TranscriptJanuary 28, 2021 ~ Conservation Commission Meeting

dragons are rarest. Gold dragons are myth. For a gold dragon to exist, it would have to be the result of an accident. We'll start recording, so don't say anything bad. Got it. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Um, hi everyone. Hi Jess. I'm Sam. Um, kind of chairing the board now. Not the board, the commission. Um, but open to a co-chair if anyone is interested. Um, let's see. We have a full docket tonight and if anyone wants to take notes, I would be very thankful. Kit usually does that. I can certainly do it.

I don't mind taking some notes. Cool. So, Sam, I'm going to make you co-host in case you care to share anything. Okay. And yeah, I do want to pull up that grant um information about that grant. So, that'll be good. And if anybody else wants to share anything, I'll make you co-host, too. It's not a big deal.

All right. So, before we jump into the grant, I thought maybe Robera, you could you wanted to give a little update on the Stonewall down at the river park. Sure. Um, so I spoke with um it's Joe Crowley. It's not the Joe Crowley from

the Forest Yurts. It's another Joe Crowley. um built the wall and I met with him and he talked about what needs to be done and we're talking about for the river park the um wall in the front. things are kind of falling apart here and there. Um, he told me

what? Hi, Joe. Hi, Joe. We're just getting started. I was saying I spoke with Joe Crowley that uh built the wall for the front in the river park. um he really feels that at this point that it really needs to be pulled apart and redone because when he first did it

um I don't know why it didn't work out exactly the way he wanted it, but he wanted it a little bit wider so that it would be stronger um and shorter. and he wanted it to curve as it came into the driveway and for some reason whoever he was speaking with I guess on the conservation commission or whatever uh wanted it differently so he was saying you know that wasn't quite done right but he feels that it has to be pulled apart and redone um and as far as cost I don't know if he would even be interested in doing it. Um, but as far as cost, he was thinking it would be like $3500 to $3,800.

I thought you were going to say a lot more than that. So, yeah, I did too. Really? Yeah. Maybe that's for him. Yeah. And like I said, I'm not even sure that he's interested in doing it. Did he have any insight if if it could be maintenance instead of

Well, he he doesn't feel because, you know, he really uh does it right and everything uh is balanced with everything else. So, you can't just, you know, kind of jam it in there. Um doesn't look too bad now but you have to think about the future

right so um so maybe that's something we table for the immediate future and I would say so but at least we know what's needed you know just as far as taking stock of what we have yep yep so that's about that for and do you want to talk about the invasive plant stuff right now or

Yeah. Yeah. Um because we had spoken about getting rid of invasives in town. Um I remembered that over the summer I had seen um I guess it was a truck or a van in Harpsell with a little sign invasive plant removal. So, I did get in touch with, let me just find her name. That's

Rebecca Gallery. Um, she's the head of the um invasive plant control. And it's made up of I couldn't find all my notes, but they do work with the main natural area program and someone at Yeah, the main natural area program has an initiative going on in a few counties to provide free invasive species management plans, but we're not it's not in Andrew County.

Oh, it's not in Andrew Garden County. So, well, I'm sure they have some things on their website for resources. I I work a lot with the people at MAP. Um, there's a bunch of resources on their website in terms of like finding folks to come out and do it. I also spoke with an applicator who said that he's been doing a lot of work with municipalities and he usually charges like somewhere between $800 and $1,200 a day to do invasive specy removal depending. 800 is a piece by himself. 1,200 fees with a crew and um he's used to working around budgets. And I think that what we have that's obvious like in terms of loop strife is it is like a day's worth of work at this point.

Okay. Right. Just based off of the the a couple of the like high use parks, not talking about the areas of town that we that the town owns but aren't like parks, you know? And what? Go ahead. What was his name? His name's Eric Lima. He works for um Basswood Environmental.

of work with Yarmouth, the town of Yarmouth. Okay, Yeah. Now, as far as like um you know, that might be a one-time thing. Um but as far as what Harpsswwell has, I guess it's a partnership and it's with um the Harpsswwell Town Lands Committee, the Conservation Commission, the Wreck Committee, the Mitchell Field Committee, and the Harpswell Garden Club. So, they have volunteers and they do physical removal. I don't know if they do the chemical, but so that's what they have for um you know continued maintenance.

