so welcome to the open space committee meeting this is I think our third meeting this 2024 so good getting going again um I think since our last meeting you of you have been um officially appointed yes sign the book did the book the book John it now you saw how old the book was right I didn't notice how old it was oh it goes back a long time yeah is it really yes yes I don't know exactly how long but I've been signing I've been signing the same book for 20 years oh wow interesting I said hi 2 oh I think there's some really old books in the space where my desk currently is which has a lot of like archal Town cler information yeah it's just like these old leather bound books yeah so kind of interesting and it's still kind of school yet to know how to actually do a script signature right so um Martha you want to chair this meeting no youve got the agenda I keep not putting like election of officers on here but I think that might come next because now that we have um more than just three of us who are are official members so um so call to order thank you guys for coming um citizen queries which anyone has a anything specific to bring up that isn't already on the agenda that's an opportunity I don't welcome no I just came saw the notice somebody said have you ever seen this committee I said no I said so I said I'm not doing anything I'll go to the meeting and see the committee excellent GL you did do you want to um I was just going to turn and mtha do you want to give like a brief history of this committee a little bit I don't know just sure that benefit um I think the committee was originally founded in the late 90s uh and I got involved in 20078 when they um after a 10year period required to update the open space in Rec plan so uh I think it was 98 or 97 20078 was time to do an update on the plan uh the plan kind of inventories natural resources in town uh already protected open space priorities for future protection whether for recreation purposes or or I'm sorry um both wreck and nonre open space purposes uh could be you know uh private land trust or the state or the town itself uh protecting different places for for different uses and reasons um it's like a full inventory of everything that exists in town plan gets approved by the state uh and if they approve it it allows the town to uh have access to apply for different grants from the state for water sh protection open space protection uh different things like that crash course so the last plan which this a copy of and there's it's on the website digitally um was approved in 2010 um so our Newbury is one of many towns in the Commonwealth whose plans have expired so um that's part of you know getting some folks interested in thinking about updating the plan is um where we started a couple months ago and that's still where we are basically um any other anyone else okay so um so Martha I've you know been look thinking about this a little bit and one thing um we had talked about the last meeting was just sort of familiarizing ourselves with what's in the plan so I don't know if we want to start there I I know each of us kind of raised our hands to like dive in a little deeper to certain sections um um I did notice something today that I hadn't noticed earlier which is the state has a workbook that kind of lays out like how to help a town do this um create a plan or or update a plan and there was actually a um uh I printed it out it was so much paper but I printed it out uh just because I figure it'll be good for seven years um but there's sort of was a list of the sections and then they're checked in the box of must be revised or may need revision or no revision really needed I don't know if you guys like found that page in this workbook but um I thought oh that would have been good to look at from our last meeting um but so the sections are plan summary introduction um which encompasses the sort of purpose of the planning process and how you go about public participation um section three is community setting so those first the summary and the introduction of your process those are obviously must be revised categories because it's work that you're doing every time you update it um section three was Community setting which is mostly it's sort of a mix like Regional context history of the community population characteristics growth and development pattern so history of the community is in the you probably don't need to change anything because it goes way back and brings you up to the present um in terms of community history Regional context may have changed a little and then the demographics and population growth that stuff we definitely need to get updated um section four environmental inventory and Analysis which includes all of the resource stuff so geology Water Resources vegetation Fisheries Wildlife environmental challenges Scenic resources so they have that in the main need revision category so you know things like geology probably haven't changed too much although with a barrier Beach I guess there could be some discussion of erosion or other things that you know are are obviously changes to a community um but you know a lot of that from the previous plan can probably be updated more than like starting from scarus and then um section five inventory of lands of conservation Recreation interest that's all pretty much new because you have to just go through and say what what do we have what does the town have um it would be carrying forward things that have been listed before open space lands that are permanently protected that would be the same but then anything new that's been added to um open space properties Community goals analysis of needs goals and objectives fiveyear action plan public comments updated references that's kind of the the meat of the update I think is developing those sections so anyway I had noticed that chart before I can um share the link to you guys by email um so they haven't added anything in there I hav they should have regarding um like climate change or anything like that spe specifically well so this is the same workbook that's been around since 2008 yeah I did a couple double checks on that and tried to make sure that that was yeah most recent mostri Governor when this was written when we looking when we were looking through it so we didn't as well yeah so that's the one we worked with when we did I so yeah I don't know maybe there's language within it that's been updated but um just the overall form of it so my guess is they would the answer would be things like en challenges yeah but there's no new sections or new like formatting or anything pretty much been the same so um yeah so we want to go around and talk about the sections we looked into a little bit yeah do you guys remember I have to look at the minutes so who did someone have uh introduction or Community setting section two and three section three Community setting maybe we didn't didn't give anyone that I guess I had section three um if I look at the minutes yeah and I was asking you about that um yeah so I I don't know if do you want to sort of look at this while you're listening just to see what the last one looks like um but I mean they definitely like you said some of those sections don't need to be touched the history right the context some of the demographics so certainly a refresh there I think that was probably part of a larger conversation around where do we get the data from whatever depending on what it is um yes I mean that definitely struck me as something that the refresh would be valuable to see and I I have to say partly I got uh a little thinking around there I previous plan you know there were mentions of uh like even telecommuting and working from home and things like that that has probably changed to an even greater extent so interesting but you know that probably is harder data to get it versus your typical like professions who people work in and stuff like that you know so um how much I was thinking we will this process will have the benefit of the master plan having just been finished because my guess is you know a lot of that data crunching and also just context kind of discussion would be the same so I guess you could production plan as well yeah the development and growth area yeah so I don't know I mean anyway I think the them through all of this is to try to figure out like can we do this ourselves or do we need more help so I'm just kind of putting that question out there but um so Bill and Christina you guys looked at section four y did yep um independently but um so we're very thorough well yeah I mean we went through a lot of this stuff line by line but it's a lot of updating but um you know as you kind of touched on before some of it is some of it's just like going back and checking the facts and updating it like number of wars and and votes and that kind of stuff um we weren't 100% clear on sources because a lot of this stuff they were making some pretty interesting statements with zero reference so I'm like well where did they get that from so that it's a little bit of work to kind of source some of this stuff yeah there's actually they had like couple table and then it said Source on the bottom and it was empty so we got work on that or that you guys probably know right they wrote the plan so you will know like where the information came from so we kind of outlined some things that we said okay and you guys might know okay who do we talk to where we get that info now you know so that we can find it y so that was the first takeaway from it um what else we have yeah I mean I I feel a little bit like what might be useful because there's so much knowledge at this table about the sources of data that are out there right now and that are current that I know that for me it would be really helpful to just kind of clip through each page and you guys say oh yeah that's where you know that's where this info is this is where that info is um and then if we all come and we're kind of oh that's going to take a little bit more work you know is it something that we aren't going to be able to easily get by ourselves or not so I just felt like I couldn't answer the question 100% And I just honestly thought everybody here would know it but I took quick notes as to what needed to be updated so if we think that's a good use of time we can do that um or we can keep going around the table and check in on all of it first and then see you we can Circle back or I can you know make a table love it and send it out and people could fill in this is where all that information is as well or we could just do it live I always up for like doing it when you're in a room with people knowled rather than like sending a link to a Google sheet and do get time whatever so um but um yeah why don't we we'll see what we remember why don't did you get this why don't we go around a simple question and that is did you have access to the previous plan no I went through the previous plan yeah okay yeah yeah I have the previous plan right here and I took notes on all the things that I think need to be updated right so um the that information largely came from mvpc right yes well some some of it certainly did um you know things about Mings and stuff would have reasonably come from the Harbor Master no no no okay that section of the plan was largely assembled based on information from the the regional planning people who have that kind of information information specific to Newbery was contributed by either the planner or um members of the committee right so what I'm getting at is that there are areas where