##VIDEO ID:CTXzhkXn7lE## so call to order yes I'm opening up the open space committee meeting today is the 19th of November I am the co-chair bill Hoffman this is David Powell coair Jim duing uh still a citizen so not officially a member Chris M yeah my Caron Clerk and I'm CHR hi everybody now we're going to get the agenda de we're as bad as everybody else we haven't posted all minutes I think we have I mean not if they haven't been approved yet tonight we're the October 15th oh what the 10th right so um well no wait a minute wait a minute I'm sorry but why do we have to wait to post approval that doesn't make any sense um well yeah draft minutes aren't that aren't posted until they're approved they're not public publicly well they should posted until they're approved they should be no ER yeah yeah if I mess them up what what if I messed them up right well then we correct them but the point no the point okay I don't want to get into this any detail but this is a discussion I'm having with the select board that minutes of public meetings where there are public comments cannot be approved unless the public can see them right because they may misrepresent what public comments were made and so that should be uniform across the board that they are publicly available okay and and the fact that they draft is fine there's no reason why it's not secret mhm well I'm I'm happy to like explore that with people but that's never that hasn't been how Newbery has worked and I don't think other towns post on the website until they're absolutely publicly available for sure yeah you're saying is what's what's the difference um just that they get posted once they're approved it's the responsibility of the board to approve them and then they're and then what I'm saying is if they're publicly available what's the difference between what does that mean why isn't that doesn't that include being on a website um I don't know that it couldn't I just know that that hasn't been the case right well okay what I'm saying is it should be the case okay yeah enough said but um it you know the fact of the matter is that uh what we have is a situation in the town where particularly with the select board they are not approving minutes until the end of meetings um and then they're not posting the minutes even when they approve them and so what I'm trying to do is to make make sure that when minutes are presented to a board or committee they are publicly available they should be all right well let's take that as an action item for this yeah you know we'll take that as an action item for this month to yeah you know confirm that that is okay and closer with the powers at be in the town and no I think it up to us to decide it doesn't have to going so if we take Mike's comment about what if you messed up right are we saying then we're going to circulate the meetings by email for him to make sure there are no amongst the committee gaps or sure yeah I mean if they get put up there but we can't comment on them right the meeting right yeah yeah and and and if well the point is two things happen you can either send the comments or you can come prepared with the comments you see what I'm saying how fast do you want me to turn them around right yeah I've never seen it done that way but I mean I can hear your point I hear you know your point makes sense I just have never seen it done that way well one of the reasons it for example also to shift as we have minutes to the beginning of a meeting is so that you know where you're taking off from at the beginning of the meeting and what's happening particularly with the select book B is but you know there's no way of knowing what they did the last time and why they're behaving the way they are this time so to speak yeah makes sense yeah that's all that's and yeah I mean um uh the whole thing is that it has to be labeled as Draft when it goes up prior to a meeting and it would go up with the agenda or before CU you have to put the agenda could be like attached to the agenda the draft meeting could be attached to the agenda so they're posted 48 hours in advance or however po but they have to they have generally speaking it is advised that they have you know and there's a thing on various kinds of software where you can simply put draft right across it so that you couldn't produce it as evidence that something had actually happened without that being there that's all yeah okay so enough it so so in the future we'll attach the draft minutes to the agenda for the following meeting does that sound reasonable we can't post that with the town clerk that way however so it can't be attached like it's just the agenda that gets posted with the town oh okay I we can I mean I can explore putting them on the website um I I will look into that right well it's it's multiple um additional steps which isn't a problem because they're available thanks to Mike thank you and to other people who write minutes but they're not often you know uh there's no other way to distrib read them if people ask for minutes draft or or approved we send them the website has parameters around posting things so I'll just explore that with our technology director about how that would work because right now what gets posted are the approved minutes and that's just all that lives in those folders currently it's there's no problem that something else will get posted I just a technical question well okay yeah if that makes sense yeah no if it okay if it's a problem with the system then the system has to you know has to work um to do that um and my point with that simply would be the system is no excuse not to do it m um you know I don't want to make work for you obviously I mean because enough to do but um um it it does strike me that we need to tackle this systemwide in terms of the town there a lot of black backsliding about this you can't find out information until weeks after it happens yes I mean the videos are posted within a couple days so just no they're not ours might be but the the last video for for the as of yesterday for the select board was 1024 right there a whole bunch of stuff going I don't think there's met very much since but anyway okay okay we'll work on that um going by the agenda citizen queries hearing none um and we'll go back to the meeting minutes um has everybody review we have someone move to approve make a motion to approve the open space committee meeting minutes from October 15th 2024 second all in favor I'm abstaining because I wasn't here I'm abstaining this technically not a member so I don't know if that the right way excellent okay um so next on the agenda is open space committee annual report for 2024 um so Mike you um did some language uh yeah I tried to just uh you know kind of summarize the past year um looks back over um different meeting uh the minutes from the different meetings and just try to get some summary of of what we've been working on trying to work on you know over that time so uh kind of poached from the historical uh commission's uh version that was already in an annual report so was kind of laid it out that way um I don't know if everybody got a chance to see uh that document or not if anybody thinks that anything should be added to it the only thing that crossed my mind and was maybe just putting dates on like some of the open space The Plan update like saying we submitted just to sort of sure indicate that you know that was a fall thing that we thought would happen and you know there was a relatively short time frame but I don't know if that's yeah the committee apply for a grant maybe in July 2020 or if that was the date that we submitted it I think it was sometime around I think it was yeah earlier than that was it in June I can look back may or but I can check on it yeah and we didn't find out till yeah yeah I don't know if that's necessary but just historically right yeah makes sense gives some very little context on it the are in regard to that by the way I looked at the report that you sent out of the grants that they made and um the state should have been shocked because what they did was they provided a form where the description of the grant meant that you couldn't follow where you were in the in other words they whole listing okay and if I had not had two monitors available I wouldn't have been able to see anything my observation would be there was a lot of focus on housing yeah um there were several towns that got two grants that often one kind of dob tail but the other but in a couple of cases they certainly didn't and you wondered why and the other thing was there was very little to do with anything like the stuff that an open space committee has yeah so yeah and I just wondered whether we fell a foul of um what I would call um what bureaucratic browny points that we were encouraged to submit because they get how shall we say rewarded for the numbers of submittals they get and I know that's cynical but I having looked at that list I cannot imagine why anyone would have encouraged US based on what we were looking for money for and where they all ended up the only question that might answer that would be so what ended up in the trash barrel besides us was it all the you know the open space recreational kinds of things I can um I can update on the I had a meeting with the grant yeah funders um which should I do that now since we're into it um uh far more I don't have the dollars and numbers in front of me but far far more applicants than they ever anticipated far far more funding requests than they had the money to reward award um and in addition they absolutely said what you just identified which is the the priorities this round were focused on housing and infrastructure to support housing um no surprise I think that the state is very focused on that in addition to um infrastructure slash climate resiliency was sort of a Big C um so they definitely I I basically said the same thing to you which was we put quite a lot of effort into this Grant and it would have been helpful to have a little more guidance following the letter of interest that probably this year you know we're not going to have a high priority on pure open space planning grants which is what they said to me in the meeting um that they haven't that hasn't been a high priority for this particular Community onstop bucket of funding sources for a while they did say there are other um uh grant opportunities outside of community onetop that are regularly funding open space plans and that's that was sort of when I said that would have been helpful to hear it earlier well but you know and sure enough enough there's like um I think it's the um it used to be EA Community planning assistance grants or something and th that is like specifically for plans and planning um that was a grant that they mentioned there was something else that came across my desk recently that's um a ring has a rolling funding yeah um that also SE to our open space plans well actually there's a specific section the okay because I I was okay I picked up the fact that there were some grants coming out M for uh space and and um conservation preservation type things okay and I promply lost and I think it was in something either from the trails people or maybe um P rivers or something like that anyway so I went looking today and actually have you ever talked to one Daria mates no okay well she is I think I presume d a r y a ises that sound like a female to you sure yeah okay um the division of conservation Services mhm okay they have us a a section which is land conservation assistance grant specifically that's the one I was to right yeah so why they didn't point you to that is you know um The One Stop thing is a nice idea but it has to work yeah and I don't know why things are included and well should we should we contact this person and ask her what the statuses for this current or future years or yeah yep I want to talk a little about the next steps with the plan but let's can we get through the other agenda items but yeah that's thank you for finding that that's the one I saw too just