I'll I'll open the meeting since Elizabeth our chair is in transit um today is March 11th it is currently 6:37 p.m. all members are present with the exception of Travis who is out on
paternity leave um this meeting is being recorded by the Conservation Commission if any other persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time hearing no response I'm assuming that it's just us recording should any
technical Interruption to the meeting occur and the meeting is suddenly ended it will not be resumed and all items will be automatically continued to the next scheduled meeting date which is I think the I don't want to get it wrong um the 25th of
March uh please contact the conservation agent for more information all right um first item on the agenda is Administrative matters approval of meeting minutes from February 11th 2025 that feels like a long time
ago does it say febrary it does I don't think that's right it should be the 25th oh it says the 25th on my oh uh is that on your agenda oh I'm looking at the meeting minutes from the 25th my
bad sorry okay um so yeah sorry Mee approval of meeting minutes from February 25th oh my gosh Kristen can you hear us when we talk when Erica and I talk I can hear you yep I'll I'll make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from February
25th second was that seconded yes okay so Motion in a second is there any well I guess I'll do a roll call before I do discussion um
Emily hi Erica hi Elizabeth that's okay I am also an i we have a quorum there so is there any discussion does there any typo or anything anybody wants to see changed I didn't see anything
personally does anyone need a little bit more time to look at them H I found my view button did you have any comments Elizabeth nope nope oh good I'm sor sorry it just took me a hot second to figure out how to do that I'm just going to go ahead and
leave myself unmuted if you hear strange noises I apologize um okay well it sounds like no one has any comments on the meeting minutes so motion passes um approved meeting minutes will become available to the public on our
website on the next business day following today's meeting um we don't have any public meetings or hearings scheduled today so there's just other business and enforcement updates I don't know Jessica if you want to dive into that
stuff yeah I'd like to jump to Old business because Walter cleberg and his uh tenant is here to discuss uh the activity on his property at 30 Adams Road
and um yeah they're here in person so if we could just jump to that and then we can go through back to new business later yeah that makes sense uh so I sent the letter to Walter a couple weeks ago and he gave me a call and
um is uh here tonight to just answer any questions that the commission has about um um the various activity we saw pictures of over the years from the aerial photos and my my um site visit
driveby that I did uh Walter had said that he uh no activity has been going on for many years but he was more than willing to show up tonight to just answer any questions and get on the same page with the commission so I don't know who might
want to start that conversation with Walter yeah do so just as a reminder so the um d drove by and saw some new um vegetation clearing and potentially jurisdictional areas we did a little
Desktop review and it looked like we kind of concurred with that so yeah Walter you want to just um introduce yourself and present you know your explanations inside of the story that would be great okay I'm wber the owner of
Carson's cans and that is my property at 30 Adams Road um and um I believe what was seen as vegetation clearing is my tenants um a landscaper and they do tree work and they have been putting their
wood chips um files on property and which we use to build up a barrier so that way we get a little bit of privacy in there people don't see um into the property because it's all ledged we can't put up fence up there um but we have not been clearing anything we've done a little bit of tree work um dead
branches hanging over cars where we park and um hanging out to work areas but we have not cleared any vegetation um in years now um I bought the property approximately four years ago and um we
brought in some TRG put down a nice um packed area that we could drive on sore our on and then I also paved an area for my toilets to set on mud um but we haven't filled anything or cut any vation the only thing I can pick up is
that somebody's seen the wood chips in there which come from offside and are on the property so I I can guarantee we can take a walk up there anytime and there's no freshly cut vegetation at all I do stay on top of keeping the Japanese notw
pulled out of the ground do what I have because that place was completely um full would and the property would have been unusable if I hadn't tended to that so that's the only thing but I haven't touch that in probably three years now
we pretty well got a big time good for you hey Jessica do you want to pull up an aerial or anything um Walter first of all thank you so much for coming in tonight we really appreciate it your um willingness to engage and we always want
to hear the applicant or the land owner side of the situation yep um I don't know if you're familiar with our local ordinance or the Wetland protection act but um essentially any well not any work but um certain
activities within areas that are jurisdictional such as 100 feet from a wetland or 200 feet from a stream are jurisdictional um through either the state regulations or the local ordinance and that includes a lot of the property
so any expansion of that lay down area um if it's within our jurisdiction it it does need to come before us for a permit so I'm not saying that that did happen I I just you knew that no I I was aware of that because I was going to put up a building a new
shop over there and I was in touch with the Conservation Commission and was told that I had to hire and I looked at the cost of um hiring an engineer to come in and do their evaluation of it and by the time I got done it would have cost me tens of thousands of dollars and that
wasn't a guar that I would be able to do anything so I did buy another piece of property with an existing building on it so the only thing I use that for is to store my Porta Popp in so right now Jessica's sharing um the area saw it popped up and now it's
gone oh good that's great they can see that that's great that's great we're all looking at the same thing okay so uh what we're looking at is um your parcel is outlined in pink this is um the
aerial photo from 2019 so it shows you know your cleared area I'm assuming Porta poot and those green lines Mark 50 feet increments from the uh
stream and so your primarily your whole parcel is in Riverfront area which is one of the jurisdictional resource areas for the commission um so anything cut down in
that area is a concern of the um of the commission and then also 100 feet from the wetlands which um the blue kind of Lake looking polygon is
the Wetland approximate yeah approximate um here's 2021 um so when I drove by what I was looking at was kind of this upper leftand uh Northwest portion of your lot because I wasn't sure if additional
clearing had happened there and I'd seen some excuse me I just have one quick you said the burm is what you were saying what what did you driv by you noticed a bur or something said or um the upper Northwest so this area she
thought clearing had happened where like my guys parked oh that was that was all that Jeff that one I pulled all that out of there because it was Japanese notw so I got all that out because Jar's guys needed to place the part out of the way of the rest of the operations so okay I
I did that over the course of well before I even own the property actually when I did that so that was years ago okay I got the Knotwood out of there and it still pops up but we keep it down yeah that's I mean that's great not what is it's nasty it is it doesn't
stop um but you're using it as parking now so it's unvegetated and it's parking well it's that's where they Park a few of the trucks the pickup trucks from the landscape kind of things so I can go through the photos that
um I took when I just drove by uh let's see what are the names of the roads because it seems like roads on two sides is that correct yeah so this is the road that goes towards the mobile home park I
don't know the name of it do you know the name of it yes that goes towards the mobile park and then my gate is on the left there and you can see um that tree that I spoke about a couple of trees that were had dead branches that one right there was pretty dead it's all
Hollow so um I believe jar took his tree um climber there and took some of the de and I did check with um the trailer park because we're not quite sure where the delineation is that's a right of way for
them to get to their property so I checked with them and um the president of Association who actually jeremi know also um he gave me a letter saying that any any issue with trees that you know whether it be my tree obviously I could take care of it or it was theirs he gave
me permission to to trim them up and to keep them so they're not a hazard to the power line or cars going in and out okay that's what we did is that the road that says private road or something yes private driver
yeah so this was the Northwest corner that I was just referencing so um there's a lot of logs right there and so we were concerned that those logs were from trees on site no those came I I
think Jeff could answer those those didn't come up from on I believe those were from yeah those are from jobs that I got hired to remove trees um and then I actually process the wood for heat um for me and my employees okay if any of the commission members
want to interject at any point just let me know I don't want to split hairs but when I look at the 2019 and the 2023 aerial photos it it looks like more than just knotweed was cut down I mean there's just deciduous at least one deciduous
tree I don't know which tree that would be there it's to the west of that eastern white pine which is really clear on the aerial the aiel I'll get the Aerials I don't believe so pine tree is the one along the road next to the power line yeah so you can see that deciduous
tree to the left there away yeah we lost so to the West is I I can't see a deciduous I'm not yeah right here is where she no a little further to the West Jessica said Pine right to the left to the left to the
left of this to the no go down go really slower a little bit more stay in that lane between the green line and the blue line go up a little bit more to the parcel I don't know what she's think go to the parcel so inside
the um to the left of the the um the corner the yeah exactly the the the corner you got it that's where I was there's trees it's hard me to tell what there I don't I don't remember the
tree being there I mean there there but nothing that we've cut no okay okay so this is I J's been there for three years and we haven't done 2021 cutting it off 2022 2019 so there's
202 I can't look pretty similar you have the 2023 ones um Jessica it shows the parking or 202 whatever whatever is staged over there I'm not sure what that is staged where are you getting the 2023
MPP okay you want me to do a share yeah sure yeah if you more Rec away back okay so this is all let me start with the 2019 so I'm talking about this right here to me that looks like a
deciduous tree with Leaf off conditions see how these all kind of look sort of sticky you can kind of see all of the branches looks just like that there's another one over here and that's 2019 and that's 2023 so now there's something there that's not vegetated looks like
