everyone hi Christine you're on mute hey how are you good how are you hey Judy they just ran give it a few minutes here people to jump on what's up my dog she's going nuts
all right give it another few minutes we got Mark got Chief is on as well that's good welcome folks you guys saw the note tom's not going to be on today he's kind of planning board uh discussion
so I'll let him uh I'll ask um Kathy do you mind doing the minutes i can get you the uh you know the summary afterwards as well yeah sure i'll try to do a better job this time uh you're fine hi Ria do we have anything the only one
we're missing is um Amy Lee I think so maybe we should give it one more minute hey Dave eating eating fellas gals nice to see y'all good to see you too
beautiful night to be uh looking west I bet finally get some sunshine before the snow comes in england make sure my audio's my audio on it is okay good you're
good you're good all right should we uh commence and get going i think I guess probably best to do that all right well we'll get going um so I'll share my screen really quick if I can and then we can uh kind of kick
off from there um we only have a few of us on today anyway so I think that works out so couple quick things just from a uh a uh I we did have a uh a discussion with the select board yesterday i was on I was on that that
meeting i also wanted to comment on you know I have it in the agenda kind of recap the public meeting here that's kind of like our first I just love to get everybody's kind of thoughts and you know hear opinions from from that meeting but you know talked to the select board yesterday told them that we have our meeting today um you know they
thought that the meeting went really well they were happy with you know the cordiality and everybody was you know in good spirit people came prepared they shared you know concerns all across the board which I thought was really good um a lot of really good you know
discussions ideas a lot of things we've heard in the past but it was great to kind of have that open forum for everybody to come all at once it was a pretty highly attended meeting too it had at least um I think it actually had you know like 130 140 people actually
came to the uh came to the meeting so between in person and online so well attended which was good so I think that was a uh a success to hear you know the overall body of the community I think was was really good so
um talked to the select board about you know our meeting today told what we had on our on our uh on our uh discussions you know I had some bylaw discussion stuff I wanted to convey and discuss with the with everybody here tonight had some signage stuff that I think is kind
of in concert with those with the bylaw discussion and then uh the other thing that we have on the agenda for just timing for a select board recommendation they they weren't pushing hard for a uh you know a completion date but they uh you know if we were to get something
some sort of change they would need it pretty much by the end of April is kind of the time frame they would need in order if it was something to go on a warrant um for the town meeting but uh they also said that we could also do something down the road could be a special meeting could be whatever they didn't want to overly rush anything
either from our perspective so my my followup is after our meeting here tonight is just kind of give the select board an update of what we discussed and kind of where we are as a committee you know post uh post today so that's kind of the the plan
okay pretty good all right um Tracy is there something you want to ask i typically going to hold off on too many public comments just because we just had a giant meeting a week ago see no public comment on the agenda and I'm
just here to make a comment yeah sure so I think it would be advisable for everybody on this committee to take the mass state voting law um voting class because so many of your discussions are spinning around about the rules and it seems like it would just make sense if
you guys are going to be um making any recommendations you should actually understand what the laws are that's it i have my I have my voting law i have my certificate already well then then I'm confused as to why you didn't you don't understand some of the
voting law i understand quite a bit of the voting law actually but I'm not going to get into that tonight um I'm going to move our committee forward with what we have on our topics so thank you Maria go ahead yeah Matt thanks uh what I recall from
the select board meeting last night is that they did ask us to revisit the the the bylaws that was kind of a consensus from them and I just want to make sure that we're mentioning that that's the bylaw discussion and signage it's on the agenda okay absolutely all
right i'm with you it's good anyone else any other comments good all right uh minutes review did everybody get a chance to review the 326 minutes i uh saw Tom sent those over i sent him over the uh the
PowerPoint deck that we had from 326 so he can add those to them but I'd like to get a uh review of what you guys think of the uh the minutes anybody have any comments questions changes they look good to me
everybody I make a motion to accept the minutes second all right second all right brazzle okay n Christine I agree sorry about that i say yes on the minutes yes yes all right
green yes lean i Rivers hi salvador i see not here ria Windller i and Baro I Okay that's done okay um Judy did you have a I did I
wanted to I guess I have comment about the well after the select board meeting you know I saw you know I heard a lot of people that said that they were really wanted to keep everything the way it was
and they think that the lake works perfectly the way it is and um that if they can't get in the water if they don't feel safe they are happy to wait until the boats are thinned out some um and then I a lot of
people also said they don't feel safe and it's just strange how this is supposed to be a boating safety committee and yet you know it just seems like it's well should we make any changes or not
you know where I think we should are supposed to be thinking about what safety changes can we make that will work for our lake being as small as it is because the boats the law is still
going to be the law whether you decide you want to put it on this our um bylaws or our safety cards it seems like there's a lot of resistance to that i don't know why because it is the law
whether it's on there or not so that's what I would like to I'd like to put put the state laws that are necessary on this the everything all of our information because that's what we're
supposed to be for and then figure out how to make it work on our lake yep okay that's all thank you it's good i put it this way i think you might like my sign so I'll show that in a few
minutes uh um so let's move on to the first agenda item so just public meeting recap you kind of kicked that off Judy already with some of your comments um anybody else want to chime in on anything else from the public meeting
perspective anybody like it didn't like it i thought it I thought it went well you know I I I was glad that it was civil and um because there's a lot of different opinions out there um great