So I just thought it'd be interesting just to see how they got it up and going and you know who's doing the work um as far as long term also. but okay, it' be wonderful to work on that. That would be a good priority. As far as you get rid of the invasives, you're supporting the natural community is what the idea is. As far as, you know, outreach to people and explaining what you're doing is what you're really trying to do is make the natural community more resilient.

Right. And there's Kit. Hi, Kit. Hi, Zach. Hi, Zach. And Kit. Full house. Hello. Yep. Long time no chat. Yeah. Welcome back. Happy New Year. Kit, you're on mute. Yeah, I'm getting better at lip reading with Zoom. I use them so rarely.

Eating my dinner there. And I completely, you know, I don't I'm not good at it. I'm much better at WebEx. I'm a WebEx guy myself. I feel you on that. Yeah, this whole come into the thing at at um when it's muted is not my thing.

Juliet about the action plan at some point, but first I want to look at that grant just because it is timesensitive and the um the workshop is a a week from yesterday, I think. So, let me pull that up. heard of this grant. Um, sounds great. Sounds right up our alley. Um,

let's see. couple ideas of, you know, why we should apply for this, how it pertains to us. Um any ideas of what we could do with that money? Um so, I'm all ears. you know, we don't have like a quaint little downtown necessarily that's like set up for an urban park, but I feel like there's creative ways to

to apply this to Durham. Yeah, I'm going to need to learn a little bit more about this. What's the uh what's the story behind this particular grant? Not just just a quick clipotes version. Yeah. No, I think it's um focused on forestry. Um

yeah. Uh, so go ahead, Joe. Yeah, if you don't mind me jumping in real quick. Sorry, I didn't inter throw up. Um, essentially pounds can get grants to help pay for uh like the planting of trees in their parks and things of that nature and their and on their town property. And grants usually run somewhere between like four and $10,000 per town. I believe there has to be matching funds. Yeah. 50.

But but it can be but it I believe it can be like an inind contribution. So in terms of it's like um like people hours to do the work or something like that. I'm not entirely sure. But essentially I thought of this as somewhere we could buy buy like trees to plant in the river

at the river park or something like that. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Is this a yearly thing? It seems like it is. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think at least for for now. Okay. Do we know like do we have to use it? wondering um I mean do we do we have

you know I think there's um as part of the application I think I saw a three-year plan in there like you have out um here we go three-year maintenance plan oh wait no that's just to maintain the trees um but when to use the funding

yeah like because I'm just wondering if we get it don't have to use it right away, right? I just don't know. Would this be something we could put Remember we talked once about doing a natural playground utilizing nature to do something? Would that be something that we could use this for in the river park? Even just a small area off one of the trails as a, you know, a place to for kids to play

or is that not an option? Do the tree portion of that? I don't know how, you know, how specific the plan has to be. Yeah. So, if you look under the narrative right there, that second bullet, um, description of the project, including what you expect to be developed, produced, performed, a clear and measurable work plan, and a timeline for completing. Um, I like the idea. I just wonder is it due in a couple days, you know? Yeah. Um,

well, we'd have to let them know that someone is attending the workshop and the workshop's next Wednesday, but then the grant isn't due until March 12th. Time is the workshop at I think it's w next Wednesday at 1, but I couldn't find how long long it goes.

I can attend it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I can reach out. There's the contact person right here. And I can ask a question about um when the funds have to be used by Yeah. you know, get more information on that. Yeah. And hopefully the workshop would describe um you know give you a vision of what um kind of thing they're looking at.

So that we could plan where what about that um playground area off of 125 that's the town own land. Is that too um maybe too wet? Where? Yeah. What was the name of it? Oh, I can't remember. It's a corner. Crossman. Crossman's corner. Yeah,

it is corner. Yeah, Joe, you were talking about um doing some kind of work there. Yeah, that was one place I was to trees. Yeah, that was one place I was kind of thinking about. If you look at it, there's a little bit of invasives. I think so are pretty lowhanging fruit to get rid of.