you probably don't know information which are highly technical I'm just looking at something here which says uh your vegetation right well that fundamentally is affected by some change in relation to climate change currently okay there are some things going on there that may or may not be what I'm getting at is a lot of this information is available um and um so we don't need to reinvent the wheel not that you were not no so why don't I go through like some of the things and you guys just tell me oh yeah we can get that from this and we'll decide like if if it's reasonably available then we'll go we'll figure out if we can get it ourselves so does that sound good I'll just kind of clip yeah that's um so like G GE that's not going to change so we can skip this I how changes yeah you're already in geology and uh yeah y yeah yeah one yep I didn't I didn't also feel like there was much to change from geology there might be I'm just thinking about soils and thinking about Prim oils and like things are better now like maybe the data is like more specific now or well what I looked was the like the source of it was um like the soil survey for Essex County Massachusetts which was last updated 1981 and I feel like I feel like that maybe doesn't change that often but I hadn't looked it up I had circled it to look it up to see if that had been updated or not um that was like the bulk of the she massive change which I think we all would have noticed my guess is the soils of of what they were yeah it's all digitized yeah and I think the what okay what does become perhaps gerain is if you start looking whether those kinds of soils are at risk 30 years later because of what's happening again through temperature rise and and changes in in plant or you know and how that affects Recreation is the big question in other words do you change the kind of uh grasses you're using for areas that have Hardware through um useing the recre I mean all those kinds of questions are very technical it seems to me but they're very good questions to ask yeah yeah I'd say that geology soils and topography like we can just see if there were any refinements but I I also do feel a little bit like it's probably the same mapping that hasn't really been updated probably so if there tightened up or something like that or right you know um and maybe if this was you know more it didn't even necessarily provide that um percentages so I feel like it was just a descriptions here are the soils that are here you know pretty pretty basic so I was wondering if it if it got to the level of you know 14% of the time town is f EG soils or Statewide importance local importance it didn't really dive into that it didn't so if and you know if we think that there that there was an effort to like identify more you know Prime farmland and we want to put that in here we could do that if we think it if we think it's yeah relevant you know if we think that it's relevant and important enough to put in there and it's actually really easy to get right yeah that's the thing we have there is a map for um superficial geology that was from Mar Valley planning that you just see if that has been updated or not going on the map side of things definitely we should look at the master plan too to to steal from or you know what I mean that might already be done for us to a relative relevant date you know is so recent recently completed some of them were and some some of them weren't so but yes just yeah yeah okay but we you know for example planning board um voted to designate some soils um local soils of agricultural significance which are not ones that show up um as Prime agricultural soils but are areas that are being actively farmed right now that might be something to add yeah what is that is that Recreation it's not Recreation but if you're talking about the town as a hole in the soils then I think it is appropriate yeah well okay and you're doing an environmental inventory analysis yeah it seems like it would go in the very nicely in the soil section yeah okay and so is that uh mapped is is it how is it how do we have it inventoried already you know which ones did we designate where is that so we can get that for you we got listing um the guy USGS who did that okay okay so can I put like the planning department that okay and that was when green that different side of Green B okay yeah Maggie Abby probably work you guys on that yeah I mean then the land use section is like how many acres are in which categories and so you know is that master plan I would imagine would have that already but if not it also seems like it would be like Mass GIS or various other data sources yes yeah yeah this is 2003 definitely need to be updated yeah exactly that table is sourced M GIS near yeah um oh okay came from both so I also have a little list because you know me um about what things that we might want to ask from maram MC Valley because we always talk about you know potentially getting some of their hours so um I will put the updated soil or sorry land use classification um you know there were there's some water quality studies underw resources um there were water quality studies you know that were kind of talking about things um from the 1990s and the Little River being a contributor to you know potential cont and some other you know Mill areas and I just feel like that has probably evolved quite a bit since the 1990s and so I'm wondering if there and I just haven't compared it to the master plan to know if you know wall our quality is in there and it's already been updated so if anybody already knows the answer to that and I had meant to print out the table of contents at least for the master plan so I had it in front of me yeah um but you know it's very specific about who's doing what studies on water quality in the town right like Parker River Clean Water Association is mentioned in here for doing some sampling um and it says how poor the condition of the water was and people call for stuff that's changed because Parker River has been absorbed into dry the dry River people so we now have ipsb and the Parker River and what's the other one the Essex ESS yeah P rivers and they're essentially the operational um they're the people who are now working together which is important because you know basically those three rivers empty into the Parker River Sound um and the quality of water in that has to do with what happens in our part of it so that's something that needs to change in terms of data and information yeah that's a great one the collaborations that have formed over the last couple of decades and what kind of and they're making good progress um okay I mean is this something that's just like personal communication to these folks or is it seem that seems like the most efficient way unless anyone thinks it's been written up already um I think it would start just reaching out to the people that work at the water show iations yeah Parker River clean water does still have a board they don't have any staff but um but the you know water quality person at Hera Ryan o' Donal would probably be the point person there there's been a lot of one thing that's changed significantly is the the ms4 storm water regulations that didn't really exist very much the last time this was done so the towns and Watershed groups have kind of been working together to you know beef up the water quality monitoring that's a great thing to add in here too okay so the nities program okay the other thing that may not be mentioned here would be you know some of the more recent concerns about um bu sewer overflows definitely right yeah that's true so that would I mean there committees in town that are kind of following that board of health and Conservation Commission so that you know it could be Outreach just locally but then again the Watership groups some okay are good adds and updates look like m m probably have some ins until getting some current data on Seafood um okay go next door next yeah that covered that be too bad um the aquer recharge areas I imagine that this probably is written in the master plan because of you know how we're dealing with water um so sure this may actually have some more more detail than that does although um you know I don't know pumping capacities if they've changed at all since since this is done I think one thing I like this sort of a side comment but there's been a lot of like stuff like reports and studies and assessments over the decades and I always feel like it's hard to find them like there's no good for Newberry like like stuff that pertains to Newberry in park the river like like our I mean this is it but like as we dig into Data sources it would be kind of cool to just like try to keep a really good track of the resources and then put the PDF it's all in one place on our website for everybody to access really easily good yeah it's a great idea um all right so we think the master plan would be the source for aqua for recharge areas you know and how many accounts there are that take water from Newberry Port versus um how many businesses get water from Newberry Port system we think that those little details um it really just talks about where everybody gets their water and then it throws specific numbers in so we either take out the numbers and we just say a number of businesses and Residences get their water from report or we dig in and we find the updated numbers we have numbers in the master plan but I'm not sure that they're broken down quite this way but we could adopt whatever they have and just put it right in here like replace what's here with that what that that is okay so I'll just put master plan as a start I'd say and then we might find out we want take a little more there's some stuff that's not there yeah if you live in the B water district we do get an annual report don't we I just found an old one the other day in the mail yeah which basic yeah which basically says what they did in in the year and it's available and they have an office and they're legally required to provide it anyway theity Port doesi this is byield oh the water district oh thei water distri you see that's important because they have they accessed that at the recreation Fields I don't know yet have they anybody know have they what have they access the water district at the recreation fields of M fields in other words is there a water supply there I think so cuz they're bathrooms right yeah so okay yeah yeah so that's changed yeah because that wasn't part of and I think they're irated I did just grab this from upstairs which is the recreation master plan for man yeah and this is an important thing for us to discuss CU they've made some assumptions in there which play right into what we're going to be talking about okay just add just not to jump back to section 3 CU there's a lot of data around recreation in section three like do you think that's um specifically for like like current conditions at the Central Street M Fields so there's not a lot of how many people are there's not a lot of detail and when when we did Section 3 before we reached out to a lot of different groups like a little Le the people are using the Upp green and stuff like that so I think it would probably be the same because these guys don't exactly oversee all the recation in town yeah but we could get their help doing that be absolutely we better get because I mean they're proposing a a major change uh at the recreation field which plays into a much broader area than just people playing games they're proposing on other things that should be water access at a