some kind of equipment staging or vehicle staging or something so I think there was portable toilets over there yeah so I think that would to go back was one of the first things that Jessica was explaining about in the northwest corner just kind of like yeah close that Loop that's what I think she was talking about and again just if you look at that
aerial from 2019 that looks like to me it looks like a deciduous tree no there was no hard hardwood trees there that I could recall yeah that was before you had your toilets there that picture and then you moved them in there unless it was not weed growing up and then you killed it
to put yeah that weed was 10 ft tall so I don't I don't you know there was no hardwoods in here because I don't recall I me I I'm not a Woodsman so I don't cut I don't cut trees would be a lot of effort just to park toilets on stumps yeah but I do know there's a lot of not
weed that comes up in there now currently from from the past um but since I moved in wal move those toilets so I get space so it's hard to verify we're just interpreting an aerial photo at this point no we understand you we can take
we can take go in it'd be nice actually maybe if we could just take a walk together we might be able to get a little bit more sense of the history of it we can see where the not weer you know now so that'll help establish that area um but I can see your concerns uh
Kristen I can see why there's the shadow it does look like there's branches and it's hard for me to tell whether that's where the location of that tree is or would have been if it is a tree but I see yeah and it's just again going back between 2019 again that's 2019 that's 2023 so you can see this area is
definitely expanded between those dates um yeah that's another so the the general area the more like v-shaped does seem like it's been just sort of yeah and and just to
confirm this this is just a state data layer this Wetland and the Streamline this hasn't been actually ground truth or delineated so we're just sort of roughing this out I mean this could be bigger it could be smaller we don't really know we're just going on a desktop assessment here um so if you do want to
expand I think your first step would be to get a delineation done and then come before us with a permit yeah I think we're pretty much you know where where we have to be there there's no reason for I'm not going my business anymore I've already got PL in toilets and I'm 70 and I'm looking to retire so it's
what's done there is done there so there's no intent to change it from how it is now no absolutely not no no I mean we made bring in a little bit of hard pack because we get a little bit of mud starting up from the vehicle being in there and know we bring in
probably 10 15 ton of hard tack from mackins and we'll spread that I have a box bar on my track I can spread that and then we'll got a well I dig it all up the place I think the point is though if you want to make this if you want to convert this from perious surface area
to impervious surface area for staging and parking that would require a permit if it's in jurisdiction okay yeah yeah yeah we've got all the cards we need now so so again just just I don't know what these things are but you know our screen went black that's that's also pretty new
and so it's when you expand further to the West that's more concerning than expanding further to the east we can't we don't have any screen to look at anything here I I can't see that screen I tell you honestly it' be so much easier somebody or mostly people want to come over and walk it with me and
look I can't really see anything on this screen here oh gosh you're looking at the the iPad right you don't have the TV okay I understand I'll stop sharing okay no that's okay I was showing them a
larger screen yes I I missed everything what she was talking about over the last Kristen do if you are still sharing do you mind going back to is this 2019 no this is 2023 here I'll click on 2019 again so yeah yeah I was looking at those Vehicles over here so that was UN
or vegetated before and now it's it's expanded and vegetated that whole area there was simply tall grass and stuff that what that was at one time so but still you've got you know what are those conx boxes or yes correct yeah that's my yeah so
that's it's not like a you know that's temporary storage for my stuff can you move them to the other side of the lot that's my area that I need to work with by toilets over there it's also all ledge there's no flly there ledge if you could visually look at it you'll know
why it's set up the way it is there's no other way to do it um than what we've done it's it's virtually well I guess our our issue isn't that you did it it's that you did it without coming to us for a permit because it's in
jurisdiction okay all right well whatever I have to do I mean you know I have to pay for a permit after the fact because I know I had I thought I did everything right CU I had all the town building inspector and everybody over they dictated where the fence had to go
they told me everything and I I wasn't aware of anything to do with conservation until I started asking the town engineer about putting a building up there and that's when I said okay well we've got to be very careful because it's all basically the whole property is under consumation so that's
what I we can't change anything from here on well that's debatable if we issue an enforcement order but I mean if um I'm just uh reviewing the process if if he got a permit to put up
the fence that means that it got signed off on by probably the conservation agent at the time oh that's true and also when somebody files for a building permit or something doesn't it come to concom as part of like doesn't it go to all Town AG it goes through the
conservation agent and they decide whether or not the concom needs to be involved so what probably happened was whatever whoever the agent was at the time probably was like oh it's just Defence and then just signed off on it and didn't involve the comcom yeah because I I did everything by the books
I checked with all the town Engineers building inspector the water department I mean I I had people coming and going all the time and everything was dotted they changed actually the building inspector changed my plans from a yeah
it sounds like from a $34,000 um small little water bot where I bought the electric the water into and because of his changes to the pl it cost me 56,000 SS a pad to you know I mean they gave me an okay I had it written down
that was okay to put just they P yeah he came and said you need Frost wall you need this you need that and that was that was a very bad experience that's one of the other reasons I decided not to put building up there because I'd had to deal with the building inspector who really just gave my Builders all kinds
of trouble and I just I can't do it anymore in Greenfield because it just put very bad taste in my mouth yeah I well it does sound like you went through the proper process I did everything as far as it coming across the conservation agent's desk um so I think the main
takeaway now is like if anything else you wanted to do anything else moving forward believe me after listen to this I I won't take a sh I talk to you next first I just you know I'm here in town to run a business
to make money not to cause aggravation to the to or to anybody else around there I think you know if anybody wanted to talk to Patrick who's the president of the trailer park you know I I check with them all the time I always go walking around picking up trash outside
of evets I try to keep my property and and that's what I told Jeremiah when he came in I said what I do here is I always try to keep everything tip top shape because if you give somebody something to complain about you're going to run into problem so I I walk the
Adams Road side um I guess I was going to try to cut some of those little whips that are in front of my property on the atam RO but if I do that I'll call you guys person because it's basically just Sprouts that
come in place of what was that was all the Japanese side is that that's right here this whole piece right here this little triangle that's the area that is furthest away from yeah yes it's the
furthest away right small slice of the property that's but again I would cheat with you guys before I put my we whacker say okay you can do to this point I'll do it if not I'll just let it be it just looks yucky to me you guys are so constrained right that it's nice to get
another eye on so you make sure you know you're doing right and if I do it I mean I don't have a problem way is the only thing is I'm and and Garett can tell you I'm a about having a nice appearance on my property whether it be in Turners on Turnpike Road my shop there over there
or my home property everything has to be perent proper and look I don't like scraggly looking and you know when I drive to the industrial park and I see all the other commercial businesses in there that have nice grass growing on the front in front of the burms and down
into little water catch areas you know I'm trying to get my place to that so that may fall to my sun really I'm supposed to be retiring here in the next few months so well congratulations it's about time almost 70 and it's time to yeah stop working seven days a week so
oh yeah that was that little the little corner there a little white dos on is that in jurisdiction those were toilets that were there the Northwestern end yeah the arm is it right I mean those are
portable toilets right so are there's a port portable toilet port to right there do they have chemicals in them excuse me do they have chemicals in them no they're completely empty they're completely empty matter fact those are ones that I had there that were used ones when I first started business I couldn't afford to buy um brand new
toilets so I bought a bunch of used toilets from New Jersey New York from other companies that basically Hades that were falling apart I repaired them and I used those for a number of years I've got almost all but maybe a dozen sold now but I sold other comp other new
companies that have sprung up since Co started and all my clothes are new clothes but when they're in my yard there is no chemical um a little water comes down vack but there's nothing I don't even
leave the sers in them we strip them completely down the paper's taken out so when they're in my yard yeah they're clean can you move them to some other part of your yard do they have to those toilets aren't there anymore they're not there anymore no man those toilets are not there there there's about half a
dozen or so I think eight or 10 toilets that are are prob went down away from that drive I could move those if necessary but again there's nothing in them like over here where it's outside of that's alled that's all ledge we
can't we can't put anything there if you look at it that's Red Rock Ledge you cannot dig into it there's not a flat spot on it there's nothing to do with that property that's why I kind of went away from putting that building because you cannot I mean if you want to spend a half million dollars blasting that ledge
out to do something with it you can but I don't I I mean my business do very well I don't have half million doll to remove ledge from my property right but what she's saying these are all gone in that corner which is correct yes they're all exactly that's what she so those those have been moved and you won't put
more back over there that that area is going to be okay are G yeah and no future gauging over here nope okay that's good yeah I mean obviously the not we gets kept up with but that's about it because
