was all covered and they were all on the ice. But those those are the ducks. Yeah, there's a lot of ducks around, too. They're cute though. What?

They're cute ducks. [laughter] All right. From Don, regular proof report.

Uh, programs. Current ongoing programs include men's basketball, women's basketball, co-ed volleyball, is in Zumba fitness. Our youth basketball session is ended on February 28th. And I'd like to thank all the players, volunteer coaches, referees, and parents who contributed to that successful program. Uh a new program uh bad mitten sessions are scheduled to start March 25th will be held at the middle school gym on Wednesdays. There's already like a dozen people signed up for that. Um summer programs including day camp, afterare, basketball camp, and volleyball camp are in the early planning stages. Facilities, all building facilities obviously remain closed at this time and will be open when weather permits, whenever that's going to be this year. Um, a budget update. The board of finance, um, I think at Tuesday's meeting, uh, did not approve all the funding for the Hannes Park dredging project. They removed the funds about I think it was 400,000 that was put I put in there in an attempt to accumulate monies for two or three years to cover the cost of the project. They took that out.

All of it. Yeah. Wow. They approved $50,000 for or left in there. I mean, it's all approval. It's all up to approval to the town in the town vote, but they approved $50,000 for engineering costs related to this project. And it is requested that the engineers, whoever we get to be an engineering group on this, put together an all-inclusive plan by next budget season. Like exactly what are we going to do, what can we do, and what we going to do down there. And then the funding at that time could be approved for the dredging for the whole amount maybe or just the amount we were

um the board of finance also felt that the seemingly low response to the previous survey. Oh my god. Please taken was an insufficient representation of the town of old line. Well, I disagree with that but okay. I knew you would. Thank you. But I just want to note it for the record. Yeah. So I think it I'm just suggesting that the parks and rec commission discuss this all not just so tonight but at a later date and figure out um develop the plan on how to proceed. Okay. Thank you.

Um couple miscellaneous items. Uh still working the process of determining 2026 summer staff is still in progress. We've been slowed a little bit. um 25 staff has been contacted to determine who's planning on returning or not. Some of those people are still owing answers on that. Um obviously that depends on how many new people we hire. Um we don't we don't have any employment applications available now because they've been all the applications in the town of Warline have been pulled to for to be approved as what they can and can't say on the application. Ours is included and ours is just a short three-page thing. Um it's not like you're hiring a parks and rec director or something. Be longer, but um let's see. Uh HR HR department is working on this as an example on our thing. We can't ask for somebody's age, birth date. It's against the law. They had to put some more words in there about different things nowadays that we can't

to work for parks and wreck. Yeah. Oh, I should apply. And there's one line in there. It says that they've ever been arrested for anything stuff like that. We can't we're not allowed to ask that anymore either. Oh, wow. And we're not and on the application we put the emergency contact. There was a a section for emergency contact information. We're not allowed to put that on an application because that theoretically if I look at an application and say, "Oh, I don't like those people. I'm not hiring that kid."

Which is kind of silly because like I told the HR person, I said, "As long as I've been here, I have never hired or not hired a kid based on whether I liked or disliked their parents." Right?

I mean, I liked some parents and I did not hire a kid. I did not like parents and I hired a kid depend on what I felt the kid was going to do. So they're cleaning that all up. It was supposed to be done by today. So because people are contacting me when they see me at the school or whenever say, "Hey, I'm looking for an application." So we've been delayed a little bit. Um our camp day camp setup organization and training days are scheduled for June 22nd through 26th. That's a little later now. the school is going to be a little later. Um on June 24th, our counselors will take part in a training about a 4-hour training session provided by um instructors from Kerma, the Connecticut interlocal risk management agency, our insurance people. Uh the training and education program will cover various areas of camp council responsibilities to help ensure a safe and secure environment at camp. Uh without going into much detail, there's a whole list of stuff that they're going to be talking about. Uh bloodborne causes, hazards, heat stress, accident reporting, harassment stuff, bullying, workplace violence, social media risk, emergency action plans, all that stuff. So that's what we're doing with those kids. Um, as you I told you last month, there was an initial meeting in January uh concerning the shared cost of the parks and recck programs and operations with the town of Lime. And that meeting included myself, uh, Bob Dunn, the first select woman, the finance director, and the board of finance chairman. Um, not much came out of that. No decisions were made obviously, but the first select woman of lime and o lime along with the lime finance director recently met to discuss this situation and

educate basically the lime people on what we do, how much it costs. Uh there's no decisions have been made at this time, but they're working on it and updates will be provided. Progress. And that's it for my report. Thank you, Don. Thanks, Don. Thanks, Don. I have a question on it. Just just a on the applications for people that were you know like day camped. Yeah. Can you ask if they were born after? Can there be a requirement of born after? What I what I put on the on the heading in the front is you have to be say 15 by June 1st of this year. Stuff like that. So I didn't get a bunch of applications that I can't hire the kid because he's too young and I got to go find out how old they are. I know. So it has to be Yeah.

