Conservation Commission — 2021-05-20

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 20, 2021 Present: Richard Doucette, Eugenia Gibbons, Paul Moore, Michael Paiewonsky and Jason Jancaitis*(arrived at point indicated) Absent: Kate Hickey and Ryan Sloan Staff present: Eric Devlin Mr. Doucette opened the Remote public meeting at 7:45pm 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 April 15, 2021 and April 24, 2021 minutes, as written. Second by Mr. Paiewonsky. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Jason Jancaitis- abstain, Paul Moore- yes, Michael Paiewonsky- yes 4-0 in favor. *Mr. Jancaitis returned at this point. Public Hearing: Request for Determination of Applicability – 735 Broadway Dean Gustafson, wetland scientist of allpoints technology, John Pugh of Pugh Management (applicant), Doug Landry and Jordan Loffredo of Langan Engineering were present. Mr. Pugh described the company and the Town Line Inn redevelopment project, 94,000 square foot distribution center project. Mr. Gustafson described the wetland resource areas on the property. Bank resource area in the South Eastern portion of the property Stream determined as intermittent based on streamstats watershed analysis. Project is proposed within the 100 foot buffer zone. Landscape islands in pavement and vacant restaurant building within 100 foot buffer zone. One existing drainage line to be abandoned in place, BMP system designed to improve water quality. Negative 2 determination requested by the applicant. Notice of Intent filed with the Malden Conservation Commission. Mr. Paiewosnky – Describe the BMPs and proposed locations. Ms. Loffredo – Rain gardens to be installed and water quality units. Rain gardens on the left and right sides of the plan (hatched areas). Drywell on site for some of the roof stormwater. Malden Conservation Commission meeting is Tuesday, June 1 for the Notice of Intent. Erosion control measures to be implemented at the three outfalls on the site. Mitigation for the activities on the site. Trees on the southern bank. Silt sacks on all inlets proposed. Mr. Moore- Dust controls at the Entrance/Exit proposed? Ms. Loffredo- yes, some sort of dust control measure will be implemented. Ryan Roseen, clerk for Malden Conservation was present- NOI meeting is Tuesday June 1. Mr. Doucette- Malden has NOI filed for this project, Erosion control condition could be added. Mr. Moore- Erosion control and Operation and Management plan are reasonable conditions. Motion by Mr. Doucette to issue a negative 3 determination with erosion controls and Operation and Management plan. Second by Mr. Paiewonsky. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Jason Jancaitis- yes, Paul Moore- yes and Michael Paiewonsky- yes 5-0 in favor. Notice of Intent – 17 Burnett Street (continued) Brian Timm of RJ Oconnell Assoiciates, Richard Kirby of LEC environmental and Cathy Gilberto, Homeowner were present. Mr. Kirby described previous site visit, input from DPW still pending. Mr. Timm- PIV valve to be installed, usually used for fire suppression systems. This one is to be used for flood control. Conversation with City Engineer, Vonnie. Discharging essentially a raingarden out to wetlands downstream. Mr. Timm shared a photo of an example PIV valve. Mr. Moore- PIV valve designed for clean water use typically. Will this be an issue with debris build up in the valve? Mr. Timm- Valve has a built in wrench/handle. Valve is accessible for cleaning. Mr. Doucette- DPW input necessary, would like written statement from DPW approving connection to system. DEP file number has been issued, no comments. Applicant agrees to continue to June 17th Meeting. Motion by Mr. Doucette to continue the hearing to the June 17th meeting. Second by Ms. Gibbons. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Jason Jancaitis- yes, Paul Moore- yes and Michael Paiewonsky- yes 5-0 in favor. Beaver dam in pipe under grove street and burnett street. Discussion on beaver dam removal issue followed. Staff will check with the Board of Health. Discussion: 16 Maple Terrace (217-0209) Request for Certificate of Compliance- Jay Bradley, applicant was present. A letter from the applicant’s engineer was received along with as-built plans. Updated letter submitted with correction regarding trench drain. A granite curb was added to direct water. Photos from site visit reviewed, water appears to be missing the catch basin at the top of the driveway. 4” corrugated pipe Motion by Mr. Jancaitis to issue a Certificate of Compliance with additional condition in perpetuity that the property owner shall maintain the drainage system to prevent runoff onto maple terrace, Second by Mr. Doucette. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Jason Jancaitis- yes, Paul Moore- yes and Michael Paiewonsky- yes 5-0 in favor. Trail steward reports- Trail steward reports from April regarding some tree branch removal from the trail behind the Hoover school. Staff will check with the trail steward that reported it and confirm that the debris was cleared. Rocky view trail connection- Mr. Moore will check the area and take some notes on level of work necessary for the possible trail restoration that staff had suggested. Staff will look for some additional volunteers that could help with clearing for the trail repair. Trail Marker printing- Staff received quotes from two printers to produce additional trail markers that matched our existing markers.Goal was to get an additional color and refill the existing supply of markers for use on the trail network. Quotes were significantly higher than the existing budget. Conservation land signs suggested as an alternative for printing funds. Staff estimated that we still had 2 or 3 left and cited 2 locations that they could be installed. Printing funds could be used to make a few more of these signs. Staff will check past order and see how many can be ordered within the existing budget. Motion by Mr. Doucette to spend up to $250 on trail signs printing, Second by Mr. Moore. Roll Call vote: Richard Doucette – yes, Eugenia Gibbons- yes, Jason Jancaitis- yes, Paul Moore- yes and Michael Paiewonsky- yes 5-0 in favor. Park Commission meeting update- Mr. Moore attended recent (May 10th) Park Commission meeting. They are concerned with Conservation Commission role in the Ell Pond park project. Part of the issue appears to be the project scope has expanded beyond the fields. They are close to getting a contractor to explore test pits. Free cash for test pits on the appropriations agenda. Other members should feel free to attend next Park Commission meeting to offer input directly. Staff will include next meeting dates in the minutes. Finn McSweeney- Parks has been trying to turf the west knoll field for years. Mayor’s office recently expanded the project into a larger project. Staff- According to the city calendar, the next few Park Commission meeting dates are: June 15, 2021 7:00 PM July 12, 2021 7:00 PM August 9, 2021 7:00 PM New/Old Business Charlie Dilman is the Eagle Scout candidate with Hillside park trail project and Flagg Acres kiosk repairs. One of the trail stewards had offered to help coordinate with items for the Kiosk materials. The conservation budget appropriation meeting is on June 3 via Webex at 6:30pm. Other members encouraged to attend to see how the process goes since only the former chair used to do it. Short discussion followed whether the appropriations/budget hearing was the appropriate place to inquire about expanding staffing budget for additional hours. Staff will forward current budget info to the Commission members for review. Water Chestnut- Finn McSweeney discussed the mechanical harvester/hydrorake timing. Staff will notify the commission when a response from the pond company is received regarding the An extra meeting will be held Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 7:30 PM. The next regularly scheduled meeting will be Thursday, June 17, 2021 at 7:30 PM. Motion by Mr. Doucette to adjourn. Mr. Jancaitis seconded the motion and it was voted 5-0 in favor. Adjourn 9:40PM 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 Members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can accurately access the proceedings in real time, or in the event that they are unable to do so, we will post on the MMTV3.org website an audio or video recording, transcript, or the completed recording of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. So, 1st item is minutes, we have minutes from April 15th and April 24th. I think the 24th was the meeting at flag acres parking lot. I read them both and they look fine. I don't know if anybody else had comments on the minutes. I thought they look emotionally I make emotionally accept the minutes as written. I second that the roll call Richard.

▶ 1:00 Yes, Virginia. Jason Jason, there's Jason. Lost him. Oh, no. Mike yes. Yes, we'll just show Jason as abstain from the vote. I don't think he's on the call anymore. Yeah. We'll just hope that he gets. We'll just hope that he gets back on. I think we can start the next public hearing, unless somebody has an objection. So, 735 Newburyport Turnpike. Submitted by Pew Management LLC for the demolition of an existing building and paved parking area and redevelopment for a 94,000 square foot warehouse distribution facility. So, if we have the proponent here, they can present their information to the Commission. Yep, thank you. Thank you folks. My name's, uh, Dean Gustafson. I'm a senior scientist with all points technology.

▶ 2:38 Um, I'm here tonight representing the applicant management LLC, along with, uh, lying in engineering. And Eric, I don't know if you can give me share rights. I can pull up a presentation we have prepared for the commission and everyone see my screen. Yep, yes, excellent. Great. Um, thank you folks. So, um. What I'd like to do next is introduce the applicant John T view management will provide a summary of the project and his company. Great Thank you. Dean. Good evening. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is John. I'm the founder of management and real estate development investments firm. My amazing business partners, AJ Bowman and Bonnie Burgett are here with us as well tonight. We are really excited to be here speaking with you as this is the 1st, public hearing for the town line in redevelopment project.