that stuff just takes over do yeah well do we want to suggest a site visit so we can just have walked it with you I think you'll understand it more you see same page yeah yeah absolutely just let me know just allow me a little bit of
flexibility because in the last coup days things have taken off we we've been in our winter mode yeah kind of my little bit of a kind of almost ration time during win but the phone's blowing apart apart Highway needs air toilets and de fi will be a few days and then um
you know snows the sugar Nursery down there needs theirs we got to get rolling on this stuff so um and we're down one person right now so we got to make another higher so it's basically myself and my one driver then my son is is parttime right now so he's coming up over time another month but we we're
going to be real busy getting our trucks ready um because we've been running um a salt solution a bride solution for the winter time so the CL don't Breeze and I've got about two week worth of work to get the truck all hooked up to the water pump sty on the truck fresh wash tou um
you know do away with the bride and get going to fresh water so you know if someone tells me and say okay can we meet you like say on Wednesday or Thursday or something to that effect say you got to meet us at 7 o'clock on a on a Tuesday it just might not work because I might be up in coming to delivering
toilets I'll I'll shoot you an email and just throw out a few times and we'll see if we can yeah I'm pretty flexible right now I can move stuff back and but if we wait two or three weeks U you know I I'll be losing my mind by then you probably won't want to be around so
sooner than later the sooner as better I'm getting I'm starting to get started up too right and again we have't everything's been covered store so we we haven't done what is obviously our spring clean up and we haven't taken some of the you know things that we brought in the fall
time and you usually I go through and clean up any kind of met pip and stuff that's around there so but but they'll give the general way probably much better than looking on this year okay yeah I'll shoot you an email and we'll lock in a time in the next we absolutely not a problem perfect sounds good great
thank you for coming okay so we're all set now and we're not going to jail thank you thank you so much thank you for coming in better than some land owners that just give us the virtual middle finger
do you want to jump back to new business Jessica okay let me just um grab a chair pull it up no it's this um I was listening to all of this stuff
and I'm like guys the other thing that I wanted to mention is I would love to see the records of whoever had their hands all over that because it sounded to me what I was able to hear that um a lot of people were
involved and none of them none of them none of them dramtic spraw address the con well yeah this kind of been ongoing problem that the bill inspector gives
permission for things and doesn't necessarily the other thing is how how does a fence morph into land clearing they had permission for off fence they they cleared land that's beyond offence so I still have questions about this but
also but didn't he say he's only owned for years yeah something like that yeah so maybe I mean that makes sense that a lot of that happened with the previous owner because it's 2025 he's only owned it for
four years yeah y so he that's entirely possible yeah especially Chris I was able to see that back and forth you were doing yeah and it was it's 2019 yeah so I can look up I can do a
little paper trial yeah I've got 2021 to 2023 as well and that's when the majority of the work happened between 2021 and 2023 yeah so if he bought it in
2022 which is four years ago then it's still him well and the other thing too unless they have ground stumps if we go do a site visit it'll be really obvious if they got R because the stumps wouldn't have deteriorated in that
at least that point the guy be think would have or there won't be anything to see because it's underneath all those piles of staged logs yeah but um I mean I don't know if we
need to ask for after the fact permit but there could be some potential restoration opportunity there if in fact a site visit does turn into an actual enforcement well and I think we I mean he was talking about well you know if it gets money I'm gonna bring in a bunch of
Phil that's what I heard that was like that I think it might be important to just be really clear with him that you know you did unauthorized activities we're looking at you for possible enforcement you know you can't do anything in jurisdiction without I think
it's pretty that we establish the timeline because we don't know what was done by this folks we some of the things seemed like they were clear like when where they were storing things the more southern western portion it looks like it pushed out into the area that hadn't been cleared that that the last two
pictures showed that pretty clearly but I would really want to know when did they buy the property and at this point the most important thing is to keep anything further from happening and then to see if there's any particular things that seem like they're impinging on the
the the wetlands and then see what we can do I like I think it was a good idea if there's any remediation that can be done but you know people did sign off even if it wasn't done to the letter of the law he did go through the process that done on him yeah so that's not well
he got a fence permit who do we talk to about that that's just for a fence that's not for all this clearing over here and and these these Conex boxes like this is 2021 that's 2023 that's a really big footprint change yeah that's true that wasn't what he filed a permit for he
filed a permit for a fence well we know he filed a permit for the fence we're not sure if he okay did or didn't but like the other thing is you like there's no legal um grounds past two
years for for the concom I'm actually taking that so I can't come to the April 15th class because I mean concom meeting because I'm taking a class on enforcement because I didn't know that and I really want to learn more about that um just if that's true I mean and we we would lose on appeal but that
doesn't mean we can't ask for something so you won't miss any because the it's like the first day of April is on a Tuesday so the actual meeting is the eth oh then yeah so you're all good oh wait a second let me update my calendar I
didn't know that this wait what wait the first Tuesday oh yeah so the first Tuesdays of first and oh I was mixed up thank you yeah so can I oh yeah sorry go ahead Oh no just
to say so I also think you just need to make sure that somebody needs to spell out what he that he really can't just bring him I know he thinks he's doing like a good thing but you can't just make him F yeah even though you think you're you know yeah taking care of the mug or whatever well I wasn't even sure
what he was talking about like what kind was he talking about gravel he said he getting from ma which is a yeah which is likey it's like a gravel yeah so you mean the hard that he was talking
about clear about what he can't really can and can't because he keeps talking about that he didn't clear anything didn't clear any trees didn't clear any trees it's not it's not just trees yeah you can't do anything yeah I would suggest that we start with a site visit
but when we go to do that site visit we have a even like a list of things that are like um love that you're can care of the not weed um you can't put in a lawn you talk about wanting it to look
very yeah vegetation conversion is is not invasive species management and remember you will remember this Erica we really got on an applicant before for doing invasive species management without a permit over on you know that's interesting because that is one of the
the allowed you know sort of Exempted activities but we really got on an applicant they were on Country Road do you remember this Erica yeah um the ones they were like on a farm or whatever no it they had like a driveway that had a bridge oh that okay yeah that one okay
and and I don't I was I was really new so I wasn't really involved in it but Travis was like no you really got to let us know when you're doing evasive species management and so I thought like especially if you're using I don't know if maybe they were no they were hand pulling everything I don't know why we
wanted notification planting and invas removal are two of the things that H have more leeway right unless it's in rare species habitat let's just check that really quick but did have you looked at that layer no pulling it's not it's not okay there okay good I mean we
have had people come before us to discuss their their um you know me yeah before do river
was there one doing par came y I think one of the things that's that probably is what happened here is even if they weren't intentionally trying to grab more space know having tenants
needing more room they just it seems like it got pushed out like now there's things that are being stored that are beyond the sort of parking area um and so then you kind of think oh well if they're stored there then that's what we've been using so you just kind of push yourself there's a visual barrier
so it might be helpful I think for us to talk with them figure out what the actual areas of where it's already sort of improved and I don't know if they could flag it or they could have markers or something so that they can have um something so that they know really you
can't push aast this anything beyond this any activities Beyond this even if it's just mowing or you want to like you know there m piles there yeah multi piles mowing conx boox storage toilet storage all of it counts as impacts yeah
exactly and I'm sure they're not seeing it that way I think that's really good yeah I know it's literally his whole property he buys it to like have his business and yeah it made me when I
first chemical that was a good question like yeah y absolutely yeah yeah so but so um so have a list of these things that we want to make sure
that they don't exacerbate and then can here are the things that you can do to like make us happy yeah the other thing too is I would really I'd love to know I'd love to see the documentation and who signed
off on these things um I realized that I would be whistling in the winds I just curi I mean could for Eric ER just and the activities might have sounded so minor that they didn't put
any Flags but when you if you look at the fence like this is the old one but this is where the fence goes and the fence is that's actually outside yeah so do you want to share that um I I'm sharing my screen but let me stop so but the fence
was for a fence not a limit of disturbance so feel like once you have a fence you think of it as a limit of disturbance but was so it's totally separate but is is that yes enence no I think the fence so can you see my cursor
yeah it comes down like this and then it just like is on this like Ridge thing and it not the like the road is lower than up here and then I think it goes back down so like that's what he was talking about like he couldn't really store things
because I think there's like a a hill um but it goes like here down like by the side of the road so um so depending yeah depending on how far it goes it's like a lot of it is outside the
riverfront area and again it's a it's a it's a fence it's not like all that stuff that's over on the west side is not fence related it's yeah conversion of land and storage of potentially unsafe