so and um and and the they learned that they could use that facility to do future large meetings because the owl system worked better at the school than it does at the town hall so there was another
benefit from that but no I thought the meeting went well and um as long as we listen to what was said you know so I think that's important agreed good anyone else
it also made the front page of the Hampshire Gazette i don't know if anybody was able to see that was everybody able to see that i saw it no yeah was uh I guess it was last Thursday so it would have been the day after and
it's right on the front page um I would say I was happy they saw you know they posted the proposal that you know I'd like to propose again to this group you know we're we're kind of looking at how long we're going and the summer season's coming um so I just would like to
propose that we do kind of keep the bylaws the same collect data this summer and um work with the trial period of designated time sharing to see how that works so that we could move into the fall season with a little bit more
info because right now we're just kind of we're kind of being more reactive than responsive we had an incident and um you know that doesn't change overnight we're also looking at a culture there's a culture on the lake and people who come to visit and all
that so um yeah I'd like to see that move forward and I have a couple ideas for that too on the time sharing um you know I really feel like I love the worldass skiers that are on the lake i don't want Amy I really want you to be able to ski i mean that's really it's
beautiful to see skiers i wish I could still do that um but you know we also have some other folks to kind of address too and one of the things I mentioned last night and I know Matt heard it um but uh I was uh privy to find out that one of the things that wasn't mentioned
is that the Morris um the Morris Hill camp they actually travel 40 minutes one way to Tully because they do not feel that they could bring the kids out on the lake and that that is was a big red
flag to me that's just one that was a big question I had as well because so I reached out to them today because I wanted to hear from them what they have to say so I talked to Victoria the owner and Jess the director and they actually go to Tully Lake for a whole host of different reasons ria um they go to
Tully Lake because they run canoe camps they run canoe camps there because it's more interesting than Lake Wya and going around the coes and the uh the small lake that we are they have streams waterfalls they go explore they do a whole host of other things they also
went to Tully Lake last week last year a lot because the public beach was shut down for 30 days i confirmed that with the DCR they couldn't use the swim they couldn't use the lake to swim with their campers they mostly use the lake during the week and they agree that the lake is definitely quieter during the week but
they use the boat ramp they do they do builds they do all sorts of things on the lake so it wasn't a uh because of motor births do they prefer quieter times when they have new campers and everything else absolutely they do like that like they'll take out a group of young campers and canoes and go park out
by the Eagles Nest and go look at that but it they didn't go to Tully Lake because of motorboats in specific they go there for a whole host of different reasons so I confirm that well I'm sure I I go there too sometimes I'll be on the Connecticut River in the morning and on Lake Viola in the evening yeah so I
totally get diversified use yeah and then they go to other lakes and streams they run a lot of canoe camps but uh the real driver of why they were at Tully last year was the 30 days that the uh the lake was shut down from the public beach perspective because of the uh the
geese that hang out on the on the on the uh public beach talking about yeah the state park yeah that's my interpretation of why that water test's different than the other than the other beaches is because there's like 30 geese sitting on there
every single morning that's not a not great for sanitation purposes no they that's not true actually they have much higher standards of testing they have a longer delay period we've t we discussed this at Elwack on multiple occasions but not to divert but it's it's not because
of the geese it's a whole different whole different topic okay all right well let's not go down that road but I'm not a a efficionado on uh toxicology so I'll I will I will definitely borrow away from that one chief you have your hand up something I Yes thank you i hope
no one minds if I don't put my camera on if you insist I will it's just been a long day um and I'm at home so um I just wanted to say thank you uh Matt for stating that because I had also reached out i missed a phone call today uh but I
did get part of a message that uh stated the same thing i was hoping that I just wanted to say would you please um send an email off with those findings to the select board because when that comment was made last night um I think that uh
that was concerning and they leaned to me to find out uh why I didn't uh know that they felt unsafe and uh so uh it was my belief that there was a much different reason and I and I thank you for uh finding that out but I think we
need to let the select board know that um you know miscommunication I think it was just more of a clarification follow up too because it was told directly to me to the woman who spoke at the listening meeting so there must be something going
on there she was the one who told me directly uh Jessica or Jess yeah well I think if we already followed up with the director of the academy and they would be the one that knows why they're going somewhere I don't think we have to keep uh laboring the point and harassing them
i don't feel it's harassing at all to have a a discussion they were uh they were very uh you know you know vocal about they want to be good stewards to the lake they want to be great neighbors they know the lake is busier on the weekends so they then they
tend to go do other things they choose to go to the lake when it's appropriate based on the camps that they have and the level of experience that they have as well too so there's a lot of you know did they say "Hey we hate motorboats." They didn't say that when I talked to
them today uh sorry i just wanted to say you know maybe harassment was a strong word but I do know these people i work very well with them and I've worked um closely with them for about six years and I just think if we've already asked the question it's already been answered and just because maybe you know um we
want to get a different answer or we spoke to somebody different I think that this is I I think that's just not um it's not healthy to continue going back and we've gotten our answer from the people that run the school
okay anything else on that i don't think we want to keep going down that road okay um anything else on the public meeting anyone good okay so I'll I'll transition
