Conservation Commission — 2021-03-18
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 March 18, 2021 Present: Richard Doucette, Eugenia Gibbons, Kate Hickey, Jason Jancaitis, Paul Moore, Michael Paiewonsky and Ryan Sloan Absent: Staff present: Eric Devlin Mr. Doucette opened the Remote public meeting at 7:30pm 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. Minutes- Motion to approve the minutes from January 21, 2021 and February 18,2021, as amended by Mr. Doucette. Seconded by Mr. Sloan. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Kate Hickey- yes, Jason Jancaitis- yes, Paul Moore- yes, Michael Paiewonsky- yes and Ryan Sloan- yes 7-0 in favor. Public Hearing: Request for Determination of Applicability – 345 Swains Pond Ave Steven Saraceno of Saraceno Construction, Contractor for the Costellos (applicant) was present. Mr. Saraceno described the proposed work. Property located on 345 Swains Pond Ave, stone border at the far east side, adjacent to the rear property line. A wetland area exists on the down gradient side of the stone border and a stream on the property south side that goes underground into a culvert along the right property line. Applicant proposes to construct an approximately 8 foot by 16 foot deck with access east side rear of the dwelling. Hand digging at base of the stair area and three main support posts. The main support posts will require excavation by machine (small skid steer e.g. bobcat). Machine access on the left side of the property with no disturbance closer than 26 feet to a jurisdictional area. A row of staked hay bales will be installed up gradient of the 20 foot no construction line and maintained for the duration of the project. The bulk of all construction materials will be stored in the driveway area in front of the home. All disturbed areas will be loamed and seeded after construction. Mr. Doucette asked for the expected construction start time. Mr. Saraceno – A few items remain to complete inside the home, the deck still needs to receive a building permit, so this portion of the project is anticipated to begin in late April/early May. Motion by Mr. Doucette to issue a Negative 3 Determination with the standard Erosion controls conditions. Second by Ms. Hickey. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Kate Hickey- yes, Jason Jancaitis- yes, Paul Moore- yes, Michael Paiewonsky- yes and Ryan Sloan- yes 7-0 in favor. Certificate of Compliance- 10 West Street Staff stated that revised plans had been submitted by the applicant with clarification on the areas of pre-existing riprap and new added riprap on the property. Mr. Doucette stated that approved plan didn’t have enough detail on this area given the steep slope and existing boulders. Initial pre-construction photos of site depict thick vegetation cover of the yard in this area. Motion by Mr. Doucette to issue a Certificate of Compliance. Ms. Gibbons seconded the motion. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Kate Hickey- yes, Jason Jancaitis- yes, Paul Moore- yes, Michael Paiewonsky- yes and Ryan Sloan- yes 7-0 in favor. Order of Conditions – 357 Porter Street Mr. Doucette explained that the Public hearing was closed at the prior meeting. Updated plans submitted showing the vernal pool off the rear of the property. Staff shared a draft copy of the Special Conditions for Commission review, one outstanding item for consideration was specific language for undeveloped portion of the yard to protect the vernal pool. Specific boundary defined for no further disturbance in perpetuity as the retaining wall that is just outside of the 20 foot no construction line. Staff will need to confirm that the retaining wall, once constructed is in the correct location. Revised plan dated 1-27-2021 add vernal pool is the approved plan. Mr. Sullivan confirmed that the revised plan was dated 1-27-2021 for the record. Construction work expected to begin after demo work on the existing structure. Staff reminded applicant about the 10 day appeal period and Mr. Doucette stated that staff must inspect erosion controls before any earthmoving begins on site. Motion by Mr. Doucette to issue an Order of Conditions for 217-0212 357 Porter Street with the special conditions that were discussed. Second by Mr. Paiewonsky. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Kate Hickey- yes, Jason Jancaitis- yes, Paul Moore- yes, Michael Paiewonsky- yes and Ryan Sloan- yes 7-0 in favor. Discussion: 77-79 Messenger Court LSP letter- This item was continued to the April 15 meeting. The applicant’s representative will be present to explain the plan. Staff has received two letters from the neighbors expressing concerns about the property. Mr. Doucette explained some of the history of the project site to the two new members. New/Old Business items Trail memorial – Flagg Acres Staff spoke with Ms. Samson prior to the meeting. She expects to have more details by the April 15 meeting. Trail Cleanup event - Mr. Sloan asked when the Commission Spring cleanup date was. Possible opportunity for Commission members and members of the family for the trail memorial bench look at the site together. Staff stated that the date hadn’t been set yet, typically at some point in April or May. City wide cleanup with Keep Melrose Beautiful is planned for Earth week, April 24. Mr. Moore stated that the turn out for the last cleanup with Keep Melrose Beautiful was much better than we have gotten in the past. Staff will contact Keep Melrose Beautiful and coordinate with them for our cleanup day to be combined with their event. Event information will be shared on the Conservation Commission Facebook page by Mr. Paiewonsky. Trail Stewards are doing a pretty good job at keeping the trash levels on the trails down. Meeting point will be at the Flagg Acres parking area. Ell Pond Water Chestnut update – Mr. Sloan stated that the memo was sent to the Mayor’s Office and the City Auditor’s office. Patrick Prendergast in the Mayor’s office confirmed that he received it. Staff has spoken with