materials like I mean yeah what's in do we know what's in the boxes I mean obviously of course we don't because somebody's priv stuff but or if they're properly boxes now the Landscaping so there's like oh those
storage boxes boxes that seemed like that was um that seemed like it was the Landscaping guys um yeah are they properly stored on blocks or like is there secondary containment doeser I I don't know there's a lot of questions so I feel
like it's a I think I I think that' be good let's do a site walk yeah so in the next week um I I'll well I'll email him right away but um is there any times that any of you all could go in the next
week what do you mean you seem totally easy breezy Tuesday's bad Monday's better Wednesday's the 26th that's two weeks away from oh I'm sorry I'm looking at the wrong week yeah
he he would like in the next week yeah yeah the busy season is on what about like Friday the 14th 14th do an early morning like 8 9
10 um I get in at 9 like sometime between 9 and 10 you can do what what about you guys I could probably maybe do N I have I did disappointment a date so I'm not quite sure when that wrap up but I could probably do 9
9:30 okay I can't do it I'm in the field on that day I'm in Townsend and Ashburnham and New Salem yeah I should be a all right so I'll aim for 9:30 yeah okay I'll email him see what
he says okay uh that's that cool um Liz you want to take over or you want me to keep going probably guess oh you
get all right so we just skipped to his we haven't tackled anything else [Laughter]
um all right all right where we at all right so we skipped over you have to go back to new business all right cool so new business resilient Deerfield River Watershed coalition resilient drw agent to inform the commission about or creation of the
resilient drw future meetings and timeline have you guys heard of this nope have you heard of it Brazilian Greenfield is that what it is Brazilian uh Deerfield water river water no yeah river
water resilient Deerfield River Watershed Coalition I may have heard of it I feel like I've been in or but for a while so the um frcog fog fog um applied for an MVP
Grant and they got it for over $645,000 wow yeah it's awesome yeah and um they came up with this whole um document a framework it's called a framework for resilience responding to climate change
in the Deerfield River watershed and so now they're creating a coalition with at least one representative from all 14 towns in the wed and they reached out to Greenfield and I was suggested
and so now I'm the and all your Co so now I am the representative for Greenfield so I want to just let you guys know that that's going on um so let me just read you a little like synopsis
so resilient sorry resilient uh drw will be identifying opportunities to work cooperatively across town boundaries build local and Watershed scale resilience and prioritize recommendations from the framework for
resilience they will on board a consultant team to develop a regional flood model for the Deerfield River watershed this will be the first Watershed scale flood model developed in Western Massachusetts sits it will be similar to the one that was developed
for the Charles River wed which is um there's a link uh that I can provide actually it's in the um it in the agenda it's in the folder under resilient drw go to
summary and then I click that and it's actually really cool they have um kind of this this active um kind of like Mass mapper kind of thing where you can like zoom in and see um different levels
of flooding like where the boundaries would be for on the map um so yeah they want to do that for here whoa uh this will help furog and the 14 towns in Deerfield River Watershed prioritize and coordinate flood resiliency efforts
across municipalities and use nature-based Solutions at The Watershed scale so the other thing this Charles River flood model has is you I haven't like explored it too much but on the video uh they've made like an
educational video about it it's said that you can like click different nature-based solutions layers and it impacts where the flooding that's great edges are Isn't that cool yeah that's awesome yeah so that um this is the
first meeting is next week March 20th it they're going to meet every four to six weeks for approximately 15 meetings between now and January 20 202 sorry June 2026 which is the end of the term of the grant awesome yeah so that's
that's that want to let you know well for Cog is great so have you worked with them before not really they're awesome you're gonna love it you're gonna have a great time were you here when they they did a mapping project
It came fored it I'm not I don't remember I I've worked with them on a few projects outside of the okay I thought it was a deeri I know yeah they did a ma maybe a deer I don't remember it was like historical mapping of like where it had been and then once
the dance came what it changed to and oh neat oh I don't remember that that must have been before me forget which one yeah I was trying to figure out if there was any data the extent of the flood waters for
Hurricane Irene which I think was probably the most um extreme flooding right in this area wasn't living here but I know there was like a few flooding events at least in Vermont
yeah in shelburn Falls the water was up to the the bridge of flowers and I don't know if he's been there recently but it's like 30 ft down and a couple I saw oh no that's so sad
got not Dr Roots but um one Conway natural Roots natural Roots thank you yeah yeah propane tanks and canoes and Port John that were floating down the river it was same Barton Cole you see that was
was just W just like everywhere jam and that's the one that ended wedg with Gardens right must have been I I know the that time what what year was that um was it
2010 or 201 2011 it's 2011 Irene no I yeah yeah okay it was the year I got married I should remember 12 10 11 yeah uh so I can like keep you guys updated ated um or I don't
know if it makes sense to update you every after every time there's a meeting just kind of keep you updated or we could check back in I think like if I think there's something significant yeah precisely okay um moving
on commission conference review Emily boss and the agent H annual na conference on March first and we'll briefly discuss the sessions attended in any relevant takeaways for the commission I had such a good time there it was great I got to say I was like
it's been a while since I've been to a conference that you know it's just inspiring and really um yeah it leaves you like just feeling like hopeful yeah you know so many people working on the same thing it's
really well organized too they about for a while I went last year with Travis so I was glad because I could figure out how to get to that parking lot yeah oh yeah I had a hard time I was like on the backside I'm like how do I get up to this thing um but it's a good time still have
to submit my reimbursement so that all just send yeah so I was gonna ask you that because Kristen also had a question just about um if all Mac events are
reimbursable um which I believe they are um but we'll talk about like our bank accounts later on in this meeting and how much money is where and stuff like that so
um did you want us to quickly talk about the ones there's one particular one I really want to talk about yeah like I want summize I went to one on the biodiversity goals for Massachusetts okay that's a report that's coming out very soon and seems like it'll be a
really use tool to sort of assess the vulnerabilities and issues so one comes out you know I encourage us to take a look at it and see how it reflects on our work that could be something that we could apply to our properties yeah um and I went to a long workshop on
soils of Massachusetts and wetlands and that was fascinating was Al ail who's been in the USGS Forest Service I mean not Forest but soils for a long time and um his work bring in local soils local Farm soils of
local importance has been stopped right now unfortunately due to all the cut backs um wait he's bringing in the soils he is basically when Town's opt to have soils of local importance be included
and assessed and included in things like you know when you're looking at see seeing if the land can be conserved under an APR um he's the one who does the work or he has he's one of the people and so it's not a difficult process if we ever want to opt into that we can if they
continue the program right um and it just basically you know they take a look at the the land that's being farmed and even if it doesn't pop up on the prime Farm soil Slayer or the state significant ones they can be added if it
seems like they're of importance here so that's all it doesn't mean they can't be it doesn't change what you can do on them it just means that more eligible and they're more you know you can make more arguments to protect that land so um and the third one I did was um uh
ABCs are issuing tickets to Wetland violator is that the one you want to talk about yes the ones I went to well I also went to the biodiversity uh talk I went to supporting land conservation through DCS
grants protecting and restoring Aquatic and terrestrial connectivity and pollinate now Biore Regional strategy for Habitat restoration great topics they were so good I loved it um yeah why don't you
all right so I have a ticket in my hand I don't know if you can see it people at home uh Kristen um and I know that Travis has done some research as well he may have you know taken this Workshop up in the past when we went up last time we chatted about it um and I think I
emailed him but maybe I didn't but or maybe he didn't seen my email but I just wanted to touch Bas with them to see because I knew he did some of the research so what I learned was that it's not like you have to get these tickets from the state um that is one of the things
that's in our way right now we don't have a pad we don't actually have the tickets and in order to write someone a ticket you know a process it's not us who does it um actually it's us who does it our agent would do it but then it
would be delivered by a police officer to the person who is being yeah evaluation um you have to make sure you dottle your eyes and cross all your te's you have to fill it out appropriately and um but you have to have this and it
has to be in carbon copy so there's like a pink version in the Yellow Page and and the white page goes to the Violator um and one stays with us um one has to go to the town clerk as well and there's time frames by which they all have to
get to everybody and one has to go to the County Magistrate they're the ones who eventually would call the envi the um the person who U violated to court and they have a certain period of
time to either respond or appeal and if they don't then yeah so um but if we don't have this pad none of that will happen um um a few other things while I'm thinking about it was falling into
my head um I did take notes but I'm just going by my memory here um basically as long as it's within the the statute of limitations for whatever the thing was every day is another
violation is there a dollar value associ the dollar value that we are able to assess is in our bws so if our bws don't have any um don't give us any power to enforce by dollars then we don't have
any it's not in the the fed the state Rags the state Rags put a cap on it it can't be more than $300 per day but so we have to go through a Bas I'm sorry that I haven't done that I should no it's fine I I think um I I read what was on the our City