Um, you know, as much as lowhanging fruits exist in the world of invasives. And there's also a really large wetland complex right there that's going to be there for a while. And uh my thought was that if we could do some like improvement to small field area there and whatnot, we could kind of like create like a a gradient of wetland to upland habitat. And uh my thought was like maybe doing some native species planning over there or in this case maybe planting some trees that soak up a lot of sun and crown out and can provide more shade. Um that kind of stuff. I wonder if that would include also shrubs, you know, like bush and Huh.

Absolutely. Yeah. Winter holly. It's kind of wet down there. They do when when you guys were talking about the idea of doing, you know, like a natural playground. I was thinking maybe fruit trees. Yeah. So you could actually eat the fruit.

Yep. Right. So, I wonder if you could apply and have the project spread out across a few sites because I was thinking too, the Eureka Center has a couple patches of um just grass and you know, if we could incorporate some sort of trees there as well.

I don't know why not. Although, with the Eureka Center, you're you're just going to have to watch it because people park on the grass unfortunately. So you don't want to have a lot of trees in that area where they park. Okay.

And there are granting matching funds available. So uh you would have to ask permission of the select board um to apply for the grant and also for the matching funds but they are available. Okay. attend the workshop. That way, you know, we got that step step, you know, accomplished. And

Wednesday at one it Yeah. And I can probably It just depends on how long it is. If it was like an hour, I could attend as well. Um, but I'll I'll find that out. The more brains, the better. Who can exactly listen to it? Has anyone written a grant before? I'm guessing maybe someone has.

Nobody. Nobody. A lot of scientific documents, but not a grant document. I wrote one. It It wasn't really exciting, right? But you learn the process. Write a lot of proposals um to get, you know, money for our projects. But a little different than the grant. Sometimes we um apply for research grants. Um, so yeah, a little bit

similar. Yep. So, okay. I bet you it'd be pretty analogous to that. so given the timing, we should probably meet pretty quickly after you guys go to that. So, if that's on because we that will just give us not even six weeks, I think, right? because if it has to go in

Oh, here's the answer to what was the date. Oh, okay. May 10th. They're due. March. March. So, what is um I think this is a great idea. I just want to make sure that we're ready for, you know, if we do win. Um so, it says that funds will be awarded on on a reimbursement basis only. Um

what is our we have a good budget like say we win 8K or something. Um it it wouldn't be a problem. Yeah. Okay. All our grants are we pay the bills up front and then we submit reimbursement and they reimburse us and so it that's not an issue.

Okay. But also, you know, it said um or inind services, which I'm guessing is like manpower. That's what I was thinking. So, we can supplement with some of that as well. Yeah. One of the things that' be difficult though is the maintenance.

there. You mean doing it or like um describe keeping them watered and maintained, babying them through, you know, the first season or two? keep thinking about this, thinking about ideas for it and if any, you know, really fantastic things come to mind, uh, you just email the group and we can, you know, brainstorm like that. Either way, I think if if we applied, we could find a way to use it, you know, that is helpful to multiple sites around town, whether it's the river park or if it ends up being elsewhere. I think even if it's a small amount of money that you guys ask for, it's a good experience.

Yeah, I agree. Yep. Great. Well, um I will email the contact person and Joe, I'll get back to you about details for that workshop. Yeah, I'll definitely attend. Cool. the Androskogan Land Trust who couldn't attend tonight but is very keen to attend our February meeting. So, um I wasn't sure when the date would be, but I'll get back to them with that and just a little intro about what they're working on and um just so we can get to know another resource that pertains to the park.

I now did he um Oh, go ahead, kid. Sorry, Robera. He's from the Royal Riverland Trust or the Andrew Scoggin. Andrew Scoggin, sorry. Thank you. New job, I think. Uh the director maybe. Oh, yeah. Because didn't it used to be Shelly and I think she's gone now.

Yeah. So, just you know, a little meet and greet. we can ask questions or whatever and just so we you know faces are recognizable when we when we need something. meeting, do you already have us on the docket? Usually it's the the last Thursday of the month. I don't what I don't know what date that is.

The 25th. Okay. 25th. Yeah. that. Okay. Okay. So, I'll email Dana back and um cool. Uh so, the main trails coalition, I I contacted them recently, too. They've still have yet to decide on a winner for the ugly duck ugly duckling trail contest. So, we haven't lost yet, but we haven't won yet either.

