New Town Forest Planning Committee

MINUTES of April 17, 2008

Opening

The meeting of the New Town Forest Planning Committee was called to order at 7:10 pm on April 17, 2008 in the Town Hall by Paul Wieczoreck.

Present

Paul Wieczoreck, Andrea Morgante, Lenore Budd, Kristen Sharpless, Jean Isham, Susan Mead

Mission of the Group

Andrea explained that a lot of the parts of the management plan have essentially been dictated by the primary funders of the project. She noted that the goal of the plan is conservation as opposed to managing the land for resource extraction.

Andrea noted that she sees the main goals of our Committee as fine-tuning the management plan in concert with key experts. Foremost in this process will be educating, communicating with and receiving feedback from the community.

Specific Tasks and Responsibilities for Completion of the Plan

1. Scott Darling (of VT Fish and Wildlife) will write the bat habitat management plan.

2. Mike Snyder, Chittenden County Forester (a state position in Forest, Parks and Recreation) will write a management plan for the forest potion of the land but would like some direction from us.

3. There is money from NRCS to carry out the wetland plan. The Town must match this funding amount, which can probably be done through volunteer hours.

4. There should be no more roads or culverts on the land.

5. We don’t need to generate revenue from the land, but any revenue that is generated will be used to maintain the forest.

6. $5,000 has been donated to the town by HLT, TPL and VLT to help with preliminary work on sign and parking. HLT will donate additional funds between $20,000 and $30,000 as a stewardship fund to be managed by the town.

7. The $5000 from the town’s conservation fund can go to establishing a parking area and signs right away. This is not $5,000 from the town’s fund see above

8. The biggest issue for our group to address is determining, with community input, what recreational uses will be allowed and where. We also need to determine how these allowed uses will be enforced.

9. Lenore volunteered to research the easement language for adjoining lands to see what, if any, limits exist for recreational uses. This will help determine what uses will be allowed for trails crossing the boundaries of the conserved properties.

10. It was noted that this group will need to address the continuing erosion around the tire dump.

Community Input

1. We agreed that a series of walks/talks would be a good way to get people engaged in understanding the constraints on land use as well as seeking input on recreational possibilities.

2. It was generally felt that we needed to have an “internal position paper” on what the committee thinks are appropriate recreational uses as well as a map of proposed trails that gets refined over time. We need to discuss a process at our next meeting for getting this done.

3. There is a previously planned celebration of the closing of the project on June 1 at the site. HLT, is organizing this with help from TPL, and VLT. Five hundred people, largely donors, will receive postcards in May inviting them to the event.

4. We discussed having various experts do walks of the property and in the process solicit feedback on use of the land from the community attendees. The proposed schedule is as follows:

Sunday, May 18 – Kristen and possibly Liz Thompson to talk about wildflowers.

June 1 – Paul Wieczoreck to do a bird walk.

Mid to late June – Mark LaBarr to do a talk on grasslands and early successional habitat for birds

July or August - April Moulart or Dori Barton with Mike Kline could talk about wetlands and river restoration

Fall - Scott Darling and Mike Snyder could do a talk together on the bat habitat and on game habitat tied to the youth hunting initiatives that take place at that time.

5. We may want to hold a meeting for some of the key recreation people to discuss land use – e.g. hunters, cyclists, horseback riders, skiers, walkers. It was noted that Wayne may have some information on who typically has hunted on the land so that we can be sure we include them in the discussion.

6. In an effort to start the education process, we agreed that a articles need to be written for the Hinesburg Record that discussed the way the project was brought to completion and what types of management the funding requires. Paul indicated he would ask Dotty Schnure it she would be willing to draft this.

7. To communicate about these events, we will use the Record if timing allows, the Times Sentinel, the Front Porch Forum, the United Church bulletin and posters. Kristen agreed to prepare a poster, and Susan agreed to get it printed.

Task List for Organizing Talks

Contact speakers and arrange dates Paul by Mid May

Promote talks Susan TBD as dates are known

Ensure that each talk has a representative All TBD as dates are known

from the Committee present to take notes

Prepare a map of existing trails to hand ? ASAP

out

Prepare a suggestion box for names Stewart June 1

Name of New Town Forest

It was agreed that, at the next meeting, Stewart would discuss a possible process for naming the TF at the next meeting. There was some thought that calling it the Bissonette Town Forest was suitable. There was some discussion about seeking ideas at the June 1 event just to generate some possibilities, but all agreed it would be a mistake to have a contest.

Existing Town Forest Management Plan

We discussed the fact that the Management Plan for the existing Town Forest needs to be updated, and we discussed whether the existing Town Forest Committee could provide some resource it helping that process along. It was ultimately agreed that Andrea would talk to Steve Russell about some of our efforts to start educating the Town on the uses for the new Forest, suggesting that there could be some of this done for the existing Town Forest on Hayden Hill.

Andrea noted that if we can get a public discussion going by the fall about the differing uses for the two Town Forests and Geprag’s that this could dovetail with the Conservation Commission’s efforts to work on the Greenspace Plan.

Next Meeting

Thursday, May 1, 7:30 in the conference room outside the Planning office

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00PM.

Respectfully submitted by Susan Mead