want to jump back real quick to the annual report and make sure there's no other comments for that so I know you want that turned around pretty quickly yeah sure the last paragraph um I think it's good but I do think and I have a bunch of stuff to talk about in this context later um I think there should be a way of having people be able to contact us and or k or however we want to do it but I think um you know our exper experiences with the exception of the delightful elderly party who appeared one night when we were downstairs I can't remember his name but um and who infid stressed the fact that we needed to get ourselves visible and people to know what we're doing which was I found you know obviously in my case it's the sort of thing I believe in too so and I'm not quite sure what it should be but um I I think this should be a sort of War if you can't get to a meeting or you want to know more there needs to be a contact information it needs to be what I don't know um well the planning department is providing support for the committee so that's yeah that's fine to include right so include your email address say if you if you want more information sure please contact is it planning you know your email addresses y right now depending how what do we know what the deadline is on this it's before Wednesday it's next week okay well okay because I'll talk about later one of the things I'm suggesting is that we should have our own website but that's something a little different okay okay I um just had a couple of really quick things um they're minor I just kind of wrote him out here there just you know maybe like change an order of one sentence and oh yeah add a dash in an article so just like really teeny tiny stuff and I just added those things that changes that we just said um to add in the date so that in like May 2024 and then we we were informed in was it October or November that we did not win it was after the last meeting because it wasn't in the notes from the October 15th meeting so it was late October okay in October so yeah just some suggestions here yeah but I thought it was great a thank you for doing thank you I can take this yes cool just want to make sure yeah excellent um all right so you you don't need more help of that before to get this to Christan for Wednesday yeah I'll make these this week and get them right out to you great thank you all right um moving on then um Mike also made the public access hiking trails map I think we're getting close on this one there was a couple minor changes that you made after our last discussions um comments yeah and I mean it dawned on me today that after um Kristen and I walked the potential future cbell Farm trail that maybe I need to add cell Farm to the map cuz that's not on there yeah I think it should be yeah so you know I mean we did that Saturday I thought about it today so is it official it's it's moving along official I'm like I would never put it on until it was official my opinion it's it's a good point I wouldn't put yeah it depends on when we're what we're doing with this and when we're posting it yeah I mean the intenses can be on our website speak it always updated at any time right yeah yeah so the status is we've we've walked the trail flagged it and um are working with other Town departments to establish the trail on the ground before the snow flies which has been cooperating with us so far despite the fact that we need precipitation um so um so it's it's Clos but it's not open to the public right now yeah and Mike who I just want to acknowledge thank you again Mike because he called into action your colleagues at greenbell who doing the gis um Geor reference the trail which was just on a piece of paper for a bunch of time finally it's into Data so we could walk it and assure that we were on track and now it's all coming together y um huge huge progress that's been a a kind of Roadblock for a while so um so thank you greenb for being a great partner Mike for being a local willing to come out and walk on a Saturday morning happy spend time in the woods and it is beautiful it is a beautiful pie there it's going to be really good because there will be access it's going to be a horseshoe there'll be an area for two or three cars we think for parking on there is actually a designated area yep there for parking for that which the I don't know whether it was an individual or the committee this is several years ago took it upon themselves to remove the identifying material okay well we'll be reestablishing the parking area so that it's clear and I would love for this committee to kind of work to guide the town in terms of L signage and that kind of stuff and have a public event when it's officially open would be really fun and exciting I think so anyway it runs from Elm Street um back around you know you get right back up beside the marsh it's really beautiful looking out at the river and then wraps back around and comes out so it'll be great for people who live nearby and then we'll have a couple parking stots as well did you connect no did you get as far as the property line with um the religious folks next door uh what you call it um you yeah it's we walked right along it comes right along the edge of their property behind that cting house and okay so decade ago I had conversations with them and that was the point we were trying to establish a total link from Triton well actually from the playing fields from Triton all the way to Governor's Academy MH and they were very willing to uh entertain a connection because they like to think two things one is they good Community people I think and the other thing was people do come to them and both stay there and also sometimes during the day and they thought it would be really delightful if their Trails were a little bit more extensive and connected into Coro Farms and then of course unfortunately the town sat down and everything it didn't happen so um reaching out to them I wonder if the same people are well involved there I don't really know but the manager I think May has change may have changed but yeah the what shall I say well the spirit of the place yeah is is what it is and I don't think I don't think you're going to have no no no right you know yeah well that would be great because it does um during Co they were especially welcoming of Neighbors which I am a direct neighbor and um they have marked some of their own trails and then there is there are a couple places where they connect on the gubs trails right right um and we did talk about that because the location of the calwell farm Trail in one place is just pretty much on the other side of the stone wall from the loop trail on the governor's property um which is maybe a little weird but we sort of decided why not you know like if people want to do loops they can just stick on the loop and but if they're more that would be sort of a signage question there might be some easy ways to identify that they're additional loops on adelin route and on go a decade ago Governors was a little uptight about the connection and I think that was partly because of some school issues and a bunch of things that may and also I'm trying to remember who would be the administrator of that point I think the decision makers have changed so it might be possible to get what would be wonderful which would be a Al essentially a trail which goes up the whole valley south from Middle Road all the way through essentially to fos yeah so the south side of the Parker River yeah right and and actually the fish L yeah yes well that's historically those of the fallly it would mirror a Historic Trail that was always there anyway so it's great yeah super pce yeah huge progress yeah and I I'm certainly think there's lots of opportunity to talk with the abers and we were talking about wanting to get across Elm to the Fieldstone Way property that next Trail so yeah right I think uh I think it it does make sense to not include Pao Farm until it is ready to go on the map though they're you know thinking about it talking about with everybody yeah we hold on that until it's actually a real thing yeah because also if it's an electronic thing it's easy to update relatively and and I don't think we're committed to printing anything at this point are we where I mean it if it's online people can download it and print it for themselves yeah but yeah so yeah I I would say until it's a done deal it's not that's what got them upset the last time was because people were coming and there wasn't a trail yeah and I pointed out that was their obligation which they had discharged and they were all very upset about that the parking I mean just the parkings on Elm Street or is it there'll be uh an area yeah right on El right on El so kind of like the South Street a lot the green belt properties well wait a minute wait a minute on El Street on Elm Street at the trail head oh Thea stretch of woods there that's well it doesn't matter we don't need to go into the details okay so you're doing it next to kind think of the people the house that's close to that house that's there there's a sort of there's a stretch of woods between the house that's near the gate the entrance Towell that has the hockey rink and then there's a stretch of woods it's kind of right in the middle there before you get to the next turn off there yeah it'll just be parallel to like two kind of parallel spots right inside the stone wall the original destion was and existed and it does still exist there is there are parking spaces in in Coro farms and I know that had some problems but yeah they're there they're in the original plan yeah and that was signed off on by all parties yeah so and there's every reason we look into that yeah to to make sure that they you know don't disappear yeah and become parking for our guests which is what I was told correct I think that was um discussed at some length previously and I can look into yeah where that was left off okay um is there a Next Step you know on that if we're you know you asked if this committee can go and help kind of drive this to completion so what is the next step that we could help with um so I think the next step is on Town Public Works end to get in there and do the clearing before the snow F so we're um and I should say Daniel Loro who's our new assistant planner has been really helpful in getting this going again um worked with my a little as well as our conservation agent so um group effort but there's followup I think they're talking with James sret R gpw director this week and then when his team is available and gets out there um after that I think so maybe it'll be at our next December meeting we can have an agenda item to just kind of talk a little bit more about signage and um look into like I don't know if any of the other maybe maybe some of you know this um you know are there sort of management plans for trails that already exist in terms of like the town has generally felt like dawn to dusk and you know just that kind of basic um rules if you will we've talked about that a little bit here but like do we consistency of what the signs look like what they say the words the format stand I mean there's there's nothing really on any of town properties with Trail systems as far as like Trail tags or you know rules of R stuff or anything so I mean like whatever we kind of would think might would be like the the process for you know all the other properties in town that that have Trail systems on them or could have Trail systems on them going forward you know yeah so we we could create like the standard so this could be like a pilot this could be potentially a pilot site yep work towards some yeah minimal so there's like consistency across town properties you know so that way they're not all you know different colored and different this and different that you know it's it's the standard way of it' be great if you all want to confirm that like welome like great Metals is there no no signage whatsoever A Worn yeah A Worn Path but there right and there's a nasty sign that's oh somebody stuck up there