▶ 3:52 A 94,000 square foot distribution center project, which Dean will get into in a little bit more detail in a moment. Our team at Pew Management has more than 60 years of experience in the investments and development space in both multifamily and the industrial asset class. We have a great project team. We're very proud to have assembled. ARCO is our design build partner. They're the largest builder of industrial space in the country. Langan Engineering, a nationally renowned engineering firm, is leading our civil And permitting efforts, and then, of course, all points technology is our wetlands engineering team. So we'd like to, we look forward to working with you on the project getting to know you better and in hearing from you in the future.

▶ 4:42 And thank you very much for your time tonight. Great thanks, John. So I'll, I'll run through the proposed project kind of why the reasons why we're here tonight in front of the conservation commission. Going through the proposed, the redevelopment activities within resource areas and then we'll conclude by handing it back over to the chairman and opening up to any questions. So, just for orientation purposes. Excuse me, this is the subject property and I outlined. my cursor in here and it's located as you can see this is the the city line separating melrose to the north and malden to the south uh it's the project situated between route 99 to the west and route one to the east and currently the main occupant of the site is the town line in along

▶ 5:39 with a vacant restaurant building and bus storage a bank resource associated with an urbanized intimate stream that principally functions for conveyance of stormwater is located along the southern property boundary follow my cursor in here this is you know flows to the west and drains into the route one closed drainage system the western extension of this bank resource is located on an adjacent parcel located south of the street south of the site across this is street a it's this resource right here um that's really the principal reason why we're in front of the the conservation commission this evening is because the 100 foot buffer zone associated with that resource area clips the southwestern portion of the subject property within the commission's

▶ 6:34 jurisdiction so when we originally did an investigation of this property and identified the the bank resource on the subject property we also looked at what drainage area is feeding this feature to try to determine you know its intermittent stream determination classification and we identified that the stream originates on the mount hood municipal golf course located west of the site in Melrose. The stream we found was flowing into a culvert behind the FW web facility which is located off the stream just to the west and it flows into the closed drainage system and then eventually daylights into this resource area located off site and then that further flows into the bank resource located on the subject property.

▶ 7:33 So, in accordance with 310 CMR 10.58 2A1CI, an evaluation of the stream and its intermittent designation was provided. There is no stream identified on or proximate to the site on the most recent USGS topographic map. So, as such, stream stats was used to determine the streams of watershed, which was found be 0.19 square miles and far less than the half square mile threshold identified in the regulations and as a result the stream of question was determined to be classified as intermittent which is consistent with the discussions i've had with your conservation agent so knowing no impacts to the off-site wetland resource here the bank resource is going to occur from the proposed redevelopment activities but we will have work located within the 100 foot

▶ 8:35 buffer zone within the commission's jurisdiction and so on this graphic here we're showing the proposed redevelopment activities for the warehouse and distribution facility this is the municipal line separating melrose from malden and this highlighted red area indicates the 100 foot buffer zone to the off-site resource bank resource so it's just this small area here where we're looking to redevelop the the site includes a um a portion of the bacon restaurant building and it consists of also some bituminous cave in the area so the proposed work activities would occur primarily within the upper 50 feet of the 100-foot barber zone And with the redevelopment, we're actually slightly increasing the pervious surface within the 100-foot buffer zone with some landscape islands.

▶ 9:31 The other aspect of project activities that do relate to the Commission's jurisdiction is there is an existing drainage line that conveys currently untreated stormwater to this offsite bank resource. that feature is going to be the drainage line is going to be abandoned in place so we'll be eliminating discharge to the off-site bank resource and all storm water generated by the facility will discharge on-site to the on-site bank resource langen is designed in a an extensive stormwater treatment train for the proposed redevelopments stormwater management system includes various bmps and complies with the mass stormwater regulations and standards and will provide treatment of both volume and quality so there will be a from a stormwater

▶ 10:35 discharge standpoint there'll be a significant improvement to stormwater quality and in discharge to the bank resource as as in the current conditions there's absolutely zero treatment of stormwater discharging into that resource so with uh with those uh redevelopment activities and the extensive erosion sedimentation control measures that will be in place during construction activities we feel that the work will not result in adverse effect to any wetland resource areas The buffer zone that work will occur in is existing, developed, disturbed, urbanized feature so we're not affecting any of the typical functions that buffer zone would provide for a wetland resource area. And therefore, we request the Commission issue a negative two determination as the work described

▶ 11:30 in the request is within the 100-point buffer zone but would not alter the associated bank resource and would not require filing of a notice of intent. Uh, with that, uh, that concludes our presentation, and it all back to the chairman and the product team would be happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you does any member of the commission have any questions. For the applicant, if I could, um, you mentioned, like. A number of would be installed. Can you tell us, like, what type and where. Sure, Jordan, you want to go into that. I'd be happy to. So, as Dean mentioned before, the existing site has no kinds of treatment from the site. It's, you know, just your general catch basins and pipe networks that are ultimately just charging to either of the off-site ditches or the banks.

▶ 12:33 The existing banks, and in proposed, we are proposing to install rain gardens as well as deep sun catch basins and water quality units. That would treat the any of the stormwater runoff on site prior to just charging to the bank. Can you show me like, can you go back a slide and show us where the rain garden would be. Sure, maybe if you want to go back, I don't think I have capabilities to. I don't know. Oh, it looks good. Jordan. They went back. Okay, great. I don't know that I can actually control or point out. But if you look to the left side of the, so the plan left, do you see some of the. Darker hatched areas, so Dean, maybe if you could point to, can you point to them on the left side? Maybe to the left of the parking lot? There's some of these highlighted areas, right? So there would be.

▶ 13:38 On those sides that would be picking up the stormwater runoff in the parking lots to the right of it. and then on the plan right there are also some of that same hatching that would be picking the storm water runoff so it would be capturing some of the storm water and then conveying it to the subsurface pipe network system where it would enter one of the water quality units on site prior to discharging into the bank we also do have a dry well on site for some of the roof runoff to capture and recharge groundwater thank you jordan no problem so it looks like property is within uh malden i assume you have a similar filing with the malden conservation commission yeah yes we we filed a notice of intent with the commission uh they've accepted

▶ 14:39 it and we're on their agenda uh for june 1st i had a question i wonder if you could describe any Is that Paul? Go ahead. I'll shut up now. No, that's okay. Go ahead, Richard. Yeah, I've got some questions, but I'll go after you. Okay. Could you describe any erosion controls or other measures that you have in Malden, since the resource areas are in Malden? I'm curious how they're being affected. Yeah, I can start, and Jordan can feel free to jump in to provide some additional clarity. So, the parameter controls are going to be a combination of a silt fence and compost filter sock. That will also be located along the margins of the proposed redevelopment activities of the southern property boundary. Right now, essentially the back of the existing hotel building,

▶ 15:41 there is maybe about a 5 to 10 foot clear path before you get to the bank resource back there. It's relatively unvegetated on the north bank of the resource. So, there'll be a line of erosion control measures separating the work activities. There's a little bit of retaining wall in that area. Edge of pavement, and there's also a screening wall that's going to be fencing that's going to be installed as well. And we'll also have, we have three outfalls, so there'll be additional erosion control protection measures around those proposed outfall locations into the bank resource. And just so the Commission's aware, we've also provided some mitigation for those activities to restore some of the bank resource in that area and also provide some

▶ 16:35 native shrub and herbaceous plantings along that north bank that is currently relatively un-vegetated and that'll help support some of the tree canopy growth that does currently cover the bank resource. The trees are mainly located on the southern bank. I think the only thing I would add was and we'd also have silt sacks for general inlet protections for all existing and proposed richard asked the bulk of my question there i was mostly concerned about some of the demolition and construction work that's going to go on in the erosion controls i guess the the only other thing i might ask is it looks like so on the um this would probably be the the western most entrance or exit along route 99 right by the

▶ 17:41 100 foot buffer zone is it looks like you're going well it looks like there's a building there right now maybe um but you're going to be knocking them kind of putting in an entrance or an exit there um is there going to be any consideration for you know some sort of dust control or some management at entrance and exits i'm assuming there's probably going to be some trucks going in and out that way all right so yes we'll do we'll do some type of dust control management or construction for that okay thank you that's that's it for me great thank you so eric do you know if we have the uh anybody from walden concom has dialed in i think we have their agent he's listening and i think we'd be happy to uh unmute uh that person and if they want any make

▶ 18:52 uh ask any questions of the proponent you need to be fine yeah hi this is this is ryan uh i'm from the i'm the clerk for the malden conservation commission i don't have any comments or questions right now for the applicant um just listening in on and uh i'll be sure to um share our meeting information with you all for our june 1st meeting thanks Is the filing with Malden an RDA or a notice of intent? It's a notice of intent. Yep, it's a notice of intent. Okay. Okay. I'm not sure if we have anybody from the public here as well that had questions. And I think there was any conditions that we could place on the project that would be helpful to the folks in Malden. I'd be happy to do that, but I really don't think there are

▶ 20:02 because I think Malden has more power over it than we do not only of the resource area there but a notice of intent has been filed which gives you a lot more opportunity to condition a project than an RDA does so typically we would on a project like this we might impose a condition for erosion controls But I question the value of that, since everything that's on the downhill side of this project, where the erosion controls would go, are in Malden, not in Malden. But I'm open to ideas for some basic conditions we might put on this, or we could just make a negative determination, and then it's up to Malden to condition it as they see fit. So, I'm open to ideas, but I'm not sure what. We can do under this filing that would be.