to kind of like some of the bylaw discussion and I think you know taking off from a lot of what I heard you know at the uh at the public meeting bunch of other things that you know we've been discussing there's a few things with bylaws that I think are worthy of conversation so if you guys would just
bear with me for maybe like 10 minutes I'd like to kind of go through some ideas I have some thoughts um and just kind of like you know rationale why I'm thinking about different things and then we can open up for a comment and discussion but I don't want to like stop
at every single point and then have a discussion about it is that fair with everybody all right cool so we'll go with that uh let me share my screen again hang tight where's the screen share all right can everyone see the uh
screen you guys good anyone anyone no they're good all right want to make sure all right so one of the things that I I did is I kind of took a look at kind of the bylaws that we accepted kind of our current
bylaws and I came up with a couple of different suggestions and I wanted to run them by the uh taking in a lot of information from a lot of different people i think it's important to kind of like think through some stuff and kind of just address a couple things i don't think we need radical change but I think
Matt who's taking minutes kathy kathy why do you ask okay because I just didn't we didn't ask before the meeting so I just Oh yeah he did oh okay i'm
sorry I missed it thank you sorry Matt no worries so you know one of the things I did is I kind of took a stab at okay kind of like with Rio's point I mean what what do we have to do this year to get something in in place how do we get some signage how do we get some education and get some something going
right i mean we are we're talking it's April 9th and uh you know another week another month from now we're going to be people are going to be boating and people are going to be visiting the lake so one one thing that I thought was a helpful thing to make it's not necessarily a bylaw but it's kind of like an overarching statement i've seen
this in other bylaws you know again I've reviewed so many different bylaws but so just a generic statement um as as within our our bylaw page or our docket whatever it may be you know reckless or unsafe boating is prohibited including
speeding near shorelines swimmers or docks boating under the influence and failing to maintain a proper lookout yeah I kind of took that kind of blended about three or four different ones into one but just kind of like an upfront for anybody who visits a lake or everybody who's on a lake in general is uh make
sure that they know kind of you know we we're taking we're taking notice and we're making sure that we're going to keep a a safe lake it could be just a general discussion like that which I think is is good um so that that was one thing I had the uh the first bylaw we
have you know the all motorboats must comply Massachusetts voting laws so on so forth i changed it to all motorboats and paddle vessels must comply i think it's just good to reiterate the fact that in the in the Massachusetts voting laws it references paddle vessels not just motorboats so I thought you know
just adding that in there would be again just everybody needs to be aware of what the laws are and they should all do their own research and recon to understand it um and I'll get to some more in a minute speed limit we have ours is at 30 miles per hour this is where I kind of try to
weave in you know some kind of like use time i mean I don't I'm not a believer in the set times for for the lake so I'm just voicing my opinion here but you know if we did speed limit daytime is 30 mph and then 6 miles per hour from
sunset to 8:00 a.m at least that starts to give some you know degree of you know time that people know there there's an opportunity on the lake to hey if you want to go for a peaceful paddle before 8:00 you can get up and you can go do it it's no different than we get up at you know 6 7 o'clock in the morning to walk
our dog up spawns road because we don't want 50 cars go zipping by us it's kind of the same type of thing but it starts to set a little bit of a guideline of hey it's kind of it's almost been like a little bit of an unwritten rule at the lake anyway why not just make that a little bit more formal and you know give people we heard from a few people in the
audience one individual was a swimmer he's like "Hey if you could make it till 8 that would be great i'd love nine but you know eight would be awesome too." I thought you know that was a something that I think it kind of shows we're thinking about stuff and we want people to be able to do different things i think a lot of the majority of people
say that they do all sports all the time i don't want to be subjected to a specific time to do a certain sport i don't think we should be telling swimmers they can go at one time and motorboats at another and paddlers at a different time i mean I think it just gets really confusing be really hard to enforce as a uh as a as a community if
there's different times for different things that's my opinion again we'll open up for discussion here shortly i changed it to 6 miles per hour as well because 6 miles per hour is is designated as headway speed by the Massachusetts boat law so it probably more congruent that we stick with what
the law says um for headway speed so there's that piece of it so that was one thing on kind of like the timing i think that the speed limit's pretty close i mean yeah we have some world class skiers and they drift up to 31 32 maybe but I'd say the the majority of the people out there are 30 miles per hour
is a pretty good pretty good number i don't I don't see us in our youth of when we used to ski at you know higher speed when I was on different properties but anyway um 150 ft from shore again this is a a state law already but I'm not opposed to putting it in the bylaws
just to make it loud and proud you know speed limit 6 miles per hour within 150 ft of shore so I kind of did these a little bit different so speed limit colon distance colon direction colon uh motorboards must travel in a counterclockwise direction around the lake um we all I think that one's still
very that one's really congruent with uh many lakes and uh across many states by the way too counterclockwise is the direction they they recommend so those are those couple ones there uh my next one here let me go
down so in that in that same uh same vein water skiing we had sunset to sunrise i had water skiing and other towable activities allowed between 8 am to sunset that's kind of the way I I position that one um the next one no watercraft allowed motorized this is the one that Tom had made mention to about
how it's it kind of contradicts the DCR so I just said beaches colon only non-motorized watercraft can dock or launch from a town or Lake Wyola association beaches these areas shall not extend more than 75 feet from shore um and then jumping on that 75 feet from
shore perspective one of the things again for for discussion this is not you know it's my opinion but I think you know swimming I think I think swimmers should should be accompanied by a boat if they're beyond 75 ft from shore and