Solitude lake management and they have stated that there is an area that looks like suitable access could be gained without the crane. Latest budget talks were for items over $50,000, so this item doesn’t look like it came up yet. $27,500 would be the line item for this. Staff to check in with Mayor’s office to get another update on the status. Staff noted that Patrick is leaving the Mayor’s office soon. Budgeting and contract needs to be organized soon. Treatment needs to be done late July/Early August. Update note to Mayor’s office should stress the timing sensitivity component for treatment this year. Since this treatment program will be ongoing for several years, it should be built in as a standard line item on future contracts/proposals. Order of Conditions will be necessary for this treatment as well from DPW or Parks since Parks owns the pond. Property owner should be the one to submit the NOI application. Potential new Open Space Acquisition- Staff Stated that City Council approved the Killam land donation to the Commission. Staff will send a map to the members to show the new area and that this gives the Commission an opportunity to reconnect the trail there. Staff suggested another letter of support for some other parcels that two other property owners have indicated an interest in selling to the City at the assessed value for conservation purposes. The donated parcel is now public open space and it should be updated on MassGIS layer as well to reflect that it is public, protected open space. Staff will send map of the potential new properties to the Commission members for review and they can individually go visit the sites to assess the areas and figure out where to go forward from there. The next scheduled meeting will be Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 7:30 PM. Motion by Mr. Doucette to adjourn. Mr. Paiewonsky seconded the motion and it was voted 7-0 in favor. Adjourn 8:30PM 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 For 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 hand requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the City of Melrose website. 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 proceedings in real time or in the event that we are unable to do. So. We'll post on the or website. An audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting.
▶ 0:44 The public and find online access instructions to view this meeting at. W, W, W, seeded metalers dot org remote dash meetings. All application materials can be viewed at a very long website that I will not read. We've got a couple of minutes to approve. January 21st and February 18th, I looked at them. I had no comments. Did anybody have any comments on the minutes? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of January 21st and February 18th. Is there a 2nd. 2nd, Eric will now. Take the vote Richard. Yes. Virginia yes. Kate yes, Jason. Yes, yes. Mike, Brian. Yes. All right, that's everyone. Okay. The next item is a request for a determination. For a deck submitted by Thomas and D and Costello 345 swings pond out construction of 8 by 16 decades into an existing closed porch.
▶ 2:10 Within a 100 feet of land, do we have the proponent here? Costello's I spoke with the Steve who's accepted the invitation. I don't see him here yet. Is I'm not sure what are you here for? David? Is it David McLaughlin here is I'm not sure. Are you here for this? No, I'm not okay. All right. There's nobody here for it right now. I guess. Okay. I guess we'll skip past it for now. Let's see continued request for a certificate of compliance for 10 West street. Do we have anybody here for West street? Anyone here for that? You did have the updated plan that was submitted to the clarification on the rep, rep, the new rep versus the pre, existing. Did everyone get a copy of that? Yeah, and the mail came today, so that's good.
▶ 3:25 So, they have clarified the rep rap. And I think my impression of what happened is that the builder didn't. move a bunch of rocks over the property boundary. I think the rocks were always there. And what we had was, I think, an insufficiently detailed plan that we approved. There was a steep slope in the backyard and the people who did the drawing didn't call out the boulders in the backyard. It just looked like a really steep slope. So when we approved it and the builder went out to put the silt fence in, they just found these ginormous boulders and had to put the silt fence lower than they would have otherwise. So I think it is what it is. I don't have the impression that they built further
▶ 4:16 than they should have. I think that was the existing condition, but there's no way to know for sure, but that's my impression. Did anybody have any thoughts on that after looking at the plan or any more ideas that you may have? No, I just, I would just add, thank you, Eric, for going back out and taking a few more pictures. Richard, I think you're right. It's, you know, sort of was an existing situation and just wasn't, was under a lot of growth at the original time. It was kind of astounding how jungly it was with the, with the vines and all. Yeah, so. I'll make a motion to issue these types of clients for. 10 West street is there a 2nd. And Eric will now take the book. Okay, Richard. Yes, Virginia.
▶ 5:22 Yes, Kate. Yes, Jason. Yes, Paul. Mike? Yes. Ryan? Yes. Right. That's everyone. Is anybody here yet for 345 Swayne's pond? Yeah, I see Steve Saraceno is here now. Okay, great. Hi, good evening everyone. Yes, I'm here for Swayne's pond. So, if you could describe to us, describe to us what's proposed and what's the existing condition and how the work is done. Sure, 1st of all, for the record, my name is Steven Sarah, you know, I'm with Sarah, you know, construction. We're located at 102 high street, North and over 01845. This evening, I'll be representing the owners of the property, the costello's. In the submittal of this request for determination. Properties located at 345 swain spawn Avenue, which is a public road.