because well okay all these places have that problem kids right go in there various times in the day I was just talking to Dave earlier today at the place on near the dump right anyway um yeah there's a sign which says trespassing no trespassing d to dust but the point is that trespass is not is not the issue you you can't trespass on public lands yeah so what they did was they you know I don't understand why but probably the DPW guys bought a existing sign that you can buy from 895 right and stuck it up on a post in order to be able to go there and say hey it's dusk now out um but otherwise there's nothing no welcome no anything um so it would be actually a good thing if you did establish a standard to to use it there yeah it be for if we're going to discuss this the next meeting in a little more depth would be good for us to just brain Sor and kind of come and F that' be great there's um there's another Trail that's in the works at 105 High which is the depiro property across from tender crop the Seagate property um they're in the process of finishing their last construction that was an open space residential subdivision so the back of their property is being um there is a trail and it is the the access the parking area the signage is um is under is in the works the the developer is responsible for that but the property will be owned by the homeowners association and the town has a conservation restriction and Trail agreement on that property and I think there actually four at least four parking spots are going to be there right you drive through down the Seagate Road past the mall and there's a there's a little culde saac at the end and then there's another little jog and then there's parking area and it's open it's going to be Open Meadow and then a loop through the woods it's really quite nice yeah sounds nice wow two so that's exciting but we've been talking with with the developer a little about what signage they're doing and should there be additional and I would very much appreciate the support of you all and just sort of trying to be consistent about what we get out there and have a be welcoming not just like all the things you're not supposed to do yeah that's sort of where the discussion sometimes go like no horseback right you know whatever it is um and it would be nice that you have say I can send around our um what our sign looks like that we put at trailheads and whatnot it's it's a rules and reg sign but it says you know what you can do and it says you know what please do not do you know uh and I don't think it's uh it's definitely not a confrontational sign or anything like that I think it's it's it's designed to welcome the public to a property you know yeah and uh you know we can kind of P for from that a little bit TW can however we feel you know is appropriate yeah but at least gives us a SP to look at State probably does funing of this will be part of the discussion because it's I don't I mean the open space committee doesn't have a little I don't think there's any budget that I've seen for the open space committee so we'll we'll look into is it a town going to be a town heeld conservation it is restriction it is green belt cuz I was talking to Vanessa yes um right yes well there's another what are we trying out High Road okay right um so it's going to be Town held it is so is there any provision in that agreement for the to be a a budget for maintaining and and and having you know inspected by the town as there is for the RW Lan property um I do not believe the planning board agreement with you know the permit for that development included any contribution of an endowment type feat but it did as I said it it required them to to actually do do all of the establishing they've built the boardwalks already they're putting a fence around the parking area like a lot of the initial work is required of the developer but when it is turned over when the conservation restriction is accepted by the Conservation Commission and by the town um that's still hasn't been approved yet um it's under review um with the lawyers uh then it'll transfer to being you know a partnership between the HOA and the owners of those homes with the town so I can't you know I haven't had discussion like the HOA even though people are living there HOA hasn't really established like form yet so until the developers finish and hand over then we can have another discussion I think about management and maintenance and those kinds of questions right yeah okay so um so back to the map then um are there any other questions is everybody taken another work of the changes I know I I was more Curious um The Refuge which is in Gray here I was surprised that that didn't extend further north because I know that there's been a big controversy about the pink house and the Refuge wants nothing to do with it yeah but so well we kind of made a decision uh a few meetings ago that we were we were trying to focus this on like places that you could go to and not all open space yeah so there's no public access to that part of the marsh I mean technically I guess you know like I don't I guess I could check on the Refuge website to see if they Point people over there for any reason yeah I know PE people pull into where our graph sign is we don't promote that I'm not psych that people pull in there that's really the access way for the person that cuts us off hay there you know but I've never been able to deter vehicles from pulling in that that area there you know so we don't but we don't promote it as like come here you know um so I don't know if the Refuge is similar like they're not promoting entering from that side right people fish a lot you know so I mean I guess that you know I can add that stuff in there but if I add that in there what else you know what I mean like that I think that was the that was the thinking there you know yeah that then I'm I'm fine with that I think that makes perfect sense okay especially if it's not a formal access point than I was just curious yeah me I'm I'm I'm happy to put together an additional map too that just shows all open space in town as well as just a neat visual for the website you know too that doesn't you know maybe it's it's not calling out all the individual Properties or something like that but maybe it's just color scheme similar to you know federal state Municipal private you know kind of thing you know it just would give a A visual repr representation of what's you know protected in town which might be just nice on the website it would be certainly in the open space plan I think that would be really important I mean we you know when we thought the grant was a possibility and that mvpc would be doing a lot of the mapping you know I think we just we assumed that that was going to happen then so we kind of did something different um for this you know so but uh no I'm finding way it's now I was just curious yeah it just gave away to like you know if you go to the The Refuge website or something you know it's I don't know just kind of like people in the right places MH Tye of thing looks good I did I sent two versions in case we did want to print one that one has the you know please see our website for more information then the one on the website I just took that line out seems silly to have it on there so so I did email just two versions of it um excent anybody else have any other thoughts on this um um only should we maybe label the water bodies like should we put sound Island Sound along the par River par Parker River Creek is that the Plum Island river that goes up to the north it is and then the am River I don't know those might just be helpful little yeah yes I'm just noticing the Parker River kind of it's blue and then you know with all the looping as it gets further Upstream you don't see where really the river goes yeah yeah you can kind of figure it out I guess that's fine it's not a big deal it's like right like the eastern part the part is you get to pull out sound is wider and I guess more pronounced but you know it almosts it stops we all know it doesn't so I guess you you you just sort of it would complicated if can you just make it blue make it a deeper blue kind of by Great Meadow it kind of looks grayer blue lost because of the green shaving the there's all those there's probably they're beautiful inefficiencies in GIS that uh you end up taking your artistic license to to uh in the blanks yeah that's how I had to do the parcel that was sold from the the town beach and how I filled in the gap for the trustees piece too because there was no other way for me to do it so I had to do a little GIS coloring so thank you for catching that because I can you can do that as well good for sometimes layers aren't uh right most yeah I guess the only other thing that if I was a resident I was trying figure out where this was I mean there's so much mapping online that's available yeah um that maybe it's not needed so filf free to say no but like route 1A and Route 1 and 95 are all labeled and is there any reason to label like you know two or three of the other Ro of the other darker main roads or can everybody just fig figure that out like once you guide them then they have to type it into their you know find it type it into their GPS and maybe they'll be able to find it right don't feel super strongly either way yeah it's it gets it gets busy yeah yeah okay let just leave it them I just figured it or the way I looked at it was you know it was the three major routes to give you that that kind of jump off point yep or at least reference you know where you are in town um um the Bay Circuit Trail the color of it is super similar to the Essex County green belt so I actually kind of got like I was questioning for a second oh that's SX count Green Belt I was like no way I think that's the base circuit Trail so what if we had a slightly different color or use like a dash line or something just to differentiate the base circuit gel and make it pop out a little more yep that's great thanks Mike this is a bear I used to too yeah it's fun it is a fun program it can be incredibly frustrating but it is it is a fun program time yeah sink especially if you don't do it all the time right so all right so um after we get those changes um I think we're we should be in good shape prob this up on the website so one more one more look at it yeah okay so I'm going to I'm going to label water bodies I'm going to tweak the color or line type of the Baye circuit Trail and I'm going to fill in uh the Parker River where it fades out The Mill River sou yep thank you where yeah you guys know all the roads I know all a lot [Laughter] about all right I think that's great um so now we're back to the op W plan discussion all right can I jump in please do um I've been thinking about this a lot since hearing the news of the grant um and I have a proposal um which is there are a couple like great components of this proposal one is I've looked into what our um local technical assistance hours are with marac Valley Planning Commission so every year all the towns and Mar Valley Planning Commission region get um as members of mvpc we get we get allocated 35 hours of time on GIS and 35 hours of time other in the other planning category so um at I haven't really known exactly how that works so I've had some conversations and both with mvpc and with um Tracy the Town Administrator so at the moment none of this year's fiscal fiscal year hours are have been used so we can have them um in particular the gis hours as you were just talking about and Mike know no slight on all the effort you have provided on mapping so far but I think because they were the ones who updated these PL these maps and if we talked about um having uh the updates that they already do for the town on the assessor data which is on our online GIS viewer um makes a lot of sense to employ their data that they already have to update the open open space data so that's one bit of the open space Rec plan that seems um to make sense to me anyway and I'll sort of lay all my ideas out and then we can just