So I kind of Yeah. I put it right up front without asking the specific information. You got to be 15 or 16, whatever it is, lifeguard, whatever, by this date or don't bother. Okay. So, that's the way I got away from that. Don't you feel like the emergency contact thing is that's dangerous? Someone gets hurt or something, don't Well, no. What it is is if you hire a kid, then all that stuff gets put. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. But it just can't be something that I can or somebody can look at and say, "No, on the application, I understand." So on the application they don't list their parents either because you might judge by the parents. I believe so. Yeah. Can they include their name? Okay.

I mean what if the kid doesn't know are you a psychopath? [laughter] I'm sure they all do because you can't keep Are you a psychopath? I think it's getting kind of silly quite frankly. Just keep rolling with the punches. I do popping and weaving. That's it. You go to the doctor and I say, "Do you live with anger? Thanks. You're my age. Do you want to kill anyone? Seriously, do you have rugs in your house? Yeah. In case I get Do you feel safe in your home? Do you feel safe in your house? Is any I'm looking the stuff I'm going like, do you think your spouse Do you think your spouse is going to hurt you? Well, sometimes the things we care about.

So, are they going to get that all figured out for you so you can actually Yes. the application? She told me she was working on it. She was actually working on it today. So it it will be very soon that the applications are again available. Right. Okay. Unbeliev all that you and Winnie do especially in this new HR era. If you ever wonder why Winnie is not at these meetings, these are on Thursday nights and she's usually at volleyball. Yeah. So, okay. So, I think we'll move on to old business. First on the agenda was the Hannes Park Playscape update.

Yep. The nothing's changed since the the playground equipment were deliver was delivered to public works garage on January 27th and it's just being stored there until we put it in. Thank you. That's great. Um the next item, unless anyone has questions, is the Townwoods Park softball infield update. Yeah. I had a meeting with uh the Lily folks on February 10th and that was discussed. Um no decisions have been made. They'd like to do it. No decisions have made yet as what they're doing. They're getting organized for this this season and they're trying to figure it out. But it's it's it's on the it's on the docket. Got to wait for that snow to melt. Yeah. [laughter]

And then it'll be a mud pit. Yeah. There is going to be a team that's going to use that field though. Yeah. Yeah. We got like seven or eight kids signed up already that um of that age. Great. Yeah. But you know there's nothing like the clang of the bat and the smell of the mud. I I know you smell it at your house. Yeah. Other fields. It's like oh it's baseball season. Speaking of snow, off the record here, Mile Creek School has their ACE program, whatever. And they want to start pickle ball next week. Oh boy. And I was like, they better find something else to do next week. Next week's supposed to be in the 70s, isn't it? I don't think it's going to be that hot. But

I mean, it's first of all, it's got to melt up there. You can't scrape it off cuz then you ruin the surface. It's got to melt. Yeah. And I got to put all the nets up. It's too early. Yeah. Find something else to do. [laughter] Indoor pickle ball in the gymnasium. Go shovel snow. Okay. Um unless there's any questions. The next item actually on the agenda was review of the current program fees instructors. Do you have any further update that

Yeah, Winnie and I talk about it a lot. As an example, um the previous last year's day camp fees was $300 per kid and $150 for each additional kid of the family. Um afterare was $240 for the six weeks and we are probably going to raise the fee to across the board $300 per child. meaning like if there's an extra one in the family, it's every kid is $300. Okay. Now, there's going to be probably some push back on that, but we'll play that by year. I guess it's not official, but

we don't want to put that the amount in the minutes, do we? No, I wouldn't. Just I would just say it's ongoing discussion. Um I don't know. It's again I'm not get I'm not maybe you feel differently about it but I'm not calling it pressure from the board of finance or anybody but they're definitely in tune with this stuff and they want more and I've been resisting I've been resisting them for 33 years you know yeah well

trying to keep it because I look at it this way the taxpayers pay for the school which we use. Everybody here pays part of their taxes goes to that school. Most of it, right? 70.