So, TV, did they say when they're going to announce a winner? Very soon. a couple days ago. Oh, that would be nice. Yeah, we'll see. Feel like I've missed so much. would be fabulous. I think we had discussed earlier doing uh a social media site and I think Joe, you had mentioned bringing one up. Did that happen or should we kind of think about redoing doing one of those for the Durham Conservation Commission in general? Is Joe gone?

Did we lose Joe? I think he stepped away. We have a chair. There he is. Oh, sorry. It's not a good excuse, but I was just so hungry I had to go grab this. No, I My day got away from me. I was like thought I was going to be wrapped up at 4 and then I looked down and I was like on a call till 5. I was like

um Sorry. What did I miss? So, we had talked about doing a social media site and I didn't know if that ever got started or if we wanted to do something like that because talking about the main ugly trail ugly duckling trail competition that would be something if we do happen to win would be really cool to put out there to say here's what we're doing. Yeah, I don't know where we left it off. I know that I said I' I'd be willing to manage the Facebook page or whatever.

So, you guys are are welcome to do a Facebook page of yourself, your own, but as a town um mission, you guys can post to our Facebook page. Um you would send information to Kathy and she she's the one who who posts to it. So, anything you wanted to post, pictures, information about, you know, trail stuff, the winning of the Ugly Duckling Trail Award, hopefully, um, you just send it to Kathy and she can post that on our town Facebook page.

Okay. Ruth, what's email, but I have it in the minutes. What is her? Uh, it's k i o n durhamme.com for now. would change it. Yeah. To the Gmail option. Well, we actually went out and got agov um uh Oh, that's right. Oh, that's great. And so we're in the process now of of uh using that.gov to switch all of our emails over. Um and as soon as I can get myself through all that. I suspect it'll be another couple two, three, four weeks before everybody switched over, but that's the intention.

Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks. anything we've talked about so far? Yeah, I do think it would be cool to have our own page. Um, if anyone's opposed to that, that's fine. Just have our own Durham Conservation Commission page would be kind of kind of neat. I mean,

thinking Facebook, Instagram. Sure. Both. Yeah. If you're going to post a picture, you might as well use Instagram and then send it to Facebook so you can increase your engagement, right? just just double duty. Right. Right.

Well, how would people find out about it? In other words, would you have to like go on the town Facebook and announce that we now have a Facebook? Yeah. People would like it. Yeah. And we share we could share with our friends

and we can share with some of the unofficial Durham Town pages and that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can also share with the the Durham Town page, you know, Kathy that stuff. Yeah. Oh, on the web page rather than Facebook

if you made your own Facebook page for the conservation commission, you could you could ask Kathy to share the information onto our town Facebook page to try and get followers. Oh, yeah. And what about the Durham News Blast email? Could there be a line in there?

Yeah. Everything is uh is through Kathy. She's our our public information technician. any information you want out on the news blast, on the Facebook, on the web page, just email her. Perfect. So, Ruth, is there a process that we or is there a statement that we need to follow or anything being a town committee um that we need to follow?

We do have a social media policy. I'll look it up and send you a copy. Um it's okay. It's pretty loose, you know. No swearing, no you know. I was gonna say we promise to behave ourselves. Yes. Yeah, I also think like from my perspective, it would just be more of a platform for us to uh disperse information and like just answer simple

questions like yes, it's open, no, it's closed. Yes, this is happening and not really engage if there's like any sort of like drama or whatever. I would like to think there wouldn't be on a conservation commission Facebook page, but

well, if people get grumpy that we're doing something that they don't think we should be doing, there might be. But I agree. If we just let it go and not respond, it's probably that's probably part of the policy is not engaging.

Yeah. If anything, it'll get us more exposure, which I don't think could hurt, you know, when we go to look for volunteers for events. Um, we'll just have a broader network of people to wait a minute. Who's talking? Oh, that was that. Sorry.

Go ahead. Um, it gives you an easier way to reach them. Sorry. Easier way to reach who? The people. The people. Oh. Oh, okay. All right. Yes. Um, I was just going to say on that note about reaching people to volunteer and whatever. Um, I'm not sure Sam if you put it on the agenda. Oh, you did.