talk them through because nothing is nothing's signed on the line at all yet um in terms of my experience that's pretty fungible in other words it really depends on workloads within their staff people Etc it's not I think a hard and fast 35 digital and 35 other kinds of stuff because I think in the past they've been and I don't see any reason they would change um knowing a lot of the folks there based on what our needs are they would try and work with our needs yeah I think you know so that would be great it's essentially WEA it's covered by our LTA agreement or whether they'll need to charge us additionally that's sort of Distinction they're never going to say like we're not going to help you anymore it's just but they don't have a stopwatch mentality let's put it that way yeah yeah if there's a yep agree they're always very willing to help whatever it takes um so I have a follow-up meeting with their new I think I mentioned this at the last meeting but they have a new director of the environment team Adrian Lennon um so I've been trying to schedule some time to follow up with her and go through the scope that CC developed for us for the Grant application which was tasks related to how marath Valley Planning Commission can help the update process so um uh with whatever we discussed tonight I'll be able to go back to her and she's you know is the liaison as well for the gis team can follow up with them and talk about um sort of what it might look like from their perspective and their time for the tasks needed for the open space up update based on that scope that we already worked out with them um so that's one piece of it the other piece of it is um I continue to feel like while I'm very passionate about this work I don't have enough capacity to really do a good job like steering the update of the plan so I've been trying to think about ways to um have a dedicated person working with the planning staff to just work on this project and like just get going on it without having having to apply for another Grant so this is my proposal um we had an applicant for the assistant planner position who's um terrific um super interested and and her background is environmental work open space work um I can share her resume around with you guys um and she's doing some part-time work in the area she lives locally she'd love to kind of be hired um as like a point person to just be kind of the lead author right I feel like when we were you know back last spring like when we started the process of going through the different sections and talking about it and do we have a Word document from the old plan yes we do but like who can just be the the real master of like the material cuz that's really what the update is is just being being organized working with different entities moving forward the different sections as needed so um this young woman uh would be interested in that and we have um not to get in the weeds but the planning budget that's already approved for fy2 has room to compensate her as a sort of apprentice intern level someone just focused on this task we sort of develop a scope of work for her um it's covered by the operating budget because of Martha's retirement and I coming on and we didn't have an assistant planner for a bunch of months and various reasons but the budget we already have has room to support that kind of part-time you know defined scope of work so it seems to me like potentially great opportunity it would help have the point person it would I feel like we've been talking for a while it would be great to just like let you guys get going and you know get the conversations going in terms of um the Outreach and then diving into edits and just like kick this off in January um with that kind of those inputs mvpc Point person kind of inhouse and then all of our capacity that we collectively have that sounds great in my mind just when I've been thinking about my start doing it I was like all right Janu as soon as the holidays over let's roll up our sleeves divide this up and let's just bang this out because this is the first little TD SC we got to get through before we can get to B bigger and better yeah and I mean we look at it and we're like hey I just need some updating and we can do you know we can there's new material that needs to be put into this docum but we so much is already here amazing and if we do have support outside support from AR Valley that's huge um you know things like the survey I think we're getting to this next item even just like the surve looking at other open space plans and how they conduct their survey it's not an aret science was just bang this one out we've I don't want to diminish every thing that Ella has contributed to this conversation and I was like oh my God I'm going to put Ella and STI together and they're just gonna create an amazing survey yeah and have fun too so that's um yeah thank you kind of where I've been picking to yeah and if there's mony's out there let's keep going let's pursue that and we'll find other ways to use those monies um so yeah no it sounds exciting actually sort of you know it would be like 10 hours a week or something like that I think would be enough I I'm interested in inut if that I you know maybe the scope of work that we had from Mar m Val Planning Commission they might have said here's how many hours like we were estimating it was going to take to sort of project manage this and you know manage all of the data that might give us an estimate of how many hours we can PTY yeah yeah and I think they're willing that I haven't had this meeting with Mar Valley planning yet and I do think they would be willing to to take on that scope with the LTA funds but I think we need additional funds and I I guess my they're great to work with and we're working with them on the hazard medication plan and housing production plan and they worked with us on the master plan I like the idea of someone being just right here just working on this osrp with Newberry because they also are covering of different towns and someone who's like right here in town and could be like hyper local on this project I think would that would be a benefit to the process I'm heing it is as much project management as content management right thank you yeah that's a really good word for it yeah content management and um just kind of sending the reminders having the ongoing I think related to the taking the template of like Val yeah we have like you know a road map of how to do this and so it's like can almost time box it in a way so that you don't get you know just to keep it moving and this doesn't have to be perfect right in the the additions like the resan SE and others then the data updates right that they'd be doing so yeah yeah I mean I think you guys all bring such good expertise to that sort of project management approach and I think that would be a great learning opportunity for S as well just to like think about you know how to break it out and um just it'd be nice to have that stay on task you know I just get pulled so much all the time and I really can't predict exactly what I'm going to do in one week but if you're just on one task that's a whole different yeah yeah yeah it' be nice to have that person just kind of right out of the gate you know what's already been written in the master plan that doesn't need to be Rewritten right you know and just kind of get that together to be like okay here are the gaps open space committee this this is what I need to yeah keep moving you know we've got all this information we don't need to re research it refind it you know from right master plan from the um uh not the not the resilience resiliency plan what was the other plan VP yeah Municipal vulnerability yes thank you that one you know a lot of that data is going to be spread across those too so you know just having that person that can kind of spend the time and and and pull it yeah you know and then say hey these These are the holes that we still have to build yeah you know so none of us are doing something that's already been done you know I can like sit there and look through all those things yeah yeah if I was retired have fun doing that I agree same fure feel the same way a pot of coffee and you know volumes yeah well she works at shico part time so I was like oh you can just like get yourself a a cup of coffee and just to share she is also working her time with um David Hall who is is doing the sustainability development in Newburyport um is it Hillside yeah something like that Hillside right on Route One there which is a very um I was saying gosh I'd love to get a tour of that so she's you know that's sort of on the housing side but it's like it's all the climate resiliency stuff from a perspective of of a development so um she's um anyway it's fun to talk with her about that as well so to make this happen you've already had discussions with her I've had discussions with her I said I wanted to talk with you all tonight um and I've talked with the Town Administrator who's completely open to helping figure out you know the scope of work and and the budget stuff um so at a high at a high level is this so this would go through the end of the fiscal year yeah so that's that's a good question and good point um the funding I've looked at is for January to June right um I just wonder if we may be able to you know move beyond that that's what seriously tget absolutely I mean in my project management world we use the term MVP for minimal viable product Oh that's s of software and other things but you can you can do that with this and just make sure you prioritize and not get bogged down in the edge case stuff or the FR stuff I want we can all guide that no I think it's stupid right now not schedule we'll have milon get so what would be um assuming this moves along like would I should I invite say do do anybody want to meet her sooner if we you know I can again I can share her resume I'm sure she'd be happy to talk with you all invite her to a meeting anyone want fun offline how the funding would go so is 10 hours like have have you already done the math so the 10 hours per week January through June is like how much is left is there any value I feel like it's the holidays like you said so maybe it's not even worth having her 10 hours in December so should we just the numbers say what I looked was starting in January so in terms of weeks like I up to 26 weeks just to see I haven't talked to her about conversation or anything yet so there's like legal room would she be comfortable maybe coming to if we're going to meet in December or this would be a reason to meet briefly perhaps earlier than we normally do a week earlier for her to come in and meet us because it does strike me that um it's only fair to her for her to figure out who we are and vice versa because it's if it's puning up you know to be that kind of way you can watch the videos yeah but if it was me I mean I yeah she needs to interview us and we need to interview her yeah well yeah but okay guys you know I mean I'm just rolling back many years to a situation that I was in yeah and I thought oh good God I not going to volunteer until I've met these people because if they're wonderful terrific but if they're impossible no you know yeah anyway it's a great Point yeah and I I would love to have you guys me cuz she's kind of trusting me and you guys are kind of trusting me but like let's talk about you like think it's fair to her Comfort given what your and we would be asking her to do yep yeah that's my yeah so maybe we could share with her what the proposal looked like what mvpc had put together and she could read that and come to the meeting in December and we'll all refresh our memories on what that says as well before we come to the meeting DEC and then we'll just say you know yeah let's just meet her and hear who she is she she isn't yeah see if it's a fit the one um just the only other thing I've been thinking about we talked previously about the particular task related to um accessibility and the ADA compliance and reviewing properties