place frankly where it's very questionable um I have you looked at I mean I went the night I appeared before I'm sorry to do this but the night I appeared before the selectman to say G would you appoint me they were reviewing this and I was very kindly given a copy of this is the master plan for the recreation committee anybody seen it no right why weren't you told about this just the manter fields yeah plant why won't we told about well I think they just finished it well yes I know but okay but here it is okay and yeah I got it and and it plays right into all of the sorts of issues which Jim is Raising that it's a major part of and after all this is not the open space plan it's the open space and Recreation plan right someone yeah we talked about reaching out to other committees so I don't know if that's happened yet but has it that was I don't know no I did not reach out to the conservation more I can tell you that but it does seem like yeah it be worth reading that plan for your realiz even though it's only one little you know part it's still it's still a recreation plan so and has it did it get approved or is it a draft right now okay the recreation committee is a self-funded committee it's a what What's the phrase It's a revolving fund yeah it's a revolving fund so it doesn't get money from the town it gets money from its activities right and so what they have done is they have hired a consultant basically to look at the Manfield site totally and to look at it terms of its potential through age groups and a whole bunch of stuff um uh I don't know whether they put it online whether it's available do you know whether it's available actually don't know if it's online or not right um anyway um you know it includes Trail work a bunch of stuff um and I what I was going to do was reach out to them frankly because they appear to have totally either missed and or deliberately ignored a trail that was created on a little island which exists off the bottom if you go to the bottom of the air strip the old Air strip the boy SC a Boy Scout made a trail there unfortunately has some access issues but there are a whole bunch of things which we can get into later but that's part of what we need to know yeah no what you I mean maybe we should just have a joint meeting with the rec committee pretty soon I think we should just get everyone well in the past we had somebody from their committee regularly meeting with this committee yeah and they're supposed to have some someone from this committee meeting with their committee that's part of their right Charter or whatever so I need to three engage and the plan has to be an open space and Recreation plan I feel like we started with this on the first night right it has to be an open pH Recreation plan in order to meet the guidelines from the state okay good yeah okay super um so there are some things in here that I feel like come right out of natural heritage a dangered species program so I'm sure that's like a quick Mass GIS statistics how many vernal pools are in you know cuz the numbers probably changed how many of them are certified versus uncertified well on the flood Hazard areas um there was mentioned about a serious spring event 2006 affected the beaches of Plum Island well that's way out of date oh definitely and I don't know I mean we've got some pretty major issues on the barrier beaches out here and what's going on this winter with Salsbury and everything how much do we want to dig into that I mean that's that's pretty substantial um that would be all new material that we could add to report right and I think some some of this is mentioned in u the master plan we're also working on the hazard mitigation Plan update so some of that is also mentioned there so we've got sources that we can okay you know as well as historic knowledge like 2013 we lost six houses into the ocean yeah and flood maps have also been updated twice I'm not seeing any dates on flood maps here but we probably make mention and and they're in the process of being updated again the female ones the female ones yeah yeah that's really good to know I feel like flood came up in a couple of different places and so it probably is required to come up in a couple places but I was trying to get my head around you know where it comes up and to just avoid not duplicating any information but there was like a different angle on it you know in different paragraphs so um just cuz I haven't really dived into what the current plan looks like and this is called inventory and Analysis like is each section like is Water Resources have an inventory end analysis or is analysis kind of like bundled at the end under challenges or something it's kind of woven in um to you know Water Resources like the subsection watersheds and rivers um you know it's like here's what we have um and then they analysis like in the last few paragraphs are you know but there's heightened risk in incr incremental encroachment into surrounding buffer areas that protect the freshwat and saltwater resources so there is like analysis and it's kind of woven in by the next to the inventory yeah cuz that's kind of that's a way to think about it too right like if we're just Gathering the information and it all in and then how do we do the analysis like are we grabbing other analyses to like dump them in here or are we supposed to like do some kind of thoughtful analysis ourselves once we have the inventory do you see what I mean it's just a different way of thinking about the update I think I mean it again I could spend more time on the workbook because I'm sure they discuss that a little bit but um and anyway because there's a whole another section analysis of needs so maybe this section four is just kind of like not a deep dive into it's more entory than analis yeah no I would think like the public survey and sort of that would help us with analysis potentially any yeah that requires some thinking for sure and I think it's it's definitely good to just know that there is a lot of planning going in going on right now both the master plan but also this Hazard mitigation plan we've that committee that's been working with mvpc on that has really dived into like naming the specific roads that are the most vulnerable to flooding currently stuff like that like we have a lot of that that could just be brought in yeah that is like a question near the end of section four was just sort of okay you know how much do we want to go into detail about this because we want to you know follow the format and include the required things um we could probably write a dissertation on climate change and sea level rise and so I feel like I just trying to like get my head around how how want to succinctly say something um so yeah that's going to take some finagling and thinking I would say um yeah I guess the on the wetlands I was feeling like that was you know could probably get from NSP I know if you had anything else I mean there's a lot of stuff needs to be updated exactly yeah looks like most of those taken from the master plan last time we might be able to send a request to nhp and say to town of Newber updating our open space plan can you please send us a list of XYZ and ask them to do it just like I was a project developer and I sent them my circle of my project area and they send me an analysis right yes does that sound reasonable yeah well that' be great they did about Regional planning people or no the MP program that the natural heritage and endanger species program with the state because yeah well okay so the my experience anyway is the best access to them is probably through the regional planning book Council right commission remember back it can they work closely together supposed to just okay me I don't know um my experience just simply says that the environmental people at the Planning Commission are going to be the folks who probably know the best sources for this kind of information and probably have those sources you know sort of in telephone email or whatever contact and they can either share them with us or they can in fact access them yeah um yeah we can put it on mvpc list I mean I know who to contact but I um if it's something that we could put on mvpc so that they they can track it and yeah well I think what we need to do uh is to sit down with them to have a couple of us sit down with them and see based on the kind of concerns that you've been identifying what they can directly help us with what they can point us to and how how much of that time might be ours from them or might not that's you know you know I mean come on you guys you're the people who are the official Town contacts with them yeah we talk to them so should be based on my experience of working with them for a couple of you know for a decade um is that um I think it depends on whether we have a contract with them for certain work or no come on come on let's let's let's get off the the formal stuff David we in the town have a direct link to natural heritage so I would probably not go through mvpc to get to natural heritage okay good they could help us if we if they were helping us with a whole number of things but I I think if I just had a question hey can you provide a list of endangered species in Newberry I would go go directly to them right so we need we need to know that yeah okay that's what we're making a list of right now we're going through that yes I agree I think that that I I appreciate that Christina is starting that list and we have as well of what tasks this work could use mvpc for and then I think we'll have to decide whether are we going to hire them are we can we do it through the local technical assistance funding which is a few hours here a few hours there just we haven't figured that piece of it out yet they're very willing and able to help us um with most of this work if we ask them to if we want them to right but I'm not sure we fully know what we need to ask yet we really need to figure out what the scope was and then that would that would help direct us as to you know do we need to contract with them for a certain amount of money can we get this under local technical assistance and certainly the mapping would be part of it we probably wanton a contract with f for that and is it is there does it make sense to you know we're now kind of making our list of the things that maybe na or mbpc could help us with um is it also worth just proactively asking them hey we're updating our open space and Recreation plan you know how do you help other towns do that just to even like let them tell us what they usually do for people so then we can like ROP that off our list and say great you guys can do that and we won't do that or like which direction do you want to take it yes I mean I think um our experience with them is say you know they're willing to do however much we would like them to do they could be our consultant and basically take the lead on doing this whole thing which would be you know one box another would be helping us with certain portions as they did with the master plan they did the transportation section they reviewed our natural resources they did the housing and the economic development they did the map so it was kind of a a menu of things that they could help us with so I think that's kind of a basic question is how much of this do we think we can do ourselves and how much would we like Consulting help kind of pulling the whole thing together what's the disadvantage or drawback um having them act as our consultant to do the whole thing is it just a funding thing or we'd have to I don't