▶ 6:35 10,360 square feet. on the eastern side of the road and it's located in an sra zone it has residences on either side and across the street located on the far east side of the property adjacent to the rear property line currently lies a stone border it's been placed along and or adjacent to the rear property line that border has been there i'd imagine for a number of years i i don't know when it was installed but it looks like it's been there for quite some time on the down gradient side of this row of stones is what appears to be a wetland area and there's also a stream of some sort located on the property's south side it makes its way underground and seems to disappear along the rear section of the right property line we're proposing to construct a deck on this property
▶ 7:26 it's approximately 8 feet by 16 feet it's an access deck along the east side rear of the dwelling adjacent to a section of the home that's currently in place. The disturbance of the area or the earth will include digging as necessary to install three main post supports for the deck. We'll also do some hand digging at the base of the stair area as we have to put in some small supports for the bottom section of the stairs to meet code. The digging of the three main support posts will have to include the use of some sort of a piece of equipment but no larger than a small skid steer or like a bobcat this will be brought into the property on the north side of the property the left side of the property all disturbance will be kept to a minimum nothing
▶ 8:16 will be any closer than 26 feet to a jurisdictional area prior to any work we plan to install a row of state pay bills up gradient and along the entire length of your 20 foot jurisdictional offset line so nothing will pass this line at all the bulk of all decking materials prior to installation will be kept in the property's driveway which is in the front of the home and finally all of the disturbed areas will be properly loomed and seated the hay bale line will be maintained and left in place until these disturbed areas have had an opportunity to reestablish themselves that's pretty much this project um if anybody has any questions i'll open the floor for those questions now so i have no questions any other commission members have
▶ 9:09 questions no questions no that was a very thorough uh overview of the plan thank you welcome the construction will take place uh sometime in the near future uh yes uh we're planning to get the project underway uh sometime in in april um we have several other items to take care of for this customer that are in the home so i'm not sure exactly when we'll get to the deck aspect of it we still need to pull a permit for this deck construction obviously having to get approval from you guys first so i'm gonna say probably not until uh late april early may we won't start on this deck okay one of the standard conditions is the erosion controls and just make sure you contact eric so we can come and look at it before the work starts absolutely so i'll make
▶ 10:12 a motion for a negative determination with the standard erosion control conditions so eric remind me is that a negative three was that the box we usually check negative three is the one with the conditions of any sort So, that's my emotion negative negative 3 with erosion controls. Is there a 2nd. I'll 2nd, that Eric will take the vote. Richard yes, Virginia. Yes, Kate. Yes. Jason yes, Paul. Yeah, Mike. Yes, right? Yes. All right, great. The, um, Eric, will you mail out the determination or do they come to city hall and pick it up? How does that work? I'll put it together on Monday and you can either pick it up there or I'll mail it out. Perfect Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. So next on the agenda is order of conditions for the notice intent 357 quarter street.
▶ 11:31 And we closed the public hearing at the last meeting, we had received a revised plan showing the vernal pool in the backyard. And we, and Eric has drafted some conditions that were emailed out on March 10th. The draft order of conditions. Mentioned the vernal pool, the construction of the home, dry wells, Installation erosion controls, et cetera. So, I think the conditions were fine. I had no comments. Did anybody else have comments on the conditions? This is going much faster than I had planned. Not that I'm complaining. I have no comment. There was still 1 thing that was outstanding on, um. How to add some additional protection for the, um. The area, you know, the undeveloped area for the backyard.
▶ 12:48 You know, uh, I spoke with, um, at the, uh, the other day about it and said that. Maybe we should add a condition just saying that, uh. No, no new structures would be proposed within the lawn area on the back. Like, that would be. In order to keep that area as potential use, you know, to be used by the. Animals for the portal pool, just by saying there'll be no, no further disturbance in the yard. Okay. And that would be a no further disturbance. Let's describe where that would be anywhere about the rear of the home or. Beyond the patio, I think would be fair. Okay, just to give a little bit more of the buffer, but, you know, not to take away the whole yard. Okay. So, we want to say, excuse me, or, you know, you had mentioned structures, but.
▶ 13:47 also like placement of any like yard waste or any material at all oh yeah yeah i mean it's really just you meant but yeah like you know um you could do landscaping you know like planting but no uh no dumping of stuff there i think the the condition said no dumping beyond the retaining wall you might might have to alter that slightly to say no dumping beyond And however we want to describe this boundary line, that's the only thing I'm not 100% on how we should word that and to what to call that line. Yeah, I think the very simple 15-foot buffer zone, the no-disturb, I can't remember what we actually call that, but at least the intent seems very similar. I think the simplest thing would be to use the wall that's at 20 feet.