and all that and um that's still a question to me whether there's some kind of like expert outside of what we all might have together but that's a question I wanted to follow up with Mar Planning Commission because again I know they've been talking with a lot of the other towns that are working on their open space updates um about that and and that may perhaps not sure like it would be great if we could do that among us to sort of figure out the questions and the assessment and then it would be out in the field tasks which is pretty cool um but if we need uh additional sort of professional expertise that would be another place that those local technical assistance hours could maybe come into play so just wanted to kind of flag that as another category of um the plan that we'll have to explore whether we can do that among ourselves or need extra Heth or maybe even I was thinking just extra people right like they're a couple members of the planning board who um use the Walker like maybe we can see if they're volunteers maybe that's a little bit more Outreach to the community as well to say like would you like to participate in these conversations about improving accessibility on public properties um so and again I know Green's doing like some multi accessible Trails right now trying to do some more yeah yeah so yeah lots of Partners out there to talk with about it all right so I will follow up um with stie I will have a discussion with Adrian at mvpc and then um I guess we can when we get to talking about scheduling the next meeting we can um invite her what's her name s yes sa Woodward thank you for finding a path forward you know amazing it's like really quickly but she's great she's a very she's she's was a great candidate for the assistant planner job um and seems interested so SS good yeah awesome great okay um we looking forward to following up with that in December um and so the next item on the agenda is an ani to sell 61a oh property on 17 Orchard Street so I look at it's four Lots plus land going to OS Greenville I believe do you want to like can I take notes and not comments or do I need to leave the room um no no I I mean I don't know I've never had to you know recuse myself or so just trying to figure out the right I think if you announce what you know that you're refusing yourself if you want to still take minutes I'm comfortable with that great so I am refusing myself uh due to my employment with the Essex County Green Belt Association recusing from voting from this yes discuss discuss um so I didn't even bring bring that fer up however um the town has received a notice from the owners of the property at 170 Orchard Street um I don't know if anyone has happens to have that but I don't know the acreage of the entire parcel off the top of my head five something just over 5 Acres maybe 20 I'm seeing 20.5 Acres 20 at 20 sounds 170 20 at 170 Orchard yeah consists of 20.5 ACR oh okay so it's currently been enrolled in the real estate tax classification called chapter 61a which means it's active farmland and every year they do enough farming to assure the Assessor that that's the primary use um so they in their notice have informed the town of a desire to sell the property um with a subdivision plan that has already gone through the planning board um last year so the approved subdivision plan um includes a special permit for a common driveway but the layout of the subdivision plan is four house Lots um at the front end of the property on 170 Orchard Street um the location is as you're coming up the hill from the river before you get to pears and drive um and then the back parcel of the subdivision would be four parcels and then an additional parcel which would be preserved as open space so the approval with the planning board requires that they convey that open space parcel to a conservation organization um in fee ownership to continue to be used as um agriculturally and with Public Access so as part of the permitting with the planning board um the developer owner reached out to Essex County greenbell and had some conversations with them about would they be interested in owning that parcel um keeping it in active EG and um that so those discussions have happened um now the owner is um conveying to the town that we intend to do this to sell the property and this division of land and the town has a right of first refusal on any land in chapter 6 so that is before the select board I believe will be discussed at their upcoming December meeting um actually I don't know if it's I don't know if it's on their agenda next week or um their December meeting I believe it's on their December meeting so they are looking for any recommendations from town committe and Boards related to this property do we know without embarrassing mik uh what green belt whether they are simply a negotiation with green belt or have there is there an agreement or what I um I my understanding is they are in agreement but there are still steps to take to actually make it official oh okay in other words it could fall through and that would be fine relative to the planning board's decision they would have to find another entity willing to accept that land and keep it in Farmland but at the moment it meets the criteria for green belt and they have expressed a willingness to be a partner so has the planning board issued a I mean I know no it's gone off the planning board's agenda these days it seems to have done anyway the decision was completed last winter that they the decision was done it's done the subdivision approval okay yeah right right yeah I guess my comment about this is is this is something that frankly I think you know it's it's fine I live down the street from the particular the property for 20 plus years and and it should stay as much as possible I think as open land um I think what what I find here is it raises the whole issue that the town is never prepared for this kind of stuff um and there really isn't an excuse here because this has been going on for two plus years in the planning board and it was very clear from their initial submitted plan that there would be open space as as part of the plan because in fact the land cannot sustain development of any more house build buildable house Lots right well so years ago there was a proposal for I think 14 house Lots on this parcel but that developer went away this developer was willing to um but also the the 14 wasn't going to fly anyway probably not yeah well definitely not I can tell you uh so what I would just like to point out is there since this was clearly going in the direction of taking an existing 61a out of current use MH that could have come to the boards and committees in the town but not the select board for our input okay and also it would allow the town to make some preparation if they wanted to have an interest not specifically in this actual project but in projects like this yeah right and so one pointing out is that this is in a way too little too late because even if we were to recommend know the town should have this and because you know um there's no way the town can at this juncture because they're not prepared to do it because we don't have a land bank we don't have a lot of things and so I hope that this will help to Pur precipitate discussions to move us in this direction and you know and it brings up a whole lot of other related things but um you know I I think one thing I think is great is having gone to the select board and I I'm going to take a little credit and made noise at them we got circulated whereas they didn't think previous L that the open space people because we're not in the state law state law doesn't require us or it does require other folks to get it like the planning board and the Conservation Commission um but I said how ridiculous is if you're talking about open space if you don't set it for the open space committee so we we made a step you know which is kind of a little one but it's good I hope you know it needs to though yeah yeah I think um I appreciate your comments because at the early stages of the discussion about this it was certainly acknowledged and discussed that it's been farmed by a local farming family for decades and is good Farmland right good soils identified as a a very appropriate use for that parcel and at the same time of saying wouldn't it be great to keep all of this as firland there was a discussion of we don't have CPA we don't have a conservation fund um are there Partners who might be willing and able to bring funding to the table um is there are there grant opportunities that the town could consider to bring enough funding to the table to be able to keep the entire 20 acres in Farmland they're they're not the town is not prepared for that we don't have those sources currently there do seem a viable Grant so there were conversations early that could go differently in similar cases so it could be like part of a long term goal right of this group to try and muster up like a plan that we could get into motion that would put us in a better spot in the future well this is something yeah the prep preparedness and resources and process yeah yeah but this is something I'm working on providing pressure about because there are a lot of things that point to the direction that we've dropped the ball so many times in the last two decades and being saved by people like green belt and others that um you know we we should learn the lesson and I think there are more people out there now who are willing to talk this way but I think partly this is not you're not involved in this but I think it's also an owners on the planning board when they know something like this is going on to begin to look at that if someone is going to well the thing that happened with the the um you know the chicken farm as I call it across Central Street that last 61a now that was dragging on for a long time in terms of their um negotiations right and a lot of people knew about that but it was like oh really oh gee you know and it have been happening all long long except it hadn't been publicly shared Etc so good yeah I do think um I mean if if the committee wants to make an actual recommendation back up to the select board I think they would be happy to receive that um and I guess I would just say again from a broad-based planning perspective we are in a time where we we do need housing and at the end of the day having four houses and the protection of predominantly most of the Farmland there'll be some acreage loss when the houses are built but um it's a pretty good like you know whatever it's a pretty good balance I guess in terms of how the property um it's the agricultural piece and forgive my I'm completely out of the loop I live on orcher Street so I feel like I should know more about this and I certainly knew about the recent proposal but is the agricultural proposed agricultural parcel so green Bel would be having the easement on that no did I they would actually own own a m Fe the back not Farmland parcel agricultural with an easement to get to it is it still being used for the agricultural f as so they're just half intended current use but it's not required to just could help automatically going that we were talking about 105 High Street and the fact that putting that little lot there and having that trail blah blah blah which was new to me also yeah you know that kind of model yeah seems this maybe 158 14 acres so it is half a lot R yeah you know it's maybe too small to say yeah enourage having a loop trail it has some other issues uh you know in terms of access and things I think yeah yeah it's um access is preserved in the conditions of the decision so if it weren't used for active farming it could transition to Open Meadow with a trail or got some other similarities yeah to complete just quickly the story of course it has some emotional Town stuff small town it was the bulgaras family and one of the bulgaras family was selectman and he died of cancer and it all happened very rapidly um which left essentially the family with the property and and the house