one we already have that in the kind of the the one up above that kind of swim areas are 75 ft and the other reason I think 75 ft one we we want to be safer as a community and and if I think about 75 ft that that's that's pretty far out
from I'm just thinking about my property in specific the average depth at about at about 60 feet 70 feet out around the lake is around 8 to 10 feet anyway for the majority um I know there'll be certain areas that don't maybe that not that's not the case but when you think
about 150 ft that's like the average dock on a on the lake is probably 40-ish feet so you're talking more than three dock lengths out into the into the boat lane without without some sort of you know identification or somebody you know kind of keeping an eye on you from a
safety perspective to me I I think that would make more sense because if you say someone's 75 ft then you have to be 150 ft from them now you're talking about you're almost in the middle of a lake um and I think that becomes a little bit difficult to navigate potentially so
again my my opinion we can open that up for conversation discussion um look I got a typo here in this one but that's all right um and then what I had next that just to kind of show this is kind of how I think I I had a little more
time to spend on kind of building out a a a u a picture of what this could all look like we could have a sign that has kind picture like a a 5 foot by three foot sign something like that lists all of our bylaws right up front i think
that's so people can see them very clearly they're laid out and then I think you know getting that all on the uh on a picture too because some people might want to not want to read all the words and they may gravitate over to the picture and a couple key things I wanted to point out here is again putting the
speed limits clockwise no wakes um you know the distance from swimmers 150 ft you know very prominently put out there and I kind of shaded it in differently too so people can see along all the shorelines it's a no wake zone you know it's six miles per hour um I I think
that's something we want to show i think we can point out some of the buoys that are on the on the lake we have the Lake Whale Association uh beaches and we can have them put those buoys out at 150 ft and put even put a sign on them that they're 150 ft for you know visual demarcations on the
lake um and then I also thought we had up the idea of maybe putting two buoys in the coast those bottom right area could we put a boat at if we did decide 75 feet was good for swimmers or not don't don't know um we could put a a distance marker that people can see how
far is 75 ft how far is 150 ft for the people that are visiting the lake from out of town it'll give them some some nice visuals potentially to see you know where we actually are on the lake and then the other thing I thought we could add is some of kind of these rules and
etiquette i think that's uh worthy of putting on there i I had in here kind of thinking futuristically um all all motorboers must have a Massachusetts boating license after April 1st 2028 assuming this sign's going to you know stand up for you know five five years plus um it
could be something that could be out there you know just to tell people even in advance of the uh the law um might even might even encourage them to go get their their license sooner who knows now motorboaters are to maintain 150 ft from a swimmer per mass boating law kind of have that in several spots i like that i
think that that's important for people to know um all paddle sport vessels must have US USG approved PFDs for all users that's something that I think a lot of people I see a lot of people out on kayaks and you know other other vessels with with no no flotation um so I think
that's important all vessels paddle motorboats must have visible navigation lights you know that on their vessel after sunset that's an important thing that I think gets overlooked and people don't even realize that's part of the law so I think that's important like we could have some like you know some uh
etiquette or just ideas for people too swimmers and paddlers are encouraged to travel clockwise around a lake so they have a clear view of oncoming motorboaters just you know if you're in a kayak and you're going around a lake if you could go you could go clockwise or counterclockwise maybe counterclockwise is or clockwise is a
safer way to go i mean open for discussion there and then the last thing I had is you know swimmers are encouraged to have visible buoys you I mean I think that's a if you're a competitive swimmer and you're you're swimming around the lake and you're going to be making laps as you're you know practicing for your triathlon or whatever it may be you know have a buoy
is is a good thing i mean if we want to talk about safety talk about boating safety how we make everybody safer I think is a real prominent thing that we should think about and encourage people to do some of these things as well um so that's my that's my 10 minutes and I'd
love to open it up for a conversation now but I thought it was an idea of how to take in some of what people what I heard you know trying to understand what you know a lot of the majority say but then also trying to think about you know being cognizant of everybody i think
there's a couple small tweaks here that kind of get to you know a point where we should get something done this year and I'd love to see signage and start the education and get that uh you know introduced you know sooner than ladder to the to the broader community so I'll
stop there this as a summary so we can just use this as our our picture and we can talk about it um Chief go ahead i know I definitely wasn't the first one with my hand up i can wait if you want
oh who was who was for i'm sorry i didn't see Judy i know i saidy that's okay hi Judy i'm sorry i I was not paying attention i just looked up no no that's okay you want to go go Judy sounds like you were first
well you have the floor i If you want me to go I'll go i just wanted to say you know I I very much you know Ria made the statement last night at the select board meeting and then again today you know we don't want to jump into anything too quickly and we want to get statistics and I I uh can very much appreciate that
i am somebody who deals in statistics and I feel that we can get a good um you know a really good sort of uh thought process around all of this um I just wanted to say I just wanted to say that I can very much appreciate that also
thank you so much Matt this all is absolutely incredible and um and then I was wondering is the plan and I might have missed it i apologize is the plan to not only put it on a sign but put it on the um on the website and maybe get
some cards printed out that like we could hand out you know start of the season officers if they see somebody you know they say hey have you seen this that that sort of thing that's just what I was want yeah I can envision cards i think a broad mailer to the lake community as a
whole i can think about having a little you know a little box at the boat ramp you know kind of like they do with you know real estate flyers that somebody fills you know once every couple weeks you know alongside the sign so they can take a copy of this with them i think
