Conservation Commission — 2020-05-07
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE CONSERVATION COMMISSION City Hall, 562 Main Street Melrose, Massachusetts 02176 Telephone - (781) 979-4312 Fax - (781) 979-4290 Melrose Conservation Commission Minutes for May 07, 2020 Present: Susan Murphy, Kate Hickey, Aaron Weieneth, Richard Doucette and Paul Moore Absent: Mike Paiewonsky and Ryan Sloan Staff present: Eric Devlin Ms. Murphy opened the Remote public meeting at 7:40pm and read the Remote meeting statement below. Pursuant to Governor Baker’s March 12, 2020 Order Suspending Certain Provisions of the Open Meeting Law, G.L. c. 30A, §18, and the Governor’s March 15, 2020 Order imposing strict limitation on the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Melrose Conservation Commission will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information and the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and/or parties with a right and/or requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the City of Melrose’s website, at www.cityofmelrose.org. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time, or in the event that we are unable to do so, we will post on the mmtv3.org website an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. All Votes will be recorded via roll call votes. There has been an extension to permitting deadlines applicable to Commission proceedings pursuant to Chapter 53 of the Acts of 2020. Deadlines extended out 45 days after conclusion of the State of Emergency. Minutes- Motion by Mr. Doucette to approve the minutes from April 16, 2020, as amended. Mr. Weieneth seconded the motion. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Kate Hickey – yes, Paul Moore – yes, Susan Murphy – yes, Aaron Weieneth – yes 5-0 in favor. Continued Public Hearing: 217-0209 Notice of Intent Lot 1 Maple Terrace - Ben Minnix (engineer Eaglebrook Engineering), Jay Bradley (applicant/owner), Nancy Bradley, Richard Mede (Medford Survey). Ms. Murphy conducted a roadside inspection of the site, several other members visited the site individually sine the last meeting. Mr. Bradley (owner) installed stakes to mark out to clarify the proposed driveway location. Commission questions were answered by Mr. Minnix (Engineer for the project).Mr. Doucette- Site visit very useful, isolated land subject flooding question answered by the existing culvert, not that type of resource area. Driveway configuration makes sense, only place it could go. Question on the existing plastic cover in proposed driveway, what is there? Mr. Minnix-Plastic cover is for the existing sewage pump chamber from 20 Maple Terrace. That pump chamber is to remain and add a new pump chamber for the new lot. Mr. Weieneth- Site visit was very helpful to explain proposed driveway configuration vs 2d plan. Ms. Hickey- unable to visit site, comments from other commissioners useful. Mr. Moore- Visited site, Maple Terrace is a private way currently, question on maintenance of roadway responsibility. Shared driveway issue mentioned at last meeting, homeowner association needed if shared responsibility for road maintenance vs a shared driveway? Jay Bradley- Melrose plows the street, Malden shares some of the responsibility for area too. Melrose collects trash from street. No homeowner association required as far as known. Ms. Murphy-Agrees with other Commissioners that site visit helped illustrate why plan was set up as proposed. Public comment-No comments Waiver of the 20 foot no construction zone required for driveway, no other special conditions required Motion by Ms. Murphy to grant a waiver from the 20 foot no construction zone requirement for access due to the characteristics of the site. Mr. Doucette seconded the motion. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Kate Hickey – yes, Paul Moore – yes, Susan Murphy – yes, Aaron Weieneth – yes 5-0 in favor – Unanimous Motion by Ms. Murphy to issue an Order of Conditions for this project as submitted with standard special conditions. Mr. Weieneth seconded the motion. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Kate Hickey – yes, Paul Moore – yes, Susan Murphy – yes, Aaron Weieneth – yes 5-0 in favor – Unanimous Staff is still working on getting the signature issue resolved to satisfy both Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection electronic signature requirements and the South Middlesex Registry of Deeds physical signature requirement. 