WEBVTT

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Marida Hines: Hi! John! Hi! Everybody!

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John Compton: Good morning.

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John Compton: Georgette. I'm a

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John Compton: yeah

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John Compton: putting you in charge of the waiting room.

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Peter Nagrod: Well, I have no video. So you're all lucky today.

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John Compton: I'll say, except I already saw you for several hours.

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Peter Nagrod: I know.

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John Compton: My limit, anyway.

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Peter Nagrod: The pain.

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Peter Nagrod: It's almost 9 o'clock, John, you're getting ready to start.

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John Compton: On the.as always.

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Peter Nagrod: At 9 o'clock at 9 o'clock.

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Peter Nagrod: Okay.

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John Compton: We at least have to have a council here.

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Peter Nagrod: There you go.

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Peter Nagrod: Oh, I like video.

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John Compton: There's Mary, that would be our last.

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Peter Nagrod: Even. Did you see we got the note, the handicap sign up.

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Eva Langston: You did. No, I didn't see. I'll have to go check it out.

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Peter Nagrod: Yes.

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Eva Langston: Thank you. Exciting.

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Peter Nagrod: There's not a lot to see.

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Eva Langston: Well, I mean it's a handicap sign. But still.

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Peter Nagrod: Yeah.

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Eva Langston: It's 1 that we didn't have before.

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Peter Nagrod: That's right.

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John Compton: Here.

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John Compton: 3, 1.

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Peter Nagrod: They have a camera.

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John Compton: Missing. Chris. Why the hell does that happen?

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John Compton: Oh, there it is. Okay. Good

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John Compton: alrighty!

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John Compton: Think.

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Peter Nagrod: It was on.

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Peter Nagrod: I wonder.

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John Compton: All right.

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John Compton: Well, since the all of the Council is here. We got a few things to to get started with. We'll call the meeting to order, and it's a long, potentially a long meeting.

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John Compton: So this is the call to order.

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John Compton: I do want to just reiterate that this is a special counsel meeting called to

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John Compton: as an informational session for the Council and residents, and also to hear public input on the Restoration Plan plan that has been

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John Compton: has been

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John Compton: proposed that the Council

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John Compton: weigh in on. I don't believe we have a motion on the floor yet

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John Compton: concerning it.

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John Compton: So I've

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John Compton: gone to some

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John Compton: trouble, not trouble, but

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John Compton: take taking the time to assemble what I hope will be a definitive collection of information.

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John Compton: As of now. Well, it it it it's designed to get as much out there as so that everybody has the same set of of fact, and and and

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John Compton: understanding of the meadow how we got here.

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John Compton: And what the proposal worked out with between the Meadow Committee and Parks consists of, and then, of course, there are several presentations by residents, one of which, by a group of residents, with their view on the proposed Restoration plan.

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John Compton: and they are in the I would have put them at the end of the presentations, but at least one of them has a

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John Compton: a definitive

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John Compton: dropout time of noon, so this will ensure that they get in before that

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John Compton: and the last presentation by Tom. Land!

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John Compton: I've sort of he! He

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John Compton: requested to present and I indicated that I thought that was appropriate only

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John Compton: because he's going to have 10 min

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John Compton: only if it was

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John Compton: sort of the approach was to suggest how the Restoration plan could be improved.

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John Compton: You know what aspects are, you know.

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John Compton: are reasonable, but where more could be done for the good of the meadow and and the town's expectations, so I think his presentation will will represent his

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John Compton: point of view on that. It's just a set of suggestions.

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John Compton: okay. So having said all of that you see the agenda you don't see the agenda, because I neglected to

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John Compton: Put it on. There it is, I hope.

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John Compton: doesn't look like it.

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John Compton: What happened?

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John Compton: Did I get the right one on?

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John Compton: Let's talk to.

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John Compton: Yeah. Are you seeing the agenda?

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John Compton: Oh, oddly.

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John Compton: looks like all right. You should be seeing

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John Compton: no.

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Robert Booher: Yeah, I'm seeing it.

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John Compton: Now you're seeing the whole desktop. Here's what here's what I wanted

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John Compton: there, much better. Okay, this is the agenda. So I need a motion of any. Well, 1st of all, a motion to approve the agenda, and then any comments from the Council on this.