know what Hoops we would have to jump through to get to that point um it's not really Hoops it would be a funding thing whether we you know have enough funds to fund it ourselves or whether we would need to grant funding to to cover it I think if um so we're kind of jumping a little bit which is fine because that's just helps us with this conversation but there's um I think I mentioned this at the last meeting the state has this One-Stop Grant portal where you can just put in an expression of interest for what you need help with and they help tell you oh you can you know access this grant or this grant these are the appropriate places um so that is actually something we've been talking about intending to do is just write it's a pretty it's a very easy like one pager expression of Interest we want to update our open space Rec plan mhm and they have towns get money through the state grant program all the time so if we were successful we would know that um we would apply they would read our expression of Interest they would give us feedback and say you know these are good Grant sources um and you know youd have to have a a budget you know a rough budget and then you actually apply and then I think we'd know this summer whether we got that Grant if it was like a $30,000 Grant uh I looked through to see what the ranges of Grant awards were for towns that get money to update their plan like as a project and it was between 30 and like $8,000 so I don't know what that's a huge range and I didn't dive in yet to know what's the difference between like the workbooks the same for every town so you know what's the difference um between the actual tasks that are being funded but um assuming we get a grant which I think we would um because our plan is out of date um we'd have to decide are we going to hire mvpc to do that are we going to hire you know a private planning consultant who's you know works out of their house whatever like you could put an RFP out and decide who you wanted to work with I think there we could have a discussion about the pros and cons of working with mvpc I think they're a lot of positives because they're very familiar with us they're just finishing our Hazard mitigation plan they could easily bring it over the potential drawbacks are they work regionally for 16 towns they have a lot of stuff going on you know we just have to think about um um what would be the best match for us in terms of our schedule what their capacity is you know that kind of thing so if that sound the benefit I think for a volunteer committee is you have someone in charge uh obviously staff are in charge as well and the committee depending on how strong a committee is in charge um the rec committee you know hired a consultant to do this master plan then they presented it to the sled board s board ultimately in charge anyway they're different processes in terms of creation of the plan but um I think Martha and I probably feel like it would be a good idea to try to get a grant and just have some additional resources to kind of be in charge um so that makes perfect sense and yeah I think doing what we're doing too is really even my mind is just getting a good understanding how big a task this is right and and then I'm looking at this is just like the first step of what's much bigger and better coming down the road when I look at neighboring towns and their open space plans and stuff and what they've been able to do to acquire bond funds bonds funds and stuff like that so I understand that this is the first step so I just didn't know yeah I'm still getting my head around how how big this is right I think we are as you get into it I think yeah the magnitude of it actually begins to to become more apparent there's a whole you know the whole public Outreach component which is you know part of the thing that we're required to do that a consultant might be better able to like you know survey and you know the public forums and all that kind of stuff that and developing the action plan the end of the day has to happen I think driven by the committee as representing the town public as a whole so that's like a critical piece that I think the committee would have to um you know we couldn't rely on a consult to create our Town's action plan but we could rely on a consult to bring it all together and shape it and you know ask us the questions tabulate all the survey responses and all that kind of stuff which can be yeah pretty consuming yeah I mean I'm I would also you know as we get through in our sections and see how much of it needs to be updated it really is a lot I mean I would also be open to the idea of getting a you know applying for a gr them using a consultant and helping guide them exactly to get us what we need exper dat things too potentially it going be quicker at than night our own experience trying to do this in the house is that it's it's it's very difficult to actually be able to just focus on it and get it done at a time M yeah makes sense okay keep going um yeah under saltwater Wetlands that's where some of the I don't actually know that we need this but it is related to Recreation but it's under saltwater Wetlands um and it talks about the Mooring permits you know and the whole where they are and where they're located um and it's you know interesting it seems like it probably because this is a recreation if it was just an open space plan Maybe um not but because it's a recreation plan it probably does make sense but that's you know pulling the Ino from the Harbor Master did say that this has been described as one of the most important Coastal ecosystems in northeastern North America I know actually it was kind of fun to read this about like the great things that are in Newberry you know makes you really proud to live here um yeah that's the public access stuff that's all just needs to be updated um the Marine infernal is noer that yeah I don't know what a still has eight Wars there or not but yeah all of that needs to be at least checked and probably updated right right um you know and then updating like the riverways program the grant access points and whatnot you know just following up on all of those little questions that were you know great initiatives that were worth mentioning and now we got to see where they landed if there's a different update that makes sense does it discuss like Dam removals and that kind of stuff in this section I don't I don't disgusted in 2008 yeah at least not on the Parker yeah actually wait I feel like this did come up somewhere in here um there has been I habitat enhancement I know up River for the dadge it's been an active program um help a little bit we had some of the stuff about D and the hazard medication but I actually um had Jack rybicki who really loves local history looking into the history of all the dams and it's like it's really a toar point of like you're sort of reading stuff and you're like God like really wrapping our arms around the history of that inland portion of the river for this town it would be super interesting it's sort of he had a lot of information but it wasn't necessarily like in a narrative I'm sure it exists somewhere yeah there is a reference here on page 40 under did a marine M fish fresh water fish and shelters says Town M division of ecological restoration been working on several dam removal projects yeah DMF updates so yeah just reaching out to all of those people um you know it's right here who we need to reach out to but he doing that actually the um confirming regulations and if certified vers are still um protected different regulations for cutting Practices Act regulations um those kind of things just kind of confirming everyone that they're all still valid you know we haven't changed the laws and that one got rolled into another one and that's no longer called the forest cutting Practices Act act regulations which is probably fine it probably is still true but I just feel like qcing every little one of those references um will be important yeah you know like the park of river Clean Water Association was working with massot to begin to focus on public education and roadkill issues for amphibians and reptiles and kind of that's gotten a lot more attention in the last 15 years I would say um so yeah their turle habitat work is really Tak on yeah so having an update on what that looks like be important yeah and then you know maybe the we'll get to the next section that talks about the partials that have been conserved um but it was the open space committees and conversations with mass land acquisition commission Division fici and Wildlife to identify partials for purchase that would strengthen wildli Corridor area I don't know if there's a lot of wildlife Corridor conversations going on but um that seems you know can be updated B on how those conversations have been go I haven't seen a lot of porcupines in um Newberry but it's listed as common wild VI so we might want to double check that one are definitely a little out of L walking through my stay away from the dog okay I feel like that's a big chunk of um it oh wait there's two or three more pages so just quickly that was another natural heritage and endangered species um oh yeah and then Newberry reconnaissance report this is another report that maybe is hiding somewhere that we could put as a resource in the plan but it was called the Newber reconnaissance report yeah that's a good one and that should be on our website if it's not okay okay what is it a report it was um basically it was the windshield report and it went through and and looked at number of like significant things I think this whole section on the Comm past year yeah it was done by ESS Heritage you know the out out of saor and as I remember they basically literally drove around a lot it was the windsh report and they had a fair amount of input anyway and they checked it out and they were particularly concerned with Route 1 a because that's a designated you federally designated Scenic Highway and all the rest of it but they also got into um you know historic places and buildings and all the rest of it um and then they kind of if I remember uh they were going to include view Scapes but they didn't do too well at that they sort of ran ashore a bit because they couldn't agree I talk to the particularly the two of the women who who did that and it were very interesting they couldn't agree what a vicap was uh not in any sort of very radical way but they saw them differently um and so viewscapes were 10 to Penny along one a but then what happened well you know point is for example um uh what's it the human Road has probably four or five key du Gates depending which direction you're facing among other things and then there were a whole bunch of others um and the other thing was were they all to be just natural or were they to include buildings so the upper green you know and how do you document but it was it was it turned up I think a lot of interesting questions yeah um and is quite useful in terms what we did identify yeah yeah I think that reference to the common was was important in some of the development efforts that happened um sort of helping to not having to go any F farther like this the solar field I think yeah every use that's been proposed for over there over the years yeah the underwater ball field right then the last one is environmental challenges you know again it's like going through M 's website of any sites that are you know have currently active cleanups going on um it talks about the landfill status of the landfill um and then there's a section