▶ 21:03 Useful, I guess I'd be okay with deferring to Malden on any conditions. The only 1 I can think of is, you know, and this is already in the is. Um, an operation and maintenance plan for the stormwater system. I have a bit of an administrative question. Richard brought up conditioning and. we can't condition an rda correct i mean if we if we felt the need to condition this work in some way um this would have to be an noi correct it is very basic conditions on a rda that's a negative three correct uh and typically we would say you know erosion control so you can place very basic conditions so if there's something that like have them send us the operations and maintenance plan or have them install erosion control things like

▶ 22:12 that we could do but once you start getting too far in the weeds then you're right it should be an in the line okay yeah I mean for for my two cents I mean I agree with everyone said I mean I get this is I it feels to me that Malden should be the one to call most of the shots here. I agree with everything that's been said. You know, I think from our perspective, yeah, I think erosion controls and the management plan would be reasonable things. I'm not sure there's anything else really that that we could say here. So I'll make a motion to close the public area issue a negative three with two conditions. One, the proponent sends us the operations and maintenance plan whenever it's in its final form, and that appropriate erosion control measures

▶ 23:24 be put in place as required by the Malden order of conditions. Richard, are you looking for a second now, or am I jumping the gun? Yes, sure. Sure. I second that. So, Eric will take the vote before I do that. Can you just repeat that motion again? Let me make sure I got it right. It was the erosion control 3 with erosion controls and the operations management plan and the. That's it and have them. I have that plan submitted to us Richard. Yes, Virginia. Yes, Jason. Yes, yes. Oh, yes. Great thanks for your time. Oh, great. Thank you folks. Appreciate it. Thank you. Great job, Doug. Thank you. Mike. We'll see you soon. See you. Nice to see you, Jordan. Nice to see you too. Michael. Good night.

▶ 24:54 Good night everyone. So, Eric stay in touch with the folks involved in and let us know how things go. And if. If there's anything useful we can do, let us know. All right. So, next thing agenda is 17 for net street, which is continue public hearing. And I guess there's been some initial. Conversations between the proponent and the that's the 1 very specific thing we were waiting for is. This project includes tying in to the street drainage system. So we need to have input from the DPW as to whether they agree with that or think something else should be done. But they haven't yet got that conversation going. They've started it, but it has not resulted in anything. So I plan to continue it until we get something in writing from the DPW that says they agree.

▶ 25:56 But if the proponent is here or any members of the public that want to Discuss the project I'm open to some discussion. So, good evening, Mr. chairman and commission members. I'm rich Kirby from environmental consultants and with me tonight are Sal and Kathy and project engineer. Brian Tim. Since we filed the notice of intent last time around for the storm connection and. Well, an improvement project, we had an opportunity to visit the site and take a look at things and get a better sense of what the hindrances are for improving the drainage in the neighborhood. Namely, some of the stormwater infrastructure that's there now, as well as the. Intermittent stream channels that travel through the wetland and beneath culverts through downstream roadways and eventually discharge to the golf course.

▶ 26:54 I know the site visit the commission was talking about an operation and maintenance plan for the valve that Brian had designed. And I know Brian's had some correspondence with the city engineer, so I'm going to turn it over to Brian and he can give you an update as to where things are. Sure, thank you rich and thank you commission. For your time tonight, and I will make this brief. I know last time we spent a lot of time and also on the sidewalk. So, as Richard mentioned, we have provided an operation of maintenance manual on. A little bit more description on what the valve is going to look like and. uh i did submit it late today actually to eric um unfortunately yeah it was just it's kind of late

▶ 27:41 so i apologize for that um but it's essentially a um a piv valve and uh similar to the one that's actually located on the new condo building uh at the intersection of tremont street and the lindfels parkway you may have seen it over there right across from the baseball field there's the new condo building that's up uh like four stories um right in front you'll see a a piv valve it basically says open or closed so it's pretty foolproof usually they're used for fire suppression systems in this case we will be doing it for a um for flood control right to know when we should have that valve open and when we have it closed it's operated by a wrench you basically just put the wrench on the top of this piv valve and and able to turn it and it turns it open and

▶ 28:31 closed i did try to get in touch with bonnie the the city engineer we were able to connect earlier this week i understand her concerns are related to the city's ms4 permit essentially regulate her concerns are um to understand and regulate what is being discharged into the the city's municipal drainage system from both the water quality perspective uh they're essentially a water quality perspective right um so that's you know a lot of times it's connecting parking lots and and other types of drainage features that have sediment and things like that and it's we're we're discharging and connecting a essentially a rain garden for all intents and purposes that shouldn't have any type of sediment or anything in it so i imagine there's

▶ 29:22 no tss involved at all there um and it does discharge right into the wetlands down downstream so um unfortunately uh bonnie and i haven't closed that permit but i don't have aired that conversation i don't have any concerns that we're not gonna be able to address any of her concerns here um so um i know she's she's trying to get up to speed on a heck of a lot in the city being new uh just recently hired recently so um we had a very very good conversation i don't know eric if you can add anything if you've heard anything different um you know i'd be more than happy to hear from that i reached back out to her today and wasn't able to connect with her sums it up you know there was also some concern about whether or not there would be additional volume coming

▶ 30:11 into the system that could have further impacts downstream but um it's kind of out of the commission's purview in this case and if anybody wants to see what the uh pi val piv valve looks like i don't know eric if you have that to share or i can try to figure out how to share my screen give you the uh permission to um share your screen i haven't actually opened up that thing that you sent over you saw it in my email a minute ago okay um in case anybody cares uh let's see if i could try to share this do so we care brian come on all right so can everybody see what my screen right now yes yes my my amazing graphics i actually i love that there's a little bit of graphics i'm able to do as an engineer um put a little shadow on my post indicator valve

▶ 31:09 um so everybody can see that four-story building uh it's just a little pipe that actually comes up out of the ground and if you zoom in i'm going to try to do this and hopefully i don't lose any clarity you can kind of see a little the other top there's a little white area that's actually a clear um piece of glass that says open and close and and right on the top where there's a blurry black area that's just it's essentially like a hex screw and you just put a um there's a special wrench that comes with it you can actually spin it right spin it left you you can lock it but it opens and closes the the gate valve essentially so and and i know we all live in melrose i drove by this the other day um you can even see it from the street so there's no maintenance required

▶ 32:04 so it sounds like that piv valve there if i understood you correctly that's for a fire suppression system so i imagine that's fed by the normal city water system correct then it's what i'm sorry i missed that oh that's that's fed by the normal city water system so it's clean water no junk in it no tree bits or anything like that so it's essentially just a um what it is it's typically for a fire suppression system but in this case it's just a valve it's it's basically a um let me try to bring up the okay let me let me try to cut to the chase a little bit here so it kind of goes back to our discussion last time around so if these if these valves are designed for normally for fire suppression system which is presumably going

▶ 32:55 to be clean water that doesn't have any you know sediment potentially sediment or stuff in it are they qualified for this use where there's going to be potentially sediment and debris and whatnot going through yep so so they we are going to install this right behind the um the concrete headwall so we will be able to maintain it very easily right so you'll be able to reach right into the headwall if you need to secondly what's really interesting and i know this doesn't have anything to do with burnett street but this post indicator valve my understanding is in this location that we're looking at right here is because el pon floods and and they want to actually this isn't for their fire suppression system my understanding is this was installed

▶ 33:36 to protect their building whether it's their sewer or their um their drainage system from flooding as well when when downtown floods there so that's a correction i looked i looked through the uh filing for this right here and i saw on the plan it actually it's actually there for in case there's a a spill of you know gasoline spill in the parking garage there's a trench drain that feeds into that so they can close the valve outside to prevent gasoline from going out of the stormwater system so so yes it it's typically used for fire suppression but it can be used for other other reasons as well it is essentially a gate valve rob uh paul okay great thanks and i guess one more question the size of the uh the wrench that's needed to opening close this thing um how

▶ 34:32 big are we talking here i mean are we talking something that you know somebody in the neighborhood would have or is this going to be something pretty significant um let me try to to figure out how to web share again here I I can't find how to be sharing this guy right here can you see the PDF right here part of the valve right so it actually comes with a standard thing this is actually if you can can you see mouse or no probably not that's that's actually a lock right there as well so um they should be able to to lock it so nobody can come along and just say hey i'm gonna i'm gonna play with this thing um it's already it comes with it cool all right thanks is the plan that the dpw would operate the valve or the homeowner so the the i i would say anybody could but it's really to protect