217-0208 Notice of Intent 0 Swains Pond Ave/Hillside Park - The required quorum was not present from the Commission to hold the public hearing. The City of Melrose has not adopted the rules to allow a member to miss a meeting and be included in the quorum on a subsequent meeting. One member that was required for the 4 members of the required quorum was not present to legally hold the hearing. May 21 will be the next meeting date that this item will need to be continued to. Mr. Williams – We’d be happy to answer any questions from the Commission via email in addition to the peer review comments before the next meeting. Ms. Murphy- Noted a design storm question that was raised in the peer review comments. Mr. Williams- Response to peer review comments should be in soon, meeting on the 21 should be very productive Motion by Ms. Murphy to continue the hearing to the May 21 meeting at 7:35 pm. Mr. Doucette seconded the motion. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Kate Hickey – yes, Paul Moore – yes, Susan Murphy – yes, Aaron Weieneth – yes 5-0 in favor - Unanimous Discussion: Certificate of Compliance (217-0147) – re-issue for 20 Maple terrace – Since Commission was already visiting the area for the adjacent property, it was useful to see the site as well. Ms. Murphy was monitoring construction when it was originally done long ago. Ms. Murphy didn’t observe anything that stood out as not being in compliance. Mr. Weieneth - no questions, site visit looked fine, old notes circulated by agent recommended issuance of a certificate of compliance. Mr. Doucette - site looks fine Motion by Ms. Murphy to issue a Certificate of Compliance for 217-0147 20 Maple Terrace, Seconded by Mr. Doucette. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Kate Hickey – yes, Paul Moore – yes, Susan Murphy – yes, Aaron Weieneth – yes 5-0 in favor – Unanimous 2020 ponds treatment proposal approval – Authorized initial treatment items at last meeting, no word from City on budgeting process for coming fiscal year. Prioritize contract for formal approval on each item before it is conducted by the pond company until we have a budget in place. Not enough in current budget to fund the algaecide treatment. Additional $1,200 Move this to the May 21 meeting to see if any progress is made on budget. Leave the contract as is until then. New/Old Business- Open Space projects- Ellen Katz has been going to open space parcels recently, she had some thoughts on the need to better mark some of the trail heads. Ryan Williams- Ped/Bike Committee commented on the City wayfinding grant ($75,000 grant to City) for mostly signage and public art. Small group think signs should point to conservation areas in addition to some other locations. Survey for input from public on where signs should direct people around the City to various places. Public meeting coming up for wayfinding committee, lots of responses already received (over 300 responses so far). All members of the Commission should fill out the survey. Trail stewards program included trail markers so it could connect to that as well for trail blazes. The next scheduled meeting will be Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 7:30 PM. Quorum issue- Mr. Doucette suggested that the quorum requirement rule be considered by the City at some point in the future to avoid the issue from earlier in this meeting. Ms. Murphy stated that it is something that the City would need to adopt City wide, it cannot be only adopted for the Commission. Motion by Ms. Murphy to adjourn. Mr. Doucette seconded the motion and it was voted 5-0 in favor. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Kate Hickey – yes, Paul Moore – yes, Susan Murphy – yes, Aaron Weieneth – yes 5-0 in favor – Unanimous Adjourn 8:25PM adjourn ____________________________ _________________ Approved Date Pursuant to the ‘Open Meeting Law, ‘ G.L. 39, 23B, the approval of these minutes by the Commission constitutes a certification of the date, time and place of the meeting, the members present and absent, and the actions taken at the meeting. Any other description of statements made by any person, or the summary of the discussion of any matter, is included for the purpose of context only, and no certification, express or implied, is made by the Commission as to the completeness or accuracy of such statements.