on erosion and another one on chronic flooding so that's where again you know let's we'll have to refine how much we want to talk about yeah that's that's so so much more critical now um or we recognize that much more so a lot of that's being addressed in a hazard mitigation plan and okay great and then groundwater pollution um both point and non point sources um and there are issues here now salt water intrusion into Wells and things like that which I doubt was mentioned they actually or did they did say that somewhere along here um yeah um okay yeah so it sounds like that section may have some or the um master plan may have some pieces in there and then there's another erosion sedimentation and erosion section as well and this actually does mention the Nifty storm water perming programs and it was 2019 residents V to adopt a storm water management and alysis discharge and erosion control bylaw so you know it's going back ways and so 2019 n sorry did I say 19 no9 okay so yeah just an update how the's program was going through there's a spot there for that all right I know that was a lot so I'm done section four it's good a sense of everything that it encompasses yeah that's it's a big SE super yeah that's the the bulk of the inventory that's like what we have right that's like what we have what we have and then you're like okay what's protected what are the uses what are we you know are we doing this well what are our goals for fure so it's a pretty critical section thank you going through all that um I had number five section five which is the inventory of lands of conservation and wreck interest so I had a couple of questions I'll start with I think maybe the easiest one uh for the master plan the open space map is not completed or it says like to be completed was that left that way either knowing or in hopes of this committee reforming in in kind of spearheading that work or is that something that we're just still waiting on from mvpc or did money not get spent on that that's still sitting there for that mapping initiative that's okay yeah okay I just you know all the other there's like two maps there's that one and there's another one that the housing housing yeah and there were two yeah the the housing um was going to tied directly into the housing production plan which is under process and then I think you're thinking it um opens this would drive that okay we did it's pretty updated from the existing open space that's protected um but that actual map hasn't been created yet so that was the piece that um mbpc was going to work on this spring and my memory because it's tied to some of the assessor data updates that get done annually as well the open space map yeah okay and and my map those layers on to yeah to my map to use okay so that's kind of here just didn't want to reinvent the wheel that was so you think that that's being worked on currently by them I think that's the that's the plan we need to they've had some turnover in their GIS department and I think we need to Circle back with them um as well okay but I think that will be able to be completed by mvpc okay yes and I green Bel had already given some um some of the updates there there was a fair amount of like we're recreating stuff that's already in sgis and green there's just like all swirling data so that was part of what sled down okay sorting through it all okay um so I think one one of my main questions about this section was the organization of the data in here in the tables and kind of like how we present the inventory um I I looked at the I looked at the section from the the handbook just relative to to this section to kind of help me just think about it was very hard for me to separate protected open space from just like open space like the like school property or something like that mentally like I have to have retrain my brain to look at it that way um but they they want all that information in here both protected and you know quote protected um but uh there was a there was a table here that I didn't know if if if any of the existing long-term committee members here could help shed a little light on uh it's called town-owned Parcels of unknown open space attributes yes I've read it many times for multiple different nights and I I tried to understand what that meant oh I see that one right here yeah yeah what page are we on please page 69 okay table 5-6 yes table 56 well I I can raise a hand about that if you want I I would love it well well okay um the co conspirator was Dan streer okay okay and basically it was in the Primitive days of running essentially a screen of properties over certain sizes and eventually coming down to a listing of properties which essentially we didn't know much about but we suspected that either they were badly recorded in potential relation to 61 A or B because the town in the N ear in the 90s ' 880s and '90s was very bad about 61 the use of 61 okay um and people just declared that they were doing it um and they didn't keep records so that's I think I I have to would have to look now properties are on Plum Island they're beach front properties right okay uh and there yes there were some other so this one okay um but you see it starts off uh well not very well described is it across the corner of middle middle W right behind po well that that one's the park that wraps around the post office so I'm not quite sure why that's on here is an unknown open space attribute right um so I think at that point there was no information as to who either owned them or controlled them no clear information anyway and didn't the town in fact in that instance move to um declare that that was now a par I think it was it was it was granted to the town via will um to be used as a park and that's where the um Memorial is now but anyway um that's I mean those kinds of things I think are the ones the rest of them are essentially properties on Plum Island that nobody had information about at that point right and some of them we may have sold there were two efforts to well there's an effort in probably 2010 or so to divest ourselves of some of these Plum Island properties um declared them surus and we issued rfps s so but I think the other thing was that um it turns out uh there's not okay well okay August 2010 the assesses records were and to some degree still are really bad in terms of how much who owns it doesn't own it where it came from Etc and that I suspect underlies a lot of this I don't know I me I I could I could see some of that and I remembered some of that from back then but I you know it wasn't like standing clear in my mind and I just kept kind of circling around it again and again like what is this table what are we doing with this table do we need it you know is it supposed to be something else you know so I think a lot of they been looking at the address since like 10 old way I think that's actually where the sore pumping station is and things like that there were there were open spaces a lot of these on Plum Island that were just small Parcels that were could not be developed in and of themselves um and a lot of them have since been sold off yeah and they came from the original dividing up of of the island into all the little tiny parles right yeah right okay so do we want to include it again I guess the question is is it something that's required uh I I don't know that if that there was just it's a listing of vacant Parcels that that I mean they're not they're not part par Parcels but they were just vacant undeveloped parcels and most of them could not be developed but the town owns already the town owns yeah I in my mind I was I would think I was thinking if they would the town owned a bunch of these parcels and if we were trying to conserve open space I guess they're not developable but if a person next store buys it and then they turn it into their lack then they could develop them so are we still doing that are we still like identifying Town own carels that nothing's on and putting them up for sale we haven't gone through that exercise for a while yeah well I know Inland is such a sensitive area now too that we almost I've seen some of the options that we want to get that land back well yeah there was discussion about that time to 10 12 about whether we should do that in other words whether we in fact should encourage people by selling them property which allowed them to have a bigger footprint or whatever it might be and you can well expect there was a division of opinion and frankly I was for hey we don't need to do that particularly because the ones on Plum Island are just going to create issues which we don't need to deal with frankly um and this was at a time when the you know we had fancy s system which probably failed the first do we got etc etc so yeah um I mean I think it's a good exercise to have a a as good a list as possible of town owned property period and then you can kind of have all your fields of like this is care custody and control of the wck committee this is you know care customing control of I don't know this was donated to the town for the purpose of something like just as much as possible getting a handle on what the town owns is like a good exercise it's may not necessarily translate directly into having to be included here but maybe like we're saying maybe something comes to light that we're like oh that could be conveyed to Green Belt because Green Belt now owns the property next door to it or you know something where it's like there's a better management or stewardship that we uncover and we can kind of set an action for it so it's probably a good process but it's a slog I will just say haven helped some other towns do it it's like weird tax title stuff and digging into the registry and now the gis line doesn't line up with a parcel line and I we came across a property recently that is like owner unknown like and some people have dug it you know the title research but it's never been discovered but it abs some of the state land it's like someone should own that someone should figure that out at some point so we could at least identify what those kind questions are related to so one of the tables is all Town owned coner R properties which like the other tables in here all just need a fresh you know update from from 2008 yeah um they they they got broken out as well like there's a whole table of just what you know Green Bel owns then there's like the anything from like the trustees or the state or the feds is kind of often its own thing but I didn't know if like maybe it should should they should kind of all be more grouped together you know in a table there designating whether it's you know private nonprofit state federal agency and whatnot instead of having them spread out across different tables um most it's do because it's all permanent protection Level under those entities so I thought they could all easily live together um and same thing with like the CR APR conservation restriction and a preservation restriction information as well could kind of all be in its own table uh just for clarity regardless of who the holder is Town nonprofit state agency um just I I thought just as like an easy way to read and get that data without being like Oh I'm on this table and this is you know Green belt's conservation restrictions and now I'm on this table and this is the town's conservation restrictions you know just to have it all kind of uh concise there um so it's the kind of protection that's the Sorting category you still have like it's green belt or it's just like you could have that in your table but not