▶ 35:43 the homeowner and in the neighborhood so you know as you go by this is kind of foolproof like you see what right now it says open right um all of a sudden if you're starting to see water back up you're like i don't want that open because water's backing up and coming where the wrong way crank that thing until it says closed and um you should be protecting yourself so hopefully the homeowner and um if if the gpw comes by they could probably help as well if they needed to but this is a private system any other questions or comments from the commission and if none that we can take questions from the public if there are any i'm also richard i did receive a call from one of the homeowners downstream uh but and i told him that there was a meeting that he could dive into

▶ 36:55 if he chose to i do understand anybody's concerns about an area where everybody in the neighborhood lives in or on the edge of the floodplain and so flooding is probably a big issue for a lot of people there i think going forward probably the bigger issue is uh whether the beavers go crazy and block the culvert it goes under Slayton Road or wherever all this water is up and that's something that you know the neighbors are just gonna have to keep an eye on and let the DPW know if they see that occurring I think at this point we need to hear for sure from the DPW their thoughts on uh on this project so i think we're going to need an extension to our next meeting or continuance i should say so eric what's the date of the next meeting

▶ 37:58 you're muted eric and while we're waiting for eric or just a quick question i know i don't know rich you may want to talk because i know there's two aspects to this project there is the um the removal of the invasive species in here as well as the drainage portion and i don't know if there's a good time to do this or not um is there a way we could start at risk to to maybe even start that work probably the best time to do is right now but uh i think no work can start moving any dirt until we issue our print okay continue it yeah and issue the approval at the next meeting that's probably the earliest we could do it okay and i just want to make uh clear too at the last hearing we were there was talk about dep hadn't issued a file number yet or any comments uh rich

▶ 39:04 and i had both checked the website today they have issued a a file number but they haven't and and they didn't have any comments as far as i was concerned i don't know rich do you have any uh differing information since our they issued the file number and you know if they don't issue any comments then usually that's just the default you know they're not going to issue any um it would be great if we could you know in terms of the timing of the invasive species management one of the first things we have to do is pull out all that phragmites and the soil containing the root stock and seed bank and obviously best to do that in the dry we've had i believe below the balloon certainly seems like we've had below normal below normal precipitation um and it would be good to

▶ 39:50 take advantage of that um during the uh you know july june july august months um if at all possible if if if it works out that way and the commission issues the order of conditions at the next hearing and um the field period expires and sound and kathy can get to work that would be ideal because it'd much be much easier to pull that material out in the in the dryer as dry as possible than than in the fall yeah so it's pretty dry right now um i looked up it's uh june 17th is the uh The date for the next meeting, so with the applicants. A permission where we will continue this to our next meeting in June. Okay, we request to continue to the 17th. Thank you your 2nd. 2nd, Eric, we'll take the vote.

▶ 41:12 Eric, I think you're muted again. Sorry. Here we go. Richard yeah. Eugenia? Yes. Jason? Yes. Mike? Yes. Paul? Yes. All right, thanks very much everybody. If you could let keep Eric informed of any conversations you have with the DPW and if for whatever reason you think that's going slower than each of these for this to be done by the 17th, let us know and we'll Nudge it from our side without a doubt. I'll be on the phone tomorrow morning. Um. And next week as well, but I appreciate everybody's efforts on this really. Really do Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you. Did you did you hear that? There was 1 person looks like they had a question. I got a message here. It said that there's a.

▶ 42:31 Apparently, a beaver living right near the intersection of Burnett and Grove that the Conservation Commission needs to be involved in getting rid of. I did see that just now. Yeah, we saw the evidence of the beaver. Yeah, we don't this is another administrative question. We don't actually actively go out and. Handle that right? I mean, I know we've handled things on Mount hood where we've approved beaver deceivers. But we don't actually handle any of. The beaver removal, right? No, it's really the Board of health. The Board of health is in charge of doing that. It has to be a. Public health and safety risk and, you know, it usually is a fatal intervention, you know, by some other group. You know, whether it be USDA or some other company.

▶ 43:37 And, you know, basically traps and euthanizes the viewers. So, it's, um, they don't just, uh, just do it for no reason. Eric, there's also some more comments coming in here. I don't know if you see that that says you need to approve. Reaching deeper damn outflow of the dam water. That's true. I mean, ultimately there has to be a health declaration from the board of health saying that there is a public health risk and then. We would sign off on that authorization, but. It's really the board of health is the 1 who runs it. So, Eric will refer this matter to the board of health and we'll work with them as we need to. I will check with the board of health. No 1 has notified me if they had a 10 day permit issued yet.

▶ 44:36 Is it maybe worth seeing if we can unmute Erica since it seems like she has some information and maybe instead of reading the chats a quick 5 minute. Discussion might be helpful. Hi. Yes, this is Brian. Erica's husband. I applied for a permit to breach the dam on Friday. It's holding back a lot of water currently that is. A problem even worse than normal and. the application goes to uh board of health but somebody also has to approve putting some type of it's actually living in the pipe that goes underneath the road at the intersection of grove and burnett and so if you walk anybody wants to walk up there and see it it lays out in the sun all day and if you get in here it'll hop right into the pipe um and the dam is 15 yards down

▶ 45:32 the road down the stream i mean you can see it from the road but nobody can remove the dam without conservation commission approval because it's going to release all the water that it's holding back so i put in an application just to breach the dam i don't even care about killing beaver i just the next time it rains everybody's going to flood because he's holding all the water in the pipe the same pipe that we'd like to use to drain sal's property okay so did um did board of health issue um a 10-day emergency permit haven't yet i don't know why it's supposed to be done pretty quickly but i assumed maybe they were trying to work with you guys to figure out how to do it legally again i don't even care about removing the beaver at this time

▶ 46:19 10 days i can reach his dam a bunch of times and if if the dpw blocks the pipe he's gonna he's gonna move i can't imagine he's gonna stay there with no place to hide be surprised if you just uh if you just remove a dam they they generally rebuild it within a couple of days right but But he lives in the pipe. If you block the pipe, he's got no place to go. Transmitting water matters in the hands of the board of health at this point. If they need something from us, we'll, we'll provide it. Okay, well, at least you guys are aware of it anyways. Well, you saw it before, I guess happy you were there. He's probably also. But he's there all the time now, just sitting right next to the road. Sounds like a good deal there, but it's not going to happen. I hope not.

▶ 47:14 We all hope not. Wait, Eric, just to clarify, did you say that in order to remove the beaver, the approach is to euthanize the beaver? If they trap them, I believe that's what happens to them. Yeah, there's actually, we had this problem with some squirrels that were living in our attic here, and I actually, I looked this up. Yeah, the state requirements are that basically if you trap a nuisance animal, You either have to relocate it on the same property, or you have to destroy the animal. Presumably that's just to mitigate diseases that might get transferred from one place to the other. I don't know the exact reason, but that is a state rule. Okay, and I've run into this once before where it's true in many states that relocating problem wildlife is difficult because

▶ 48:32 Where do you bring it? You know, who who's going to want it if it's problems one place? It's a problem somewhere else. But, um, you know, Eric stay in touch with the board of health and stay in touch with us and let us know how it goes. The simplest thing is the is the is the beaver pipe. Where it sits in the dam. So that, and it controls the water level in the dam. But in residential areas with, there's not a lot of room for a beaver pond in the neighborhood. And any amount of a beaver pond can be a real problem. So, the beaver, the beaver pipe, or the beaver deceiver. In real tight spaces doesn't work. The board of health on Monday morning and see, you know, what's going on. Sounds good. So next on the agenda, we have trail memorial bench flag anchors bench update.

▶ 49:42 Not sure if we have anyone from on this item. I don't think she's going to be here tonight. I am. I just had an email from her earlier this week. There's hasn't been much of an update other than that. They did have a contract with the landscaper to come and install the bench and I believe they ordered it. It's just when he's actually going to install it, which. Is, you know, he has to find a time slot to be able to do it. Okay, we have a request for a certificate of compliance. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, sorry. I was just going to ask if, um. So, are we going to have to do a. RDA or an for this bench installation. Definitely, um, it's questionable whether or not it would be an, it really comes down to what the method they were actually going to use to install it.

▶ 50:49 You know, if they're actually anchoring it down and and how if it's just like in. Something sitting on top of the ground, just laid it down, you know, I was so no. But it really, it's kind of up to the commission whether or not we think. We'll need it for this. Okay. No, I guess we should hear from the contractor and see how they would install it. Yeah, I was just asking because, um. I feel like we kind of need to make sure we do this 1 by the book, because I know there was a little bit of an uproar on social media about another bench. That was put in that same area and I'm not sure there was, I don't know if it was or people were saying the conservation commission, but obviously we haven't heard about any of this. So anyway, I just think, you know, this could be a good example.

▶ 51:45 kind of going forward about how to do things the right way. And so I think it might be a good precedence to set here. So it's probably worth making sure we get the right stuff done and the right check boxes checked. Yeah, good point. I actually spoke to Parks about that because I saw it was on that email chain what was happening with that. Nobody from the city was aware of that going in. It just showed up one day. So I was out there with the park superintendent And we picked another spot where we could try to relocate it to and. And we've at least taken it from the spot where it was and I think it's. At my word now, when the garage, when they're waiting to find them the spot to put it. Okay, so that was on parks land, not conservation line.