Transcript
▶ 0:00 The order imposing strict limitation on the number of people that may gather in one place. This meeting of the Melrose Conservation Commission will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information and the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and or parties with a right and or requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the City of Melrose's website at www.cityofmelrose.org. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time, or in the event that we are unable to do so, we will post on the MMTV3.org website
▶ 0:42 an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. And all votes will be recorded via roll call votes, and just to point out, there has been an extension to all permitting death deadlines applicable to Commission proceedings pursuant to chapter 53 of the acts of 2020 that extends out 45 days after the conclusion of the state of emergency so with that statement being read we'll come to our agenda the first item is to approve the minutes from April 16 2020 I just emailed you some edits right before this meeting but they're they're mostly sort of formatting and kind of filling in a little bit of how the conversation went um has anybody else had an opportunity to review the minutes or
▶ 1:38 make comments i reviewed the minutes i didn't have any specific edits but i trust any corrections you passed on would be fine if they aren't substantive would you like to make a motion to approve the time motion truth the minute as amended do you have a second second okay we'll need a roll call vote on this so eric if you could read the role uh richard you said yes kate hickey yes paul more yes yes minutes are approved next on our agenda is the notice of intent for file number two one seven dash zero two oh nine lot one maple terrace filed by Eagle Brook engineering and survey for construction of a new single-family family dwelling driveway and stormwater infiltration system this was continued
▶ 3:08 from our last meeting I think our primary aim was to conduct a site visit so we had some actual physical site context for this so I I went I did that but didn't call the applicant I did it more for sort of from the roadways I did it in the rain and I fit and I've been out to that area quite a few times was Is there anything that the applicant wanted to share with us before we go to questions from the commission or comments arising out of that site visit? That's me, Jay. I don't think so. You weren't by there. You probably saw where I staked it off so you could get kind of a general idea of the driveway. Okay. And so your other members also just briefly contacted me and they didn't need my assistance
▶ 3:58 either. They could see it. I'm assuming this meeting is all about that driveway being away from the information stream, so I don't think there's anything more that I could add that Ben can't speak to, because I know there were some questions from your commission, and I know he's kind of already, I'll let Ben handle that. All right, Ben, is there anything you want to share with us before we talk about sort of the results of the site visit? it? I don't think so. I think it'd just be easiest to answer whatever questions you have. All right. So were people able to get out there, and do you have any questions or comments after seeing it? This is Aaron Wynette. I made it up to the site today. I had
▶ 4:52 not been to that site before. It predated my time on the commission for the previous filing for 20 April Terrace. So basically, just in front of me of the site conditions, it's very helpful to see things in real life as opposed to a 2d map so it's very apparent that you know the constrictions or you know constraints of the of where they're trying to put the driveway um i didn't have any specific questions resulting from my site visit but i just helped help kind of justify in my mind why it's lined up how it is the other site constraints as well so uh no no further questions from me at this time richard did you have a chance to go out there and did you have any thoughts on it after that yes i did go out to see the site
▶ 5:48 and uh it made the finally made a lot more sense to me when i saw it um i was wondering during the hearing a few weeks ago if the wetland could be an isolated land subject to flooding but it it could never be that because there's a culvert in the bottom of it so it'll always drain out so the wetland uh associated with the stream in the front of the property is is it is what it is uh and also the location of the driveway makes sense to me now it's really the only place it could go um the only question i had is as you pull in right where the new driveway would be there's uh some something in the ground it's sort of uh green plastic sort of manhole cover what you know what's there and is that relate to the future construction this is cheap but then
▶ 6:42 you can probably do that better than me I'll let that handle it has to do with the sewer this has been can you see my screen yes okay so there's what you saw where the manual covers for this existing pump chamber and last time we discussed that a pump chamber for the existing house at 20 Maple Terrace so we do not want to move that pump chamber we want to keep that in its place but run the new gravity service to it and then a new force main from that pump chamber in its existing location as well as the new pump chamber the new dwelling that is also a factor in where the driveway is located and why we have this retaining wall right here and the water service where it is okay I can see it on the on the plans now so I have no further questions I have no
▶ 7:43 problem with the file I think some of the confusion may have been before we get out I think you were provided a scan of a scan which is always a little harder to read than what's in front of me now okay and then Kate were you able to go out and did you have any questions or comments no unfortunately I was not able to go out but it's good to hear that input from Richard and Aaron from their site visit and Paul more any other thoughts on this yeah I was able to go out and visit the site actually it was kind of a nice break it was a really nice day out so I probably lingered there a little longer than I needed to just enjoy it there's some turkeys out there but one of the things I noticed and and maybe not necessarily specific to the site but just on the way out there um maple terrace is