And what's the difference of having a day camp there when we got the day camp for free essentially as far it doesn't cost us anything to run it except buying equipment and stuff like that. So I think keeping the keeping the the fee low I think is a very good thing and I think it's a an outstanding gesture towards what I feel like about the town, the kids in the town. That's how I feel about it. And what difference is it if we bring in $75,000 to help defay something or $95,000 in the big picture, but you're you're increasing things on individual families. And there are some families who get in for free because they need it. And I handle that stuff

quietly. Yeah. Um, and without a question, we we meet and we talk and we sign a kid up. Um, so if it costs us say $100,000 to staff the day camp and we're getting $75,000, what difference is that $25,000 to everybody's taxes in town? Pennies. Pennies. Yeah, that's how I look at it, right? And [clears throat] I I totally I think that's the way it should be. Um some people obviously are disagreeing with that which is fine, but that's the way I I've always thought about it and I don't

Let me ask a question. Would I mean my my feeling's always been to keep it low, too. The only thing I was against was Lime should contribute. Would you be able to go back to what we were charging if if Lime did say we're going to contribute 20,000 a year? Well, you're right. We do need We should contribute something. So, that would help. But see, in a day camp, we're still giving them in a day camp though and it's the lime kids are paying too to come in here. So, we're getting money from a kid being at camp, right? Mhm. But they're not, you know, but it could be a way because you mentioned how the other programs have less overhead than the huge staff for. Yeah. Well, right. Like how right like the soccer and that,

right? So the contribution could be like in an equivalent amount even though the day camp line attendees pay like a soccer if I remember correctly here. It costs 50 bucks kid to play seven or eight weeks of soccer. Yeah. That's pretty cheap. Mhm. And everything's provided for them. Yeah. And we make money on it, right? Like you make enough to make up for the difference. Not not the complete difference of the other programs. I just basketball and soccer.

I just feel like why are we trying to make up the difference all the time? It's coming out of people's tax bases. When you get challenged on this by the board of finance, are you given an opportunity to explain these things? Because we I feel like we have reached that consensus here.

That's that's what I I I give them my opinion. Yes. Is it is it something where we at a future meeting invite the reps and the board of finance to give their thoughts on why they are pushing park and wreck to charge families more for programs where we have an in a reason to keep the costs low so that we can hear that and then respond in a public setting. Would that be helpful to move this forward? Do you think in addition to pursuing what I think is the right path with line? I don't I don't think so, Sarah, because I just think the more things you more times you ask them, the more they're going to want. I think I think I can hold them at bay for quite a while. Another example of this type of stuff is beach pests. Now, we sell beach passes here for what? $25, $30.

Aren't they 70? No. I've always been against only got one beach card. That that income from beach passes used to be applied to my income in parks and wreck and somewhere down the line, somebody decided that it wasn't going to be there anymore. I'm the one who manages it. That makes no sense. Of course, it doesn't make any sense. That should pay for the lifeguards. It won't, but it should help. It should be put towards it. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it used to be that way. I never understood why we have to charge our own people who pay taxes to live here money. Well, that's another that's another always bothered me like I already pay you.

It's got to be to deter the people that don't live here from going there. I can't show the receipt of my taxes. I'm like, you guys, I'm in your system, [laughter] right? Some some people say, I pay taxes. Why do I got to pay $30 to get a beach pass? I'll get a pass to show you I live here. Yeah, but why do I gotta pay for that? I think it's just to help defay something, but sure. I don't know where it's going to cost of running. No, it's going to the selectment

for the cost of the stickers and the selling them. It's it funds the activ. [laughter] That drives me nuts. That's You know what? Donnie, what if you if you I think we wanted to appease the board I mean the board of finance a little bit. I mean,

well, first, sorry to interrupt, but first of all, I can't in one year raise the price without catching a lot of flack to make up for what they want to make up. It's got to be incremental, right? Right. At the very least. And I'm going to I'm going to do that. So, that's why I refer to Sarah like, "Let me just do it." And next year, they're going to say, "How much do you have income?" I'm gonna give them the number and they go, "Well, can you get more?" That's what they're going to say. I said, "Yeah, we're working on." Do you think we have to go up that much though this year? What? I know you that's what you and Winnie had come up with, but does it You said it would be now 300 a kid. Yeah. And it was 150 for the additional, right? I mean,

now I don't have the numbers with me as far as how many are additional. That's a pretty good size increase. It is. It is. I'm wondering if it's too much of an increase. It could be. I mean that's to me even when they do the Harbor Commission mooring fees it's you know they were charging nothing but very little but they've been going up like by $5 every year to get more in Could you go up a little bit on second kid and a little bit on afterare I think afterare is well afterare is still cheap but it's like over twothird of what the whole day camp is and it's only two hours a day versus Right. It's it's already a bargain, but it's a

bargain. It's a higher it's a higher percentage to to stay in afterare. It's costing you more to stay in afterare per hour than it is. How much is it for summer? Is it by summer afterare? What was that? Yeah, afterare is just two additional hours to the day camp. And how much is it? $240. I mean, if you break it down to per day, it's it's peanuts. It's still peanuts. My kids pay that for babysitters one day at home cuz we had two babysitters for for four kids. So they paid them they gave them $250 to babysit. Yeah, that's to me the afterare is fine. I don't that's still a bargain. Yeah, it's all it's definitely a bargain.