▶ 52:34 It was technically on neither. It's a strip of land that is just held by the city in general right now. It was right across the street from the terrace. It's a narrow strip of a property that's made about like. 1015 feet wide just along the edge of the street. Okay. All right. Sorry. I didn't want to get down to too much of a rattle, but I was just just curious what we need to do here. So, we do have a request for activity of compliance for 16, April Paris, formerly lot 1. And do we have anybody here for that? Yeah, I'm here Jay Bradley. Good, I was 1, I recall it was last year. So we, we. Approved the construction, the home, so pretty quick on another note. I was wondering what happened to that bench. It was at the end of maple. It was there 1 day and it was gone.

▶ 53:40 Yeah, yes, I'm looking for a letter of compliance on on that project. We, we finished it up. Oh, and I just go to, I think you sent over corrected, um, letter from your engineer. He. Missed I did. Yeah, sorry I did. Do you want to share it? Do you want me to. Let's see if I can find it here. Hang on 1 minute. So this is more recent than the May 7th letter. I had him, I had him send me a new letter this morning because he had made mention of. That we had installed a 2nd, sewer tank, which was incorrect. He thought there was only 1 tank on the, on the proposed plan and there was 2. so I had pointed that out to him. And so he amended the letter and I sent it to Eric this morning. That was the only change. Okay.

▶ 55:10 So, I'm trying to call up my electronic version of the, the original letter. I can't see what's on the screen. I can stare at my phone all night. No, I'm not gonna do that. It was in the email that I sent on May 19th, subject lines, materials for meeting tomorrow. So did anybody have any questions? I had a couple, I guess mostly, and part of this is I wasn't able to, my office is in a little bit of disarray at the moment, so I wasn't able to dig out my notes from when we originally proposed this, but you had mentioned a few things in the as-built letter that basically increased the amount of impervious surface, and I was just wondering if any of those things that have changed, like, for example, the driveway,

▶ 56:24 and I think there was some mention about the stairs being stoned now, and just a few other things. Were any of those areas part of the calculations for managing stormwater? And would this change from a pervious surface to an impervious surface kind of blow up any of those calculations? No, I was in contact with the engineer on all the stuff we had done. So we really didn't vary much from it. I think the engineer made mention that there was a small gravel turnaround that we just made part of the driveway, but it didn't change really any of the water calculations because we had omitted a large set of stairs that was going to go up the side that we didn't use. The front walk here just made mention that it's concrete.

▶ 57:23 It has a few steps in it because obviously we have grades there. I believe the original plan had shown a walkway there anyway. That's all it was is a concrete walkway. So, no, I would say we haven't, you know, we haven't increased any, any, you know, any impervious services there. It's a very large lot. Okay, and I guess sort of related to that. I remember there was, once again, my apologies. I don't have the information from when we approved this, but it looked like maybe it was an old garage in the back of the lot that was actually straddled the two lots, and it looks like you've left the foundation in place. I can't remember if that was part of what we approved or not. Now, it looks to be well off the 100-foot buffer,

▶ 58:21 but I just was asking what we approved and what we Authorize yeah, I don't think that that was any part of the, uh, of of this, this particular approval here. Um, but it, it was part of the lot in it. Um. It's all it's left is the retaining wall part of it because of the topography between the 2. The the adjoining property, so all that's left there is just the retaining wall. So, um, as far as impermeable services, I guess there's. There's less, because there's no longer a rubber roof there. There's no longer a concrete floor there. You know, it's just a lawn and then they return the wall. Okay. All right. Yeah, I wasn't sure. I just saw foundation, so I wasn't sure if that was a concrete floor or what kind of a floor, but if it's just, if it's green space, that's even better. Great. And I guess the last question, then I'll let others comment.

▶ 59:24 So, Eric thankfully took some photos for us, and it looks like there's a catch basin up near the top of the driveway on the plan. And unfortunately, the picture shows the water running down the driveway and just missing the drain in the catch basin. And further, it looks like that water that we're seeing actually has some sediment in there, which leads me to believe that there's some erosion controls which aren't working. I don't know if that if this photo is just taken at a bad time and beyond that looks like, maybe there needs to be some adjustments to the grading there. So that they catch base and actually works. I don't know. I know we have some people on the on the board here that are a little more knowledgeable on this than I am, but it just looked odd to me.

▶ 1:00:14 Actually, yeah, that picture he had taken, I've actually already made an adjustment in field. We had. where you had shown that water that was actually that water is it that water is now being kept behind the the curb that is there the granite the granite curb and i also installed a to help to bring that to the um the sump that's there there's a four-inch corrugated pipe in there as well so that water that you saw that does not go on that driveway anymore um some of this stuff like anything i kind of worked the bugs out of this when we were finishing up um so that that has been taken care of uh so that i guess that issue there with that that that water was really supposed to be going behind the curb anyway which it's going to now and it goes down to a sump there

▶ 1:01:08 that goes underneath the driveway and spills out into um a rock area so have you have you regraded the driveway at all i didn't regrade the driveway there um because it was coming it was coming from the top near the like i said where i had the um where the curb was so if water does come down the driveway it's still going to miss that catch basin so there's water goes into that catch base and that particular water over on that side was was just kind of hugging down the um the the curb there but then at the bottom of the driveway there's an entire strip drain across there as well which goes to another sump it then spills into a retention area yes no yes i'm i'm aware of that i'm i'm just there's the grate there presumably to catch water you know to take some of

▶ 1:02:16 the pressure off before gain speed going down the driveway and it just looks from these photos that if water was to get onto the driveway near the top it's not going to flow over that drainage basin that catch basin based on the photo i'm looking at yeah i i again when it was raining water does go into that catch basin from the larger area there that that area that was right there by the curb was more about was more of the fact that some of that was getting away from that curb area and i made the necessary adjustments in grades and the swale with that gravel to eliminate that from getting on to the driveway there so i guess what i'm saying so that's been addressed that won't get on there um the other stuff that's coming from the driveway you're

▶ 1:03:08 coming from the house or where it rains does go in to well that portion goes into um you know that sump there and then further from that sump down obviously we have the trench strain down the bottom that goes into the second sump all right well i think i'm i'm done with my questions okay uh this order was a little before my time on the conservation commission but is there a um condition in the order about maintaining that uh trench drain just you know free of leaves and debris uh just so it doesn't clog up and then flow right over it and into the street uh i don't think there was i mean all the stuff out there is easily maintainable um i don't think i can um i don't know i don't believe there

▶ 1:04:07 was anything in the conditions that said anything about maintaining that okay but like i said we i made the necessary adjustments out there i mean it's all it's all heavy stone and things like that it's not something that's going to move easily so eric you don't have the file handy you can look at how we conditioned it i guess this is one this is one of the downsides of having virtual meetings you can't reach over to the file cabinet you pull out i do have it i do have the special conditions open here i'm looking at them right now because i can't say that bulk uh i think that if the system is working, it could easily not be working here from now once both the outflow from the catch basin and the trench drain at the bottom, if it's not maintained. And I would agree,

▶ 1:05:16 the perspective from the picture that Eric emailed around, it gives you the impression the catch basin is just out there floating in space and not doing any good at all. So I would agree with Paul's comment um but you can't really see what's behind it and i think the turnaround is behind it and i'm just assuming and hoping that water does get into the catch basin like i said i mean i've been here through the winter and through some obviously we've had heavy rains and things i mean this system is more than handling um any of the runoff we had there and And that stuff, like I said, was being generated from that area up there by the curve, which I rectified, like I said, with the swale and also with the pipe.

▶ 1:06:07 So, again, it's handling. I think it's more than handling. I mean, I don't, I guess what I'm saying is some of the stuff that's there is well oversized for some torrential rain. And I haven't had any, I haven't had any erosion or washouts or anything. I don't have anything with special conditions about like an operations maintenance plan on. Anything keep it cleaning anything anything cleaning it out. So, Eric, you've got a revised letter from, uh. The survey, and was it was it today that it arrived or when did you get it? I got it today. Yeah, I sent it this morning. I read that over before the meeting and realized that he had. Something and it wasn't there. Well, I guess if. I don't have great concerns about this project, but we did get a revised letter the day of the meeting. So.

▶ 1:07:29 We could put this off and and issue the certificate the next meeting, or we could issue it now. Because I think the change that was made to the letter, it doesn't seem. It doesn't seem like that's a real issue, but I can go either way. I don't know how the conditions feel. The change was just about the number of sewer pumps. What do you do with the drainage or. Run off yes, if I may yes, the get there had just read the plan and and when he had sent it, he had said we had added a tank and I said. I said, I said, no, we didn't add a tank. He said, no, no, the, the notice of intent plan had 1 tank on it. And I said, no, no, it didn't. And I pulled up the. Notice of intent plan, and I sent it to him and I said, no, look, it's right here. There's 2 and he said, oh, I'm sorry about that. You're right. I have his email and he said, I'll, I'll, I'll change that. That's the only change to the letter. He just pulled that out.