▶ 8:45 marked as a private way um but on all the on the plans it's listed here as being a public way if i'm reading the plans correctly so i was just wondering um if you can clarify who's responsible for maintaining that roadway um this is jay again i i i can only tell you my experience from living out there because i'm in the neighborhood that melrose does plow all of that when when it snows you mean and they kind of share with malden because we're on the line but i mean i i believe at the end of the day melrose trucks run through there uh they do pick up the trash at the end of street there as well so again this is just from me living there and seeing you know the vehicles show up that's probably all i can add to that okay the reason the reason i'm asking is i know one of
▶ 9:46 the things we we asked last week was about the possibility of having a shared driveway to get around some of the the cramped space there and i know one of the objections to that was um it didn't want to set up a an hoa or some sort of shared responsibility for that and my question is is there going to need to be a some sort of an hoa anyway just to cover maintenance of that street and if that was the case then you know covering 20 feet of shared driveway is probably bleeds to the concern so i was just curious about that yeah i don't know i i don't believe that we have any shared responsibility as far as the street goes none of the other people who live on maple terrace do and make uh melrose has been you know handles the trash and the snow removal
▶ 10:37 there um and they'll and and the lot anyway that that we're going to be putting the house on is not part of that other one with that driveway um well i i i'm sorry we're talking about the lot that's adjacent to 20 maple terrace correct that's right next to the existing driveway yeah maybe i misunderstood your question what was it oh well when we when we met last time um i forget who it was originally but someone brought up the idea of potentially sharing the existing driveway between the new construction and the existing property on 20 maple terrace and if i recall correctly one of the objections to that was you know you didn't want to go about having to deal with uh homeowner's association or or something that would cover the shared
▶ 11:35 responsibility and my question is if there's going to be a shared responsibility anyway for the maintenance of maple terrace then what's an extra 15 or 20 feet for a driveway right yeah no so my understanding is there's not any shared responsibility for for maple terrace melrose takes care of that completely yeah then I would be curious to know why it's listed as a private way like that I couldn't answer you I've done and I live on Rudolf Street and actually my property cuts through a little tiny piece of Melrose, and my property abuts the conservation across from this site, and, you know, down in that drain. And I've been up here for about 15 years, and Rudolf Street was also marked as a private way in Malden. And the city of Malden is Rudolf Street,
▶ 12:38 right down, they often go all the way to Maple Terrace, but for all intents and purposes, is they maintain it to the end of Rudolf Street. Then the city of Melrose maintains Maple Terrace with trash and plowing all the way up to 20 Maple Terrace that exist there now. They actually push it off slightly past the Melrose area that lands, so I think. So the street is maintained by the city of Moor. Thank you, and it is not uncommon for the city to maintain private ways, but can I remind everybody if you're not actually speaking to mute your microphone because we are getting a lot of feedback. Okay, did you have anything else, Paul? No, that's it for right now, thank you. Okay, and I'll just add, I agree with Richard and Aaron
▶ 13:49 who are out there that being out there, could see why the plan was set up that the way that it is um and so it made a lot more sense um it does anyone from the commission want to cover anything else before we see if there's any members of the public who would like to ask a question or make a comment on this matter okay not hearing anything i will um open it up for any members of the public are they unmuted Eric so that they can speak up if they would choose to choose to not right now can you do that and then they can say if they want to speak on this one are they unmuted now so you said they're all unmuted if anyone who is a member of the public attending would like to ask a question or comment on
▶ 14:51 this matter if you want to speak up now tell us your name and your address okay hearing none close a public comment period so I think having seen it my impression from what everyone's saying is that we're comfortable with how the plan would be this will require a waiver construction zone requirements that that's correct so we need in addition we'll make a specific vote on a waiver for that requirement are there any other concerns things people would like specific things people would like to see in an order of conditions for this aside from our usual special conditions okay so first thing I would ask for I will make a motion that we grant a waiver for this project from the requirements for a
▶ 16:08 20-foot no construction upper from the edge of the wetland due to the characteristics of the access to this site can I have a second to that motion second okay we'll need a roll call vote on that Eric yes yes Paul? Yes. Susan? Yes. Aaron? Yes. Great. OK. And then with that, I'll make a motion that we issue an order of conditions for this project as submitted with our usual special conditions appended. Do I have a second to that motion? Second. All right, we'll need a roll call vote on that as well. Eric, take it away. Richard? Yes. Kate? Yes. Paul? Yes. Yes. Aaron? Yes. All right. So this matter is concluded. We are working out our signature issues because the DEP and the registry are requiring different things, and we're having a little trouble getting what we need out of the city clerk.