website under the bylaw because I was trying to understand if we can collect money for nois for local nois and it doesn't seem like there's anything about the money doesn't come back to us because they pay a fee we did talk about that by the way a while ago just and we
decided not to because we didn't want to discourage people from filing because we're always dealing with people who I see didn't file the well yeah we did we um citizens businesses have still have to file but we didn't remember remember we were
mean contractors and stuff still needed yeah and we never made any changes right there's no there's no fee listed in the verbiage that I can find for like actual citizens because yeah because it was so expensive we figured they were're just
gonna do our back yep rather than coming before us and just explain what they want to do okay but but people like contractors and stuff yeah we can still talk about that yeah that doesn't match my understanding of how it works I thought that there
were state there like um based on what it was for the noi there are certain categories I just went through is for the state but if it's a local noi I think I think Emily there so when you file a notice of intent under the state
Wetlands protection act a portion of it goes to the city and a portion of it goes to the state exactly but some local bylaws or ordinances have addition fees like it's $50 to file in RDA and Hadley but it's free in
Greenfield oh an RDA yeah and some towns have like additional noi for the town okay maybe so we really so the ordinance um I'm just looking it up
online chrisan whoa I don't know what's going on there okay so I application of fees so basically um share so this is the ordinance on our
City website and there's an application in Fe section and it talks about um there's like one spot that talks about fees and I don't know if I'm going to be able to just like find it off the
bat I we don't charge fees the fees have to do with if we have to hire a consultant third party for them so like if it's to delineate a wetland or something we will um
request a payment third third party reviews are like say we get an noi that's really complicated you know we're just volunteers we don't have time to read a 500 page noi with detailed engineering plans and storm water modeling and all kinds of stuff so we would hire we would on the applicant's
behalf they would have to pay for it yeah for a third party review of our choosing and they would give us comments like hey you know they they filed this incorrectly or they really need to up their protections for whatever or this doesn't match the perform standards or stuff like that that it helps us with
our review that's what that is right okay exactly so then but there's absolutely nothing in here that says anything about collecting money for enforcement for an noi like when it doesn't involve the state so if it's you know an intermittent
stream yeah so what you're saying is because Greenfield has a bog that makes uh gives protections above and beyond the state um regulated water bodies if the noi is particularly for something
that's only of jurisdiction because of the bylaw yeah we don't charge them correct okay but if doing a standard noi then we that's our not jurisdictional then it's all the normal but that's those are fees that are jur those are well protection act fees we do get a
portion of them but those are State fees mandated by the state under the state regulations get a of them the state gets some and then commonly encounter so people are paying for nois if they're under the the standard state regulations yeah which is why I was like well why don't we collect them locally because if
they're still having to do it for the state like what's the difference it does make it seems like another source of money we can we can talk about that I think put that on an agenda and we can talk because we have gone in circles about that I know we've talked about that before when we talked about revising the bylaw or the
ordinance I mean um so then that kind of circles back to this ticket like can we get the T the ticket so what I was given to stand from this class um and I've you know got the contact information we can go back to those folks if need be um was
that the the place we get this from is the police here in town so it's basically very much like writing a ticket for parking or you know any kind of normal civil fine but it it has this
language that refers to our law our laws the state laws and the the local laws uh the local bylaw so um what they said was yeah you just go talk to the cops and that sounds really much harder than they
made it out to me yeah and then he said typically the police work with a printer who knows how who has the appropriate paper and does everything and then they just make the P the they basically when they're doing the order you add on or
you have them do it um and so I that's why I want to talk to Travis I'm pretty sure that when when he talked about it he said yeah it sounded so easy but then so I don't know what the I think that was the hold off yeah was going through
I mean that's just a Mattery line yeah I'm sure it's like difficult so I want to find out how far along in this Travis got and then I'd be happy to pick up the trail okay and I I walk I live within walking distance of the
police station so I could just go over there yeah I think walking there in like being in person way having that paper in hand yeah I might even call the people who ran that session and walk it through with them so that I have it really fresh in my mind so I can say this is what
they do in this town this is what get to understand and even it might even be useful to call somebody in Deerfield or you know like somebody else nearby if they also have done this that way I because a lot of times when you're dealing with a bureaucracy if nobody has
done it before it's as though you cannot do it so I feel like knowing as much as possible going in would be helpful to yeah so I'll try and follow up on that thank you um and then so that whole
per day thing you have to write one per day oh right that was the other thing because it falls to to me but we did talk about maybe we would rotate it each person would have to write one and then within a minimum of
15 days you have to get them to the magistrate and to the town clerk and they have to receive them at those times so it's much better to take them in person because if you mail them to court then it'll probably just like sit on
somebody's desk and disappear and so if we ever get into this situation we really want to have a Playbook that we by so that we know exactly who needs to do it and they also said you want to have a relationship with that clerk the magistrate yes and have talk to the town
clerk I think it's the town clerk that he goes to so you want to have put faces let them know who you are make sure you bring them cookies whatever it takes so that they want to do what you need to them to do and um obviously you know these are people who are working out east where this must come up so much
more right but here we just don't even have that opportunity unless we have this in place so I feel like it's really important for us to at least have the pad Y and have that that you know ability to stand behind all right because I wonder what what bank account
so that would go into very good question say did they say is it like the wetlands they didn't talk about that but that's another like I could ask that question okay yeah so ask because so like each town has two bank accounts typically one is I
know this this might be kind of like scattered tonight but like one is the conservation fund which is established by the town for buying land and doesn't really have especially here a clear way to replenish
it um some towns just do every year they like give money every year but we don't hear and unless someone donates money it sits at zero then the other fund is the one that all the fees from the nois go into and that's like called like the
wetlands fund or something like that and that one um Wetlands conservation account and and that one can only strictly be used for purposes of like implementing the wetlands protection act
um so so enfor or mitigation that um it's like staff time like Sarah or something yeah some of my for an extra like hour or two hours or week or
something like that out of that fund okay yeah and vernal pool certification can happen out of that fund um and then Kristen to answer your question I think
when you guys go to Mac stuff I think it might come out of that fund as well because you're like expanding your knowledge on how to enforce the ACT yeah so but you know we'll get we'll get to that but anyway um if that money from
the tickets could go into conservation funds I mean it's not like big big bucks but you know 300 bucks at a time [Music] no so um do you have anything else to
say about the No No but that just wanted to share that and so I I went to a talk about the DCS grants which I can talk
about when I think later in this meeting we talk about funding and grants so I'll talk about that later um the I did the Aquatic andrial connectivity talk with Scott Jackson he's actually the
commission chair in wait yeah he's amazing like I was just like like the whole no swon yeah I was he's my old teacher from the 90s I oh really decades yeah him since I was a kid it was like
he barely took a breath the whole time so I was trying my best to follow like there was a lot he's yeah he's brilliant he basically wrote the appendix B wildlife habitat evaluation for D he did the salamander Crossing on Henry Street in ammer he's done a lot for wildlife
conservation in Massachusetts yeah it yeah and so he was talking about because he works at UMass that all these like like models they've created to understand how Wildlife travel across
the landscape and you know it's like we did this and then but like who knows where they go through the forest so we added like a random factor to like you know and then he's like and this is what we got and he showed this map of like all these you know and it was like gradients of colors so it would be like
light into dark you could see the dark borders and you know kind of stress the importance of understanding like corridors through Forest corridors through um like raring areas and corridors over Ridge lines kind of considering all those when you're talking about creating connectivity
across the landscape um but I think what I was understanding is that a lot of his work actually like was utilized with biomap with creating which is cool and he also wrote the the the new 20122 I think it was published the D bvw
delineation manual oh W yeah he's like all Superstar yeah he yeah um so and then the last thing I want to say which he didn't he wasn't involved in this um but he said it was just really cool
um they're going to create a wildlife overpass crossing over Interstate 91 where the Appalachian Trail crosses the bass pike so it's they're going to do a big wide one where the appal Trail is on like the far side of
it and then it's like the wildlife I know like the one in Canada the big one in Canada like that one yeah like they have them at West too where it's just like a giant bridge for animals where the Appalachian Trail is
going to cross too that's cool Isn't that cool I saw I saw one in N by the damam yeah yeah they're really cool so that was um that talk and then the last
one I went to I had a hard time deciding but I went to the pollinator talk this guy was like incredible too he just um talked about like pollinator uh
populations and you know everyone like thinks about like the honeybee and all the honey bees are dying he's like the honey bees are fine we're worried about is like the native bees yeah the ones that like they don't live in hives they like live in the