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John Compton: So

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John Compton: I'm gonna move to

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John Compton: introduce and approve the agenda.

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Peter Nagrod: I'll move to approve the agenda.

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Eva Langston: And I'll second if that's needed.

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John Compton: Okay, thank you. I do have one further comment. We did receive a

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John Compton: a

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John Compton: complaint I received, and

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John Compton: a complaint that the agenda was too long.

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John Compton: you know. In my opinion, the level of

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John Compton: have

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John Compton: resident interest in this, the number of comments.

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John Compton: the the

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John Compton: unfortunate interactions, and and that that

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John Compton: of of the last few weeks justify

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John Compton: put getting out enough information so that there will be few, if any, questions as to how we got where we are

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John Compton: and what the Restoration plan is all about. This is

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John Compton: principally here, because council meeting, because Council may, may, will likely take action for the Council, but of course also for all of our the residents to have heard the whole thing in one place at one time. So yes, it could run long, but not longer than a typical town council meeting.

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John Compton: I don't think

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John Compton: all right. Any anybody else have a comment about the agenda.

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John Compton: Right? All in favor of approving the agenda.

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John Compton: Okay.

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Kathy Lehman: Is that all? 5, John? I mean 6.

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Robert Gilmore: I, yeah, Rob.

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John Compton: Yeah, I think we had also tell you, Rob.

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John Compton: okay, so let's move right along. With the 1st come the informational presentations, and I'm listed here. But I'm not really going to present anything except to show you that in the meeting materials I thought it was useful to

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John Compton: have available for everyone

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John Compton: for a historical listing. It's a 1 pager of a timeline of the significant events creating the Washington Grove Meadow Conservation Park runs from 2,000 up to around 2,013.

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John Compton: Georgette will address many of these with some some

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John Compton: you know.

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John Compton: What what was significant for each. At many of these points in the

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John Compton: the

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John Compton: transfer of the meadow property to the town and to the county as Parkland. So that's all I'm going to say about that. You can look at this. Anybody can look at this, and we'll have it for the future.

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John Compton: So I'm going to stop with that, and then we'll move along to

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John Compton: Georgette's presentation, which is on the history of of the meadow and and

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John Compton: so I would.

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John Compton: Georgette, I will let you

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John Compton: take over and.

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Georgette Cole: Okay. I didn't ask in advance. Oh, you've got the slides. Great! Thank you.

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Georgette Cole: So I'll talk about the history of the Washington Grove, Meadow Conservation, Park, Slide.

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John Compton: Why isn't it going down? There we go!

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Georgette Cole: It really all began in 2,000 when

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Georgette Cole: a developer approached the town.

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Georgette Cole: He suggested that it would be a great thing if the grove annexed the Casey property which he intended to develop.

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Georgette Cole: and his development plan

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Georgette Cole: was very dense development.

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Georgette Cole: The town was alarmed by both the density, and by the loss of the open space on our only remaining undeveloped border.

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Georgette Cole: So they declined the proposal.

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Georgette Cole: In 2,001,

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Georgette Cole: the Mayor and the Hpc. Suggested to planning board staff

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Georgette Cole: that the 13 acre field along Ridge Road would qualify for inclusion in the county's legacy open space program based on its historical significance to the town of Washington Grove.

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Georgette Cole: There was a lot of community interest and engagement at this point in time.

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Georgette Cole: And

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Georgette Cole: many in town worked on a save the field presentation which was actually sent to the planning board in September of 2,001 slide.

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Georgette Cole: Odd.

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Georgette Cole: This is a photograph of the meadow during that time period.

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Georgette Cole: And

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Georgette Cole: it's pretty easy to see that when the legacy open Space Staff came out to

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Georgette Cole: talk to the town and to view that Casey property and the meadow in question.

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Georgette Cole: they were pretty impressed by

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Georgette Cole: the property itself, and the difference it made to Washington Grove

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Georgette Cole: slide.

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Georgette Cole: Okay.

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Georgette Cole: This led to the 2,002 document

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Georgette Cole: when the Legacy Open Space Staff sent their recommendation to

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Georgette Cole: planning to planning staff.