▶ 14:50 Okay. then there's no there's no disagreement as to where the wall is and I think one thing we need to cut keep an eye on Eric is when when the wall is is in place we need to make sure that it's in the right place so we don't have a situation with the walls off a couple of feet any other ideas for conditions or edits of the proposed conditions no but Richard can you just clarify so you're setting the boundary you said at the wall yeah the wall is that the at the no I guess it's on the plan here it says no no structure line but I think the bylaw refers to it as no no construction zone there's no no disturb within 15 and then a no construction zone within 20 and the wall is just outside that 20-foot zone so
▶ 16:18 Eric if you make any modifications to the special conditions maybe just email them to me before you finalize it because I think what we've seen in the past is you know all the people are on the table right now we're hearing what we're saying but nobody owns a piece of property forever somebody else owns it Later, so it's, it's good to have as much clarity as we can. So. The future owner wants a swimming pool, they realize, you know, this is probably not the house for them. Because they're not going to be putting a pending ground pool in the backyard. So, Eric, that's the. You've got the date of the revised plan in there that cited. 127, because I don't have that revised plan in front of me, but.
▶ 17:19 The 1 I have is the 1223. yeah, because it says advernal pool. Okay. So I'll make a motion. We issue the order conditions for 357 port stream. Is there a 2nd. Okay, so does that count as Richard as the 1st? Yes. Yes, then Eugenia. Yes. Kate yes, Jason. Yes, Paul. Yeah. Mike yes and Ryan. Yes, all right. Great. And can can you folks confirm is 127. 2021, the date of the last revision. It's just all in his role and looking I was scrolling 12721. Yes, great. Thank you. Thank you very much. You could have asked before. So, get in touch with Eric on Monday and you can get the order and you'll have to record it at the registry of deeds. The house construction will start this spring summer. What's, what's the, what's your plan?
▶ 18:58 You're muted. Now they're looking, I think he's looking to demo. Right as soon as he can, and then get underway with construction. Okay, once he gets the order recorded. Okay, make sure you get to sign up with the file number and all that stuff that needs to be done before any work gets done. And. It's very important that Eric sees the erosion control before you start moving any dirt. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you everyone. Keep in mind that there's a 10 day waiting period to the appeal period. So just. you you're basically if you choose to do anything during the time it's at your own risk you know but whether or not right he was to appeal or something like that it's just just a warning
▶ 19:49 just wait for 10 days thank you very much eric thank you you're welcome okay and eric when you're at any point we're out in that neighborhood uh it's worth maybe taking a peek in the vernal pool and see if you see anything squirming around in there. I mean you can't really see caddisflies but if the occasional frog or salamander wanders in there that'd be good to know. I went by there last week just to see when it warmed up if there was any sign of anything starting to happen yet but it was still too early. Yeah. Still frozen over. I know when spring starts because I can hear what sounds like a bunch of tiny little ducks in the woods near my house and when i first heard them many years ago i thought what are those ducks doing in the woods well they're not ducks they're frogs but
▶ 20:55 they sure sound like ducks uh wood frogs they quack sort of so uh if i remember once once i start hearing them here maybe i'll head over there as well just i'm curious because it should be you know it should be late march when things start but if it snows tonight that'll probably slow things down a little bit when it snows tonight when it snows tonight i've already put my shovels away i'm not bringing them out i don't care what happens wait for it to melt on saturday yeah uh messenger court our favorite neighborhood anybody here from messenger court uh that's um we continued that uh you know we we talked about how you never know how this stuff is going to go like last week i thought things were going to go quicker and it ended up being longer this week
▶ 21:54 it's i mean for this month it's the opposite yeah so essentially what it comes down to is then at least two of the neighbors um are worried that there were at least two at least the two new folks were here there's a long sort of history for this lot um back in the 70s uh there was a lot of construction to be brought in in the in the lot and it's a big lot it's big enough for you know three or four houses but it was filled with debris and uh the neighbors don't forget something like that when dump trucks full of debris start filling a lot in your neighborhood and so a few years ago the owner tried to build a multi-family dwelling on it and the neighbors came out and would work and it was probably the most people we've had at a public meeting ever
▶ 22:44 and there was a lot of discussion as to where the where the floodplain is because it in very heavy wet conditions the most of the lot floods and that we never came to agreement on what the floodplain elevation was and ultimately the the proponent withdrew and then months ago a new proponent came with a downsized proposal we again argued for many meetings about where the flood plane was and we finally came to agreement on where the floodplain was and there is room to fit you know one home in the lot but one of our conditions was that uh an lsp or licensed site professional uh would come and do some test fits to see if the debris was contaminated or not so last week we got the proposed plan from the lsp and the two most active neighbors in the
▶ 23:41 neighborhood had some questions about it i think mostly it comes down to they want the the test pits to be deep enough that's what i read so So I think it probably makes sense to have the LSP here at the meeting and the neighbors. It may even be better to have this, you know, this could happen out in the field perhaps, but certainly that was the biggest issue in the end. Once people came to the realization, yeah, I think they can fit one house in there, that the contaminated material was the big issue. And my guess is it's not contaminated, but when you walk around the site, it's piles of debris that they've just been there for 40 years. So it's, you know, it kind of blends in with the jungle at this point, but who knows what was mixed in with it. So it'll be interesting to
▶ 24:33 see what happens. And the neighborhood is, it's a very tight little neighborhood. There's no street to it. It's really sort of a dirt driveway. So it's sort of everybody's backyard and everybody keeps an eye on it. So it'll be very interesting to see how this goes once the test pits start. So, I guess we'll just, we'll just assume that the LSP and the neighbors will be there and hopefully there won't be a lot else because, you know, this, it could take, it could take 5 minutes. It could take 2 hours. It's just hard to say. It was, it was surprising how much discussion there was. And if you ever want to see pictures of the Mother's Day flood, Eric has them in the file that were all submitted by the neighbors.