ground and he he's he like he's a landscape designer or like a like a garden kind of landscape designer also like per you know some whatever certification and permaculture design and so he gets hired all over New
England I think uh to build the to like kind of convert like otherwise not pollinator Landscapes so like grass or like Farm Fields Old Farm Fields like a grassy lawn outside the
library and Welsley hired them and they evaluate these Landscapes before they do the work and then after so they can see what kind of impact it had and so this one project in I think Welsley next to the library was just a lawn like a normal looking
lawn he um went out there three times for they didn't find one pollinating anything like nothing for all three times and then within five months of installing his design they found like
five native bees on one flower like three of them hadn't even been seen in Massachusetts in like years right and um so like one thing I thought was interesting when they designed which
plants to use it's not only what Native flowering plants the PO native pollinators want but when those pollinators are known to be in that location and What flowering plant flowers at the time that they're
in that location so like a lot of these plants will might flower in August but that particular bee isn't known to be there in August they're there in May or whatever it is right and I thought that was really like next level to consider
so like as far as we go like wouldn't that be cool if we could just get a list specific to Greenfield and so when we're like telling people to plant you know native flowering plants that we give them the
list of things we know insects in Greenfield will use will use yeah and um the green and Green Field group has done a lot with cators yeah they're they're a good source and it'd be interesting to see what if they have any like
recommendations that they do yeah um and there was a pollinator Corridor Pro um um project that happened Grant funded a few years back and I don't I don't actually know where it is like what does that look like on our landscape but it
so it' be neat to maybe I'll I can to ask Nancy Hazard or yeah because it seems like with a little leg work then we just have it yeah you know exactly and that's just like we're just like handing it out all the applicant you know you know it could have a big impact
yeah and um just one final note just to Circle back to the biodiversity talk in the beginning because I was really good too um and you know they talked about biodiversity um being instrumental to
climate change resilience um but something they brought up dark sky and I thought it the somebody in the crowd had a good question about could
you kind of sneak in dark sky stuff with conditions so like if you know so like all let's just use Aldi for example if they're like setting up a parking lot with all these lights and the light
pollution is going into the intermittent stream habitat area or like if there's bordering vegetated Wetland or whatever we know certain species in there are adverse to like 24-hour light could we put a condition that
parot lights need to that might be getting like icky with like building inspector also the safety concerns around dark spaces of that nature I think one of the things was that what
you can do is determined by your by loss M so if we don't have dark skies written into our bylaws then we might not have the leverage to enforce it but if we did but is it called Dark Skies like it doesn't have to be using that language
it's more like lights after midnight right because if the stores closed are we still worried about yeah safy yeah we are because it's right off in 91 and um there's a real person
safety concern around parking lots interstates and uh human trafficking and yeah so while I totally hear where you're at and I think other spec other locations and other examples of that would be
totally appropriate I don't think in that specific spot that we're discussing at the moment would be the best place to do that okay do does it have to be completely dark I thought there were filters you could put on yeah I was just gonna say that don't I don't know anything about this topic I just thought
the question was really interesting because I was like oh that's like a whole another level not just like worried about like sediment going in it's like kind of understanding the impacts of light on
the habitat that they're building well it also just just to like back up for a second so under the Wetland protection act and again like Emily was saying it could be different if it's written into our bylaw but under the state regs wildlife habitat is an inter protected under the act so if if light pollution
isn't impacting wildlife habitat in particular that might be a little tricky you know what I mean it's not like you're filling a Vernal pool or cutting down a tree that has like cavities that you know so El are using Al because I would argue that light does
yeah have an impact on how I would agree with you but it gets tricky because I also think that cutting down trees you know affects carbon sequestration but it's been denied as a quote unquote significant habitat function before when I was reviewed I I know right so I just wonder
if this would be tricky like as it has to be like a function you know what I mean well maybe if it's like a rare and endangered species like if they require I don't know this is getting
into areas that yeah I agree but this is interesting and I'm totally all for it you know um you know something that I would love to encourage us to do is just like you know sometimes Mark comes in and you know on the circuit and helps us work on
questions um have people come in and talk about topics you know like we could have somebody come in and just chat with us about pollinators or Dark Skies that's something that I'm planning to do in consom around to just talk about conservation and answer their questions or whatever so be people be interested
doing that would be great um especially when we've got uh an agenda like we have tonight where we don't have any public meetings y um might be tough to schedule because sometimes it's not but I do I do love that idea that I especially would
be like a whole I'd be happy so grateful chrisan I'm sure that there's folks you could recommend but I'd be happy to like you know volunteer to make those connections because I think it'd be great especially right now because a lot of us are getting you know I'm kind of rusty you're you're getting your feet wet and it'd be wonderful to enrich what
we know with them what do you mean like how Mark comes around you mean he would bring the circuit R well I know that I know that and I know he came when I was in planfield on the consom so he would go out and he would visit us and in addition to helping us with any specific
questions that we were dealing with he would sometimes just chat with us and like you learn so much more from someone mark who have you know or who can talk in depth about the the processes and the applications and the precedents and
things like that so whenever he would come out and be with the commission we always like walked away known more yeah totally so but you mean in addition to like his his stop in getting other people that to just and pop it
okay to spend the whole but you know well that it brings up a subject that I maybe don't want to talk about right at this exact moment but just to put it out there so that we could put it on an agenda or in somebody's brains but on these nights when we don't have public hearings um and we've kind of touched on
this but having like time boundaries yeah um so it's really specific like we if we don't have a meeting where we have our agenda items and we get x amount of minutes per item and we're done at 8:30 yeah or whatever um I think other people on their agendas write like 15
minutes like 7:40 to 7:45 yeah look at like pull up ammer for example ammer has all of their meeting minutes and their agenda's online their videoos posted online because they're remote and it's very specific has like five minutes for you and 10 minutes for you 15 minutes it's very clear so if you know you're on
that agenda you're on at 7:45 yeah I think um I think that would be a nice thing to move forward with yeah don't don't have to like dive into it right now but yeah it was nice to be able to have the the people who are here not have to sit through our discussions
of like the math conference and things so so having attendees go first yeah like we'll keep the format but then like make the yeah like we did
today because the city clerk's office stickers about format yeah noticed um okay so that's that um the only other thing was just to very briefly I can report in about the most
recent open space task force meeting um I think we've got a few other things but maybe that that would be the PRI you the priority Parcels M you could talk about that yeah yeah whenever so that's that's towards the
end but we got the conservation Property Maintenance Improvement and priorities discuss reared grants and other sources of funding to upkeep current conservation lands and appies towards new conservation lands agents report back about the Travis and rep agent made
conservation landm andum track needs and conservation private properties which reminds me I have a hilarious photo I would like to show you all because my daughters were visiting a friend who lives out on Phyllis Lane and
um they took a picture of her by one of our um by one of our yes oh okay very cute cool I know I'm so jealous I want to
see a [Laughter] I actually I zoomed in so that um all right so I asked Eric what bank
accounts you all have access to um for conservation purposes and there's five three are uh tied to actual conservation areas uh one is the Greenfield tap and
die conservation account so that one can be used for Griswald and that's has $944 in it Griswald Griswald conservation account has
$773 in it so it's you know 11 grand for Griswald is and then there's bernardon Road Conservation Area account and that has $1,319 so's which is the one that on burneston road because there's I felt
like there was a couple I was looking through oh one across the street from the center school is that the one yeah that one was weird too think we access that think that's the one doesn't have any access right yeah that's what I thought too yeah is it connected to the
green the the Green River swimming area I know this is off C school it's across the street on the west side of five and 10 where is that just that's five and 10 yeah I was trying to figure out like how would you because there's a six EV along the is it
the Westwood Wildlife Sanctuary yeah yeah Y and I think there's like by some house like walk through somebody's yard maybe on West Cod Westwood Westwood there used to be a sign you could see it
on burnston road but sign disg I don't know it says unmarked on the um oh there used to be one said that said Western wild you kind have to look underneath the tree but you can see it me fix on um but then it was then I
thought there was something about some part of it was being sold yeah there there's it's totally isolated yeah it's in the middle of but it's also not too far again not far 991 and so well I'm sorry I'm I'm you
digressing C school be CER school so something that so they did they had a kid do a project and I don't know how if they went across the road but they one of the kids like mapped all of the trails that are around the center