We talk about a possible Earth Day event. Yep. You have a great idea. Just bubble. No. No. It's just when you talked about engaging people, it's like Earth Day. Yeah. And something to think about. I don't know if we're going to have to do some sort of virtual event, but it'd be really nice to do an event in person.

We don't really know what April will look like. You know, an event outside as long as it's, you know, not tons of people. But I don't see any tons of people coming anyway. So outside, but everyone has to carry a hula hoop around close

garden. Yeah, a hula hoop and a shovel. Those are hula hoop, shovel, and mask are required. any ideas for Earth Day, it would be a good day to promote us, I think. Um, but we have a ways, you know, it's a ways away so we can

Yeah. I was thinking about like a trail clean up. A trail clean up mostly. Yeah. And then if we're able to do it in a way that everybody the worst part is that I don't think we can all just sit around. We're done because we're supposed to be masked. Nice to make it a little more of a festive affair than just everyone showing up with shovels, which is festive

for some, you know, but cookies I prefer. Yeah, it is a celebration after all. Okay. I wonder if we could plant a tree. Yeah. You know, and everyone like throws a scoop of dirt in there or something. I like that. Just like one.

Yeah. like along the um maybe along the stone wall in front of River Park where it will get lots of sun and you know and and not encroach on the stone wall that needs to Yeah. far enough away. Yeah. I wonder if we could have like a fire pit like so if somebody had like just a a movable fire pit if you could just bring it and put it in the middle of that grassy area at River Park and have like a fire in a fire pit.

I have one. I have the kind you can pick up and put in the back of the truck. That'd be fun. Yeah. I have a good poem from a book club book. Ah, ode to dirt. None of those. Oh, I wish I was a tree. No, I don't know that one.

Sounds like something from um primary school. Yeah, I think it that's probably where the memory is from. Yes. Yeah. was like a long time ago, freshening up that gravel down at the river park. It's kind of around the structure

and kind of goes around the gardens as well. Maybe that could be like something we could do prior to the event, you know. And I think the cost of that was something we had included in our budget. Yeah. Not unreasonable. It was like pretty inexpensive.

And I think Zach, you had looked into it and it was almost a yard and a half or something. I don't know why that number is sticking in my head, but uh yeah, just in terms of like how much how much gravel it was. I apologize.

Yeah, it was over a year ago. Don't apologize. Yeah, no worries. I like I said, I definitely I definitely feel like the walking back into a lot. So, I come in there. There's a canopy tree program. Awesome. Um, so, uh, so yeah, I want to

say we were looking at something like 89 bucks for a yard like like that. That's what's stuck in my craw right now. I could be wrong. I could probably go back and look. It was under $100 though, right? It wasn't like It wasn't anything outland. Oh, excuse me. It wasn't anything outlandish.

Maybe it was under 100. You guys end up going in that direction. Maybe it's something where we could get uh public works to go pick it up and dump it there for us. That would be nice. Great idea. And that would be a good way to Yeah, I'd like to even though we might um be

asking people to help us do things in the park. It'd be nice to freshen it up a little bit. I think that is a good idea, Sam. Like that would look nice if we could just touches. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, nothing will really be blooming in,

right? That's what I was thinking. Not really. So, um, what is it? It's midappril. Um, April 22nd, I think it is. April 20th, I thought, is it 20th this year? Yeah. I was trying to think if worse came to worse, they usually have pansies, but that's not exactly native or anything. It would be nice to have something

something. Yeah. April 22nd. 22nd. So 24th would be Sunday after that. Yeah. Weekend. Yeah. Yep. The 24th and 25th are the weekend after. Is that too early trout liies to come up? Right. Yeah. Like April's still pretty brown and gray.

You just keep thinking those nice thoughts. I'm working on it. Let me hold on to my those let me hold on to them. to be able to have their their sale this year? The plant sale? I know we had talked about digging up some of our the perennials in uh River Park to make room for something a little fresher, but last year obviously, you know, it didn't happen and I don't know if this year it will happen.

