##VIDEO ID:DbZUrQ2AYZ8## okay so today is uh Wednesday September 11th 2024 this is the regular monthly meeting of the South agricultural commission uh we do have a quorum with myself Bert Hansen Jen Depetro Zack Barnett T jados and Jessica Whitmore Parker so we are good um just one quick thing I'm going to do under communication I wonder does anybody still have any Farm signs or dout signs just want to make sure Tom did Tom Tom did you bring your back okay yeah Tom dropped his off at my house um I I got him back to Bert last weekend Y Cool yep and what was happening I was I was telling people to give the dine out signs to Ina but of course they're supposed to go to Greg D right so we'll straighten that out um for the uh Farm parade I've been kind of Mis misspeaking here it's um it is October 19th but October 19th is actually a Saturday oh W not a Sunday not Sunday so um we're supposed to everybody's supposed to gather either South Florest or Tuckers we did IBS last year the big trailer we have to do that again yeah or or I think we was at we decorated at DPW yeah DPW that worked out well there's plenty of room so I emailed Randy Brown about can I do that again um uh a little bit of a glitch I got a call from Dave priy and Alex priy whose truck and trailer we used last year he's going to be in Texas oh no with the truck and trailer so but Dave um uh guy Dave works for is willing to loan us a very similar hold is Dave gonna drive it yeah cool very similar um got to just double kind of double check on insurance um any insurance questions you know if this is a company-owned machine if it's a non-employee you do we have to worry about that to I mean probably not much different than what Alex did true that's true um but anyway we just got to double and Dave thought that really he's going to get Alex's um old tractor like we had last year but he doesn't think anybody should sit on that's fine because you and your son did last year right that be one change but I was saying Jessica you talked about a scarecrow maybe the Scarecrow sits on the tractor oh that' be a good idea yeah yeah that could work and um let's see I no some hay bales still at c breze i i they're like just there like out in the front I don't know if for some them or yeah I don't know either they they don't have any Liv livestock that I know of so I'm not sure what they would do with see I don't know if you have any or who if whoever's putting everything together if they know's Jack Felman year so either way we could yeah and I thought that I was going to be away the week before but as it turns out you we're trying to get down to see my my daughter in Tennessee and it's not going to work out for her she was earlier so she wants us to come that like over that weekend so um you know you guys can yeah think I can some help out it's just a matter of we're doing overtime work right now so and we I work until 2:30 but I possibly get out early to you know help out well that'd be awesome yeah so I can you know meet everybody to Hope yeah we do it in the morning oh you do it oh in the morning well the decoration on Sunday oh it only takes about an hour to decorate it oh okay so pray itself so to okay so you work on Sundays or no oh no not well s Saturday sorry Saturday so when I heard the Saturday I was like okay but I think this you know well even if you can't decorate you can still show up right on it yeah yeah goes pretty slow you you could pretty much jump on any yeah yeah um and I was thinking too um you know we have the old tractor that we put on the truck and it kind of a little bit bugs me that what whenever we talk about farming or people think about farming it's always like like old right old equipment you know old blows old tractors old you know I think well let's I mean that's fine you know for nest doger or whatever but shouldn't we be you know promoting the new the new things in farming so I say we just take what we can get so there's that like displaying something I me yeah you get a brand new John Deere or something awesome about yeah and I was talking with priy about that he say well that you know great idea but I don't know if we could put both tractors on the trailer at this at the same time especially if we have other decorations you know Dan book wants to bring pumpkins and I feel like last year the way it was set up it was actually kind of hard to see us because like there was like walls around us with the hay Bal so I think the hay needs to be in the middle people are kind of facing out oh that's a good point um hope you like put the stack of hay bells in the center yeah you can sit on them there that way probably work better that's a good idea yeah okay um and we'll have the we'll have the open Farm signs we can we can put a few of those out on the on the trailer um oh no no back on the modern equipment so Dave suggested the solex they have a lot of newer equipment and we don't know if maybe they're in the parade already so I I emailed Kevin and Andrew um and if they are in the parade maybe they could we could be next to each other you know a little bit we'll see that works out and then some other new news about the parade is that at the end of the parade at Town Hall this year fire department is going to have hot dogs and hamburgers oh that's for sale or gu it's a lot