where he lived and a widow and a whole bunch of things and Mike was you know very well thought of in town he was a former police chief in switch maybe I think I can't remember now so there are some overtones here where seeing that land used in a way which I think many of us would feel is appropriate um is is a good thing um and and the other thing is that you know the kinds of things that happen in small communities he loved Farm WS you know you know Farm the tractor you know the ones that have the two little wheels in the front and he had one and he kept it in the driveway and he in fact poted about on the acreage across the road and it's right next door to The vgar Farmhouse which is a very old house one of the oldest houses in in in that area so there's a lot of kind of you know emotional glow around that property and I and I think this is probably not a bad outome all together so do we want to write a letter recommending that they move forward that we prove of this subdivision with the open space knowledging that there's open space in the back I mean yeah I think that um so the request would be specifically to consider um whether the town should exercise its right to purchase the property rather than the proposed subdivision plan that's been approved by the plan board so it would say like why don't oh why don't we either way no why don't we POS yeah why don't we advise the select board to convey their right to greenf it's the way would do it they could offer they could offer that so the first yes right because that's one way the towns can get quote unquote control of a property situation like this is they take the they take the right of first refusal and convey it to a nonprofit that's right there in the law the 61a so then Essex County greenbell could potentially say yes we would like to purchase all 20 acres not and we not going to we hous or not um it then they then simply they can okay they legal people who know more about this than I but I'm pretty sure at that point then they can essent say okay what we would like to do is what the owner is proposing and we would like to essentially purchase the 14.5 Acres or whatever it is if or or whatever they want to do with it they could Pur whole thing if they want they could right so it's they they could purchase everything all 20 acres but they would have to pay like market price for like those like extra 4 and a half acres that are you know proposed for residential which would drastically increase the price of buying the whole par just so that we have that we have this straight in our heads right so that we have the town has the option right now to buy the whole parcel but the market price would be really high because it includes four Big Lots and a big piece of conservation land which isn't as expensive and so if we can bade that right to S green Bel they could also buy all four Lots in the you know piece that is conservation well it put it this way selling for it's a vehicle they need to explore right and they have the time to do it the green b or select board the the select board yes in other words has the has the the formal request being made or do they know about it no they received the notice yeah it was uh last week yeah last week couple weeks ago I think that okay so they have just last have 120 days correct yeah well all I'm going to suggest is that that's what we might recommend that they investigate whether they can use their power of conveyance to Green Belt and let the legal guys figure out how because it's probably do that way and it may turn out that it isn't but that's all right it'll they'll it'll they'll learn something yeah I think it sounds reasonable um i' be willing to support that recommendation and you know at the end of the day would we I mean this committee we don't have like the ins and outs knowledge of what the town can or can't do in terms of funds but would we you know say in either event whether the green belt wanted to take on our first right of refusal for the whole property or if they wanted to move forward with an agreement just for the conservation land in the back that we would be supportive of either approach just to kind of close the loop so no more feedback is necessary from us but we could recommend that the select board look into conveying our rights to Essex County green Bel and be supportive of however the select board doesn't have to take our recommendation either right yeah but if we get on I'm trying to make the point if we get on record making the recommendation that they investigate that that gets them thinking and real realizing that they have more options yes more options because most of the time the immediate reaction I've sat through this too many times here the immediate reaction is we don't have any money right sure done right and the moment you get that reaction that's that's the only kind of way they're going right and we got that reaction the last time to the one on Central Street and the point was that um there was no way they could get within smelling distance of that one and it was all Complicated by the fact that the lot was also part of the MBTA designated areas which they didn't the select board really didn't know so that's I'm trying to get you know some creative thinking I like it and I I think what's I guess I think what's important for the town and all that's for and to think about in this case is like what criteria would be used to determine whether this parcel should be 20 acres all farmland or whether four house lots and 10 acres of Farmland is you know just how do you evaluate the resource um that would be something I think that the select board could as process sort of think well we need to get a recommendation from the open space committee to understand that better and that's part of having a good plan and identifying priorities so you know ahead of time like oh that is something we've always thought the whole thing should stay resource or yeah you know anyway you got my point yeah that's so yeah so in light of that it's almost like our recommendation will have a lot more weight once we have the the plan fall back on is fresman I'm thinking like this looking at chapter 61 lands is a really good thing because there is a higher chance that that parcel will have an opportunity at some future date to either stay conservation or not and has some power in that so that's a really discussion so are we going to write a letter then or are we does it have to just be an email exist an email we just write an email I think you can write an email or we can you know draft the motion I can put it on I can put it on a piece of letterhead or something for the committee if you'd like yeah I I I think it can be an email I think we just have to have voted that that that's what we're transmitting whatever it turns out to be you know um but yeah I I would also point out that in fact that piece of property is totally surrounded by housing yes um and so to get a little more housing and and to end up with a piece of property which if it goes to someone like green belt can't be you know dug up and put houses on andless you know what if something very radical happens uh is a pretty good deal because to have a 20 acres of land there I don't know that it's that good with land actually it didn't produce much so you couldn't for example I think really yeah you couldn't heavily the soil and things are not right yeah it is they're good Farmland soils I don't again at one point I could tell you exactly what the soils were um and it's a very high groundwater table so they haven't had to have irrigation there which is somewhat remarkable they've had it in corn um and I saw a red tailed hawk when I was on the property I saw coyote in the woods you know it is a little bit of an oasis surrounded by roads and houses but that's you know that's sort of part of the discussion you know of planning is how does that Stack Up Is an Island important or is contiguous contiguity with other conservation lands important just how does that where is Newberry at that point and thinking about the whole town prorities I can't help but think also this is so approximate to the Pearson Drive the Martin Burns you know the back thing that is little right awful and like this is kind of a little bit more just of a this appears a little I've heard yeah it drains down to the whatever the creek is that runs right under Orchard there lad and the and then into the Parker but anyway I mean a good name it has a good name sorry okay no but from the drainage is from up by a pecon plaza comes like on the back side of this farmland and then it it channels into just there's quite a steep slope on the um on the Central Street side of this carel and then it is really ch CH there right under the road and that c is actually on people's list to um replace it's like really constricted there and it should well they did sell one lot off the original land the house that's right next door right to to what is going to be the access driveway to the development that house was never there um and and the other lot they tried to sell had a slope like this and water ran down in the spring you can see it so yeah I think and the other thing is frankly the people who own it have put up money for all of this planning stuff correct and are willing to take now a I think less money in the bank than they were looking for 2 3 years ago and so yeah because the 14 thing was going to you it was silly it didn't work and and that we need to encourage people who are I think sensitive to the land and the community and she actually lives in Newport I think it's the niece trust the TR so we're all kind of agreement that this is probably a good they're doing it the right way so to fire off a letter to the SL board saying we should consider other options maybe on this particular piece maybe that's not the best approach because there's going to be more valuable pieces for conservation coming up on M and at that point maybe we'll be further along with this and so maybe on this one we just don't don't say anything so you're saying like um yeah there'll be more opportunities to make that case about creative thinking and maybe we shouldn't raise it for this one but we should hold on to that thought for a future one because it seems like this one is in pretty good I mean without having any defined criteria that we just you know based on our conversation here that it seems so the idea of the conveyance to Green Belt not push on it now yeah cuz it's if we wanted to send an email just so we're heard so they kind aware that we exist and we say we actually support the um conceptually you know what being proposed about giving the back lot to a conservation conservation oration yeah I I just think we we should say something we could say in the future we think there are like similar yeah we can say that situations of well maybe what we could say is that this is a really good solution to a tough problem and it's great to see 14 acres becoming D however it also points up the the town Still Remains unprepared largely to financially or otherwise you know something like that because it's an opportunity to say to get the conversation going um and you know I can bet you that the Conservation Commission isn't going to say anything like that if they say anything at all last time getting anything out of them was like getting blood out of a stone so just for the purposes of like tonight and our public meeting do you someone should make a motion like we the open space May recommend that the select board I think at one point you said I don't know do one of you who was a member want to make a motion and then you should sort of approve it like it's I don't want to I don't want to have the responsibility of summarizing this conversation without some all right if we can get there I move that we should recommend to okay let's um we're going to do it uh the okay um okay we should what should we do where should we should try to think um we recommend that the select board um oh how get I'm trying to get in the back door here I don't how you do that um