Well, I I I suppose they could do it if they did it outside, you know. Um Yep. They usually do it um the third Saturday in May along with bulky waste. And we are That's awful. Sorry, I can't deal with that. That's actually funny. You look like you're drowning. It's was

um uh it looks like I'm I'm hoping we'll do the bulky waist day this year. So, if we can do the bulky waist day and maybe they can do their plant sale outside um you know, it just it just needs to be um adjusted a little bit. I think at least I'm hoping.

Yeah. people want to talk about? I don't know. But we should all be thinking of ideas for Earth Day so that the next meeting we can um, yeah, present some ideas. Yeah, because you want a lot of time to get the information out there to people.

Yeah. Hopefully we will have won a grant for trees and we can tell everyone at Earth Day that we're going to come plant trees. Yeah. and we'll plant a bunch of trees that were paid for by not us. Exactly. the garden is at the river park? You know, you're looking at the building and then to the left there's kind of a separate it has like a stone circle.

If I was thinking, you know, it'd be nice to have that as blank canvas and just like gutting everything that's in there. There's a ton of saplings. probably a lot worse than the last time I was there. Yeah. If anyone is wildly

wildly opposed to that, you know, we could work around that, but it's the soil is like it's like half an inch thick and then it's just like rocks in there and stuff and Yeah. You said that there saplings in the way. They're Yeah, they're in there. They're they're growing. They're thriving.

Yeah. So, we'll have to like cut them. Maybe, you know, public works could get in there with even something bigger like a backho. Yeah. Just like dig it all out. Yeah. Because if we're not going to save any of the perennials, that would be the easiest way to do it because that would allow us more space to put down real um some good some better lom and everything.

Is that something we could ask them to do, Ruth? Yeah, if you um if somebody just sends me an an email that reminds me what it is we want to ask them to do like I can do that. Yeah. Out of that. And then there was something else we wanted to ask them for

the gravel. Pick up the gravel. Five minutes ago. could even plant some stuff in there. Well, is the ground still frozen at the end of April? I guess it depends on on how our winter posts, but um close. Yeah, we could it'll it'll be symbolic to have like maybe a clean slate and, you know, we can do some really thoughtful plantings in there and have a tangible result for the Durham River Park.

or you know just this this year that we will actually get it planted. Yeah. But not before like Earth Day. No, probably not. Yeah. But even if we just rough it out and then department, the public works can take out the saplings and we can pull out the rest and just clean it up and and give it,

you know, make it nice and neat so that ready to plant in May. Do that. Yeah. Make the border nice with the uh stone. Yeah. Make it like Yeah. Um, so part of being on the whole hiatus here is uh I actually wanted to check in and see where things were with the uh with the action plan that Juliet and I had started on a few months ago. And I think we got it out to the group, but I was kind of curious what the status was on that if there had been any just further development along that path at all.

Yeah, we we attempted um I think you know we did some brainstorming together on the beginning of the action plan and then the following meeting we tried without you guys and we just had questions for you and we were like, you know what, this is probably easier if if they're involved. So we kind of tabled that. Um, but definitely want to revisit it and work out the kinks.

Is that something that we have time to put on to put on next meeting again? So, but part of being gone is not sure how many concurrent, you know, projects we have going on here, so I don't want to potentially overload the group here, but uh, and maybe Juliet uh, I don't know if Oh, she she's a little distracted. Um, I'm not sure. Is the uh is the town board still looking for us to present on this on this plan?

Okay. I'm just curious. Um hey Juliet, uh just while you're right there, do you know if the town board is looking for us to present on that action plan anytime soon? Are they asking at all? No. Nope. Okay. I don't know. Peter.

Nope. Sorry. My kids are running around driving me nuts. Hey. Um, good job. They're like, "We heard that." kind of us kind of presenting kind of where we're at maybe next meeting. Yeah, I I think that I think that would be good. That's something that we do still need to keep an eye on as far as like uh you know keeping the town board happy and making sure that they're appraised of of sort of like our short mid and long-term projections. Um happy to happy to jump back in and again my apologies for for my absence. Um but uh but would love to maybe start rolling that project back out on our next meeting. Would that be okay with everybody?