of the memo didn't say but I'm assuming it would be for sale so that's Le nice for some kind of activity there at the end look got our two big banners from we used to do a fireman's friend over here yeah long time ago yep yep death for year so it's a big parade and the carnival and fireworks and you know but for whatever reason that's kind of heered out I think it was I think it was money yeah you know money reasons B organization and have people to run it yeah y so we can put on the next one we got plenty of people there you go right got 50 volunteers faral PR armer Carnival just made more work for us yeah yeah well we'll look into that and you know anybody who suggests something you know becomes the yeah charger charger right um so and so I think if anybody else has anything else about the parade at this point um yeah I mean we should probably reach out to Jack and Cali see if we get hay bals yeah we can just borrow them and return them too we don't have to you know it's hard to get rid of him afterward my chickens will eat hay but they won't eat straw ja were straw last year did we have like pumpkins at all last year yeah Dan grow some really cool pumpkins he brought those okay cool I think I'll do that again he wants to do that again called today um oh for folks on Zoom Dan couldn't be here because he's he's working at The Rotary Club uh steak roast tonight where is that BFW maybe I'm not sure that makees sense yeah oh I'm just thinking about who's who's here so no Angie and no Sage that's that's un anyway um so for the budget review I asked I asked the um the accounting department you know for a like for a report because I didn't know at the end of last year June 30th I don't I didn't know if we were under budget over budget what turns out we were under budget um does that mean our budget gets cut well uh I wonder I mean this year we Bud we budgeted flat right so we're we're the same for this year but I wonder when we go you know for the annual Hearing in like February March if we were under budget that's going to uh you know raise some eyebrows um you know understandably uh we were about we also supplemented with donations so yeah right right right um we were about 177% under most F items you know which is not terrible you know but um good being know to be closer right is it or is it like feu yes the fiscal the fiscal year is you know July 1 to June 30 yeah but we have a everybody has a kind have a hearing with the select board and the finance committee and you know wait for early March oh for the to talk about the budget for the coming year so uh there's very they don't necessarily stick to the schedule but the publish schedule is very very strict very you know time allotments and I always get the kick out of it that the Conservation Commission gets five minutes and we get 10 so anyway uh we can look you know keep an eye on this year's budget I mean we are doing more this year and of course when you do things it costs money so um just wanted to I mean we could spend money on the farm parade if we had to we we have a line item for that and that's that's one that we didn't really spend much no everything was pretty much free donated we're still um putting items into the garden um are we doing that this year or at the end of the season we need more fencing right we well we we bought some right at dance house we bought some of these uh I always forget the name it's kind of a spiky type thing you drive into the ground it fits a 4x4 kind of Bolt it bolt it together so we have a dozen of those does 4x4 so we can do you know one side oh yeah we still need to get those water tanks up and going yeah yeah yeah I don't know if it's too late in the year to do it now it's been pretty dry lately so it actually might be a good thing yeah and it'd be good to just see if it works you know it was so wet for a while we didn't even need to right needed the water it's a little dry now I think it's gonna be the next week or so yeah looks pretty looks nice otherwise it looks nice it's good for the Big [Music] E starts Friday yeah oh and speaking of that did you talk to Mike yeah I have um and when we did the the presentation at the Historical Society in April he said oh I like the idea you guys had me like past present and future and we want to do that and uh so I've been in touch with him a couple of times but he hasn't he hasn't asked for anything they had a meeting recently he said oh we have a meeting it was like last Tuesday or something and I'll let you know but I haven't heard so they made that big sign for us last year yeah so maybe they're just gonna do it again maybe that's in my garage by the way um yeah maybe I should ask him about this I wonder he might not even to know where it is when I went to three County Fair they had actual exhibits from different towns and some of them were agricultural missions and they had like an array of different types of things sign and I guess they get you know chosen it's a contest or something oh we could join that interesting maybe next year yeah another thing for we yes but it would be good to do that I gonna say oh speaking of the budget I just got hey Sage is here oh Sage oh hey Sage how you doing oh there it is hi Sage hello how are you good how you doing I almost missed a meeting um I'm in Texas and I forgot