you know cards to hand out is a great idea website somebody rents a kayak from the from the library they they get a you know they get a card so everybody knows kind of what's going on i mean again we can kind of once we have like you know some collateral like this that I'm
showing we can easily use that as dispersement get it you know put one of these signs up at the uh at the Lake Association you know clubhouse put it at you know potentially put it at the public beach i mean there's because you get a lot of people who swim from the public beach out into the lake so there
could be a lot of ways to unlimited ideas yeah I love it yeah I mean I think there's a lot of ways to use it again it just took a little time to put it in a in a format that I think kind of tells the story several different ways um so there's there's that that to be said
there so uh Judy go ahead yeah well I really don't like the idea of the h making swimmers stay at 75 feet it sounds like you're trying to restrict the swimmers
and the boers are the same you know I swim at 70 ft 70 ft now and I'm in the weeds it's 4 foot deep where I am and where I swim at 70 feet the state law is
150 feet and I think it should be marked out to 150 feet so that swimmers have enough room to be able to swim and also because you can put 150 foot that boats
are supposed to stay from swimmers all you want and it has been that way but believe me it does not happen i also don't think we've been educating people either is my opinion not a lot of people even know what they're supposed
to do i totally resist that well we agree to disagree on that that's Yeah we do and I'm not saying you can't swim beyond 75 ft i'm saying I'm going to swim at 150 ft and I'm going to put the buoys out at 150 ft
as the state law suggests the state law says you can't have a wake within 150 ft of shore no it says that you that swimmers can swim 150 feet from shore and voters have
to stay 150 ft from swimmers and then then that's why towns are able to make bylaws so that we can make our own laws more safe for swimmers not boers don't need to be safe
i think all voters should be safe quite frankly well they should be but guess what they're not that you're making a general comment so you're saying I'm not safe when I'm out there boating uh you know what I mean do you saying the same thing about swimmers
i'm saying that if a swimmer is more than 75 ft from shore I'd love for them to have a boat with them so that they're easily seen and depicted so the motorboats have a clear view of them is my opinion that's not what the law is hence the bylaws
well the bylaws should make sure that they also take care of swimmers are swimming in weeds at 70 ft you may have 10 ft we don't y All right we've we've shared our piece i
think Mr green you are up next uh I just have a procedural question Matt the way I read this is that it appears that these are changes to the bylaws correct and we have a committee
vote that we're not going to do that do we need to change that vote in order to adapt these and move forward so we would have to make a motion if we wanted to adapt new bylaws yes that would be the procedural piece of it correct i wanted to present some ideas have discussion
and if people felt they wanted to either potentially change them and or you know potentially motion to would the procedure to enull the previous vote though it wouldn't be it would be to enol the previous vote if we were going to do that correct or am I wrong that
that I don't know i think I think it would just be a motion to accept these new bylaws or then preede the the previous motion is my way I understand it i don't know we should get clarification on that because I can help thank you Chief
okay so usually what happens in these situations and I've been on a a few different committees um um in in regards to coming up with rules and things like that so what usually happens is if somebody else presents another bylaw or I'm sorry another
um piece that they want to present uh over top of what you've already voted for first you have to say um do we have a motion to and then accept this to uh be reviewed and uh potentially voted on
if this particular then if this particular um new set of bylaw part of the bylaw rules of the bylaw again it's been a really long day and I also went to the dentist today so
um if that then gets voted unanimously the other one is then out you don't have to enull one in order to vote on another one it's then just that the the new one is voted in you could certainly say "Do
we want to start all over take that other vote out." But um what if it's not voted on unanimously the first I thought it was just a majority as far as I understand i'm sorry majority i'm sorry thank you Chief i spoke I spoke wrong with that i meant majority uh correct so
um but it first would have to be voted that this move forward for a vote right yeah okay thank you Chief and really it's not a whole new It's really just voting on
adding pieces and changing certain things so you could go line by line if you really wanted to sure okay and and if you're in a motion like that that's when there's time for discussion right and there can be discussion to amend things as well too from what I
understand exactly yep uh Ria go ahead okay um my understanding is that the state laws trump laws right is that true for the bylaw on the lake not no no we could set
up our I mean we could say oh people could go you know 150 miles an hour out there or whatever and if the state law says no you can't go there uh we can't make that bylaw um I forgot on a great pond you you can
you can go more stringent than the state law from what I understand when I read the great when I look at great ponds you the com the town of the pond has the ability to make more strict laws than
state laws laws which is what we have like just like 30 miles per hour is you know could be stricter than you know even though mass law is vague They only have speed limits on the state on the Connecticut River but uh that's the way I that's the way I interpret that
yeah and I think uh Judith is making a good point in that the point is voting voting laws you can make them more strict for voters you can't make them less strict for voters
you mean for swimmers for Well I meant for Boers you can't take people's swimming areas away that are legal by the state but you can get make
the voters stay farther away and okay so I I just think that's an area that we need to kind of clarify and um so what I'm not seeing is uh time uh time sharing which I really feel is the most equitable piece here uh and what
I'm hearing is that that's just something that you don't want to do uh because it's infringing upon your rights and Matt you you said that directly in the beginning of the me the meeting here and my opinion only yeah I get that and
you're the chair and so uh what we're hearing though is that people see that different ways and uh if you're living on the lake it feels like that's the right thing to do and we should be able to use it anytime we want but we are charged with looking at the