Definitely. Yeah. And one of the things we had talked about was putting it up on like a Google doc page so that we could all access it after and make changes that everyone can see in between meetings. And I was going to do that but then all the insanity.

the Google doc. Um so Ruth should we I know we're not Yeah. So, should we wait until we get the new government emails? Should we go ahead with personal emails? Should we like our best next step for accessing this document on a regular basis?

You know, if you guys have Gmail addresses, I wouldn't hesitate to just go ahead and use them and then, you know, you can just add your um because the town I don't the town email it's going to be 365. It's not going to be Gmail. So I I'm not really sure about the technological things there.

Does anyone not have a Gmail account where they would be able to access really I I don't have a town email. Oh no, sorry. A Gmail account, you know, we were to do a Google doc to edit this. If you don't have a Gmail, I'm so sorry. You're just not in the 20th century. Everyone's got a Gmail.

I work with people who still don't have email. So, not everyone has one. They fax stuff though, right? Thank God. Mail. Just mail, man. A list of email addresses really quick. Just we can have them and that way we at least have some kind of functional group. That's been a problem for me is not is not communication access.

I was going to mention that. Yeah, let's solve that problem. So, I'm going to start writing them down right now. Well, I don't know if we want to do it public publicly, but I was thinking that maybe we could um, you know, use the town email and I've been trying to get everybody's phone number just for, you know, times like this, somebody just forgot we had a meeting, we have to be able to get in touch with you. Phone number and an alternative um, email address. Well, I think Ruth has most everyone's emails.

Um, if not, how about, you know, folks email her? Yeah. On the whole phone chain, Zach, she has yours. She has mine. She might not have Jess's. Um, but she should have everyone, most everyone. Y, right, Ruth? Yep. So, sorry guys. I lost connection and was gone for the last minute or so. So, it sounds like we'll go forward with the emails that Ruth has for Google Docs or would did we make a different decision while I was reconnecting?

Let's email Ruth with our uh you know with whatever email we want to use and maybe our phone number. We'll see if we could put that all together into one spot that we can access. Okay, great. As long as Ruth, you're good with that.

Yeah, I can do that. That's easy. You've been volunttoled. Fantastic Awesome, Ruth. Thank you. Um, I had a bit of a housekeeping question. So, we have right now we have like co-chairs, right? Um, is that a function of like our bylaws or is there anything opposed to just having one chair person? That was uh that was when we started. We when we were still figuring out it's not it's not a necessary function of our bylaws. We just thought it might be uh we thought at the time that it would probably be easier to to sort of split that duty and that way with people's availability and schedules, we'd always have someone available to chair.

Yeah. I was just wondering if we want to entertain a conversation about maybe just having one chair because I think we're starting to get our feet under ourselves and kind of get action items pulled together and I think we just might find ourselves getting lost in the weed a little bit weeds a little bit when you have like one chair who's like trying to tell everyone to do remind people to do stuff and then it switches for the next meeting.

So I wasn't sure what everyone thought about that. Definitely. Actually, last time the meeting was Ruth and Sam and myself, and Ruth and I kind of nominated Sam, but there wasn't Well, I would nominate Sam if we were taking nominations. So,

I'm fine with that unless anyone is really dying to do it. I just think it might be helpful for like tracking action items and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Trust me, Sam didn't tell me to say this. I came up with this idea that Amazon tries to take power, you know.

this? We That's probably a good idea. I I move that we nominate Sam for the uh chairperson position. I second. Okay. So then all in favor roll call. So Sam, you're just going to call everybody's name and they're going to say yes or no.

Okay. All right. Roberta, um, yay. Juliet, yes. Kit, yes. Joe, yes. Zach, yep. And can I ask Jess or she can't vote yet? Can't vote yet. Okay. Never. Sorry, Jess. But you vote Sam. You ask yourself. So Sam, sure. Yes. All right.

Okay. Congratulations. Sam can't be there and I get to nominate, right? I had thought that far. No, I'm just kidding. We can work that out with um you know, I don't do much these days during the pandemic, so I think I'm pretty available for the next few months.

next meeting, you think? Or Yeah. And do we want to meet s like sooner rather than later because we're going to do the um at least one of us will be at the meeting on Wednesday next week or the training. I we probably should and talk about what

the workshop was like. And um I mean it wouldn't hurt if everybody did homework and read about the grant and had some ideas to share. Yeah, if people want to do that and send an email um and any sort of questions. I mean unless I have a different meeting plan, which I don't think I do, um I'm going to attend it. Uh so I could ask pointed questions if we had them. Oh, for the workshop you mean?