the time difference okay uh we've talked about the farm parade and uh you just a you know a few a few things we were talking about the budget we were a little under budget last year we want to not by much about 17% um but I think we want to be closer this year so we don't get Cuts next year and I think we should get shirts and stuff yeah missionar yeah definitely get lanyards or something of names yeah I nice identifiers yeah I didn't get a chance to actually make their lanyards big signs would be nice too for Farm day and stuff like that like the size of the um yeah um uh Inga actually has a few has three I think yeah bigger signs like the EVC had bigger signs than we did at our own those size actually were they a little too big yes twoth thirds that size would probably be perfect right they're kind of hard to manage fit in vehicles somebody had a good idea to take the stakes out yeah after do that I did that and I actually put it on the table front and I was like right length of yeah uh speaking of the budget just the accounting department just created a new um accounts payable cover sheet uh they did it on Friday I got it today so I don't know it's according to Cindy it's it's going to streamline things a bit which which would be good but I have no idea how it's actually going to work yeah but just an FYI that um is it in the handbook I don't think so I don't think there's anything in there about spending money at least when I looked at it the first time I specifically looked for that and I couldn't find it right right well that's a good segue I have a present for everybody um I got that handbook printed so um you guys on Zoom I'll get it to you so put it through the camera yeah updated or the same one that they had um still the first version it's the same one that was released you know by email earlier you know from April um I thought actually exact pointed out and I agree a 56 page document is hard to read online yeah yeah so after page 25 thank you yeah welcome see you know if they're gonna update this like yearly or you know I because it's got it has members all the appointed members so oh okay well then they hopefully well updated and again the accounting department has this new process so that should come the very first one on the entire list there you go com's first alphabetically growing up a lot of things were like that for me yeah I bet I was the very first kid in South to graduate there no kidding all right there weren any a no a nope a first class that went up to graduate and I was first one of wow um uh I just wanted to bring up the um chapter 61 protocols uh a couple of weeks ago the select board I don't know if they actually voted but they decided not to accept protocols yeah um which I thought was kind of unfortunate I mean it's been in the works for a year and a half a long time yeah yeah went through Town Council did they give reason yeah it was um and again this is this is based on a newspaper article on Westfield news um Diana Gail made the point that most of what's in those Protocols are already in you know the the Mass General law okay typ or this you know the state stuff so why do we need our own that's a you know that's a fair point um just kind of brings it all together though yeah at the same time you know Dennis Clark and a couple of people eight or 10 years ago did something similar and that wasn't adopted and now Marissa has done it and they're not adopting it so I I get the point that we don't need to duplicate other documents and other processes but at the same time does that doesn't that say something that the egom keeps bringing this up and so somehow somehow the process isn't working here you know things goad I'm sorry I'm cutting out um the one thing I understand though is Marissa did all that work to organize it so there's an actual flow and people can actually look at it and understand it that was the whole point behind what she was doing they are totally missing the point of why she actually works so hard to get that damn thing together so they voted it down for stupidity in my opinion okay uh like you can you literally can find your section of what you need to focus on when you look at the 61a that's how she that's how she put it together she made it so that it was easy to organize and find the information whereas if you don't have that it's chaotic and no one knows where anything is and this is why we've had such a hard time with that system so she organized it and they just threw it you know away yeah uh that's a good point um and so so reason I bring this up is I don't think we should let go of it well I think in some way do we have the newest version available yeah I can uh think Mara sent it out didn't she sent it out to us I don't remember I think I think so but I can I'll res I'm wondering too is she's not part of any commission anymore so right would it work better if someone's still on the commission brought it back maybe with some updates yeah maybe we ask them for you know we're not trying to rewrite anything but we're just trying to point people in the right place and put it all together right hopefully you know make it easier as as Sage is saying yeah I mean if you know one law is here one law is there one is over here no one's ever gonna see them I mean well a lot of people got lost