New Town Forest Planning Committee

MINUTES of September 4, 2008

Opening

The meeting of the New Town Forest Planning Committee was called to order at 7:30 pm on September 4, 2008 in the Town Hall by Kristen Sharpless.

Present

Kristen Sharpless (chair), Lenore Budd, Stewart Pierson, Matt Probasco, Andrea Morgante, and Susan Mead

Absent

Jean Isham, Paul Wieczoreck

Guest

Mike Snyder

Public Forum

The public forum is scheduled for October, 29 from 7- 9:30pm at HCS. Susan and Stewart will develop a plan for this event for the group to review. They will also oversee the event.

The following suggestions were made:

Use forum as an opportunity for education as well as input

Give a presentation that includes photos from walks

Provide the attendees with the vision and goals. Then facilitate the brainstorming of objectives in small groups

Publicize in the Record, which comes out right before the forum

Provide refreshments

Invite all our experts and interested parties, so that they may be available to answer questions

Town Forest Designation

Mike Snyder sent the application to the Commissioner, met with him, and a letter of approval is forthcoming.

LaPlatte River Restoration

Budget: NCRS will pay for 75% of the project, and the Town must pay for 25%, which may be made up entirely or partly through volunteer hours.

Excavation: We will need to get bids for this work.

Planting: We discussed the planting plan. After 3 years, we need to have 200 stems per acre that surviving. Andrea and Mike Snyder will discuss numbers and species to achieve this goal. We may be able to plant fewer trees, not mow and have some trees naturally seed in There was general agreement that we need only plant a width of 35 feet along the river bank. We agreed that we wanted to plant some quantity of silver maple, which should now thrive give the correct “edge” conditions.

Mowing: Paul W. and Wayne B. are in negotiation over mowing of area along 116.

Promotion: We agreed that we would have some sort of event and publicity during the excavation process and another during the watering of new trees. Both events are an opportunity to highlight the importance of river restoration to water quality.

Next Meeting

September 18 at 7:30 in the Town Hall.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm.

Respectfully submitted by Susan Mead