▶ 17:56 So Eric will keep you posted as to when you're actually going to get this. All right, Eric. Is that fair? Yeah. It looks promising that Monday afternoon-ish I should be able to get the form notarized to get this thing moving. Okay. All right. Because all our ones from last meeting are held up as well. All right. Well, thank you very much. And we'll move on to our next member. This is Jay. Susan and the rest of the board, thank you. So I'll just hear from Eric and we'll logistically figure out how to get this recorded at the deed at the registry but we're good to go at this point all right well i appreciate everybody and there's filing with the registry and all um yeah but barring all that okay i appreciate
▶ 18:50 everybody doing these zoom meetings given the situation thanks a lot all right thank you all right bye-bye all right the next item on our agenda is the notice of intent for swains pond have Realty Trust but we do not have a quorum for it at this point because we do not have Michael Pylonski no response from him Eric nope nothing calling him one more time and I I did email him Susan I didn't get a response from the email either I know he had trouble last time he had a computer phone but he thought it was gonna be resolved by this meeting Susan sorry to interrupt could you explain the quorum issue please we Melrose does hasn't adopted the rules where your people who've missed the meeting can catch up and and it's our
▶ 20:09 quorum we need four people for a quorum we need the majority of the Commission there. So the four members who were at the initial hearing were myself, Kate Hickey, Aaron Wyness, and Michael Piwanski. And he is has not joined the meeting now. So without him, we don't have a quorum because we need a minimum of four. So if we start with four, we need the same four to keep showing up. And we haven't noticed hasn't adopted the provisions of state law that allow you to have people catch up on the proceedings. so right now without him we can't actually formally hold the hearing okay thank you for that so when is your next meeting uh we normally would have a meeting on the 21st um eric is there any have we talked about scheduling
▶ 21:22 anything or no i'm the 21st would be our next normal meeting and then after that um you know you're looking at june yeah we actually were only doing it today to accommodate you guys and but now you're really kind of stuck um we have much choice here we have to continue it No that's fine as long as we can be on the 21st and I guess I don't know if there's any way if there are questions that that can be circulated we've been answering questions through the planning board and posting things to the website if there are specific questions that we can get answered that are in addition to the peer review we'd be happy to do that so that on the 21st we can be productive yeah I'll note that we were going to have to continue it anyway
▶ 22:25 because we wanted to have that peer review process completed I think and have the peer reviewer so we were going to have to put it off so you're not you know actually losing time in terms of when this could possibly be approved I think one one thing that came to my attention when I was reviewing those materials was about the design storm because I know the city had requested use of a different design storm which is something that we but I don't know if this is what the city is going to be requesting that but I didn't want there to be some impression that we didn't want their design storm so certainly happy for the city to choose a different design storm I think we're waiting we're waiting for that peer review process to go forward.
▶ 23:21 So hopefully by the 21st, we'll have their material back and we can have the peer reviewer appear at the meeting as well. Okay, my understanding is that the peer review and Murrow's DPW is gonna have their, we'll have had a chance to review and respond to our response tomorrow. So I think that the 21st will be very productive. We'll hopefully have everything ironed out in both of those letters by then. Okay, so I apologize for this. So I think we're going to have to continue this to the May 21st meeting. So I'm going to make a motion that we continue The notice of intent for Zero Swains Pond Avenue Realty Trust to May 21st at 7.35 p.m. Can I have a second? Second. Any questions from the applicant or anyone about this before we go ahead?