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Georgette Cole: and they recommended that the 13 acre plan be added to the legacy. Open space functional plan.

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Georgette Cole: they said specifically that the Casey property helps define the historic rural setting of the town of Washington Grove.

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Georgette Cole: The property, and especially the meadow along Ridge Road, serves, as contextual, open space for the town by helping convey a sense of historic time and place that would be diminished considerably if the site were developed.

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Georgette Cole: Reserving as much as possible of this open space, would help maintain the community's unique character.

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Georgette Cole: This recommendation was received favorably by planning Staff Slide

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Georgette Cole: leading us to our next important document, which was

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Georgette Cole: the planning staff memo to the Planning Board in December of 2,004. Regarding the Casey at Mill Creek, subdivision

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Georgette Cole: They recommended addition of the 13 acre open field adjacent to Ridge Road as legacy open space

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Georgette Cole: citing that that was what was recommended by the Legacy Open Space Staff.

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Georgette Cole: The planning staff noted that the field was determined to provide a valuable buffer to the significant heritage resource. That is the town of Washington Grove.

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Georgette Cole: and that the entire town has been designated a National Register historic site.

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Georgette Cole: and the meadow enhances the environmental setting of this heritage resource by maintaining the town's rural character

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Georgette Cole: slide.

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Georgette Cole: This in turn led us to

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Georgette Cole: I,

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Georgette Cole: a planning board

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Georgette Cole: public hearing for the Casey at Mill Creek. Preliminary plan.

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Georgette Cole: At this hearing, which

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Georgette Cole: I'm very happy to say, I was able to attend and remember pretty clearly

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Georgette Cole: the mayor, the town's legal counsel, and the chairman of the historic preservation, all testified both

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Georgette Cole: at the hearing and with documentation submitting, submitted to it as well.

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Georgette Cole: they made a very strong case for the critical need to protect the historic integrity of the town and to do it during phase. One of the preliminary plan process so that it didn't get lost.

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Georgette Cole: Many individual residents of the town testified that day, as well. Also members of the Shady Grove and Derwood communities who supported the proposal in their public testimony. Slide.

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Georgette Cole: Sorry Slide. John.

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John Compton: Didn't go.

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Georgette Cole: So the document that we have that relates all of this came out in July of 2,005, based on a June 23. Vote that year by the planning board

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Georgette Cole: on the Casey at Mill Creek. Preliminary.

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Georgette Cole: Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Go back one.

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Georgette Cole: Pardon me.

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Georgette Cole: Based on the preliminary plan conditions for Casey at Mill Creek.

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Georgette Cole: In the end the dedication of the 13 Acre Meadow, as Los was added

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Georgette Cole: as a condition of approval for the preliminary plan granted to Oxbridge development for the Casey at Mill Creek property.

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Georgette Cole: They noted the same things that had been noted previously

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Georgette Cole: about

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Georgette Cole: providing a valuable buffer to the significant heritage resource. That is the town of Washington Grove.

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Georgette Cole: and it enhances the setting of the town, which is a National Register historic site by retaining the town's rural character.

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Georgette Cole: This became a part of the preliminary plan. Approval, which is what makes our loa los designation significantly different from other los parcels

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Georgette Cole: next slide.

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Georgette Cole: Okay?

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Georgette Cole: By December of 2,005.

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Georgette Cole: The developer still had not moved toward actually starting with the development.

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Georgette Cole: and at that time there were proposals from Parks about using the Los for active recreation.

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Georgette Cole: And from the

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Georgette Cole: oh.

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Georgette Cole: I believe from the County Council, suggesting its use as a school site.

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Georgette Cole: That would be from the Fed Committee.

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Georgette Cole: This prompted the town to initiate condemnation proceedings

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Georgette Cole: and led to a truly lengthy legal battle which I'm not going to go over

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Georgette Cole: but which culminated in October of 2010, when the town purchased the fee simple interest which is ownership of the land, while Mnc. Ppc. Has the dedication of easement from 2,007 to administer the park as legacy. Open space, with the additional preliminary plan requirements of 2,005 of preserving the open field.

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Georgette Cole: protect the historic setting of the town.