▶ 25:22 And I don't mean 1 or 2 pictures, there were dozens of pictures, photo albums. Yes, the binder, um, Eric, sorry there was a 2 or 3 inch binder. I thought. Yeah. All right, are you saying they'll be here at the next meeting? Are you suggesting a site visit that this takes place off the site? Richard, I think the neighbors are going to definitely be out on site when the work happens. But I think it would be helpful to have. The LSP here right from the neighbors with the neighbors think. It'd be much more efficient for all of our evenings if they just all took care of themselves on some Saturday afternoon. But I think. You know, if we can fit it in, we can kind of facilitate discussion and. If we're lucky broker a deal between the.
▶ 26:12 The LSP and the neighbors, honestly, Richard, I'm not sure. I mean, I don't feel at all qualified to. Judge whether a hazmat test pit is deep enough or not. I think we're just serving as. A forum for these parties to get together. Somebody here is, you know, has experience in that kind of work. Yeah, my fear is if you read Mr. email, he wants to test it to be, you know, 2025 feet. I think that to me sounds quite excessive. You need a trench box or a really wide pit. I mean, that's just not, that's typically not how it's done. So I think it's- But next to the rail bed too, right? Yeah. Yeah. The order of conditions has been issued and the 10-day waiting period has expired. Yeah. So I'm hoping the LSP can sort of explain
▶ 27:14 I think it's a him, his qualifications and he can hear from the neighbors and then we'll make it clear, hey, we're just here to facilitate a conversation, but you folks can talk again out on the field when the work's being done, but it's not for us at this point to officiate. And it's important too to keep in mind that it all depends on what's actually out there. it's if it's oils or something you know those typically float so they would be shallow things they'd pick up right away if it was a dry cleaner or something there and they had like TCE that chemical tends to sink so that would be something that we need to have a deeper well but you still be able to find traces of it so this first round of testing depending on what they found
▶ 28:06 would then dictate whether or not deeper testing needed to be done or the site appears to be fine and be able to proceed you know as it you know and if we're lucky it's just a lot of brick and concrete because that's what silly you can see on the surface so maybe it's like an LSP I mean sure he's hired by the contractor but he's you know he's licensed just to give his license depends him giving you know a straightforward answer and so if he feels like say a phase two is required then he's going to say that right i think uh stan's opinion back a few at some of the meetings was that it was there was a lot of pete in the area too and so he had questions about sort of even the footings and so i would imagine that he'll bring something up to that effect too to
▶ 29:07 see if that impacts sort of saturation or where things are going so yeah hadn't thought of that it'll it'll it'll be interesting uh so do we have anyone here is the uh bench the flag acres on the agenda i just spoke with her yesterday uh actually just before the other meeting and she said that uh They, she didn't get to actually contacting the landscaper for the bench thing. So. She's working on it, but she expects it definitely to have it by the April meeting. Okay, but the same same location, I think, did you all get the photos that I took of the. The larger area around that site, just that you get a look, there is a little bit of space back behind the rocks. So the bench didn't necessarily need to be exactly on the rock.
▶ 30:08 But it's if you want to have that view of the water, it's pretty tight. Don't really need to be exactly on it. There was 1 spot that was a little bit further up. That was. Looked like it was actually a little pull off from this from the trail that. I don't know if somebody thought that would be a trail, a bench spot or something. I took a picture of that too. I think you can see. Far off in the distance, like, how far away the pitch is from this site. So they're not like, right on top of each other. Eric, what is our spring clean up? We haven't said it yet. I know that, um. Keep beautiful and like the big city. Wide clean up thing is, um, Earth week, April 24th, I think. I wonder if if Mary, or some of the folks in the family would be interested.
▶ 31:11 In participating, it might be a good opportunity to all look at the location together, you know, to. You know, to have them feel sort of connected again to it. You know, by walking around, picking, you know, cleaning up some trails. So, um. Do we want to try to have a, like, same kind of thing we did last year? Should I contact them and see if we can. Kind of link up with it, you know, act as. At least spread information about it, you know, just like the trail. Clean up group, because this is the commissioner as well. Same day. I think that would be a good thing. It was it worked really well last fall when it was tied up with the beautiful turn out was much better than he's ever gotten since I've been doing it. So.
▶ 32:08 So, they have a city wide clean up on April 24th. Is that right? That Saturday after Earth Day. I believe that we should piggyback on that. Yeah, Mike, do you still manage our social media? Hmm, technically. Yeah, so I can, I have to re, figure it out every single time, but yes. What would you like can you can you post. That will be a trail cleaner. I think we just want to send out reminders of a trail cleanup on April 24th. And are there specific. Uh, time and location people are leaving. And we probably said it, I mean, if if we want to focus on a particular, I was actually on that trail near the pond recently and it. It wasn't too bad. I don't know if our trail stewards might be putting our out of out of business, but we could set.