school so it side of the road yeah so I don't know I assume they didn't but it would be worth reaching out and and if they didn't do that side like have them do that right see if they yeah but but they need access to it they need to be able to well because conservation and
there's that six foot easement we have legal access we would just have to basically like figure out who's door to knock on and be like please don't shoot me yeah the only thing that happens so I didn't I didn't look into
like that actual property at at all I just looked at the accounts and like um I was mainly happy to see that griswell did have because was I feel
like the priority the last time the the commission visited this topic so that has 11 Grant so there's some stuff in there um that can be addressed uh but I asked Eric how the
that account goes up in value and he said it doesn't unless someone donates so it's a yeah it's as we use it it's going down it's not going back up so um the other two accounts that are the
ones I talked about before that all towns tend to have Wetland Conservation account which is from noi fees that has over $46,000 which is and that is readily
that will that's the only account you guys have that is growing uh regularly used but it can yeah but it's also the most restrictive unfortunately so it's for staff time
spent administering the ACT slash salaries Ral pool certification and I think education and potentially legal defense um who determines that was it is that a state or is that the town has determined
that it's the state yeah and um but you have to to use to access the money you go through the town but I think the state had set because the state makes towns create it and and has the fees on the nois go
to it so that they're not setting putting a burden on the town to implement a state law right so it's like making it so that towns have the ability to to implement the state law yeah we get $12.50
more than half of every fee so like yeah that's how they divide up the fees by state and town or city like they cut it in half and then plus $12.50 to the municipality minus $12.50 goes to the state we're making out
yeah so then the the last uh account is a conservation trust fund account and that has zero dollars that's the one we' buy land with so yeah do that the we have to we have to go through Council to get them to set
up an approval like nearly approval or whatever of 5,000 I because I went to one of the last year and they were talking about that you know towns are like oh yeah we just automatically part year we get $5,000 yeah there's a lot of towns that how do we get that to happen
yeah well I don't know that it will happen here but I think that would have to be um I guess would have to be ped on and yeah they're not going to vot
on yeah so what what I've heard is that um when it comes to like buying land like Greenfield's not doing that so if we can get a grant that's
reimbursable then I think Greenfield is willing to work with that because they know they'll give the money back but it's not a conversation I think if it's just all greenv yeah like even matching
I think is difficult to get um so I did look through all the different grants that there are and most all of them are um reimbursement based um I think that as far as getting
money from the town goes um the CPA Grant is the best option uh because that money is specifically for open space parks and like fing or something likeing
yeah and in the last several years the commission hasn't done had put in any request for any project through CPA so I feel like that UPS the odds of getting something approved because it's mainly been the parks department and some
housing stuff um what's sorry first of all what is CPA so CPA is go what that commun President thank you yes so that's like a like it's like a tax it's a SE charge on your taxes yes and so I don't
know if it's like two or three% and so it's coming from the town residents and put in a fund and then every year there's a committee that uh a group I don't know what they're called um that will review
applications and decide who gets money when does the that's all these acronyms I so applications are due in August for fiscal year
26 um sorry pre-applications are due in September in August you find out how much money and CPA funds are available total last year it was $213,000 uh so that kind of gives a
ballpark uh November so pre-applications in September are required and November is full applications are due and then it says June July is when you find out that's a whole year it is so so are
the sorry are the pre applications like you like pre-o pre-proposal we submit our pre- proposal they either approve our pre proposal and then we are invited to submit a full proposal I'm not clear on like anything else besides what
basically what I just said like yeah know what we want to buy you know well the thing is apply for it but then you have to hope they're not going toell to somebody else like the next year because a lot of times people do is
they get u a pns so it's like a year year and a half uh where you have the option to purchase it it's purchase and sale um and you know that's how trust yeah great
knowledge was a CPA MVP CPA didn't exist in the town until two years ago wait do you mean the planting thing yeah P oh that's NP but it didn't it wasn't C we didn't
no that was that was a um but it must have been some other female thing it was yeah yeah yeah that makes sense which is why you can't do anything yes um so anyway that it's Project based too
like if there's an actual project that yeah you know um con I guess use CPA funds as a match for a mass D s319 Grant which funded a bank stabilization River
habitat restoration and flood plane reconnection project so you can get creative like using these things to like you know get a few different grants right exactly so um also the talk I went
to at the MAC Conference was about land grants and um that those are to help purchase conservation land but they the reimbursement is 52 to 70% of the
cost so it maybe it'd be like a CPA plus you know that there's a lot of moving Parts though and like well so my question is can
include salary funds as part of the budget request because who's going to administer this and can we get more hours for somebody like you if you might want that um and pay for that through
the grant because I'm I'm just having I'm sure you have been through the granting reg Moro as well and I don't know if I don't have any experience with grants like it's like they're I mean they're they're they're great but they're super time consuming um and you have to exact them to the letter of your
proposal to include your budget justification so um if typically that kind of Grant doesn't include staff time okay but includ there's another grant that is [Music]
um in the talk that I went to it's called Park Grant oh no sorry conservation assistance grant and that helps with I think that can help with paying people to help you great so like
you could so you could hire a grant Raider yeah and like like surveyor like appraisal um I think it might be like up to $5,000 so like if you contracted it out and that is not
um like it they'll just they'll they just approve the money you ask for it's not like reimbursement they just it's it's it's granted whereas land it's reimbursements you have to like figure it all out and then you get the money afterward that's basically like a
SE okay there's so many there's so there there's there's a lot of options and it was good to hear that Greenfield is down to like show up if it if they're getting reimbursed because that would be there'd
be no options if basically if they didn't except for CPI which um I think is planning a seed for you know you guys thinking about potential projects that we might want to it it wouldn't oh yeah
it wouldn't necessarily have to be purchasing a land it could also be yeah partnering with land trust is a great way to get support for that because for example the way that Franklin Land Trust
works is that we we have um we're funded by members and then some grants and some other fundraising that we do but so that we can and they professionals they've done this many times you know my staff member Liam krian who talked to the open space task force there's Folks at Mount
Grace you know there's a lot of folks who've done this over and over again so you don't have to reinvent the wheel um and also do often have experience with grants too in addition to the conservation so if and when we identify properties through this prioritization
process that we're going through they'd be great Partners to help us through that process and then the state is very helpful as well the state staff and the grants um you know if there's a farm that's being conserved the APR staff is
is extremely helpful that's a great program to go through they pay for a lot of the costs yeah um I will say at this particular point in time that nrcs has lost um some folks to the the recent
um uh the Cs yes yes the the the one year probationary period books from nrcs um so that does put an onus on their time um but that doesn't mean that they're not viable FS it just means that it's could be a little bit more
difficult than maybe as been Rec years but that's all fabulous information to know and know that we've got options especially within re yeah is that L on the yeah I was just
gonna tell you was that I he's like yeah here you go yeah so if you go into our meeting in funds I found all these other things that Travis had in here previously and
then I just added my research and then when I went into the open space plan there's also a whole section this is just extracted from the open space plan of all the grant opportunities which I found that today
after I like did all this I was like oh um so that's all in the G um in the um G drive for you guys if you're feeling inspired to look at it um
so I guess the last thing when I was at the MAC Conference I talked to dur de Department of Environmental restoration division of environmental restoration or ecological restoration sorry yeah I I knew it was something
like that um uh so they do a lot of work restoring Wetlands um and they have uh they have like their own team
that they can use it seemed like I didn't like get the full picture but it seemed like you can apply to have them restore an area that you that is degraded and if if approved they bring their team in and
they do it but a construction team because they're a state agency no the Wetland Restoration Team I don't know I don't know I have the thing this is like all new to me so M that's okay we don't need to get in the
Weeds about the details of each and every Grant but um not right now but um well what I was bringing this one up for is because I didn't know if there was anywhere in Greenfield that was like just yeah super degraded full of Phill if that maybe be something that would be
a potential project so I'm working on a project right now that's de funded through a small Bridge Grant in Leiden on West Leiden Road there's a really undersized poor quality CT that they're replacing with the small bridge and that got a huge amount of
funding I know they do stuff like that you know for like stream Crossing upgrades but it's usually I don't know who the from the town would do it I think in the L the lien situation it was it was the city council who applied for it not the concom but we could do it too if it's
like a CT Crossing or some kind of like some crossing that's not meeting the stream Crossing standards that needs to be upgraded and maybe DBW would do it on I'm not sure how that would work but um spes like like Town owned spaces or
could we get our feet wet with this and maybe provide some support to the guy out of Li why because there's that the all of the the grading went down into the actual area that we still have not yet addressed well I just I just talked to