originally that's why we had so many things slip through the cracks because people didn't know where to look right there were opportunities to acquire property job is it to enforce this right I think that's part of why she had this whole checklist of various boards and commissions okay have we seen it check check check you know so let's I want to again not let go of it I don't want to step on toes or duplicate effort but um there's clearly something missing in the process maybe we invite Diane here and say how could we do this better that that is a good idea have a discussion yeah yeah good idea see we don't have any um minutes to look at we do have uh commission appointments um you know Jen is now a full commissioner um Jess and Tom and lenita have been reappointed to um alternates um Tammy did not apply to be reappointed so we have a couple of openings or alternates if anybody do we appoint them before next year we can yeah they you can try yeah yeah I know it's been an issue in the past yeah definitely can I mean okay it's it's legit you know to bring somebody forward at any at any time so uh if you know of anyone who might um join I know we had talked about trying to get Alex rfty to join you know he's from out of town he has business in town right so that's okay he could I found out that he like EDC has some people on who are not residents but they have businesses in town so you know so it's legit um Alex however has gotten involved with this the new South Land Trust right and he's actually I believe he's a Treasurer so I asked him about it what about Dave well you that's a i as I did ask Alex about he said well I can't really do it I mean Dave supposed to be retired even though he's not I know know uh Alex was all about the the farm parade and now it turns out he's going to be out of town but yeah he loved it last year yeah yeah openings are there how many openings are there left I believe there's two and they're alternates alternates all the regular ones are full right okay yeah maybe some of the volunteers that we have yeah yeah we reach out to them good idea you got the list right yeah one one person in particular Etta Ryan something like that and she just heard about it and then showed up and volunteered you know that gentleman that was at I think he was at um um at Grandpa the volunteer um they were at the volunteer orientation I forgot his [Music] in mind yeah but anyways but he was he was all in you know the volunteers or maybe reach out to some of the farmers too because I know slbo really wants Farmers right right right maybe second Eden someone from there would be interested yeah yeah um I can put it up on the website yep maybe Andie could share that to Facebook yeah I suppose I could too I just don't like using Facebook I mean shaa from second evening would be awesome but she has a full-time job and it's basically a full-time job right the farm you know too so I ask it's just an alternate position she have to show up to every meeting true so it'd be good to get some new ut oh yeah definitely good to get ideas I mean at some point we're gonna probably go down to the monthly meeting for a little while too just so everyone can get kind of aak I think we talked about that last time I wouldn't I wouldn't mind taking a couple of L days off I think we talk about what this month and maybe next month yeah and then we just have to get ready for the farmers Forum right so November we might need to you know maybe we can you know we can we'll see play yeah we gota make sure people stop adding ideas too so we can actually take that break Yeah well yeah these are far out ideas it's not right away um but speaking of uh commission appointments um I talked with all of you about potentially stepping down as chair um but I've rethought that and if you're okay with it uh I'd like to stay on his chair with Zach as Vice chair um and I think we've talked a bit about this in the past too Zach is here in town so in terms of you know signing purchase order groups and you know coming down to town hall for some reason um you know that would be that would be good well you know you know Sage I think you wanted to be Vice care as well but since you're here and there and everywhere oh no I'm I I'd rather have uh if Zach's willing to do that I would rather have that situation because I still don't know what's happening right now and I mean we need people boots on the ground we don't need people far away I can't really do much right I I mean I already have the website under control as much as I can I'm trying to add to it as I go I mean right now that's enough responsibility with the fact of time being a factor right now sure for sure so it'd be better if that happened yeah so I just looked in our fancy uh rule book um officer roles and responsibilities boards commissions committees and councils shall elect a chairperson vice chairperson and a secretary or clerk annually um we can do two tonight do we have does Andy wannabe I believe work again I believe so yeah so I don't know should we vote her in without her being here I don't think we should but should we with her yeah I thought we might but that's a good point we should we should be here so um well does this have to be also on the agenda to vote people in no to make it official no other matters is on