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Georgette Cole: In 2,011 Mayor Anderson formed a legacy field committee charged with assembling a draft plan

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Georgette Cole: to maintain the meadow and then work with park staff

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Georgette Cole: to formulate an operation and use plan.

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Georgette Cole: When that started in 2,012.

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Georgette Cole: Right after that started in 2,012, I became mayor.

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Georgette Cole: and

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Georgette Cole: I was

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Georgette Cole: concerned when I discovered that Brenda Sandberg, who was representing the Parks Department

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Georgette Cole: tended to talk about the

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Georgette Cole: Park legacy, open spaces belonging to the park.

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Georgette Cole: So I asked for

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Georgette Cole: our town attorney

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Georgette Cole: to clarify the situation

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Georgette Cole: so that we'd have a better understanding of how to talk to the Parks Department about it.

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Georgette Cole: He gave us

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Georgette Cole: a lengthy letter with excellent legal counsel, in April of 2012 on the town's rights to the meadow, and he reminded us that the legacy open space has a very loose definition, and the town needed to focus on using the 2,005 preliminary plan condition which requires preserving the open field to protect the historic integrity of the town.

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Georgette Cole: He also strongly recommended being consistent in calling it meadow instead of legacy. Open space.

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Georgette Cole: The Legacy Field Committee

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Georgette Cole: continued their negotiations with Brenda Sandberg.

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Georgette Cole: and this led to the operation and use plan, which was actually presented to the town Council in October of 2012,

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Georgette Cole: and approved.

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Georgette Cole: It was then presented to Parks, senior management. In October of 2013

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Georgette Cole: the Field Committee wasn't able to get a plan for the

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Georgette Cole: tree Islands that they had envisioned.

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Georgette Cole: but to keep Brenda from proposing removal of all of the existing trees. They suggested compromise wording which would retain the largest native trees, which were above 4 to 5,

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Georgette Cole: which were at or above 4 to 5 feet tall.

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Georgette Cole: Slide, please.

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Georgette Cole: Okay, this is a view of the meadow

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Georgette Cole: in the fall of 2012,

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Georgette Cole: at about the time the

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Georgette Cole: operations and Use plan was approved by the County Council.

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Georgette Cole: You can see that there are quite a few

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Georgette Cole: trees on the meadow, but there's also quite a bit of variation in the size of the trees

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Georgette Cole: slide.

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Georgette Cole: So the mowing began around March of 2014,

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Georgette Cole: but rather than leaving

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Georgette Cole: any native tree

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Georgette Cole: 4 to 5 feet tall

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Georgette Cole: or greater, they actually left

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Georgette Cole: all of the native trees, including a lot that were smaller than 4 feet.

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Georgette Cole: there were subsequent efforts to get parks maintenance to remove

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Georgette Cole: more of the cedars, to create the tree islands that we had envisioned.

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Georgette Cole: and this was not terribly successful. I tried talking to parts Maintenance Supervisor, both in the last couple of months, while I was mayor, and during the following 4 years, when I was the

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Georgette Cole: Council liaison to the meadow.

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Georgette Cole: the answer was always, we're understaffed.

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Georgette Cole: We can't do anything right now, and

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Georgette Cole: I could understand that because there were a lot of reports during that time of how routinely the Parks budget was being slashed.

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Georgette Cole: But

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Georgette Cole: What happened

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Georgette Cole: was a result of their

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Georgette Cole: budgetary considerations and not of our indifference

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Georgette Cole: about the matter.

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Georgette Cole: Oh.

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Georgette Cole: slide.

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Georgette Cole: Okay, that actually pretty well finishes the review

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Georgette Cole: of the

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Georgette Cole: history of the

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Georgette Cole: of the field. Now, our Meadow Conservation park.

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Georgette Cole: And I'd like to speak briefly about the current proposal.

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Georgette Cole: It's relatively modest.

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Georgette Cole: Unlike the clear cutting ones proposed by Brenda.

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Georgette Cole: It removes only 74 trees in 2 phases.

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Georgette Cole: and

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Georgette Cole: we were told that there are over 220 trees in the meadow inside the circle path

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Georgette Cole: the 74 seaters proposed for clearing

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Georgette Cole: in the center of the meadow is less than 34% of these trees.