good of all and when we're looking at an equitable process here good of all is not for our own individual rights here in this case and really I'm I'm on the committee for the good of all of Shootsberry and all the our visitors here not just because you know I love to
go boating i do but it's not just that so I'm wondering what is that change there because you you also mentioned that you just don't see that working that there's just no way to do that and at the same time we have a whole presentation here
on uh you know a very nice I agree with Kristen that it was a nice presentation that you have there but other great ponds do this all over um of the same size and they've been doing it for a long time so I don't see we we that's
actually data that actually does work that there could be time sharing do you want me to respond or you want to let other people chime in here first i don't want to take Well I I I I just see it as an in people are talking about an individual right versus a community
right for the good of all and I do see that as a a difference so So if you want me to share my opinion I will so living on the lake I I sit on my deck all weekend long and there's ample times on Saturdays and Sundays midday
mid-afternoon early evening early morning there is not a boat on the water so to me there to to actually start putting specific times when there's always an opportunity for people to do their recreation of choice I think is
super you know prohibitive for the people that want to be able to do all activities at all given times we do have out of out of town boers who roll into town what are they going to do if they roll into town and at 2 o'clock they can't they just drove two and a half hours with their kids and now now they
can't use the lake and their motorboat because there's a restricted time in there are we going to have the police station down there during these times to patrol the boat ramp and patrol the the waters of the lake every time we put in a prohibitive time i think that it just
becomes very uh confusing difficult to manage and from what I've heard of lakes that do have this other lakes I've talked to a few people who've had been on lakes that have specific times is that when the times come from the motorboaters it's like chaos because everybody's sitting on shore waiting to
go out and you create a bigger safety problem than you already had because now what would have been a natural progression of people going out when they see there's a few boats out now everybody's racing out there at three o'clock to go out there and get their last licks in before they have to leave or whatever it is that they have to do
with their families that are on shore or they came in from out of town it creates chaos on the lake at the same time we're talking about boating safety i'd like to for it to be safe not create even a bigger problem that we don't that we don't need when I see that the lake already has ample time you look at the
times during the week i mean there is nobody on this lake i mean I sit there and I work from home on a regular basis there's barely any boats on this lake during a week you get a few in the afternoons and when people get out of work but there's so much time to be able to go out there and do recreation and that's where I was thinking hey I I like
to walk my dog in the morning when it's not busy let's create a little bit of a window of time where if people want to get up early and go enjoy something go for it i I don't mind but that's my opinion those are those are my my f that's that's my sitting there if I may
just address that um that's why I really recommend having this trial period it's obviously working in other many lakes not just uh great ponds and we might actually see a I'll call it a traffic pattern that would differ if people knew
that they could come to the lake at a certain time and be able to recreate safely with with designated times that might be part of the reasons why you're seeing the the pattern that you're currently seeing and part of that is
getting that communication out yeah it's it's never it's always going to be a sticking point it's not going to work perfect in the beginning but changes happen we change the speed limit in towns or or well we don't but the So my counterargument would be then so is there only designated times for paddlers
so can paddlers not be on the lake when we're on motorboating or water skiing is that that's what you're saying can swimmers come i I'm actually saying that boats don't stay off the lake but they go at headway speed during those designated times which is really different than going
around the circle uh pulling pulling um a wakeboard or whatever so actually I'm not saying that boats can't be on the lake in fact I would recommend that we have one night possibly a Wednesday night where we have a riata or a rally you're talking about education so we
start instituting that everybody could meet in the center of the lake and that would be a beautiful time to have education and community building from what I understand the lake association safety meet or safety group I believe was hasn't met meant for like precoid so
that we are rebuilding a a scene and it isn't just for the people who live on the lake so we won't know unless we try so you could say it's not going to work but if we haven't tried it we haven't tried it yep let's let other people chime in uh Mark or Christine you had
your hand up i'm sorry Matt i first want to say what you presented is it very impressive that's I'm sure it took a lot of time and I think it it it looks really really really good thank you and I like the fact that when they're talking about uh
the innovation that Ria's been talking about and Judy about timing and things like that I think it's a good compromise to have that early morning where the swimmers can have their time judy I don't need you laughing at me okay
appropriate yeah right it's very inappropriate ma'am sure whatever you say i am saying it and I think you're being very rude why don't you mute yourself thank
you again the the compromise that's being done we have to be sure that we can if anything is implemented it has to be monitored somehow some way and to make these changes that are being requested by a couple individuals I
think is going to be very convoluted i believe that it is inappropriate for the lake that has been there all this time and doing what it's doing and again what Matt said what you said is when people come if they can't get on the lake at that time what are they supposed to do
it's not a matter of trying to monitor the police aren't going to be standing there waiting for somebody to come by and say "Oh you can't do this or you can't do that." It's an almost impossibility to control outer sources people on the lake is one thing but when you have commuters coming
in or people visiting or going onto the the beach or whatever that's nearly impossible that that's factual the other part is with what you presented I think is great in the sense of the education we've been doing this for months and months we've reviewed all this stuff
over we're beating a dead horse at this point as far as I'm concerned we all have things to do we want safety one of the comments made about being able to go at 150 ft is it safe is that the smart thing to do why not be proactive and be