uh in light of the select board in light of the what is it in the in in the agreement with the what this the there's something in the plan was approved the subdivision yeah permit or approval the subdivision approval with the planning board yeah is that what you're getting at it's is an ID or is it a subdivision it's a subdivision definitive subdivision yeah f um in in light of the fact that definitive subdivision includes the preservation of whatever acreage it is um we recommend that the town does not exercise his right of first refusal with regard to this L MH um okay and I don't know okay the next thing is I don't know whether we include something about you know looking at altern being prepared to look Alternatives in the future in in our motion or whether we include it as part of what we actually we send to the select board you follow me we can make this motion and approve it if someone seconds it and then we can add okay um the whole the comment that that um you see what I'm saying because they what they need is they they need a an advice from us specifically in regard to this L and so I don't think we should mudel yeah okay is that work yeah so I don't know what did I say so maybe so maybe like the motion is just to respond to this particular question yes but then as a group we also come up with and maybe not tonight but we could Mell it over what is what would be an interesting way to convey the desire for the town to create more of a plan to be prepared to respond to chapter 61a opportunities but maybe not in this particular response so that's partial I think that would I mean I think you have a basis having had both 34 Central Street and 170 Orchard within a few months that's a pretty good sort of launching of the open space committee has been discussing and we have some thoughts that we wanted to share blah blah blah but keeping that separate from this vote um probably would be simplest tonight the vote I wrote down I'll repeat it since um you know our minutes taker is um sitting over there let me know if I got it right in light of the fact that the approved definitive sub division plan for this parcel includes however many acres of open space land we recommend that the town does not exercise Its Right of first refusal for 170 Orchard is that right your motion yeah um and so it includes when you say that the subdivision includes the the Acres of open space is it the preservation of X Acres of open space because that's really someone second that and then we can like modify discussion thank you okay now yes that's a good question I think yeah get preservation in there is what you're saying well because the subdivision already requires the preservation of the open space which is good so even though even it I guess it requires it includes open space and maybe that's just a formality in that includes the conservation of so many acres of agricultural land well it should be permanent conservation okay because Fe simple is very you could have a conservation which was not permanent that could be you know revoked but if if it's Fe simple meaning they get to to own it yeah there is and it's permanent it's it's in perpetuity worth writing that then yeah okay I think we got it pretty nailed down um we are way over on time already and I'm not want to stay on time but I'd like to try get a little closer there is one if we're all good to move on so you just need to vote motion and second second modified yeah everybody that support that say I I I hi right got it perfect thank you um and so the other items not reasoning ticipated um I didn't want to skip over this because Jim and Ella did a great job pulling together the the survey this is the higher level survey that we're working on um and I think if you had a CH chance to check check it out Jim sent us out links uh a Google form right um and you can go over if you'd like Jim um I did use it I did do an interview I saw one submission come in and so I started I interview somebody at DMF this this morning um and uh it was great it was very easy I did work on in a Word document and just kind of because as I'm talking I can't write that type that fast so I had to rewrite copy and paste it but the form is awesome because in the end it pastes right automatically for all there and it's recognized right yeah so it's just a simple you know form I mean I'm not you know follows the questions that were in the doc yeah the intent is for each organization that's where there's Outreach I did add some Fields so I may you may see it change a little bit but it would be to enter the organization name you know who's doing this each um and just answer the questions where it makes sense submit it you can then some of the changes a change that I would add on is that you would get sent a link if you want to revise it or edit it more uh Etc and then there's the Google do uh the Google Sheets the spreadsheet version which takes all the submissions and puts them there so I think the list had probably 20 plus organizations right so there's going to be a lot of data there so that would be a nice way to have by column make it quick me you can't really tell much here I'm not predicting it but you know you would just it's putting it all in and You' be able to scan you know through it and at least you have a permanent capture of that I think part of the question is you know would this at some point then be transferred or archived in a way that falls into the yeah I mean uh any public Outreach of any kind is really encouraged by the planning document so and not to mention just the value of like for us as we develop the plan so yeah I thought it was awesome yeah I she went right through easily and got it done she she heading sort of f us so she was like I better skip tonight so but um so the next steps could be that um I I wouldn't mind like a couple days to just make some minor updates just so that like you can get back in to edit and uh you know test it out a little bit that way we're not putting a bunch of data in that you know needs to be sort of revised once you're in the spreadsheet yeah I don't know if it feels changed like there's a little bit with the order of the columns of the spreadsheet if you add questions so so I'll just fiddle with it and I can send an email to the group just saying it's ready I think the bigger question is are we doing the organizational Outreach you yeah that we talked about maybe finishing some of that by November but yeah I don't know if we want to talk about that tonight or another yeah talk about later I think um the uh yeah the form is the columns I I had a after I used it I I can actually talk to you afterwards about it doesn't have to be like could do whatever the column if you could wrap text maybe exactly little things like that make it more readable just like d was talking about that other spreadsheet had something like that yeah you get you know you go over a cell and then you have it down at the bottom but it's conversome so there's probably a way just to um do the column the row height based on how much is there aut adjusted yeah exactly right and doing Exel I'm sure you do sheet yeah so those are things that I would everyone's good with that I'll just work on it or see what yeah great thank you and and the questions can be you know more be added or we can revise ones but this is kind of internal so yeah I do know from doing the interview um it took longer than I anticipated I was like yeah maybe 15 minutes but then you get on tangents right and people person I interviewed is very passionate about the stuff too like me so we got off going pretty good um so uh yeah so I wouldn't add too many more questions it's going to take an hour yeah the other column can be just other yeah who was you so I interview Ben and he's now the um he's the sportfish he runs our sportfish program oh okay but he used to run the dious project and so he was like the charge of part River fish and he was temporarily on the town's con yeah sort of sort of in house is it were someone you know oh we test I okay um I know I sound like a think but I'm I'm going to plead um well I don't know um the fifth I guess no um I really can't go to the the trustees with these questions because I know what they will do um I probably could answer them myself on behalf of the trustees since I've been so Associated so long um and let me explain just quickly and that is I know what will happen and what will happen is the person I would start off with is actually somebody who would give me I think very direct answers but he would know his head would roll if those direct answers ever appeared anywhere under a trustee response and so he would say no you have to talk to Elizabeth and I would think oh yeah right 100 whatever it is Canal Street or something in Boston and talking to Elizabeth and she would want to know so any big organization that has those issues is going to have can you just skip right over any questions that aren't appropriate for who you're talking to yeah just skip it over yeah you know um but what I think I might be able to do is is sort of indicate some issues that frankly the trustees have with Newbury and I don't mean them pointing the finger at us but directly we point the finger of them and that they have they put us on to the orphans list or the 535 Acres that they have here was literally relegated to a list that essentially said that's sort of we down on our priorities we don't you know that's sort of out there kind of thing and that showed and you know so there are some issues there in in relation to how organizations relate to communities and what we think about the community and vice versa which is kind of interesting um to some degree that may be well no the other thing is are we going to ask these questions of the recreation committee cuz it's cuz they're part of they're supposed to be part of the plan well they have a plan right so I feel like some of their answers are going to be in the plan already their own plan right there's a recre yeah but they okay well all right let me see I feel like we should talk more about how to involve the recreation Committee in space planning maybe that'll get it I didn't want to I didn't want to go to them and and and because the first time and I think this is fair I think they would agree they were wondering why I was there and you know I explained they were reasonably comfortable with it uh but at the same time I think they're a little apprehensive as to who's the daddy and who's the mommy here you know what I mean because they're part of this man but here we are we're the committee and so are they and like you know who wears the stripes I I don't know yeah yeah let's tackle that next week because I feel like we need somebody from their committee on this Comm yeah well this is you see I didn't go there the night I visited with them and I didn't follow up uh with either of their people about that but you're right I I feel they need to feel because otherwise we're going to play catch up all the time and that's bad yeah I agree yeah okay so thank you for understanding I have no idea what reception I'll get from P either yes yes questions all questions are optional just like conversation starters yeah and it's yeah we got okay good all right thank you all right so um now we should set the next meeting oh oh actually some some it far too many so I'll try and make this quick because I want to give you something um oh okay I need to make it from Fashion first of all because it may come back to haunt us um I started going through some of the property lists that we have okay in the in the old plan 2010 plan and I rapidly realized that there's a fair amount of work here was among other things I found out that for example um the land on Scotland Road um was listed as private land which was the land around the osrd Development Across the way from the kobby land it is private land yeah okay and it's now you know owned by and the Commonwealth well yeah well yeah and there's a funny little piece in the Commonwealth which was also misidentified so yeah I began to realized