ORDER-2020-16 : Appointment of Paul Moore, 35 Laurel Street, to the Conservation Commission for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2021

Transcript (~9 min @ 1:05:48)

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▶ 1:05:45 Speaker 8: any opposed order passes order 2020-16 appointment of paul moore 35 laurel street to the conservation commission for a three-year term said term to expire on the last day of february 2021

▶ 1:05:55 Scott M. Forbes: this came from the public service committee with without recommendation for passage i believe mr moore is here this evening and we thank you for your patience sir uh do we have a motion to do are we under suspension of the rules so we need a motion for suspension of the rules all right we are under suspension you may you may approach sir

▶ 1:06:20 Michael P. Zwirko: first and key i have counselors worker thank you mr president i am the chairman of public service and at the time where we held the meeting mr moore indicated that he could not show up for that meeting so we agreed to move forward without recommendation with the understanding that he would be before us this evening so we appreciate you being here we also have miss murphy who is i believe the chair of the conservation commission here so this will be like a committee setting this evening for this order we do appreciate we know that schedules can be tough from time to time so thank you for being here this evening i just wanted to state for the record that we do have a resume that is attached for mr moore and conservation commission has a couple of vacancies so we would like to get this this filled but it did come out of committee without recommendations so with that if you could just explain a little bit about yourself and what you're looking forward to serving on the Conservation

▶ 1:07:12 Speaker 10: Commission and the like of course first of all as we said it wasn't able to make public service meeting in October I was traveling I was out of town so thank you for the flexibility in the scheduling I know meetings are late so I'll try to keep this short and we can move on to the questions but basically I first became aware of the conservation commission spring of last year i believe it was looking back my calendar i think it was april 2018 i attended my first conservation commission and to be quite frank i wasn't really too aware of what the conservation commission did at that point in time so this was very much a learning experience for me on that first meeting just to understand what the commission did what were some of the things that came before the commission prior to that i knew that we were very lucky in Melrose to have some really nice, open, green spaces. You know, to be able to go to a walk, you know, in the woods when you get home from work and yet this close to the city of Boston, that's, we're lucky to have that. That's something special. That's what originally brought me to the Conservation Commission. And over the course of, well it's been a little over a year and a half now, I've really developed an appreciation for the work that goes on there in terms of just protecting the resources that we have as well as the stewardship of the conservation land doing regular trail cleanups trail maintenance i've participated in a number of those cleanups i've helped you know maintain some of the trail network that we have including re-blazing some of the trails and remapping them and basically just attending all the meetings and since Mr. Drunch left us in what February I believe it was earlier this year I've tried to get a little more up to speed as some of the regulations and whatnot to that end just in October before I left and so I couldn't make this public service meeting I attended the MACC day of workshop it was out Danvers I believe and that was very helpful so that's that's basically I guess where I'm coming from like I said I don't want to drone on too long I assume you have

▶ 1:09:25 Michael P. Zwirko: some questions I actually don't have any any questions for you this evening I'll leave it to my colleagues the one comment I did want to make is I believe one of my colleagues mr. councillor Mortimer was a former member of the the Conservation Commission, is that correct?

▶ 1:09:38 Peter D. Mortimer: Five years, and Councilor Boycelle was chair for six years, weren't you? Yeah. Six years, and I was on for five years when he was the chair.

▶ 1:09:46 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you for mentioning that. So if past is prologue, maybe you would see yourself among this august body five, six years from now. My wife also served on the Conservation Commission previously.

▶ 1:09:56 Speaker 10: You guys do get cookies, so I'm already very envious of you.

▶ 1:10:00 Michael P. Zwirko: I'll reserve questions for my colleagues, Mr. President, that's all I had at this time, thank you.

▶ 1:10:06 Peter D. Mortimer: council monomer please thank you very much and uh i greatly appreciate the green belt that we have around melrose and the woods it's uh one of the many factors that makes melrose the very special place that it is appreciate your service resident of ward six so we really appreciate coming on board and we really appreciate chairman Mary stewardship for the committee and for the open green spaces of melrose thank you for uh looking out for those areas they're very very important for the reasons you mentioned a little serenity when you come home from a crazy day of work and just the fresh air that it provides it's uh it's very very very excellent thank you so much to both of you thank you mr president good council madero's please thank you thank you very

▶ 1:10:49 Monica C. Medeiros: much i i think it sounds i'm glad to see your interest in that you've been attending you know just as a volunteer for it sounds like you know quite a bit of time now and i would just really appreciate that and your service to all of this and i know uh speaking of people giving up their time i know we have miss murphy here and i thought she may have something to add in addition i i

▶ 1:11:10 Speaker 4: thank you very much i just wanted to say of all the people we've had join the commission paul has has really shown such great interest for such a long period of time before becoming an official member and we're very excited to have him come on board he's someone who first became involved with the Commission through the trails and trail stewardship working on the trail work but he's really as he said he's really shown an interest in all the work that we do and we're really excited to have him on board and as councillor Zwirko said we are short of people and it would be great to have a full complement because it does create issues especially when we have some of the more complicated longer hearings which i know we have at least one coming up so we would love to have a full quorum by then yeah absolutely i know it's going to be i think a

▶ 1:12:00 Monica C. Medeiros: very busy year probably ahead and so i'm glad that you're taking the classes and going out there is there any particular area that or anything that you feel is like you have as

▶ 1:12:15 Speaker 10: as an agenda item as as a new member I think for me the area where I'm I guess most concerned about my own my own work would be just coming more up to speed with the regulations you know I don't necessarily you've all seen my resume I don't necessarily have a professional background in any of this so there's there's a bit of a learning curve and I guess if there's if there's any saving grace to this this appointment process dragging out so long as it's given me a little bit of a time to get a bit of a head start and we've we've got a great commission they're all extremely helpful and i've learned quite a bit from them and so i guess looking forward for the next you know several months to a year it would just be learning more of the regulations and

▶ 1:12:58 Monica C. Medeiros: requirements very good well you know they have a saying where there's a will there's a way so i'm sure you'll do just fine thank you thank you thank you council Boisselle please i just have one thing

▶ 1:13:08 Robert A. Boisselle: to ask you is do you know what poison ivy looks like it's funny this is one of those things that

▶ 1:13:13 Speaker 10: i keep going back and forth on i've spent a great deal of time outdoors and i've yet to get any poison ivy and for a good deal in my life especially when i was younger i can't say that i knew really all that well what poison ivy was and so i kind of wonder at this point if i'm one of those lucky individuals that maybe just doesn't have any sort of strong reactions but to answer your questions yes i know a handful of poison ivy but if you're familiar with poison ivy you know that it can take a number of different forms so i can't say that i'm well versed in all of them

▶ 1:13:50 Robert A. Boisselle: but before you go out on a field inspection make sure you review those guidelines yes yes no and

▶ 1:13:54 Speaker 10: i'm i'm very good and when i get back you know the pants go off and go into a separate load in the wash and whatnots but like i said knock on wood hasn't been an issue yet thank you

▶ 1:14:06 Speaker 5: good luck thank you motion for passage mr president mr chair we had a motion for passage

▶ 1:14:09 Scott M. Forbes: made by councillors werco we got a second by councillor mortimer this is a voice vote all those in favor aye aye any opposed order passes thank you welcome aboard sir thank you very much

▶ 1:14:23 Speaker 1: thank you for your patience tonight leave some free let it be leave some free let it be

▶ 1:14:29 Speaker 8: Order 2020-36, establishing a designated parking space at City Hall for Veterans of the United States Armed Forces.