a little bit more safe and use some common sense that people aren't using at this moment and to be able to move forward and have something when we were kids we used to wear bathing caps that were fluorescent when we went to the ocean so the people could say I'm dating myself with that one but that we used to
wear the caps with the big flowers on them and my parents required us to do that if we were going to go in the ocean so that way the lifeguards could better get a better view of you so and that's only going in the ocean three feet or four feet maybe because you could you know at that point for safety so we have
to all participate in using common sense to be safe education to me is still critical i'm in the educational field i believe in that we've been doing that for years and I I still think that that would work we haven't done it here and I think taking this step forward is going
to be a huge impact let's try it for the year see how things go and then we can reevaluate maybe next year if there's something that goes ary because the police have been very supportive everyone has been supportive but let's face it they're not going to be sitting there 24/7 watching everybody we have to
be adults if you're going to be boating and you're going to be swimming you better have a parent with you or some kind of responsibility for somebody to watch you you just don't let your 10-year-old kid go out there swimming by themselves parents use some common sense hopefully and watch their kids swimming
so it's the same with an adult if the adults not going to have somebody with them have some security with a some kind of flotation device or something because anything could happen that's why common sense and I just think that we're pushing the issue with trying to
restrict times it's it's just not feasible that's not practical and it's just really ridiculous sorry all right thank you how about Mark River mark then the chief right um so on the the time sharing thing here I can't see
it because uh Matt's not trans anymore but my understanding was you proposed that we still could only go headway speed until 8:00 which would be a restriction from what we currently have is is that correct am I interpreting that correctly
yeah headway speed all the way up to 8 o'clock so before 8 o'clock I mean you could have water skiers out there as soon as the sun rises today that's how it's set up that's what our bylaws say my thought was let's let's reel that in a little bit you know hear what I heard at you know the public meetings i heard
you know some folks want to be able to swim till 8:00 without a boat out there you know that's I I was trying to come up with a compromise that that made sense that I think a lot of people would would would like but I guess uh I guess if they want you know you can I mean
I've seen fishing boats out there at you know 7 in the morning you know racing across the lake at full speed i mean that happens on a regular basis i mean I've seen that so that was the that was the idea behind that is that it kept the
waters calm up until that time okay chief thanks for pointing that out Mark okay I'm gonna come on camera because uh there's a couple things that I I just want to have the committee look at and
uh I I'd like to I know we're talking about time right now but I want to go back to the 7550 foot um so this is this is my interpretation of that of the law and I believe that I am
correct in this i've been plugging it in um and also uh asking the APOS so so bylaws cannot be more restrictive than state laws so what we're looking at um to to Judy's point is that the closing
the line for swimmers at that 75 then creates a a more a greater restriction uh imposed on them um so you know I know we're kind of stuck on the time thing here but to me that just seems like
potentially an easier thing to start with so that the swimmers might feel a little bit more safe and I just I you know I know this is not I'm not on this meeting but I I want to just I know that sometimes I talk to you all about what
happens on the road and there's been a couple people that say the the water's not the road but there are very there are some similarities in uh April 1st of 2023 the Massachusetts put a new law enact for vulnerable users on the road particularly cyclists so they recognized
that uh cyclists out on the road uh were a vulnerable users and were also um in being um made to be more restricted in in what they do um and to and they had
to be very careful keeping themselves safe on the road so the law enacted basically gave them a a larger girth uh so that if somebody wants to pass them they they now must have four feet they must be able to not have any in oncoming
traffic um and it and it's incumbent upon the motorist to be paying attention to the the cyclist um you know this is very similar with you know pedestrians and things they're all labeled as vulnerable users
so I would say that on the water the the the people that are outside of the of the motorboats the swimmers etc are more of a vulnerable user i I would like to I would like to ask the committee it I know that people want that time frame
but can we first maybe focus on something that feels a lot easier here and that is to give the swimmers some some more the ability to have more distance by law that 150 foot I was
looking at the map and I was looking at you know what that would do for motorists I don't think that it is going to affect the motorists in the way that we're feeling that it might um and then we can if we have that we can definitely have uh more buoys out there and things
that we talked about in the future and I think for me that feels like a really good um compromise right now done right um and you know I'm welcome I'm I'm welcome to hear people disagree with
me uh but I just I just feel that the law does reflect that and that and we want to make sure that they have it yep thank you i'm not going to argue with that and if it's the law it's the law and I thank you for clarifying Chief Judy
i was I'm just thinking about how to keep people even safer but I agree no I totally understand where you're coming from i still say bring a boat out if you're out there i mean just put a buoy on you do do anything you can right no and I'm I'm hopeful that people still
will do that and that could be like in our education under like suggestions and things um you know and even the uh the the Shootesbury Friends of the Shootsbury Police Department um the nonprofit we're going to be doing fundraisers maybe we can even fund raise
to get some of that equipment so that people will have that we do that for cyclists as well maybe there's even some grants out there that I can look into um but I'll shut up now no I think you're uh I think you're fine i gota I think that
so that's what we're hearing right what's the law is that is that we were confirming yep i think that's what the chief said she said she's done some recon so it's a mute point not that Judy again i didn't I guess I thought we could make it a little safer that way from our own perspective lake but if I'm