▶ 1:08:31 So, again, we didn't, we didn't add a tank. Yes, that sounds like it does not relate to the right to the training. So, I guess the last question I have is, you indicated that you had added some 4 is corrugated pipe or something and. Talk a little slower and explain to me where this pipe starts and where it goes and what does it do? It was not clear to me. So, behind the, um. The curve that runs to the left of the driveway, there is this graph. It was gravel in there. Okay, and some of this water. From the top, because it's, you know, the top part of these higher up the top was coming down in there, but it was getting out. From behind the curve up near the top. So, because because that curve in that area is supposed to direct the water down to the sub that's on the left side.

▶ 1:09:49 So, what I did was, I went back up there by the top right where the lawn kind of ends and comes down and I pulled gravel all out of there at first. And went back in and installed the 4 inch corrugated pipe to pick up any water that was coming down because the grade goes right along because that's all the ledge there. It all kind of comes right in at the ledge. So, right where it's introduced there, I put that in and brought it down to where the sump is. And then I regraded the gravel obviously on top of it as well in a swale. So, it now grabs all of that and directs the water down into the small sump there that then goes under the driveway. And dissipates onto the, you know, that rocky area that diffuses it.

▶ 1:10:38 So, this pipe is under the gravel outside of the curve. Yes, so you have the, you have the, you have the driveway, then you have the curve and then to the left of the curve behind the curve, which the reason the curve was there is to help pick up that water. I put the type behind that as well, so that I would have a larger obviously area to help gather the water and direct it to that. Okay, so the pipe isn't in the catch base and I think it's just out next to the. Yeah, I mean, the whole, the whole plan was basically built to have a swale there. So I just felt that this forage corrugated pipe actually. Did a little bit better job directing the water right down to the mouth of the, um. To the sub, you know, when the drain goes into the sub, would anybody like to make a motion issues to.

▶ 1:11:46 Richard, can we procedurally can we add a, um. Condition now just that property owner shall maintain the drainage system to prevent runoff on to Maple Terrace. I think Eric, if you've got the form there, I think there's a place on the compliance form, but we can place. Perpetual conditions yeah, there's a spot on there for adding. You can list out additional perpetual conditions, or just repeat ones that we had already specified. Yeah, so that's that's a good idea. I think that'll. He's any concerns we might have about lack of things causing. A drainage problem going down the driveway. So, Jason, if he could restate that and Eric and. Yeah, put it on the form. Okay. Yeah, I'll make the motion that we accept the, um, the, uh, request for certificate of compliance and add the perpetual condition that the property owner shall maintain the drainage system to prevent runoff.

▶ 1:13:10 Of, uh, on to maple terrace. I'll 2nd that. And Eric will take note. All right Richard. Yeah, Virginia. Yeah, Jason. Yes, Mike. Yes. Oh, yes. All right. Great Thank you. Thanks for coming. All right. Well, thank you. Everybody to get the form from Eric. I can get the form from Eric. Okay. So, Eric, I guess I'll hear from you in the next couple of days or so. I will email it to me or what do we, what do we do? I'll write it up on Monday and I can either mail it out or you can pick it up or I'll drop it off. We'll figure it out on Monday. Yeah, you can mail it out if if there's a copy of it that's emailable just so I have it, we can make it simple to whatever works best. Is that possible? You'll you'll need the physical copy because you have to record it at the registry, but you can, you can see the email, you know, and just that way you have.

▶ 1:14:28 Something you can see, you can't do anything with that. No, no, that's fine. Let me know. I can pick it up for me. No problem. I'm always I'm always in the neighborhood. So. All right. Well, thank you. Everybody. Welcome so down the agenda, we have open space projects trails to reports. I haven't received any, any new ones since. Before the last meeting there, there were a couple of reports from Craig about some trees that needed to be cut up with the chainsaw over by the. Behind the Hoover school there on this other trail that had been. Sort of forgotten it's not on our plan. It's not on any of our trail maps. And that was after the clean up. So, that's new stuff the 1, that's the 1 that I told you about on the day of the cleanup.

▶ 1:15:47 Okay, because I thought we took care of everything on that day, but maybe no. Okay, yeah, no, I think this was trail markers printing. Sorry, I was just going to say, no, I think the, uh, the trees that are. Talking about that Craig identified. We talked about it last meeting, and you had said you were going to give it a shot with your chains. Um, and I just suggested that maybe not doing it on the cleanup day so that people didn't see us. Walking around taking out trees, thinking that they could do that. I think that we're talking. Okay. So, whatever information you have from him, and maybe send that to me and I'll try to figure it out. Yeah, I haven't gotten anything new since then. You guys did, you did actually go out there and

▶ 1:16:56 cut something though on the day of the cleanup? Yes. So maybe check with Craig and see if, because I guess I don't remember it at the last meeting, but I have a pretty lousy memory. I'll see if he has anything else they wanted to say about it, you know, there was something that we missed or he's satisfied with it. It's the other question I had while we're on the, the trails is the rocky view trail connection. I know we got that new chunk of land and Eric, you went out kind of scouted out a new potential trail. I haven't had an opportunity to go out and look at those points, but the bigger question is, do we have any trail stewards that go out in that area who might be willing to help out with this work?

▶ 1:17:59 I have I have 1 or 2 that go through that area that I think could help with it. Okay, all right. Um, maybe I'll try to get out there before our next meeting and look at those. Look at that trail that you scouted out and, you know, maybe we can sort something out. So it would be nice to get that trail restored because it is the vantage points at the end of that trailer are pretty cool. Um, and unfortunately, that new house construction. Pretty much destroyed that trail, so if we could get that connection going, I think that would be a good thing. And I couldn't tell from the prior information how much work that sounded like. Um, whether it's. You know, some tree work, or is it earth moving or.

▶ 1:18:58 Rock work, or what kind of thing like, I couldn't really sense how much effort was involved. So, it'd be good to hear at our next meeting what. you know maybe take some pictures and let us know how much how much work it sounds like yeah i'll i'll see what i can do um next couple weeks are going to be kind of dicey for me personally but i'll i'll try to get out there before the next meeting and i'll i'll take some notes and some photos but i'm i'm guessing eric since you've been out there the you know we're not talking about you know a lot of earth moving stuff it's maybe just you know clearing some brush and whatnot yeah the if you really wanted to make a trail that was universally acceptable it's it's

▶ 1:19:44 going to be a real lot of work uh there's a uh a trail that can be passable by most people that you know could be done pretty easily it's really just clearing some uh small saplings and brush essentially and then a couple of stones to get through the um essentially a small stream okay well i mean i think you know starting off with a trail that's accessible to most people is better often better than what we have now so um you know we can go from there i mean we've got other trails that might be better choices for people that aren't as mobile all right thank you Yep, so Eric, you have new trail markers printing. I was really hoping that we'd be able to buy something with the money that we had earmarked for printing.

▶ 1:21:01 That we were about to lose, and I figured this was an opportunity to actually get some more markers since we didn't need them. The places that I spoke to, though, they, they all have a minimum order size, at least 100 markers. And the place that made the markers that. We originally ordered them from. Transferred that segment of the business to another company. And they would only do a minimum order of 100 of. Each individual color, so we'd have to get 300 markers and it was 720 dollars. I think that they quoted me. Which was well above the 250 dollars that I had. Budget printing, so disappointing. I checked with the place that made our conservation land signs. And they couldn't print directly on the metal discs, but.

▶ 1:22:00 They could make like a vinyl decal thing that they would then stick on to the metal disc that. It would be a little bit thicker, but it would look essentially the same. And they quoted me. Think about 590 dollars for. 100 split months, the 3 different colors, but it was only for 100 of them. So. Both of them were above what we had budgeted. So I was disappointed. So, your objective is you're looking for a trademark of a different color or are we just running low on them in general? I was really hoping to get a different color, but I figured. You know, if we're ordering trail markers, we may as well get more of the others too, just so that we had them on hand. Especially since that there's a new trail, the Hillside Park one that

▶ 1:22:55 Orion had actually marked out years ago. There's an Eagle Scout candidate that's going to just clear that area out now and put that trail into place. I walked it with them a couple of weeks ago. But so eventually we'd have to put markers on that too. That's the hillside park trail that, uh, I think we kind of showed tentatively on 1 of the plans on 1 of our trail maps. So, it looks like there's not that much we can do with our 250 dollars from the printing measure. Yeah, I think I've asked this question before and I'm not. Overly familiar with how the city handles its budget or. our small amount of money that we have but is there some way we can bank this you know couple hundred dollars so that you know maybe if we accumulated over a year or two then we can

▶ 1:24:00 actually get some trail markers uh i could uh if i that was one of the reasons why i wanted to have that invoice i mean if it wasn't crazily over which unfortunately both of them kind of are Because we normally only have $250 budgeted for printing each year and 250 plus 250 is 500, which was still less than I think the lowest one, which was the 590-ish. If you have an invoice, you can directly tie it to that and you can be, I forget what the term is for it but essentially it's earmarked for you know and to be carried over to pay for a portion of that we usually would do that for the pawn stuff you know we would split it over one year to the next that way in case it went a little bit over we didn't