that there was a fair amount that probably can actually come those kinds of things can come out of mvpc because their record should reflect this the data on this list St is current and it's changed a lot since yeah yeah okay then I went and looked because I thought well also the other thing is we have a lot of chapter lands 618 chapter lands which um don't all was the information which certainly is these lists from their 2010 and even currently is not very accurate so I went into the first one that the top of the page which is one of the ones which actually is of some interest to us I think and and and that is number one Colman Road um and I discovered that there were triple entries that if you go into my map which I use a great deal for doing stuff like this okay and then you go into the Patriot Properties information what happens is you go into their previous assessment records which go back to 1990 whereas our assessor cards only go back three years okay you find there are triple entries for every year and sometimes they're the same and occasionally they're different so I called the assessor's office probably shouldn't have but anyway I did and I found out that there is apparently some soft Ware glitch that creates this that every time there's any kind of update to a list of that sort everything else gets updated too and there was the the response was well if you want upto-date information you have to go to our card which I understood but then I thought yeah but I want information that goes back further occasionally or you can think that you might and so how come this this this triple stuff is there um well so now my next inquiry is going to be with mvpc because it may be the my map feature is what the problem is or it may be the Patriot problem of properties is what where the problem is I either way it should be solvable because anyone who goes in and look at those public records right now is going to find they make very little apparent sense because what happens is the 61 A's people can subdivide their land to different codes right and can also do it seasonally okay some towns permit that I don't know whether new does but in other words if if you're going to suddenly say we're having four crops of this kind which we weren't having in the spring then you you submit us you know a subsequent report so I so frankly I probably didn't make a friend in the assistant office well it sounds like that section will require some serious elbow grease to update in the plan so duly noted yeah that we'll have to give a bunch of hours so starting on a bunch of other kinds of things which I shouldn't probably have started on but you see that's what happens the rest of you have working days and I don't okay and I get the bit between my teeth and I do stuff okay so what I've done is and this it's all it's all Mike's fault no no it is at all but the whole business of no when you did the report for which we are very grateful that you were willing to to do it uh that might go in the town report right I I was looking at this contact issue and so I went back to the website and basically I've decided that probably dating back to the beginning of this process with all of us when I was obviously a bad-tempered participant I will apologize for that one of the reasons has been in that so much of this stuff is kind of passive laundry list is the best way I can describe it um we have laundry list of things that we have to do we have laundry list of proposals of action plans which never actually seem to come through fruition and much of that is presented to the public and one of the reasons I think why we found it difficult to connect with the public is because it's it's sort of like it's like marshmallow it's it's you can't sort of seize hold of what these folks are really doing among other things it expects us expects the general public to know for example what open space planning is I don't even know what open space planning is I really don't because important thing is what's open space put open space into any browser and ask for a definition and oh boy I mean it just depends there's a general one but it it's problem so okay I will give you these with uh the Cal that you didn't ask for them but I brought them anyway right um let me find them here okay um what I've suggested is that we need to really essentially bite the bullet and talk to people where they are and not where we are which is what's been I my estimation going on so here's what I'm going to suggest is should be on the website okay all right and um I don't expect you to react to it now but basically what it is is okay I'm you know I make no apologies it's marketing it's it's taking a whole approach of sort of saying we want people to understand that we want them involved and and that's who we are people who want to work with other people because I think frankly we do because we're having to do it all the time so I'm also going to suggest that the um you know that what's currently on the website under requirements no responsibilities of the committee okay gets slimmed down from being once again a laundry list to something which is very different and also I every now and then have uh real reactions to language and if you quickly flick to the last page I gave you and look at the second item currently are um on the website it reads promote appropriate use of existing public space you public open space that is so patronizing I cannot imagine right that's like you know you can't defecate on the anyway so I would that should come out and we should emphasize active and easy I mean all the kinds of positive things we want to do and also there's this laundry list of people we're supposed to Lia with and talk to and report to all the Committees and boards and things all of which is very true except you don't need to spell it out you know in that way you simply need to do it the way the fourth item I put in there and I've haed up all the stuff that's down the bottom which is um uh assist land owners interested in conversation uh Etc land conserv all that stuff is at the last you don't get there until you get through all the other things about talking to the Conservation Commission which right now we don't and probably isn't very worth anyway anyway so [Music] um I like it yeah really good observations okay um and I I hope what I hope is that doing something like this and the other suggestion I have which would tie with this because it's a blank somewhere yes there is under um how are we looking to do this um I think we should have our own website which would be a Gmail well email initially okay in other words people are in my estimation anyway and your experience I'd be interested in and that is people more easily email to something that looks reasonable more local and legitimate or get in touch with something than they do with a municipal government site saying that inviting people to come to meetings because we're open to the public is all it's yeah that's proper but at the same time people don't do that they come for a reason um you know or they come for the goodies or or whatever it may be um and so I'm thinking that eventually the map all kinds of data of that sort contact data Etc should be a separately accessible thing that you don't have to go through the the town website for um and I you know um and and that with time with finding somebody who wanted to do that right okay um I think we can add that to like like goals because it's it's all your points are very valid about the limitations of the town website I mean we have to have a presence but do we you know pull our hair out to make it like actually engaging and attractive probably not it's like probably you can know matter how much time you spend on the town website but it doesn't mean there aren't other ways to achieve that goal could be considered and there are lots of ways platforms yeah that are actually very affordable and fairly straightforward use you hear word press you know word press platform of plugins and not that but there's opportunities to make an engaging colorful Lively rra it in with social media rapid in you know whatever we want to do to make it inviting and And Timely relevant so I making sense I think you are you are I'm grateful because partly this was triggered by Guess Who Elon Musk because I was noticing the great great Exodus from X to Blue Sky and I guess it the word blue Sky just rang a bell and I thought hey we that's what we need is we need a little bit more a little Edge Blue Sky about how we sort of do this yeah no that's interesting thank that was a lot of work yeah put a lot of thought into it appreciate that um okay before I move on are there any other not us anticipa no oh yes quickly sorry sorry well I have to do this because it's tonight 6:00 tonight you know what happened at 6:00 tonight I was handling dinner yeah well just the point do you know what happened at 6:00 tonight um oh okay well what happened at 6:00 tonight was the there was a public meeting at the Library community room in the library in bfield about what the lower green oh right so that's why district there that's why green area okay yeah so what there is is there there's been this study committee okay very quickly the study committee about setting up a his local start district there which is a whole process okay and I know about this for coincident reasons the major one being that I for a long long time have been the property Steward at Oldtown Hill okay and Oldtown Hill of bots essentially okay well the interesting thing thing is in my estimation it's one of these contact issues they don't I don't know about this so I've sent an email to the guy who is the chair who actually is a fellow Brit um anyway coincidently um essentially sort of saying hey the open space of the blower green is on our perview too because it's a town own property and we're reviewing all town-owned properties and we'd love to know what it is you're actually proposing in terms of you know what properties go to may be included in this whole thing um I haven't heard back cuz it was this afternoon um I copied bills because I I did to myself as the co-chair and I thought he might go looking to find out who the other criminal but anyway you should know about that simply because if this blows up in my face um or C your back we got your back but what I'm hoping is that um that two things one is that they will understand that we really need to be in that Loop yeah and two we could support them in important ways as they move along because what they want to do is I'm pretty sure they trying to move to do this next town meeting in May based on what they're up to yeah interesting yet to know what they're proposing and if you go into the town website there is this you know news notice which talks about these meetings and if you go into what they have unfortunately it it sells the whole idea of a local historic district which is fine and all the rest of it but it doesn't really tell you what what they're actually going to sort of bring to Market as it were and the reason I made the silly joke about 6:00 is I thought oh if I have to go to the liary and I feel a bit S I should cuz I'm just down the street I'm going to have to have supper at 5:00 and go to the lby and then come here and I thought no I'm not doing that so I didn't so I'll see so thank you next meeting December what all right yeah that's a good point December yes yeah what is the third Tuesday [Music] 7 17 that's not the end of the world pretty reason a week before Christmas so yeah I actually think I still think it seems like a reasonable dat oh okay is well te is the but is that bad pretty good yeah still week before Christmas so yeah yeah I'm going to say it's all you know I'm much more open probably than you folks are but in the past I've had people say oh no I we can't do that okay all right so let's T in the 17th Christian does it work for you yeah that's fine I will be here and I think that's theight someone make a motion to adjourn the uh November 19th 2024 open space meeting I second all in favor by right :22