yeah cuz they they they kind of flip it excuse me between like some of the some of the tables like there's there's a table that's permanently protected properties over 100 acres is it necessary for that to be its own Standalone table or does that is that mixed in with all the other permanently protected right properties in town you know um I kind of like some of the way that it was I don't know it was sort of interesting in some ways to have it spread to have a couple of different tables as opposed to just having one big massive table that might be so overwhelming sure that I mean we could easily break it I mean there's not an unlimited amount of organizations holding land in town you know in conservation so I mean we could easily break it out to separate for like each organization you know the town trust these greenbell State feds and have the listing of of you know the parcels that fall under you know kind of each organization as well I was curious I'm I'm I'm asking more of like a a good way to kind of organize and present it yeah you know be great to just have a digital sortable table right right and then you can just like go presuming this will be mostly a living online document rather than a PDF that we have have to scroll through weird tables but I don't know yeah it's a good question I assume some of the coding that was associated with the tables is derived from assessors that you know like that like for the keys to these tables kind of came maybe from how the Assessor's record is presented no they came I think from searches done through the assesses r i mean like if I wanted to go find you know I guess yeah primary purpose that that wouldn't necessarily be an assessor code there I I kind of bounced I did a lot of like data diving with with some of this just cuz I I got access to GIS I got access to a lot of data sources you know and I was trying to correlate between the accessors website and some of the data that I'm pulling just to see like if I could match it up you know and I had a hard time kind of finding the right codes through these assessor department to get like that kind of output right like I was looking for like all conservation restrictions in town regardless of you know right well some of them are coded so like some of them I could find via the assessors then obviously I was going to my own way to find you know what I know exists supposedly they have a tool which you can't access gotcha okay and I would think by now that may have changed in the past it wasn't too sophisticated cuz one of the the bloops I notice here is a in the one table of EX County green Bel okay you have the graph reservation which is 166 acres and it doesn't show up on the 100 Acre list and it's the only one but it's typical of the sort of things that got thrown up that way but I think the idea here was was um and I don't know whether they I really translated because I haven't looked recently to actually have different slightly different color coding so that you would have large areas which would be easy to see compared with small 20 acre kinds of things okay um So that obviously um The Refuge um Old Town Hill um Martin burs places like that would instantly come up as being major areas and therefore when you look at the map you can get an idea of the geographic distribution of those so are they you know where are they in relation for example question is where are they in relation to the population centers in in town um and so do they serve and that way you can answer questions just by looking at a map and I don't know whether they ever got done did it get done M do you know I don't think so no okay cuz when I last time I looked in the open space map frankly in order to be useful it needed to be the size of that wall I mean it it it's the level of detail is is is just not yeah doesn't function well on the computer screen at all well yeah especially on you know paper print out as well you know and I I almost wondered if the open space map had to be broken out a little too like instead of being you could you could have one all-encompassing map obviously to like lead off but to David's point you know do you have that 100 Acre plus map on its own doesn't show smaller stuff doesn't include 61 properties that you know the current map shows everything you know it shows schools it shows cemeteries it shows everything on that map it's cluttered you know is it worthwhile to maybe do a little breakout from that from like the master open space map to like maybe [Applause] highlight maybe which just you know what's just protected open space versus like open space that has you know Public Access or something like that you know um yeah no we were thinking the same thing just get maps I feel like the technology is so good now for visualization that we can come up with some really good Maps using the same data sets you know that would work even big circles little circles you know to say not every sing par just like in this area we got this money you know got the big partel I like the big partel map too yeah well the whole workability ideas see plays into this too because um you know one of the things I've learned basically where you live in town means whether you can walk from your house to an open space where you can walk and see no houses or whether you can do it comfortably on a bike bicycle or whether you have to drive to do it and so to me fascinating moving from or Street sort of where Jim is to where I now am right across the road here I'm actually Less close to a a really nice collection of stuff because I could walk from my house on Orchard Street to gra Meadow to Martin burs and to other little sort of areas where is here um it's biking and it's biking through you know if I don't go um through the middle of uh B field which is not a super place to bike have to say yeah so you know I think that's that's one of the the you need to develop a trail right here to get you to the library and then you could get up Forest Street to some really nice Trails yeah right which is yeah so I love what you guys are saying just it's like I really I I've been really concerned about people not being able to walk from their home like I've had people say that to me oh I don't walk around here I get in my car and drive to an open space parcel and I think well lucky for us we have open space Parcels to drive to but wouldn't it be nice to be able to walk safely in well also the other wonderful thing is when you start out on a sidewalk because the state has had to do that when they did the highway and the sidewalk just runs out right dead end which is related to things like this I think are really critical to talk about like how people are getting to this right right newly Central like zone of our Whole Town's Recreation well if people have to be driving there it's just anyway these layers of sort of impact well one of the things in there is they don't I think really site as much connecting it to the high school as they need to a whole lot of remember also that walkability suddenly began to appear as a rating score on realy properties right so it gets to be an important you know one of the selling things right we live in the state where you can actually talk about that you talk about some of the Realtors I know in states where I mean Las Vegas right what do you do right yeah yeah yeah obviously I I you know Co pandemic really right shown some lights on a lot of these issues we're talking about in a different way that no one was thinking about previous I think Mike's got a very good point point that we could provide maps that answered rather more specific questions than this huge kind of global thing which eventually doesn't have much use yeah a lot of colors well like I think I think you know people think open space right so they think you know I can go there right like you know an an agricultural preservation restriction doesn't allow Public Access most conservation restrictions don't some do but they're you know different kinds of open space so kind of been able to present that in a way that you know somebody the end user could you know take and and sure you know we had the classic one the one up on South Street which has uh 61 Recreation there's no way of accessing it uh what's it trying to think the prop the property owners the yes piece of land that's up there just before you get to the highway where the solar field is now H where the solar field is now no yeah that's not it's not South the other side of that between the solar field and and South Street there's there's property there which is in 61b and I don't know how you it used to be anyway protected now it's permanently protected now right but now is it open to the public no so how's going 61b I don't know how it's still in 61b but it has a conservation restriction on it yeah so I mean that's the kind of weirdness that you have yeah yeah definitely it's like the hands not talking to each other exactly yeah are trails in the inventory um I don't believe they were called out um I think it was just the primary purpose which was an R for wreck with facilities based activities C for conservation with non- facilities based activities and B conservation Recreation but I don't think it gave a there was nowhere in here with like a Trails inventory I don't believe n it's just the section 77 sorry references y I got so hung up on the tables of data yeah that's good uh yeah talked about Bas Trail um uh you know State resources Martin Burns crane Pond uh green Bel mentioned there Oldtown Hill mentioned there obviously there's a lot of updating that that can go into all these sections here it's just a lot more available today included append yeah in this and the little map of the end reference all those too thing at the end yeah yeah the advanc of the rail trail from then to now all that's been done it needs to be included um do you know happen to know like when the the town Town puts out their current 61 data like when they when they kind of have like what's the what's the year of that is the fiscal year like July is when they have the um the applications are due in October they're due in October okay so we'd have 2023 currently we wouldn't have 20 or is so I'm sorry October would have been for the following year well it would be basically it's calendar yeah I think it's calendar in October for the 24 so we could get 2024 61 information currently okay so 2022 I think so is what I had available and uh I was actually kind of surprised that uh I don't want to say how little but kind of thought there was going to be more on on the list and it wasn't like an endless list of of 61 properties I don't know if that's because some have you know had restrictions put on them and that they didn't need to go through that anymore you know or or or whatever but some have come out for development so sure right okay okay I don't think I had any other major questions on the section um mostly because again A lot of it was just bringing data up to date I think I did want to re kind of maybe to kind of read I was think one night I was thinking maybe the presentation of the section could be rewarded a little bit but um I want to re relook at that based on the data refresh um you know is it something that mvpc would be helpful to have you know it sounds like these data plls from the assessor's office it would be great they could do those it's not like you have access to those or right that's green so yeah the town stuff the 61 stuff is what I definitely wouldn't have access to but that would be through our assessors that would be through the assessors