the agenda this is another other matters but FYI there's commission appointments so yeah I mean we do need vote yeah so um I motion to make Bert Hansen uh chair I okay uh roll call vote Bert Hansen I um Jen de Petro hi Zack Barnett hi Sage Fury hi Jess lit Parker hi and Tom jados hi okay so I'll make a motion to make Zack Barnett uh Vice chair I second [Laughter] second so roll call vote bir Hanson I jenro I Zack Barett I vote on this I think you can vote for yourself yeah uh Jess Whitmore Parker hi and Z know Sage Fury Zach hi okay and Tom J hi okay thank you everyone um I say we table Angie's vote till yeah uh we'll vote on NS clerk next time and now as I was mentioning to Zach earlier I just need to talk to my wife about this yeah that my first question does your wife know you doing this he's like no so we may have to revote I'm sure she'll be happy I was gonna say it's funny how you waited till after we vote voted to say that I say Julia what can I do you know they voted me in voted yeah even even if he said no he wouldn't have had the majority so oh man but thank you that you know I appreciate that yeah long as you're up to it yeah I'm definitely good with it yeah um couple of couple of other quick uh FYI so we voted last time to support the Historical Society purchase of yes 74 College Highway they they think I heard from Marcus PHS they they think they're going to be on the agenda with the community preservation mission on the September 18th so I'll plan to go to that um if anybody else can join in I'm sure they would appreciate it um are you going to stay for the whole thing or um not necessarily next Wednesday yeah where's that located it's going to be it's I think it's I think it's right here I can let you know for sure then I just got today an email from the [Music] library do where is itable anyway they're going to have here we go uh they're going to have a homesteading event um this is going to be Wednesday December 4th at the library 6:30 uh says and I'll send us Sur everybody but I I literally just got it this afternoon um let's talk homesteading join us at the South Lake Public Library to discuss homesteading bring your questions souc resident Deborah Humphrey knows a thing or two about homesteading and will be present to answer questions that you may have cool do anybody know Deborah Humphrey I've heard the name I don't know who she is I don't um I know there something that Lynn um ly Blair has wanted to do for a while kind of like how to start a farm kind of thing there something you have to sign up for on the library yeah um kind of like the B thing right yeah it's it's free but they do like it if you if you they're going to kick us out again we had too many questions I know and a couple weeks ago they the library closes at 8 so they kicking us out 10 of eight they come in say hey we started the meeting that saying like beekeepers can talk about bees for ever yeah there's a lot to talk about right so so homesteading on December 4th that should be i' like to go to that too um and I think that's all all we had on the agenda I wonder we were talking about meetings um past several months we've had a working session on the fourth Wednesday I'm wondering and I know I just got through saying I want to take some Wednesdays off are you guys available to meet on a Thursday by any chance 41 um I'm thinking of Thursday September 26 which will be the day after our normally working session uh to invite potentially invite Diane Gale and potentially invite uh Doug mlin I was talking with Doug a couple weeks ago um one we talking about or the thing with Granville School part of far and he expressed some interest in coming to a meeting if we if we want to invite him you know we don't want to but he's he's busy on Wednesday nights so that's that's what I'm asking about Thursdays is this room open on Thursdays that would be a good question feel like we tried doing something on Thursday before maybe been Tuesday and it wasn't very feasible yeah so saying so September 25th we do it on the 26 yeah EXA I mean it's just curious I don't I don't think I have a problem with it I Shi yeah you need to make some changes yeah okay it just be this one we just our next regular meeting on a Thursday instead of a Wednesday we could oh that's a good point so instead of having ex yeah in having ex change the regular yeah D you've had a few good ideas tonight this is good this was trying to reduce the amount of work so that would be let's see the second Wednesday of October is the 9th is Tuesday an option too yeah would be I don't think it matters for me really what day of the week um so saying October well why don't we got to figure out what day is open right have the meeting okay so I know other other commissions use this room right um so Tuesday actually Tuesday October is or Thursday the 10th cor re okay okay well let me look into anybody else yeah I mean Cindy Tom Sage how are you guys I mean Jessica should be fine for me as long as I'm not on a plane right but that could be any day right so we'll see and we'll see um anyone else who's not here would kind of have to make a yeah point of saying it's not I want to say right we don't want them showing up well I mean there's four of them and they have a separate meeting there you go It's gotta be posted though