if I'm out of line I'm the first to admit I was out of line on that one so then that's that's fine i'm good um Dave you haven't spoke go ahead just to get a procedural point for the sake of moving things along as far as
Ria's um idea about creating times she can always make a motion and present it to the committee we can just decide we want to carry forward with it or not but we tend to be the dead horse here so I'm just throwing that out there
fair enough we're going to make changes already so if we want to make other changes make motions see if we want to carry on as a committee and we can do that i or we'll be talking about it forever yeah kathy go ahead you haven't spoke um
I move that we um agree to adopt these changes to the bylaws um I think we we it was great getting that clarification from the chief um and while I'm I'm interested to
hear more from RIA about time sharing I think we need to maybe table that to see how our education and new signage and new um buoys and all of those efforts hit this season and take into account
whatever data we can collect during this season and then revisit time sharing if we feel like there's still more work to be done all right thank Thank you uh thank you uh Kathy
i mean it sits unless anybody wants to second that so I would like to second the motion the issue is that we have a a a thing in those bylaws that the chief said we can't do i changed it already you did okay thank you it's it's on the
screen that's all right thank you Matt you're welcome so seconded by Christine and just so we have for the the motion is right now for us to accept these amended bylaws
um to go forward to be presented to the to the select board um that you've you've instituted time sharing in here already as uh Mark pointed out um so I'm asking you to take a step further but so
we're kind of doing a replay of what we did in December where it came up we're not we're just pushing it through without a discussion and so we're going that concerns me about this committee yeah procedurally we're going into discussion now and people can make you
can make a motion to amend one of these if you like to and that can be voted on and then ultimately we'll vote on if we want to move this forward and we don't have to rush this either we can it's already 728 i don't want to have to do a rushed vote by any means i think maybe
you know if we're going to have discussion why don't we why don't we have that as our topic and then we can plan to vote next next time i don't want to get into this last minute rushing thing like we did last time you can table the motion Matt if you want that's
that's your discretion though i I would like to uh move forward with the motion because I I think that these are things we can do in the near term that move us further than we were before forward it helps us get off of the sticking point
of where are we and we can get into education and try to get things done this this year um and get that to the select board so I think it's I think we've corrected some things that were wrong i think we made things more clear we did implement you know some time
restriction which I think is is that all the way to what you you would like to see Ria likely obviously not um and that's okay um but that's kind of where I I see it go ahead Kathy uh I would just like to ask um for our
next meeting because I'm curious about how time sharing would work or what times I I'm I guess I I'm not a fan because what I envisioned doesn't seem like it would work but I'm open-minded enough to want to hear a little bit more
about that not maybe for this upcoming season but for a future season so I maybe if Ria if you've have seen plans or time sharing schedules that have worked in lakes like ours I I guess I would like to just hear more about that
next time yeah I would too thanks Kath go ahead go ahead yeah I'm feeling a little bamboozled here uh you know this was presented not sent to us ahead of time and um but by open meaning
while I can't I okay well in that case it would have been nice if you're like tableabling this so that we actually have little time to look at it and that's at your discretion as David has stayed as a chair so you're kind of pushing it through
which once again we are you know talking about safety and I'm looking at uh something right now little tiny writing and not even having time to actually look at it i think it all lies in the fact that we have this like
precious little resource that is only so big and we have to address that whether you push it through or not so you're kind of squeezing it in without really taking the time to like do due process and that that concerns me about this
committee um that there's this rush for uh to make a law without really having due process i'd like to see it tabled so we could have further discussion because you're instituting you're saying you're against um time designated times
but then you went and put it right on the information i don't really understand that it's a little cuckoo to me okay you can call me cuckoo i guess it's fair well the the plan is you're definitely not cuckoo i've met you in person now
okay um Mark yeah and so um well one I I think Matt throwing it in there is is what we call compromise uh which is nice to see um for the the time sharing i do think it would be great re if we could get a more I guess a concrete plan
versus just um subjective idea that's thrown out there um but you so a point of clarification here if Matt were to table the vote does that mean that the motion just goes away or is it are we delaying the vote until we have further
time to evaluate this is that an option table means delaying the vote it doesn't mean it goes away just delays it yeah well we're delaying it we're delaying it by default because our meeting is ending and already ended so in my opinion we're we're going to have more discussion i
will be sending this out to everybody now that it's been an open meeting i can send it to you all and I will send that in advance of waiting for minutes too by the way if that's okay so you have time to take a look at it um and then we'll have discussion next meeting well am I
hearing that you want a motion to adjurnn that i mean I mean if you guys are done I mean I don't I don't want to keep people if we start talking now we'll be here till 9 o'clock so I'll make a motion to adjurnn second
okay all right um let me look at my So agree to adjourn brazil I Green I Lehan I Reml I Rivers hi
Salvador hi Ria caller hi pick it up next meeting guys think bro guy so yeah we'll pick it up next meeting again I'll send this out and we can have more conversation and talk more about it again I'm not doing this in a
in a method of trying to rush things i'm trying to do things in a method that the select board's looking for some direction on where our committee stands um I owe them some comments on on things and I plan to share with them what I share with everybody here um because
it's all it's all open in the open anyway and saying we're gonna discuss next uh next meeting so Matt thanks everybody before you end can I just ask a question uh since I'll be doing the minutes who is Charles that's attending charles Gillum charles Gillum okay hi
Charles thank you charles thanks gang we'll see you next meeting thank you Matt everybody bye