like for like the a preservation restrictions in town through Mass Department of B you can actually run a report you can like highlight the area you want and they like generate a little report tells you all the APS in that area which was kind of nice I just did that got that information that way um I didn't run an inventory yet of like I think I said uh like state land fed lands things like that in town I looked at a lot of our records and easily pull you know a couple spreadsheets together on what we own in town and acreage numbers and things like that parcels and everything um is is there any value to having like recording information for like conservation restrictions or act preservation restrictions in in this inventory or is that kind of too much and it's better to be a little more I mean so it's public knowledge it's public record stuff like anybody can go find it but do we need do we want to present that kind of information to people is there anything specified in the workbook I would necess that first and then I would say like if I mean depending on how this all goes but if you're pulling something from d and it's a list then we go look at our assessors and they're not all in the assessors then I think that's where having all like books and page and like other you know information so I'd say like make the universe as big as possible when we're pulling stuff and then we can like sort out what actually gets put into the plan or if it's like available in a spreadsheet for some other okay use or at least maybe like maybe for like municip stuff like the stuff that the town holds maybe that we do kind of want that level of like detail in there I don't know I I I'm not sure but um if we were to prioritize open space like which properties privately owned properties we would want to Target we' want to know which ones had conservation restrictions on them or not right you know there some are just wide open could be developed maybe there's a new but a sensitive area maybe that's something that we would want to go for so right I me that really goes to table five8 here the privately owned Parcels of open space interest you know looking exactly at that whates are it kind of goes back to the maps again that did um prioritizing these open open space Parcels based on their agricultural value or flood protection value or other things like that I you know that would be go back to definitely you know uh Abby Hardy Moss uh who's our the head of our GIS program you know is still she has the data that I think she presented to you and Kristen at one point in time for some other you know uh use in town here and is uh you know willing to either come in and present all of us as a committee or um you know have us used that resource of getting the prioritization data from her for the plan you know would be great and I think she wanted to present to the committee um which wasn't really active at the time yeah also to the Conservation Commission so if she was willing to do that think definely be great yeah she definitely is I kind of reaffirmed that with her today before I came tonight just in case I was like hey you remember when you told me You' do this like were you still interested in doing this and and she definitely is so and it was a great set of maps I think be really useful yeah and I mean we would have the ability you know obviously to uh decide what we would want her to use for for data points there to to run that prioritization you know I think she's done it on for the town here it's uh parcel's greater than 5 Acres um she should give me the whole criteria and I I kind of forget now what they all were greater than 5 Acres I think she was focused maybe on a stuff it was the EG it was flooding there were a couple of other ones too and I can't remember yeah she could obviously let us know what we could you know choose for different inputs there to kind of gener generate that but I think that'll be an important piece when we get to the action plan of really yeah definitely looking it at Parcels of high interest they've done she's done it for other towns too so it's not like a unique as just for us you know she's she's run us for a few different municipalities so I know we have we David you did some work on the survey and I also know that it's getting late and I'm kind of curious Barry if you have anything that you want to add or that has occur to you while you're listening to us talk about the open space plan and open space and Rec plan and updates the the only thing that crossed my mind specifically is how on Earth are you going to get this done before the next one needs to be started that's always the challenge there's a ton of work in here and until somebody sent me the notice that there was going to a meeting tonight maybe you'd be interested I I said okay I need something to do tonight I don't watch television so so I thought I'd just come over and I want tell you I'm very impressed by the volume of work you all have done so far and I think that's just scratch of the project you're heading for so well they did change it from 5 years to seven years that they're asking towns to do it but I think you're I mean you're hitting the nail on the head because I this is one of those things that it's hard to keep it up to date it's you know you get your page finished and you get the three down and all of a sudden something back here has changed yeah and nobody's ever heard the this how this work is done or what it is and ultimately maybe not every individual in town looks at it but it's done important to have it in one place yeah so on behalf of all those who pay no attention including me until now thank you thank you thank you I do think that's why a little bit of the like just generating lists like you said as soon as you make the list it's going to get outdated so just thinking as we go forward like thinking about the ways to keep it um I don't know keep it dynamic because it is dynamic like we're g to you know we have you have to create the plan and then you don't have to create the plan for another seven years in order for that particular purpose but if our goals are related to walkability and getting people out on properties and getting more awareness you know or whatever like th those are the things I think would be the most important I did tell me to shut up whenever I was vaccinated with a phonograph needle but uh it seems to me that well this report is important the stuff you just talked about is more important you're doing this and it's great but who who knows about it and who knows that they can get the resource to figure out what they need to discover in the town yeah right all absolutely I like that which kind of to me translates to hiring a consultant to help do this thing but then we have this sort of vibrant committee that can like continue to to work on fun stuff none of my business but you get a consultant who can put in the time and focus and get it done so you can do that and get out and talk to the community about what you're doing and what you found and what they need to know about so they can stand in line behind you when you go to protect something that's a great you need a PR chair yeah that's great yeah and I think you know we have the last plan done but there was you know there was a whole action plan but you know really need the the energy and everything to just start working on those things and I think people who frankly who just do report after report after then it's time to start the next one don't even get to think about the the pr aspects and you know okay we're going to spend X Dollar on it we're going to spend xll worth of time that we didn't have to pay for with all the folks in here and still end up with just a bunch of paper right that that would be a shame for all the work you're putting in well that's exactly what happened essentially 15 years ago we ended up with a bunch of paper it was okay but it was a bunch of paper and no one was there was no real commitment to it I think as far as you know I would see just sitting here trying to listen and read what I could at the same time that's a bunch of fascinating stuff in there there really is yeah stuff a NE town but I think to me the kind of thing that the de giveway in here I don't know whether you got this for Mike but on page 81 open space Equity I would love all of us to just read those four lines and see how you respond yeah page 81 is the last it's a single paragraph by itself on the last page on my layout here yeah see I got the I got the out one I just attached yeah you guys know the ins and outs and where everything is so much better and how it how close it is to you know the rest of the town sort of isolated over in Old Town so we know it's over there um but I'm not as familiar with how Equitable it is so you guys have a better perspective on that but no I feel like you guys know the town so well you know every street you name off the street you know exactly where it is I don't know where you're talking about so yeah it's interesting well this is wish fulfillment is what this paragraph is about to me you aspirational yeah it well okay I have problems with that word no no no please um because that's too often what happens and and that is it's sort of um this is what we would like to think and the reality is not so much that it's awful what worse but essentially if that's the way you see the community in which you live then take off your Roose tinted glasses and and really look you know because some of those things the one that makes me smile is the beach one if you can get there is is the first thing and if there's a beach when you get there is another question I mean all those things well it'll be interesting you know we're talking about the maps and the graphics and I think that we'll come up with some creative ways that won't be an extra big lit to sort of actually answer that question um by sing and dicing in a way that answers a little bit of that things that were raised be interesting one thing I would say just related to that is that yeah with all this and similar to your comments about every how much fascinating stuff is in here it's almost like I I work in software development and we often you you can get so bogged down in the details and the specs and all that but the quality they're like use cases or user stories are really important you know what's the experience of the person who's actually going to interact with the system and there's a certain degree of I think that that you're referencing here like what are some examples of what people may want to go do right and you know that that becomes their entry point into this um but that's again what the committee is about probably more so adop yeah you know just rep what was said there yeah I think I like what Barry said of like um expanding support for more open space protection when the town has opportunities and what's you know what's the trans trajectory to get there it's like the Outreach and right appreciation but there's some other steps before you actually and as an observer of being and I still refer to myself as a new being and I've been here we're getting close to 20 years but I'm still a new person in town and there are more and more of me coming in than there are some of the folks who have been around for centuries in their families and that's a market that needs to be addressed if I can I had no reason to saying any of that but I I think it's a viable Market because they also tend to be probably doing financially better than some folks because they're coming in to buy properties that