The day camp is cute. I just I just have a soft spot for Well, of course you do. Trying to get a program for Why can't we What? Maybe you could think about not going up quite so much. Or what about instead of Or you could just go to $200 for an additional kid that's only $50. What if it's what if it's $ 350 for the first kid? So everybody has to deal with this, not just the people that have two kids. I mean, maybe you already thought about that. I don't know. Well, I got the numbers downstairs. I I can't repeat them right now because I won't remember them. But we we were trying to do this. And uh

and if you present it as cost per hour, I don't know how anyone could fight that. It's between a dollar and $2 an hour for baby. It's nothing. And the thing is everyone knows this is an amazing bargain. Oh yeah, they do. Everyone knows. So I mean you don't get complaints ever, do you? About the price? No. No. Every new person who moves into town when they contact me via email or telephone enter we just moved into town we heard about this great day camp and how you know they talked about it and I say say $300 and they think it's per week that's a bargain. I said that's for the six weeks and they're like they just drop no I but it I you know again I've always there's reasons for it. I sure it's like

love your reasons there is because it's inexpensive for people. It helps. Now we're helping people. Sure. If a kid doesn't want to go to day camp one day for a particular reason or he wants to go to another camp or the parents want to go away for a week, they don't feel like they're losing something. If they pay too much for something, they're going to be there every day and miss out on other opportunities and stuff. It's like there as a safety net and and a amazing resource for people that really need it and it's very good for the summer jobs for a lot of kids and also summer jobs for a lot of old line kids. Sure it is. So it to me it helps everybody. It does. It really does.

It does. I'm not looking for it, but they should just go thanks and that's it. I don't even want that but I don't like to be criticized about what I do. I I personally I don't I don't want to see us go up a lot on that ball. I'd rather see it go up just a small amount. Ryan's idea is not so bad. 350 for the first and Yeah. Yeah. 200 for the evening. That's still a huge bargain. Yeah. And it's not painful.

And another another thing that's been going on over there is we've been putting more people in there. We had close to 300 kids in the camp last year. I mean, they're not all there every day. I mean, when I first started it was if we had 150 kids, it was a lot. So, we've put a lot more kids over there and quite frankly, there's a increasing number of kids who are difficult to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. That situation. I mean, they've always been there, but there seems like you if they have problems, can you I send them home. That's what I was going to say. You can say, you know, you've had three warnings. You're you're done. I mean, you don't. Yeah. No, we do that. We do that. We give them a chance.

Yep. I do the same thing with counselors. I give you a chance. The whole thing's going to I give you another chance, but then you're done. Yeah. Sorry. No, you have to be strict. So, we're working on it. So, I'll figure it out. Sounds like supportive. If there's more that you need from the commission to any of us to make those cases that you make, let us know. I don't know what anybody in the board of finance could actually do with what I ch charge people for anyways. Well, that's why it feels their opinions. They can have opinions, but I know, but I just I'm running the department. They're not. Yeah.

Yeah. Correct. I could easily say, "Why are you only charging $25 for a beat sticker?" Get a nicer beat sticker so you could charge more. [laughter] A magnetic sign for the side of our vehicles. All right. Unless there's anything else on that. No. So, it's just still a work in progress. Work in progress. I'll send it. I have it written like that. I'll send it. Okay. Okay. Done. Thanks. Thanks. All right. Any new business? No. Okay. No.

Hearing none. Next matter. Correspondence. Bob asked that I send to you an email chain between Don and Paul. Foops. Maybe you have it. I think I do. Well, I think I have it. What Paul said? Wait until after this. Yes. So, that was the only correspondence that I'm aware of and would note. They're gonna The proposal is that they'll meet towards the end of the next week 13th or something. Meet after they go in figure out the dock location. To figure out the dock location. Sorry. Yes, I buried the lead. It was to figure out the dock location. Okay. Any other correspondence?

Now is Brody's moment to shine. Public comment. Bro, do you have any public comments that you would like to make? What? No comments. Free ice cream at day camp. You're bored. It's all right, buddy. You're very well patient. Very well. [laughter] Comment. I mean, he caught the meeting with the one hour goose presentation. I think he gets some special press. That's the best we get. Sounds fascinating. Oh, for sure. But I mean, [laughter] all right. Um, that's it. So, a motion to adjurnn. Motion to motion. Yeah. Second. I second.

Ryan made the motion. I keep wanting to call you Will because I was reading about yourselves. Five three-pointers. Brennan second. Okay. The meeting will conclude at 7:30. Very good. Thank you forum, didn't we?