▶ 24:38 Any concerns? No, I think we understand. Okay. Thank you very much. So, Eric, we'll need a roll call vote on that. yes yes yes yes Aaron yes right again sorry about that and we'll see you on the May 21st and we will make sure we've resolved mr. Pawlowski's issues with getting into these meetings thank you very much thank you all right next our agenda is the certificate of compliance reissuance for 20 Maple Terrace it was good to go out there and remind myself of what that all looked like it turns out I have no memory of this but it turns out I think I was actually the one kind of at the end monitoring the construction back in 2005 because I found an old email about it and I still have no memory about it of it but I know
▶ 26:00 they were they tore down the old house put up a new house and put in the sewer line the reason I wanted to put it off was just in case we went out there and it looked like they've done something completely different since then and you know we didn't want us to issue a certificate of compliance without at least ground-truthing it and making sure it doesn't look completely different so I did not actually go on the property but it does it nothing struck me as a problem and and it looks like I remembered it as well but did you have any concerns or anything any thoughts about after going out there Richard or Aaron this is Aaron my only noteworthy thing was I did see a turkey so that was that was fun but yeah it looked from the plans that Eric circulated it seemed to be
▶ 26:52 as it was proposed and I think Eric circulated some old notes where there was a recommendation to issue an order yeah so I mean I had no questions at this point and now you Richard any thoughts on it you're good with it no looks fine to me and I'll make a motion that we issue a certificate of compliance in matter 217-147 420 maple terrace uh do i have a second and then eric will need a roll call vote on that Richard? Yes. Kate? Yes. Paul? Yes. Susan? Yes. Erin? Yes. All right, we're flying through. I know. All right, so the next thing on the agenda is discussion for the 2020 ponds treatment. so we authorized them to go forward with the preliminaries early season stuff that um that we needed to get started on that we actually have funds for in this year's budget have we heard
▶ 28:13 anything about what they're going to do about budgets i know the school committee has been pinching forwards but how about the rest of the city eric uh no word on that yet they last thing i heard was the auditor's department just wanted us to give us give them an idea about you know we had any deficits that we were expecting already on things we'd spent but nothing else okay well i guess we're meeting on the 21st so i don't know how we're gonna go forward with this it it's never gone this late where we haven't even had a budget submittal um uh i think probably what i'd be inclined to do is to prioritize things in the contract and if we don't have a firmer word we'll have it set up before we've had it set up that we say
▶ 29:10 you know we're signing the contract but it's contingent upon funding i think we'd probably set it up of like that they would need formal approval for each item before they go out and do it um until we have a budget uh in place um i think uh maybe we can do that at the may 21st meeting do you do you want to take a crack eric at sort of figuring out what our priorities are in terms of if we had to cut something uh i mean you want one of us to look at it i know that we uh we set the we set it up so that it's good to go already on the alum treatment you know that that's going to happen because we we already had funding for that but everything else i had them break out as an add-on item that you know it's it's just the new we'd have to sign off
▶ 30:01 sign off on them individually as they came out i think similar to how we did the uh herbicide treatment last year where it was just a another add-on thing yeah i think once we get the budget i'd hate to be in a position where we have to actually have a meeting and a vote every time oh i see you know you know so but so so So we may be able to, all right, but until then we can move forward as in that way. But if we do know what our budget is and we wanna, we can just approve everything we're gonna do as is. Do you think they need to know anything? Is there anything that they would be wanting to do that we would need to tell them on May 21st or, Because otherwise, we're going to be getting into the June meeting.
▶ 30:59 The only thing that they would want to do before then was the algaecide treatment that we would usually have done. When does that usually happen? It's usually when school is still happening. Is that it? Yeah, they usually do that before they do the alum, but they've been doing the alum later than they really should be. Right. So, like, it would typically happen, like, at the end of May for the algaecide treatment, and then the alum was, like, the first week of June. Okay. Mm-hmm. How much is the algaecide treatment? That was, like, another $1,800, something like that. I don't have the contract open in front of me here. Mm-hmm. the attendees I think people are talking maybe that was Mike John a text right
▶ 32:25 there I thought maybe it was Mike just then I think in any case why don't we wait till the May 21st meeting and see if we have more word on how the budget's gonna proceed no idea what they're gonna do with the city budget hmm And I'm not sure that like this kind of contractor services wouldn't be something that they'd really be looking at, so. The algaecide was $1200, I was looking at it now. And then the herbicide treatment that they did, they have it scheduled for June if we were to do it. That's another $1220. We don't have enough rent now to do the algaecide, do we, after this, the alum and the permitting part? no we'd be short like not by much but we'd be short does anyone have anyone disagree I'm just concerned about the city budget this year so okay and we're
▶ 34:08 if we're meeting in two weeks hopefully we'll have some some idea by then because I know they need to start thinking about it so we'll just leave it it is for now. On the open space type stuff though, the thing that I wanted to mention is that I did, I got an email from Ellen Katz about, she was doing some of this cleanup stuff and going to conservation land trails and she had some thoughts on the marking the trail heads a little better she had trouble finding stuff and she I think the ped bike committee is interested in working with us on it and I know there's that I don't know much about it this way finding process does anyone is anyone involved in that yeah Susan this is Ryan Williams I'm I'm on the fringes of that if you want me to talk a little bit
▶ 35:10 Ryan Williams: Yeah, sure, why don't you tell us about that and how that would connect to us. Actually the PedBike Committee meeting was last night and we were talking about it because our chair is on the committee for the wayfinding grant. The city got $75,000 in an earmark to do this placemaking and wayfinding project and it's probably going to be mostly signage and public art. And there's a small group of us within the group that feel like it would be good to have these locations point not just to the business and sports districts, but also point to some of the conservation areas. And so there's a survey that the city sent out that you might have seen Martha sent it, and I can share it with you all, too, via email.
