New Town Forest Planning Committee

MINUTES of July 8, 2008

Opening

The meeting of the New Town Forest Planning Committee was called to order at 7:10 pm on July 8, 2008 in the Town Hall by Kristen Sharpless.

Present

Kristen Sharpless (Chair), Jean Isham, Lenore Budd, Andrea Morgante, Susan Mead

Absent: Stewart Pierson, Matthew Probasco

Guest

Matt Mainer

Chair Duties

Kristen and Matthew have discussed their roles and decided that Kristen will chair this committee and Matthew will focus on the Conservation Commission since Kristen has already spent so much time studying this land.

Select Board Letters

Susan has gotten all letters to SB for their meeting on the 28^th. The amendment to the IMP has also been sent to all project partners.

Walks

Kristen will set up the bat walk with Scott and Mike for early evening sometime in September.

Andrea will set up the wetland walk for late August or early September

We will target Oct. 18 for the Mike to do the “Forest Integrator” walk with the forum to follow the week of October 27^th. We need to avoid the 2^nd and 4^th Wednesdays in Sept and Oct when PC may have public forums. Kristen will check the school calendar for that week.

Trails

Lenore will set up a trails walk with Tyler and Mike Snyder in late September. Matt Mainer is interested in being involved with trail work on the new Town Forest.

Focus of August Record Article

Role of a management plan, role of this committee, potential conflicting uses if not managed

Goals – not just timber management, but wetland restoration and protecting bats

Vision Statement

Walk and forum dates

Hiking limited to existing trails

Will seek input from recreational groups

Vision Statement

Jean suggested, and it was agreed we to look at a shorter, more succinct way to express our vision in addition to the lengthy version. Andrea agreed to review and improve this.

We agreed to make comments on the Vision Statement via email. Susan will collect these comments for further discussion.

Plan Draft

We agreed that we would ask Dori and April to flesh out the wetlands piece.

Kristen will talk to Mike Snyder about drafting the forest section.

Lenore will draft the Restricted Uses section.

Lenore and Stewart will draft the Recreation Section

Andrea agreed to work on the Vision Statement, history and introduction

We need to add a section on large group use of the land. The upper meadow is designated for this.

We will shoot for Aug 12 to have a first draft of each section.

Mowing

We agreed to ask Wayne Bissonette to hay the southwest portion of Parcel One. In the future, we will work on a long-term lease of the land.

Next Meetings

July 22 and August 12, 2008

Next Agenda

Send comments on Vision to Susan before next meeting

The meeting was adjourned at 9:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted by Susan Mead