Yeah, beforehand. Okay. Yeah. So, because if you if you in your leisure read through it between now and Wednesday and want to y have questions that you want answered, feel free to shoot me an email. I'll check my calendar. And then if we want to meet um

about project canopy before February Oh, shoot. I'm sorry. I actually have a meeting at 1:00 on Wednesday. No. Okay. I think I can probably make it um so that I can attend. Um, so I'll just and you know, uh, if I find out more details and more people want to attend than just me. Um, I'll send that out so you have at least the option to do that.

Okay. I might be a maybe, but it depends on what time. I do have work in the morning, so Okay. Not sure. I don't have to commit right now, but I'll find out more info and send it to everyone. All right, Jess, do you still want to join the commission

now that Sam's been elected? You know, commissioners. should I send them to? Me, please. Okay. Yep. I have my notes. So, I'll compile and do final minutes for the meeting. Okay. So I could get your email maybe from Ruth then.

Yep. Yeah, Ruth will have it. We'll do. Thanks. Great. Well, um, nice to see everyone. Some longes. Go ahead. When is the next meeting? It will be February 25th at 6:30. Yep. And and the the grants due you said March 12th. So that'll

I think a I think maybe Sam after you or and anyone else who can attend just sends a quick email that says this does sound like an option, you know, maybe we can get together on um the following week on the 11th or something if we keep

prior to Yeah. And now Ruth, if we do these ad hoc gettogethers, do they have to be official and announced? And how does that work? If we're doing something just to work on a grant, we should well, you can do it as a workshop. Um, and you know, you you can just kind of announce it at the last second, but you probably do want to announce it, you know, just so that people if they wanted to tune in to you, they could.

Yeah, sure. Okay. Okay. So, we could do something on the 11th and that would still give us one, two, three, almost four weeks. That will give us four weeks before submission. great. What day of the week is that? Thursday. The the 11th is a Thursday.

Thursday. Yep. Because the um the So the commit it sounds like Sam the the meeting's on the 3 and that would give us a week to kind of mull over what she's learned and then get together on the 11th with ideas. I just I mean maybe we can get together on the 4th, but it seems fast after having just Sam just gone.

Yeah, that seems really fast. Ruth, would the 11th be available for um Zoom? Yeah, I I I can't see that there's anything that would be scheduled for that night. Okay. And if in the meantime we could all uh look over the information about the grant and see if um you know we can send anything to Sam about questions we have or something. Um and also our email

alternative email and phone number to Ruth. Yeah. No. the the select board will point out. Oh, okay. Okay. I wasn't sure. Just checking. Now, you don't have that. I would have voted for her, but I think she got a unanimous vote at the beginning of the meeting.

Okay. We talked and it's set up. Perfect. Yeah. I was in the middle of cooking dinner and I just pulled like a turkey out of the oven and I was like, "Oh my god, I have a meeting that's starting right now." Like just casually cooking. had my last bite of food and went, "Oh, shoot. Me being started 20 minutes ago."

I casually made like a little mini Thanksgiving dinner tonight. I don't know why. Like cranberry sauce and squash and turkey and potatoes. Oh, that's funny. We had a dinner like that, too. Trader Joe's cranberry sauce. I was always jealous of Joe's lunches at work. He always

I'm a bit I'm a bit of a cook. I like to cook a lot. And now my wife appreciates it because now that I work from home, like like at least once a week, I like take a break at 3:00 and then braze something for three hours before she gets home. So

nice. So I'm enjoying the the cooking I get to do now. Real food. Real food's good stuff. up? Well, happy to have you, Jess. Yeah, welcome. Thanks. I hope I I do get sworn in. Um, but it sounds like it's pretty be like the cutting. I'm sure you'll be fine.

nice. Thanks. And just in just a time for us to have some stuff to do, too. Cool. Right. Yes. Work. Cool. Great to see everybody. Y have guys take care. Bye. I