▶ 35:55 Ryan Williams: It's open until the 14th, where everybody gets to chime in and say where they would want this to connect, but you all also have access to me, or I can share Jonah's email with you. the committee he can directly provide input i think the idea was just that the conservation spaces should be included in this effort to direct people through the city okay so so our role so we could do participate in this survey there's some sort of public meeting coming up is that right yeah there is going to be um i think so and i have the specific details in an email i can forward you all that is that going to be something where they're taking comments at that or is it sort of a presentation of what the thing is and not interact.
▶ 36:47 They'll definitely, yeah they'll definitely be taking comments at that. I've heard as of last night they had like 300 responses to the survey which is a lot of responses in my experience working on this stuff. So I think that tomorrow or the later meeting will definitely be a good opportunity to collaborate, yeah. Is there anyone on the commission who would like to sort of you know follow it for us and and spearhead any response that the commission should should do i think we should all fill out the survey but if someone wants to kind of be the conservation commission voice or something on it volunteers yeah i nominate all right i'll try i nominate mine all right um all right i will i i was going to try and attend that meeting so i'll do that but
▶ 37:47 Ryan Williams: why don't we all try to fill out the survey and then we'll try and keep tabs on how this connected is there anything else we should be thinking about at this point ryan i think so i i had just mentioned the reason ellen emailed you i'm sure was because we were on the same call and I had mentioned that part of the trail stewards program included you know signage and that was in a way wayfinding and mentioned that we might be able to connect in but how that works especially in light of the city budget whether or not there's any additional funds available for more than just Main Street on wayfinding I don't know. She was also saying that we need to reblaze and and she couldn't find some of the trails although her big complaint was
▶ 38:29 trying to come in from Mount Hood which is not our jurisdiction. I was just going to say, I don't recall seeing the email with the survey link. If someone who has that could forward it or Eric, if you're happy to forward it to Eric and have him send it along to the rest of you. Great, thank you. That'd be great. Thanks. Thanks. I don't think I've seen that survey myself either. So. Get it to me, I'll send it out. I probably got it, but I got, I got some emails. I think I just missed it. All right. anything else we need to discuss anything the attendees are here for that they wanted to raise with us all unmuted unmuted now okay all right any last questions or comments or items before we close this meeting all right I move to
▶ 39:30 close the meeting do I have a second I have a second indicated there was a a process to go about with dealing with this forum issue where if we adopted a particular state law we could have a member do a catch-up I think is the phrase used is that a city council needs to do that the city council needs to it has to go through like the mayor's office in the City Council it's a citywide thing that would apply to all boards and do they oppose it or they just nobody's ever brought it up I I'm not sure I asked Denise Gaffey about it several years ago because I was surprised that they don't want to do it because the Planning Board's I think even worse issues at this than us but I don't know what the whether there's a reason for it or not I didn't really get
▶ 40:43 a good response back then it's like something that they would move to do but I don't know why they haven't it's something we could pursue probably not in the next couple of months but because we could try and get that going because it is this does seem like something that should be good to have yeah I didn't know the process to do that so it's it's maybe it's something we should put in the parking lot and think about at some point yeah yeah it's something that the city would have to adopt citywide by them but there is a process that they can do that okay so I'll second your motion to close the meeting all right do we need a roll call vote to do this can we just close it roll call sign off right
▶ 41:39 is all joy right Richard yes yes yes right with that we are done so we will be back May 21st and we will make sure Mike is here then thank you