▶ 33:30 I mean, Paul, how did it work in the fall did with several locations that we had, you know, I was it's funny. You mentioned it. I kind of had the same time out when I was walking around looking at those bench sides. So it was actually not too bad in shape and there wasn't really any snow on the ground. So I got a decent look at things now. I mean, all the leaves were down. So who knows what the leaves were hiding? But nothing really jumped out at me. I didn't go hunting. I didn't go to some of the usual. Drinking spots, you know, where there's, there's usually big stashes there, but I would think we could meet at that. You know, an easy place is that little parking lot on swings pond have like, mid morning on the, should we say, 10 a.m. on the 24th or 9 a.m. on the 24th.
▶ 34:19 I think we've used 9 to 12 or something like that is. Time frame, so at the flag acres parking lot or is there a different. Yeah, is that that? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to write it up and send it out just to confirm. I'm not screwing up anything. And then I think Eric letting our trail stewards know too, if they. If they could help spread the word, and maybe if the trail stewards, let us know where else it's needed. We can always peel off some people. Sometimes there's more on the road along along the road itself than there is on the trails. The 1st, the 1st trail cleanup I ever did, I just walked down to the swing to the flag acres parking. Well, it's only about 20 minute walk and I had a big, you know, 30 gallon or whatever contract or trash bag that I was carrying with me.
▶ 35:30 And by the time I got to the parking lot, the bag was full, so I just had to leave the bag in the parking lot and walk back home and get another bag. Okay, so April 24th. The last time I did it, like you said, like you guys were saying, there was hardly any trash out there. And I did a big loop, so maybe we're getting better. Definitely check with the trail stewards in case we need to send people elsewhere. just look at the keep melrose beautiful thing there it looks like 9 a.m is the time that they're using on the 24th okay perfect we'll go 9 to 12. when you post it make sure you uh post link to the trail map too now you're really challenging me yeah you know hey thanks kate all right It's all going on my notes. Okay.
▶ 36:48 Do you want to do you need like a, you're like our social media. We need to give you a title or something to double my current pay. To do this is our influencer. Finally. We should tell the trail stewards we're looking for con-com influencers with that. So do we have any update on Mill Pond Water Chestnut or the… Oh, Ben is here. So we, after the last meeting, we did submit the memo to Patrick so that we could get that out there. I think we said a chaser email or 2 also to make sure it was sort of on his radar and some others. Eric, I don't know if you heard anything back specifically. On the memo itself, nothing specific on the memo did speak to Patrick shortly after you had sent it and. He did confirm that he got it and then I just told him that we also.
▶ 38:10 Sent it over to the auditor's office too, so that they would be aware of it and to. At least not be surprised, you know, when budgeting rounds were being made and they were trying to figure out, you know, how to appropriate money here and there. You know, it does seem like after I spoke to a solitude that. They, they think that that area is going to work, you know, we're not going to need the crane. So that should be. At least beneficial and saving. five thousand dollars a year at least on it that's good and i think finn had was keeping tabs on how things were progressing uh with with the budget committee and their review and had said that everything that was sort of on the docket for discussion was over uh fifty thousand dollars
▶ 39:00 and so we're i think twenty seven and a half so we're well under that um so it wasn't necessarily a line item that folks saw I think the one other positive thing that we saw come of it was Patrick did reach out to folks to set up the next task force meeting and so Eric had looped in some of those that are interested in it and that had constituents from DPW and other areas that that we need you know we think about sort of removal of material you know things that things of that nature so um so we'll probably do to follow back up with patrick eric and see if when that's getting penciled in and if he has a broader update um but yeah that's sort of that's sort of the latest status um i also received a email from patrick just this past week last meeting monday
▶ 39:58 even uh that kind of surprised me it looks like he's um he's going to the state house so it was a his resignation announcement so i'm not sure who the next person is going to be but uh it's i hope that somebody's still going to be pushing forward you know for this We kind of need it. I know that the next LPON Task Force meeting is supposed to be coming up soon and that I think Jay from the Engineering Department was going to be calling people to put it together. So, I told Paul, I gave them the email address for him as well so that both of us can be caught up on it whenever they happen to have it. Yeah, and I've been checking their, their agendas when they post them, but there hasn't been anything on any of their meetings since we met with them last. So.
▶ 41:09 Finn, anything you've heard from from your side or picked up on? The pulse of Melrose. Nada. Yeah. So, Eric, let's follow, I guess we'll follow back up on that email exchange and see if we can. See, if it's maybe we snuck it in, it's small enough, but otherwise. You know, not nothing sort of too meaningful in terms of an update. Just make sure make sure miss Garcia. Is on that email. Okay. Yeah. Brianna is the mayor's. Assistant, I'm not sure what the full title is, but she's the next contact person after Patrick. Great a good idea and remind me Eric is this. Is this something that, you know, we had to have done certain time of the year, like. June or early July to be effective. The harvest needs to be done in late July, early August.