▶ 1:24:54 drain the whole budget we had some cushion but as you know uh that's not an option now either with you know we're asking for additional money to pay for that okay bummer encumbrance that's the term that's day it's encumbered yeah aka bummer should we use that printing budget then to uh print up trail maps or or other ideas for that i haven't used the trail maps that we printed out last year because we normally give them out at the uh healthy mount rose fair or the victorian fair and you can have a table at either of those so i still have most of them yeah so i think are going to happen this time to answer paul's question i believe i believe things will happen this year uh you know i would expect the victorian fair to definitely

▶ 1:26:00 take place because that's in september now in general september but i haven't heard anything officially signs we have uh i think either two or three more of those um melrose conservation land signs the lebron ones on the state i know that the one that used to be up at the end of prescott street disappeared nobody knows what happened to it so i'm assuming we're going to have to get that one one of them installed there and i wanted to have one of them put on dexter road over at the trail here for this new trail that that eaglescout's doing so that way it's at least obvious that you know that's the trailhead to there and then it's conservation land so uh could we get a few a few to use up that money and then we can

▶ 1:27:02 you know, have them when we need them? Or is that going to eat up too much money as well? I don't remember how much we paid for those. I might be able to get one or two made. I don't know. I'll look into that there. I'm not sure if it's, you know, the fiscal year ends, I think the end of June, and usually you have to have something put in within like the next couple of weeks so i'll see if i can ask them for you know an invoice on you know can i get one of these one or a couple of these signs made for this um i don't know if you if you want to uh to vote to approve spending debt on those signs uh and i would have to have like a special meeting or something you know like we did before for the solitude thing

▶ 1:28:04 i'll make a motion we expend up to 250 dollars for trail time i'll second that just the roll call richard yes eugenia yes jason yes mike yes paul yes And if the money isn't going to get spent, that's fine too. But that would be something that will be useful someday when more signs disappear. Park Commission meeting update. Yeah. Oh, sorry, I was just going to say, yeah, they had another meeting and they've evidently been running into some problems with the City, the Park Commission has, About getting some of the money to do to move forward with this and to start, you know, looking at, you know, what is actually needed in terms of, you know, managing stormwater and whatnot. They remain very concerned about.

▶ 1:29:27 The conservation commission's role in this and what. You know, what conditions might be placed on any, any of the improvements that are being discussed. They're also a little concerned with the cities. Taking this and making this much more than the athletic fields. Um, evidently the park commission started this because they wanted to increase the availability of the fields. Um, basically, they were saying that, you know, they, they just have a lot of teams that need need to use these fields and because of the conditions of the field that wasn't always available. So, um, that's where they originally started. And, um, you know, I think we've all seen some of the work that's being discussed is is a lot more than the fields and that that seems to be a point of friction between the park commission and the, uh, the city.

▶ 1:30:25 So, um, they're a little concerned about that, but. Does look like they are at the time of the meeting. They either had authorization or they were going to get authorization very shortly to work with the contractor to get some to start the work of doing some test pits to determine what's there in terms of soils and how they might go about managing the stormwater. So, um, there wasn't any discussion about where those test pits might be exactly. Um, but I would expect that just the proximity to the pond that we're probably going to get some sort of. Or RDA relating to the work around those test at some point. I don't know if Eric, if you've heard anymore since that meeting. No, this is the 1st, I'm actually hearing that they're exploring the test that's right now. So thank you for letting me know this.

▶ 1:31:17 Yeah, yeah, this was actually, um, they, I don't know if they keep forgetting about us, or if they're intentionally leaving us out. Um, I just happened to see it on the, um. I've been kind of keeping my eyes peeled whenever they have meetings and they post their agenda and I saw that the L pond. Item was buried at the bottom of the agenda and so I tuned in and. Was enlightened, I guess. So, anyway, yeah, I think we, it's probably in our best interest to try. Stay on top of them, because despite, you know, despite mentioning several times to, you know, please work with us, they, they seem to keep forgetting about us. I think test bits are exempt from is my understanding. I know I've done some test bits in the in the past.

▶ 1:32:13 So, we might want to confirm that, you know, they should still let us know as a courtesy, I would think, but. They might be exempt from a formal permitting process. I think I think it depends on how many there are and where they have the distance. They actually are from the resource area. But, you know, it's partially true. Yeah. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah. I thought either way, you know, it's the contractor's well aware of it. So. It's unfortunate to hear that there's some angst there and. that some small percentage of it at least seems to be directed at us. I did have the impression that the plans were pretty, it looked expensive to me when they came to us. And I thought, wow, where's this money gonna come from?

▶ 1:33:06 And that's, you're right, once it grew from, do we need drier soccer fields to, well, this is more than just a soccer field that it might get a bit unwieldy, it sounds like. Yeah, it, it was interesting because this is the 1st time that I actually. I heard from park commission that this wasn't what they were originally. Intending, I had thought that this was their plan all along and I learned at this meeting that it, it wasn't, but I will say this. So this was the public meeting. This wasn't a private meeting. So it was being recorded. So, if you can suffer through the Melrose TV website to dig up the archived footage, you can watch it. It was a relatively short meeting. And I want to say, I can't remember the date, but it was their last parks meeting.

▶ 1:34:01 Can you clarify, when you say that they said this wasn't their plan, that what wasn't their plan? Their original intent was to increase the availability of the fields and perhaps gain some more fields. Basically, they just have a number of sports teams that, you know, would like to have some time on the fields and they were having a hard time meeting that demand. And so they wanted to either increase the number of the fields and or improve the availability the fields through increased drainage you know different field materials and whatnot a lot of the things that we saw in the public meetings you know where you know we were advocating for more passive recreation you know there were other things being proposed you know

▶ 1:34:59 trail walking trails there was a small little performance area in one of the stages you know just general improvement of the area that was at least my impression and i believe they stated this rather explicitly that was not part of their original goal and this was something that was being asked for by the city and i think they they saw this as a bit unfortunate because it now dragged the process out and this is a really a multi-year process for them um and they're they're still running the roadblocks yeah i mean my understanding is it has been a very long process but some of those proposals some of those proposed changes were in response to public feedback and the survey that was issued and i do recall at the last presentation that or the meeting that

▶ 1:35:53 they joined of ours um that it was made pretty clear that there was a desire to try to strike a balance between establishing usable fields and also creating workable green space in the city in response to public feedback so i guess it's a little beyond sort of the purpose of our meeting today i would agree that it would be nice if if we were kept in the loop more directly yeah i like i said and i would encourage you to go go look at the meeting recording like i said That was being recorded and it's, you know, if this is something you're, you're interested in, you can hear it straight from them from the recording. You know, we don't have play play telephone. It was a short meeting. It was towards the end.

▶ 1:36:42 So, it should be easy enough to find. And I mean, I agree. I think we were all, you know, in agreement that, you know, more passive recreation, general improvement of the site, you know, cleaning up some of the areas improving. know there's even talk of you know incorporating in some of the removal of the invasive species around the pond and you know improving some of the wetland areas i think these are all things that we would definitely love and advocate for but um these are things that um you know need to be driven this is work that needs to be driven beyond us you know we can advocate for it and we can encourage that sort of development but ultimately it's going to be the city and somebody

▶ 1:37:27 else with a budget to do some of this work you know we're we're trying to get some of the water chestnut cleaned up at all pond and I think that's a very good thing and a very important and pressing thing that we need to get done you know I think some of these other things it would be great if some of the other organizations in the city could you know perhaps take the lead and and fund probably more importantly and fund check their agenda it looks like it was May 10th does that sound right that sounds about right yeah it looks like finn's hand is raised there has been the parks department has been trying for a number of years specifically to look at a project to turf the west knoll um as a as a parks specific project

▶ 1:38:26 i think there may be where some rfps issued in the past and then my understanding is that the The current administration came in and said, we're going to make this project larger. So that's the parks desire all precedes the current. The current efforts just as a little bit of background, they've been trying for a few years specifically with a Western altar project and the city has now. Mandated that it's going to be bigger. Well, certainly the city government outside of the parks. Commission has heard that the public has an interest in more things than. Her fields are great, but they're not to be on the end. All so. Public company can be a real pain if you don't like the comments. But that's why we have the process.