them about specifically about Wetland restoration because they so they're doing a project in Northampton where they're reclaiming a golf course Northampton like bought a golf course yeah and they're going in and like restoring the riparian zone so it's not
like do you know what I mean um but I don't live in GRE fi and I don't know if there's like an obviously glaring project that needs attention that no one has the money for because that would be a good source of they also do like dam
removal and um I've got a couple projects on agricultural like commercial retired commercial agricultural areas being restored to Natural Wetlands the de that's specific to de that what I I I know that there was there was supposed to be a wetland
restoration project at Haden Park they rooted up and I don't know whether it's ever been remediated oh when was that remember you know what I'm talking about Krist I can't even hear you every time you guys turn your heads I can't hear
you a wetland restoration project at Highland Park that went wrong no I don't remember that yeah it's it's the one that they made the town take over the emergency for the the Enforcement Act enforcement was that de that wasn't de
what that wasn't deer though was it no no no no we were just she was just say we were just talking about whether there was any place in oh oh oh gotcha gotcha okay um so I don't know whether that ever got I don't believe it ever got
relas that's okay that could go into our list of properties that require us assment yeah yeah okay okay um so that's that's it basically there's there's a there are a lot of
options and I think the most realistic one right now is the CPA cool and oh oh and then sorry so then to move on to Mitch and Travis's work um
in the G drive if you go to GTD conservation land stewardship they made a map uh the trail assessment folder um there
is a map Kristen are you following this or should I share my screen Trail assessment yeah yeah you following it s sidewalk Trail the trail assessment PF that's 2011 or the 723 map 723
22 oh oops Yeah I opened the wrong one oh no this is the right one you want me to do a share No I just want to make sure you're like following along because everybody else is here yeah and I'm familiar with gzw well too because I walked my dog there right but what I what I was referencing was the numbers
on the map reference areas that need attention oh okay those aren't the kiosks gotcha no and then it so the ma that's the map and if you open the steward stewardship photos it has photo point1 and it shows
a picture of What It's Like on that map and so this was the priority list that Mitch and Travis made of what needs attention at gwal unfortunately was 202 I know but maybe we could assume it's even
worse I don't you know that better I yeah Kristen might know pretty well she's been I know we're getting close to 8:30 but um some of the stuff that was shared by Marlo at the open space task force what's Marlo's last name from D Warner War yeah um just connects with
this um okay the questions that they had for Marlo the group of the open space task force was um when from dpw's point of view how do they how do they relate to conservation properties what what's their involvement and if the town or the city was taking
on another conservation property what would their issues or concerns be that would come up and so Marlo said they're fairly minimal but DPW does in response either to requests by the Conservation Commission or issues that come up go out
and do like basic maintenance um putting chips on Trails or if there's a wash out redoing um a road or something like that yeah they took care M Metal they took when the the embankment
was I didn't think of DTW as like they put that like yeah so that that you know they're a partner for us and he did say that their capacity is pretty much maxed out so when thinking about properties things
that are pretty self-sufficient you know that maybe have some work done at the start and then can have a a occasional maintenance is fine but if there's anything major or any restoration work then finding Grant funds to work with a
contractor that would be the way to go and they'd be fine with being you know coordinators or or helping you know like with their process but they don't have excess staff to do above and beyond okay um so like that would be a conversation we could you know maybe talk to Eric and
Marlo and say Hey you know once we take a look at Griswald and say you know these are the things that we know need to be done can they be put into the maintenance schedule or is there a time when you know books might be available to do that yes so I could go out and like
Walkers wal with this map and figure out what these sites that have already been flagged by Travis and Mitch um look like now and you know I'm happy to take whatever Direction you guys want to now that we know there's $1,000
that can be used for gald um you know so were you you been trying contact lincol fish oh yeah I'm sorry I haven't done that yet okay I'll email in well because you know he was well he was assume he's still the
steward of it but he had all these plans I'm GNA like update the chaos do so updated I don't know yeah he'd be a great person to talk to just to have continuity of the vision came with time
he has time he has retired pretty much he time know that we could use some sort of consultant funds for and yeah exactly you know instead of being like hey yeah since you're retired like hey you're retired let us
you to do that so that's all I have for that awesome thank you that was a ton of work it was a ton of work I spent a lot lot of time on that GR good please uh because there's just seems
like there's so much resources out there if you just know where to look who to ask and how to do it just so many deadlines and if you're like trying to do CPA so that you can get this you know it's like do the stars a line enough
that you can like hit the deadlines but so next up map agent to discuss CR your Cress identified an open space plan and other information gathered from research so I looked at the open space Plan and there's not from what I could tell a
list of parcels that they want to obtain um it's just all the there's tons of list of parcels but it's all fully protective partially protected you know City owned private
owned so stuff that's already out there I think the reason why the open space task force is trying you know like one of the things we chose as a a doable task was to make this this list of properties that would you know that are
a wish list that would make sense that would have an impact that would be beneficial um so it makes sense you know it typically in open space plans there are properties that are mentioned and regions that are mentioned but maybe
focus more on things that are already conserved rather than you know if there's no list already then you that's one of the objectives of the plan yeah I gu I know that there used to be maybe not specific Parcels but there were because because the rich was one of the things you know yeah anything along the
ridge we want you know and absolutely happen to there is one map that that was it uh let see so this map from the open space plan
was created using mass Autobon Autobon mapper tool M and I don't think it's available anymore to use I scoured the internet before the meeting tonight and I just could not find any active
might you know like Oliver now or you know something along those lines that it's just a was a free tool what's Oliver um Mass mapper oh yes used to be name called Oliver well it it's created
specifically to identify priority parsels yeah and it uses like biom map land connectivity like it had like four different things that we would be interested in um and anyway so there was
this map created for the open space plan the darkest um orange is I actually think that might be medium priority um low priority is yellow and I don't think there's high priority on this section of Greenfield but it seemed like like where
you know I just don't think we should reinvent the wheel if like a tool exists that you know what I mean the word's a lot of different prioritization tools yeah I think it's important that we pick what we're what's important to us right
so absolutely if there's a tool that aabon has that can tell you oh these are bird habitat and these are wetlands and so on that's great but we're they're not going to be able to tell us what our priorities are right so some of the feedback that I gave to the the task
force based on our discussion was that they really we really need to narrow down what they're asking so like if they want us as the Conservation Commission to review the list of priorities not only do we need the list we need a description of what those priorities are
what they're based on you know like which layers of biomap is it and because that's part of the problem I'm experiencing here is you know we started with that map that Mitch made we didn't know what it all of us was darker red yeah yeah and a list of like oh these
are the things we thought about so how does that connect um and then I also told them that um we talked about what's our perspective are we looking at this with our Wetland t on because that's the jurisdictional regulations that we force or are we broadening out and thinking
about conservation as a whole and if so that's something we have to Grapple with like what does that mean to us um so I said it would be helpful if when we do when the task force approaches the different boards and commissions that are involved that they'd be very
specific like I like the questions that they asked Mara what are the what are your responsibilities for conservation land what are you looking for and what are you concerned about you know for for us they might have different questions you know like what are the what are the the resources in town that are degraded
that might want restoration or what are the areas that are most important for our drinking water or flood um resilience you know so that could be what we put in um but I think it's good that the task force is you know we're trying to take on this responsibility so
you don't have to do it and then get the feedback from the other boards and commission so then you know sort of once we get something that we can all buy into and hopefully create a list of properties that would um you know light
up in the various areas and then also be ones that we could find some funding sources to to conserve yeah yeah but absolutely if there's other tools like you know there's um TNC has resilient Landscapes um there's there's a whole
mess of them that we could look at biomap is a huge tool that you use in conservation like if things are you know colored or you know light up and and bu left then obviously that's going to be an area that's important Farm soils all those kinds of things
great those I that's all I I thought I would have like a list of parcels from the open space plan but there there wasn't any so it's good to know that that's where we're at yeah absolutely
[Music] absolutely none project mattering items in no all right um so I think we're at that point in the
night whereas we determined our next meeting which 25th yep will be the 25th of March and we have any further comments from
any commission books anybody no all right can we get a a a motion CL out I'll she's drinking I got it in here I'll second I'll second you Emily all
right uh uh then a vote please Kristen start with you since you're online I I I I we're uh we're done for the night
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