▶ 42:19 So, for it to happen this year, we'd have to sort of get the money. Appropriated, I guess that's the word and for solitude to actually have. A space in their schedule. Yeah. Too bad if it didn't happen this year, the idea of how full their schedule is. I thought you said they're pretty busy, right? They are pretty busy when I spoke to the guy from their mechanical harvester unit. Like, last 2 weeks ago, he said that he felt confident that, you know, if we put in an order for it, he'd be able to get to it in time. So, I mean, that's how it looks then if we wait until May, you know, I don't think that'll be true. Right. Yeah, maybe we should well, let's mention. The sensitivity around timing in the note, just to sort of call attention to it.
▶ 43:28 What's the earliest the funds could potentially be approved? I think they usually do the budget meetings in May. But if we could at least get some sort of. Commitment, you know, beforehand saying that, you know, we have to actually vote to appropriate it then, but it looks like, yes, it's coming through. We could at least have something that. You know, we would typically do our, our budget for our regular treatments. You know, we're always kind of hoping that. Half of the money was going to come next budget round. And I think staying in touch with solitude, just to make, you know, give it, give them confidence that we think it's going to go forward and. Stay on their radar. I mean, I'm sure I'm sure they're used to this situation where.
▶ 44:24 You know, we can't actually 100% commit the funds until later, but. If we're showing confidence, they'll probably keep us on the schedule. Yeah, which is a good point, like, maybe going forward, we should try to get this to be sort of. Part of our standard invoice with solitude standard line item. Because we're going to have to do this for a few years, you know, to really make a dent in it. So, the more we sort of just fold it into. You know, our, our standard numbers, the better so do we have an actual quote from solitude? I mean, that would be a step forward to. We have a formal quote from them that you call. It was a, it wasn't like, it wasn't the proposal thing that we would normally get, but that was a pretty solid number that they gave me saying for this specific site.
▶ 45:24 It would be this much to have this many days on this. With this equipment, and then that was a specific. For that site with the crane, if it was necessary. Like, it wasn't so it's a total park number that they just made up. I don't think there's any harm in asking them for a proposal. And maybe also to build in the schedule what they need in order conditions. Yeah, yeah, we did put that in the memo as well to make sure that, you know. Folks understood, like, or someone would have to put it forward. We'd help them fill it out, but they'd have to bring it. So, we're going to. You're muted Richard. If you're talking to us, I don't recall who was on it in the past. For the was it us or was it parks or for the normal stuff that we do on it was us.
▶ 46:45 For bigger stuff like this, I think it would be. Either or parks. In parks owns the pond, so technically. They should have been doing it right from the beginning since that. We're expecting to be heavily involved with, you know, at least for the onshore component. I think that it would make sense for it to come from them to like it. Either 1, but I don't, I don't think it should necessarily be coming from us. No, there should be the property. Okay. Anything else on that? I think the last thing I have on the agenda is a. Potential open space acquisition, so I think Eric, you had some information about that. Yeah, so I think that it would be beneficial for us to do another 1 of those letter of support things that we did.
▶ 47:57 For the piece of property that we just recently received, which. I don't know if you've all saw that, but, uh, the, the property over by swings bond to have. And kind of way the killing property that city council did approve that. So. It is, um, it is not being transferred over to us. So, we got it so finally now there is. A space that we could try to explore rerouting that trail through to connect the broken. world rock trail and rocky view trail kind of up over the hill there and then back down rather than through that guy's driveway huh what's that can you repeat the address all right yeah it's um when you know the where the driveway kind of bends right over there and i think he was parking the truck at least i think that's what peter had said and one time that the guy's truck
▶ 48:54 is like right right on this like little pull-off spot the property that is across from there that's the hill that's behind the houses on fern street i think that uh that square is uh it's now owned by us i think i sent a picture to richard of the property map before so maybe send that map around at some point there yeah it'd be really nice if we could restore that trail too as um it's it took me probably about 15 minutes of just trying to figure out where the trail was um you know we were following the trail to check out the spots for the bench and all of a sudden we ended up in somebody's driveway and uh we were walking all up and down the driveway trying to find that eventually we just kind of followed the small little not really a creek bed
▶ 50:00 until we found a clearing in the trees and followed it for a little bit and it turned into oh hey here's the trail so um you know if you weren't very determined you could very easily lose that trail which is too bad because it's it's i think one of the better views of the boston skyline that i've seen in melrose it's even better than the stuff over in flag acres i think so it's at the end of first street is that what you said well if you have a map or something that shows i'd be really interested to see the one that's behind uh this road i'm gonna email you over a copy of it now to everybody okay i don't know if you know but like that would probably like on mass gis that should be indicated as open space you know publicly owned open space like i've never i have no idea like
▶ 51:02 what is the process for sort of having that changed well now it's changed if it's you mean open space versus protected wasn't it before private property and now it's open space yeah i think sometimes things that are just vacant get classified as open space and they're not really there's no protection on them they're just privately held vacant lots but now this would be like public space which carries a whole different level of protection totally but i don't know like you know i look at like mass gis all the time um for that layer but how i'm just i guess i'm just curious what's the process for for updating those maps i think mass gis pulls that data from the um if the town has the gis later later themselves they'll pull
▶ 52:02 that data in i see i know that since melrose does have one uh that will be added on to okay for our city one and then i'm sure the best gis one will eventually pull it in as well onto that layer okay it'll take a little while but it'll definitely show up faster on our city map I know Dane will put it on there, you know, as soon as I tell her that it's conservation. Well, if they clearly identify vacantly and privately held, that's just like the flashing red light to developers. Like, go after that. Go after that lot. Yeah, I've definitely had problems with that particular layer in the past that it's often mischaracterized. So, Eric, you said there was a proposal for another piece of land that could use a support letter from us. Is that what.