▶ 1:39:24 Department doesn't tend to actually post their recordings. Unfortunately. Um, but they do post, they do post very good minutes, but they, I don't know why they get away with not putting the videos up, but they don't generally put the videos up. Oh, I'm sorry, I, I just assumed that all the meetings were being recorded. That's too bad because some of the, um. From the body language and the, the inflection in the comments is. Interesting, I guess I'll leave it at that. But anyway, um, that's unfortunate. okay thank you hey paul can you let it let everybody know or let eric know when the next couple meetings are people want to uh yeah definitely themselves and see how it's going that'd be if you really have absolutely nothing to do anything yeah i i will say i was a little

▶ 1:40:23 nervous because the agenda their agenda was many bullet points and the help on stuff was way at the end um but they blew through about three quarters of the agenda in the first five ten minutes so um you know if you do see the agenda don't let it scare you they move very quickly okay i was still on their page uh june 15th and july 12th are the uh next two meetings that they have published on there for the park commission it's uh save me one step is you ready they don't have agendas posted for either of those do they i think it just said regularly scheduled meeting yeah okay yeah if you um eric if you could put those dates in our minutes that way i'll i'll remember to go put it on my calendar

▶ 1:41:29 i don't know if um how computer savvy people are but if you actually dig around you can find an RSS feed for the meeting agenda portal and it's kind of nice then you'll just see the the agendas pop up in your feed reader which is kind of a a nice way to consume that stuff the Commission's benefit the test pits city hasn't paid Weston and Samson for that yet there is they're using free cash for it. So, if you all wanted to, you know, get some questions raised or asked to be kept in the loop, that might be a good—submitting comments to the Appropriations Committee when that free cash request is heard might be a good way to try to make sure you're kept in the loop. Yeah, unfortunately, I think the issue is more—it goes beyond just the test pits.

▶ 1:42:32 I mean, I, I, I personally think, you know, doing some test pits to figure out what's out there in terms of soil. I think that's a good thing. I mean, I think that benefits everyone just to know what we're dealing with. But I think the bigger issue is, we've had several discussions. I know Eric's been talking with them a bunch too, and, you know, they keep mentioning they're concerned about the conservation commission. And I know Eric and myself have kept saying, well, we're, we're here to work with you. We're dialing into these meetings and, you know, please contact us sort of thing. And they never contact us or at least I, I don't hear from them. Um, so that's, that's the issue. I mean, we could potentially raise a stink about the, the funding, but unless that sinks into the park commission, um, I don't think it's going to have any real lasting effect.

▶ 1:43:24 But thank you for the idea. Just the same. That was a good point. Okay, the last time on the agenda is Eagle Scout candidate project hillside park trail. It's like, it just kiosk repairs improvement. So, that's the thing that I alluded to earlier in the meeting here. I spoke to an Eagle Scout candidate. His name is Charlie, Charlie Dillman. He is. Planning on clearing the hillside park trail. and uh they're going to fix some of the roofing on the kiosk over on flag acres you know there's a couple of loose shingles on there and he's going to work on putting some laminated like a bigger trail map and stuff like that in the kiosk i um had him coordinate with one of our trail stewards that had initially expressed interest in doing something like that a while ago so at least

▶ 1:44:37 the two of them can work together on that part great um one thing that i wanted to put on the bottom of the agenda is uh thursday june 3rd at 6 30 pm is the our budget appropriations meeting with the appropriations committee meeting with the selectmen and i'm not sure if i i had various computer glitches today including not getting on the meeting tonight but i tried to forward that to everybody today did anybody get that the webex meeting no i did not okay i'll do that again i i sent it but then i looked in my it was stuck in my outgoing box for a while for some reason things aren't going through so again it's you know it's a webex meeting just like that this june 3rd 6 30 p.m this is one of

▶ 1:45:39 those things that Susan used to handle so we pretty much nobody here has ever been to one. I think I sat in one briefly so many years ago I don't remember it but I think they're very short because our budget's very small but I'll dial in and it'll be great if others could as well just to answer any questions they might have about what we do or what road lies ahead. I was just going to ask, didn't we actually vote Ryan in as our treasurer? Yes, you did. Okay, I would definitely, I mean, I'll connect in, but yeah, I'm thinking it's probably more important that he attends and he unfortunately couldn't make it tonight, but I'm sure he'll be happy to attend if he can make it. i guess the other question i had i know um when susan and when we lost half the commission um

▶ 1:46:54 there was a lot of talk about potentially extending eric for some more hours and i think eric was still eric said he was interested in that if um if we could find the money for it But is, and I can't remember where, where that ended up. Can we, should we try to make a case for that at this meeting or is this not the right time? No, I think that's the place to start it right there. And I have no sense of how hard that would be. It's really small money, but it's a change and I don't know how well those are received. But at the very least, we could start the conversation. Okay, is this something where we should draft a letter prior to the meeting or should we does this need to be handled, you know, with comments in the meeting or or some combination of that?

▶ 1:47:48 I'm not sure. Well, I know that I'm on Eric. I wonder if you could send them. But could you send to all the commission members are the current. Budget so that we all know the vast resources that we have available to us and what the light items are. I can do that. I know that, um. This came up before an unrelated thing. It was about the pawns budget when we were originally exploring doing, um, I think it was like additional testing or. Some other sort of treatment that, you know, um, the pawn company had suggested at that time. and i think we wanted to try to add it to one of the budget hearings and susan said that um you don't it like that's not the time you ask for that it's it's at some other point like the goal

▶ 1:48:50 for the the city budget hearing thing is you already want to have that whole thing lined up like you're not asking for that money now you already showed here's what the appropriation was that we were already looking for so maybe it's with the appropriations committee so like the stuff that was happening now like where they're trying to do the stuff from free cash but not like once the not once the city big budget had already been set i guess it's when there's free cash so i guess technically we should have asked for it months ago yeah well since i'm a rookie at this i'm going to ask at the appropriations committee and and ask for their direction on how to make it happen. Even if it means it can't happen until, you know,

▶ 1:49:34 nine months from now, at least they can tell us what the process is. And then the plan B is, if we choose to go that route, is we can apply the fees that we get from applicants for under the wetlands protection act to pay for our cost to administer the act so we have that that dollar amount i don't have so eric will need that as well so we could find a way to segregate uh you know if if eric is on the payroll for two days a week we could say okay one day a week make sure you do nothing other than uh permitting function and we'll pay you for that day a week out of this pot of money. That gets a little weird because then he's getting paid out of two different pots and I'm sure the budgetary system

▶ 1:50:31 is not really cut out for that. So I have no idea how, even if it's a really small thing, how difficult that might be for the financial system in the city because we barely use those funds. the fees have been they've been around for 20 years or so the fees have been collected you know the state gets a chunk of it in the conservation division gets a chunk of it and we've fairly used it we've used it for peer review of some projects over the years to look at drainage calculations or the review of the wetland line that sort of thing and that's still very handy to have that but certainly we're not here to be you know banking money I think if we have good things to use it on we should especially because it has to be

▶ 1:51:33 earmarked just for the wetlands Protection Act work like you know for example we couldn't use that for trail markers right okay and so it it I have no sense of whether this is would totally flummox the system or it will be very simple you know we just have no sense of that well like you said we asked the question and see what they say so i'll try to have a conversation with ryan certainly before uh june 3rd so that's all i had anybody have anything else they want to chat about no nice can i steal one more minute of everyone's time just about the about the water chestnut timing um because i'm you know to be transparent on planning on doing a lot of volunteer recruiting for it and just to get a sense of

▶ 1:52:44 you know is if if the appropriation is approved is solitude going to say all right well we'll give you 48 hours notice before we do it and then we're going to have no idea when it's going to happen or are they going to schedule it you know a while in advance so we'll kind of know when to have volunteers lined up for it uh if how they've done things in the past is any indication of where it's coming in the future it's um we're gonna be lucky if they give us a few days notice on it you know like they especially if it's gonna rain or something like that they they cancel it i've had trouble with them even given a specific day but when the um alum tanker truck was going to come okay helpful to know and the volunteer effort would be the hand pulling from boats and such like

▶ 1:53:40 we've done before yeah i think as we've discussed in the past there's parts of the pond that are just too shallow for the harvester to reach and those shallow areas are probably going to be areas that have a ton of the chestnut in them and you know kayaks and stuff can reach those hopefully it's a relatively manageable part but yeah it's going to be kayaks or you know maybe a few people wading in from the shore And if I remember the cutoff was, you know, get it done before August 1st. Is that what I recall from last year? Thereabouts. It's usually like the first week of August, but it is really kind of dependent on how the spring and early summer has gone. Like if it's dry and hot, you know, it will

▶ 1:54:36 flower earlier than if it's cold and raining. Yeah one thing I noticed this year is my asparagus patch sprouted like a solid week or two earlier. So I don't know if everything's going to be a little earlier so I guess we'll find out. But it does sound like too that the harvesters working in the deeper portions of the pond then it might not have much of an impact on on when or how the volunteer effort works in the other parts as soon as eric hears anything he'll certainly spread the word so if there's no other oh go ahead no just wondering if we're wrapping this up yeah yeah if uh there's nothing else to talk about we'll see everybody at the next meeting on june 17th uh and hope to see some of you at the june 3rd appropriation

▶ 1:55:50 committee meeting thank you thanks everyone have a good night bye guys

Original documents

• Minutes (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda (IQM2 PDF)
• Bulletin (IQM2 PDF)
• Minutes packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Agenda packet (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Other (CivicClerk PDF)
• This meeting on the city portal