that are new and very expensive and have resources to maybe kick back in if they're attracted to some of it so there is's a a marketing process here yeah there um all right it's getting late I know we haven't done everything um we haven't really talked about the survey do you want to save that talking about the survey for next time because sure well I mean it's it's feedback that that I'm interested in obviously um and you can actually do that by email maybe um if there are very simple questions that I can answer right now I mean I'll tell you what I did you know um as you all have gathered my attitude to this is a bit different from the rest of you okay um uh and so what I did was I said okay I don't need to reinvent the wheel for godam I mean I really don't so very simple I looked at neighbors who had done a recent open space PL guess what Boxford and Rowley have done recent open space PL and interestingly if you look at the people within a radius they are two communities that are in many ways quite like ours okay obviously Boxford is a little more well healed than perhaps you breed seen as a whole it also doesn't have Plum Island thank god um but it has interests which have to do with things like horse riding and that sort of stuff which really Min is here rally is very similar but doesn't have the beach issue and a number of other things so I simply looked I said okay so they have to follow or they they had to they didn't necessarily the same sort of open space plan layout that we have in front of us from the state so what did they do so I looked at basically the questionnaires that they put out and essentially tailored them together for our use um and then thought about the fact that okay um questionnaires always have the problem that they are usually an unwanted intrusion into people's lives why should I do this right uh how do you also decide the questions I haven't addressed here because it's not my kind of expertise at all is how do you decide who gets it because you can't send it to the whole population and because that boots a large hole through the middle of the budget right uh and and you don't have the data crunching ability to to look at something like that so those kinds of questions I put aside that would have to happen later but basically I think you need to try and involve people and indicate that these kinds of questions are the questions which in fact will will make a demonstrable connection to their lives and therefore that was my idea at the end that you would ask people if they would want to volunteer to work in the whole area of open space as a volunteer to identify because one of the things I found out I looked at a number of other communities outside of the tube that I stole from and it's very interesting how impersonal they were how how for example question is didn't even identify who was sending it in the sense of the person in the town there was nothing at the top that said this is from or if you have questions please connect with and I just felt that it was important to do that and so that's why this is a bit more talky as well as questions that that was what I did um because I I I don't think we I I really don't think it's that difficult to get essentially a questionnaire which will either tell us that we are now currently asking the wrong questions and I can't to think we are at times I think we're concerned about stuff that we really don't have to be concerned about initially or are we in fact fairly well informed in terms of the direction that we seem to be going and so the question about this becomes when do you do it because do you do it to to essentially major inform yourselves as of what you should be doing or do you do it to check as to what you decided you should be doing this all the difference there oh yeah absolutely and I don't know the answer to that qu well I'm not qualified to answer it anyway as an individual but I I don't know whether I know the answer to that question off the top of my head um my guess is my instincts are I want to know more about what Joe Schmo and his kids and his occasional mother who visits from New Jersey wants to know about where to do stuff in Newberg um something like that I I I but that's tends to be my bias but I'm very much interested in in what you have said earlier about the fact that essentially you do all this stuff but if you don't sell it if you don't run the flag up the pole and send the band down the street and contact people and have people involved then why bother because it's nothing's going to change yeah those are great David thank you for doing that research on that um summary I think I my memory of knowing some other towns going through the update process is the state is very concerned about public input and the survey process I don't recall exactly but I feel feel like that's an area where sometimes they go back and say you haven't done it good enough so I think we need to do you know we will need to look into that more carefully in terms of the questions you've just identified so I think those are the right questions and I think they'll probably answer them for us to a certain extent hopefully there's some flexibility to also make sure we're doing what we want to do not just what they're telling us we have to do yeah no I feel like we should start with those questions at the next meeting yeah you know we can send you feedback too I mean we we reviewed it we have some feedback I think it's great but I feel like let's you know let's do it let's give it the justice that it deserves during the next meeting and maybe we can send some email stuff in between right okay yeah because I may I mean there may be a major boooo or two in terms of what it's actually said no I think yeah you possible too um because in between doing this and then printing this um we've had the painters in so I couldn't [Music] F great work um I want to just have you guys had a chance to look at the minutes um because we said approve them if people all new committee members and then if we want to try to set a next meeting date while we're together we can do that by email those are the two things I still all right I have one question um is there an event this summer like a Newberry days Newberry event I feel like last year was Newberry Town day Newberry Town day is that going to happen this year and the only reason I'm asking is you know is it an opportunity for us to be there to like connect with some of the Newber res and some I don't know talk about the open space like start with the Outreach start with the marketing any it was in June right but I think they're moving to August yeah was I think it's August yeah later in August I yeah but I think the committee was appointed to to do it all right well I mean I'm willing to see if that's online and the person who's R it I don't know does anybody have any interest in exploring that because I can for at least a little bit before we meet next time but I think it would be like a pretty quick turnaround but I also feel like depending on the day you know usually like a table Yeah it if we do something like that I think you're right on the money here is because then it would be nice to have something like this ready to go uh so that we can in fact hand it out to people um who you know just having that opportunity makes a real connection yeah um also I think it the other thing I think that we could do um and I that's a shortterm thing we could do it fairly fast and I okay originally um if I'm thinking correctly the map the end of the 2010 open space plan is the map I put together okay I think it's based on the idea it's a trifold and that it can be on two sides of a single sheet something like that and it used to be in the town clerk's office um and in the library um but I don't know whether I've got the file and the fact the file is in here here to pull it out why we can't get that out as an interim or something it it's I think the only thing that might need really updating is uh the green belt property uh the one on Middle Road what's it called yes that's I think the only actual thing that's missing off that map if I'm not let me take a look at it and see cuz we probably add that in uh fairly easily but why not get something out there before you know before we get into all these other things because it's it's doable because if you come here I don't know what else is there what else is there what what would you what would any of us pick up okay there's old Trails right uh you know the app that you put on your phone yeah no I think that's a great idea I mean we have people who come in like I have to get my beach permit that would be a perfect opportunity to like have more information available and you know why can't be online downloadable online uh that shouldn't be any problem yeah and um you know I I didn't copyrighted so so stuff about these great like this was I like this category of like sort of Outreach so get some information about Town Days get some information about like what already exists that we can kind of re revamp a little and get it out sooner I I like look at how much you've spurred Barry with your PR inspirational I know that's amazing um okay does anyone want to vote to that yeah how do you start that off make a motion make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from the February 6th yes open space yes and Recreation committee meeting okay thank you second David already seconded yeah sorry that's all um all in favor all right any opposed all right thank you um meeting dates Tuesdays still good we're now what's today is the third [Music] Tuesday yes about a month out be May meeting I don't May 14th that's election day I don't know if that's an issue supposed to hold public hearings on Election Day 14th is election day is it 10 of election yes oh okay the was asking me ear I know that's only 3 weeks so over the 21st no I'm on my Cal May 7th or May 21st y both good to me for me both are good for me too we need to check room availability okay why don't I check we'll check the Town calendar was like for fincom room availability this is a nice space absolutely it's nice well can is is that happening in other words I talked to what's her name Christine Cindy Cindy Cindy um and she said she was going to talk to Tracy about setting up a way to use this for meetings when there's a need okay okay um and it has to do with access I think and and locking her office and a bunch of things right but um the reason I did that simply was I mean on a couple of occasions when there were problems with meetings there were no lights on here that I could see from my house and that meant that one could have had a meeting and this is a town facility as far as I'm concerned also Barry and I certainly are qualified to be here right I think it's yeah I think it's um I think it makes sense it wasn't hard both Cindy and Jonathan Our IT person we're very happy to accommodate and help so I think that going forward we can certainly have this as an option but we'll confirm with everybody so we looking at the seven is that what we say the 21st s or the 21st well I I would plump for the the earlier the better because I think it I find it difficult I find it difficult to hold in my mind and and and you know you go through stuff like a meeting like this and within 6 weeks it's gone forget it whereas within you know what it was going to be yeah uh one two 3 maybe that's too quickly but I would prefer it yeah I don't mind it either okay we'll just check the rooms and if just keep it okay um a motion to a I'll make a motion to a Jour what that all