▶ 53:02 I think I heard yeah, there's a, there are 3 parcels that are over on the. Melrose Maldon line. That are currently privately owned that the. Owner wants to sell to the city for just the assessed value. It, um, I think about 21,000 dollars, something like that total for the 3 of them. Pretty small pieces of property. They about some other property that. Uh, this would essentially remove access to. Then there's another 1 that. Is over on Laurel street and Grove street. Those ones that area, as you know, is like. At least for the Burnett Burnett street side. You know, just flooding problems and I kind of feel like, um. If 1 of those, if any, if any further development onto those lots were to take place.
▶ 54:05 It's, you know, just going to continue to make things worse there. So, if they wanted to, if they wanted to sell it or donate it to preferably donate. I think that we'd be willing to accept it for sure. Depending on what the price is, you know, if. We have no money for it here, but if the. City council wanted to appropriate money for it, you know, we. Are definitely in support of accepting that property as well. This is the property that's owned by the. I think that, um, well, quite a few years ago now, there was a house on Laurel street that they ended up filling too much in their yard and filled into the. Wetland that was on this property that was. You know, it went past their property line, it's built onto a wetland on another person's property.
▶ 55:01 And so we had to have them bring in a consultant and remove from that site. That was the 1st time that I became aware of this property at all. It was like, my crash course in the 1st properties you mentioned the ones you said were on the border of Malden and Melrose. What street are those? Where it's right off of all of them. These are 2 different proposals and they don't have they haven't made a specific. Proposal to the city council is just something that. The families are talking about. Yeah, there's nothing specific yet. I've, uh, I've mentioned it individually to a couple of the city councilors so far, you know, saying that, you know, these, there are these properties that are in your words that.
▶ 55:55 Would be beneficial to go to conservation. But nothing's been formally brought before city council yet. I'm just kind of. Trying to help build the case, so that in the event that it does go there, it at least shows city council could at least see that. Well, the body that would be ultimately accepting the property is in favor of it. I think what would be good for us is. Eric, if you could put, you know, a little bit of information together on the status of the property and a map, and then we can individually go out and visit it at some point in the near future. to get get a feel for it because who knows what interesting stuff we might find yeah i think um when i spoke to the person there about the ones on the malden line he told me an interesting story
▶ 56:50 about uh one of the properties uphill from there the person used to do like lead lead acid battery recording and he used to touch the cores out the back window. Ah the good old days. Yeah you'll never know what you'll find. Yeah and so if you could put a little bit of information together and then people can go visit it and if at some point you think it's it's uh it's right for a letter from us and just let us know uh because it seems that it's it's never it's hard to know exactly what our role would be right now or who we would advocate to if it's not before the city council there's you know there's no action for them to take just yet okay but i think the sort of behind the scenes stuff you're doing is probably the most valuable thing we can
▶ 57:45 do right now to plant the seed in the city councilor's mind and that's all i had on the agenda unless there's another page maybe there is that's all i had okay so our next meeting would be april 15th okay so it's it's early for us it's like the earliest you can get up third thursday uh it's looking like the cleanup april 24th i think is what i heard yeah April 24th will be the Saturday April 24th 9 to 12 I think was the time yeah yeah anybody have anything else Michael's gonna put everything on social media that's right got it all written away someday I'll have to get a Facebook account so I can see this kind of stuff maybe the last guy who knows I had to have my wife explain to me what an influencer was recently this is like a
▶ 59:12 job description what is that was that earlier in this meeting and did you text your wife and say what is what's ryan talking about this is just a couple weeks ago so uh i have nothing more to add so if nobody else does we'll adjourn and we'll see each other uh in a few weeks right what's the date of the next one march excuse me april 15th okay thank you you're adding it to the facebook page michael no i'm adding it yeah calendar and paul we want to see a damn camera by the 15th i don't think it's going to happen lay down my camera here the problem is the stupid computers I'm going to draw a little stick figure on a posted and just stick it right there where you are for the next meeting 1 year old mother can join a zoom call. You can do it. I know. I know. I've got, I've got faith in myself.
▶ 1:00:24 I've got what? 3 weeks now. Yeah. I'll make something happen. Okay. We'll see you next month. Perfect. Perfect vote. Bye. Everyone. All right. Bye.