within 24 hours in advance yeah okay just want to you know kind of put that out there see if it you know makes sense um for us and for entally Doug and Dian oh now if we had both of them that's a quum of the slick board yeah make a point there I don't think they can do it yeah un unless we posted as a joint meeting yes joint collab yeah I mean we should probably invite Jason too then right yeah okay okay well well then we have to do that prior make sure that they can actually establish that agenda I think either way we have to confirm with them that we're sure works so oh we got about a month to work on it week so um so we're still going to have the September 2 meeting or are we going to do working sessions only for the next couple months or I think um I think the thought is that we will not meet on September 25th kind of like take okay take the day off so speak and then meet mean our our next meeting would be the regular meeting in October okay yeah yeah so what are you gonna do with all that extra time on the 25th extra credit work my chicken coop yeah we that done yet Sage dude it's a palace I'm like looking at it my there better be some golden eggs out of these chickens I swear I was just bartering with my neighbor for her EG she's like you don't need to barter I'm just gonna give them to you I give away so many eggs yeah they're just yeah I mean I'll take money for them but we're literally overflowing with them yeah yeah we have neighbors at same boat yeah hey I'll give you the four bucks nah I actually just bought this um um pan that has four circles on it so we cook four eggs at a time and you can freeze them so you can make like breakfast sandwiches throughout the winter so I can actually save eggs a good idea wow Zach please please send me the the device it's like bucks on Amazon it's well worth it okay I got a quick thing my wife brought this home seed and harvest okay from ca ca yeah publication got sent the Big Y got some interesting like local farms stuff stories in it um I did notice on the website that they are listed as one of our um it's their website on our website yeah CA they're pretty big okay thanks you can have it if you want oh all right I at it already and we've done uh we've done actually a workshop in conjunction with cesa amorist cesa about grant writing okay oh this is good my wife said how and farm day isn't in there so maybe next year next year will whatever yeah you go well thanks z um um I was gonna I was wondering if I could mention something um I was on the website and I was looking through it looks great everything's updated and I was just on it because I was using it as one of my citations I was using it for my papers um but I noticed that I didn't see that um the southw land trust was noted anywhere or their website wasn't on the website at all and I don't know if we as like a resource on one of the pages and I didn't know if we were going to add them as is our website live it it yeah it's got several pages that are you know coming soon look to it but they do have a big website so okay so maybe yeah they they didn't have a website at the time that's why they weren't up on it and I totally forgot to get with Marissa about it to see um because I think they're still establishing a logo so uh let me get together with her just to get the best of uh you know advertisement of it yeah um that's right they were having a logo contest I wonder um I think it's still going on yeah okay yeah that's pretty cool okay yeah that's great good point good I wonder maybe we can get some some more of these you know some exp yeah I wonder if we can like sign our commission up for like the mailing yeah okay right from s uh just to bounce back to that subject really quick um the land trust could I maybe put a link at the top corner with the rest of our menu what is their website I think it literally is what is the the South GL trust.com or.org it might be a.org didn't come up in a search I know they're on Facebook yep they are definitely it might be maybe it's. no it's not.org let me look him up on Facebook that they'll tell me the link on their page oh didn't work either okay on there it says Southwick land trust.org oh okay that just brought me back to the search page no I'm I'm on it I just clicked it is www.s Southwick trust.org okay so I didn't have the www in there and it didn't work um now it does work that's a problem with their domain registration yeah they still have a logo contest up okay okay oh yeah Sage if you would check in with Marissa and just kind see where they are with all that yeah I'll definitely do that um do do you think I should put their uh their advertisement logo whatever Banner in our uh upper corner since they're kind of going to be like one of the big helpers in our lands preservation and farm support yeah I would I would say so sure yeah because they definitely have our back we can always ask them for something to help so I mean it'd be nice to sponsor them I think full-time right great yeah I think the consensus is yeah we should do that Sage okay we'll we'll get on that thank you okay um I think that's that's all I have any anyone else nope anything for the good of the order I'm good second okay um Zach made a motion to adjourn all those in favor I have a good night everyone take care good night