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Georgette Cole: This still leaves far more trees than was originally proposed by the Legacy Field Committee and approved by the Town Council in 2012

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Georgette Cole: slide, please.

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Georgette Cole: Okay.

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Georgette Cole: there's certainly a possibility that rejection of this plan could

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Georgette Cole: damage our newly engaged and cooperative relationship with the Parks department.

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Georgette Cole: But what I'm really more concerned about is that if the town

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Georgette Cole: demonstrates that they no longer believe

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Georgette Cole: that the open meadow is needed to preserve the historic heritage of Washington Grove

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Georgette Cole: that the county could eventually use, that as a means of subverting the easement.

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Georgette Cole: The town has spent many years, asserting the need to preserve the meadow as a buffer, because it protects the historic town

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Georgette Cole: by evoking the rural agricultural farmland which has been our eastern boundary since 1890, when the Camp Meeting Association sold it off for farming.

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Georgette Cole: If we now say that that's no longer important to us.

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Georgette Cole: I believe that we could would create a serious vulnerability

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Georgette Cole: and have very little recourse. If Montgomery County decided they needed the area for some other critically important project in the future.

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Georgette Cole: There are many projects which would be allowed under the legacy open space designation if the county didn't have to pay attention to that very specific preliminary plan requirement.

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Georgette Cole: There are many good reasons to proceed with the proposed Meadow Restoration plan, but I believe that the long term protection of the town's eastern border is the most important one.

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Georgette Cole: Thank you.

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John Compton: All right. Thank you, Georgette. I indicated that we would. Between each of these presentations we'd have some questions for the presenters. I want to limit that to 5 min at most and start with the town council if they have any questions. This doesn't preclude questions later on. Obviously. But if anybody feels wants Georgette to clarify anything or comment

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John Compton: from the Council.

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John Compton: But, Mary.

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John Compton: you're yeah unmute. Yeah. Unmute.

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marywarfield: I have a couple questions, one. The the terminology that's used that you call open field and tree islands that are in quotes. Where? Where is that? Out of? Because I see in the original they talk about just the royal nature, but they're not specific about what that royal nature is that it has to be open space. So I'm wondering where you're getting that terminology.

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Georgette Cole: Yes,

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Georgette Cole: actually, when I originally put together my

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Georgette Cole: presentation, which I was trying to keep as brief as possible. I

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Georgette Cole: bought them.

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Georgette Cole: The chairman of the Legacy Field Committee would be speaking before me, and that would already have been brought up. As it turns out, he's speaking right after me, and he'll go into more detail about what the that

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Georgette Cole: very 1st field committee proposed to the town.

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marywarfield: Okay? And my other question was in reading, and I could be wrong. The the way that it is is the town owns the the land, but the county has an easement to maintain it as

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marywarfield: meadow.

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marywarfield: Is that so? Any decisions that would be made in terms of what we do with that would have to be jointly decided. That's what I gathered from the

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marywarfield: from the lawyer's assessment of.

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Georgette Cole: On.

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Georgette Cole: Well, I'm obviously not a liar, but.

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marywarfield: It's in I go. I guess it was.

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Georgette Cole: My my understanding from what Bill Roberts told us

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Georgette Cole: was that

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Georgette Cole: the county.

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Georgette Cole: under the terms of their easement,

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Georgette Cole: was required to maintain the legacy open space.

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Georgette Cole: odd

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Georgette Cole: as legacy, open space, but based on that preliminary plan condition

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Georgette Cole: of maintaining the open field

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Georgette Cole: to preserve the

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Georgette Cole: rural agricultural heritage of the historic town.

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Georgette Cole: and he said, to the best of my recollection.

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Georgette Cole: as long as

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Georgette Cole: the county was proposing something that maintained the open field.

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Georgette Cole: we we should be happy and cooperative.

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Georgette Cole: but you know no, nobody has details of that.

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marywarfield: Well, and and.

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Georgette Cole: Concern was that it might be

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Georgette Cole: altered and used for something different.

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marywarfield: Okay that that I don't want to belabor it. But in the lawyer's letter from 2,012, he said, and the town, as the property owner has a right to object to anything beyond the purposes of the easement, and, if necessary, to seek court intervention. So that's all I was talking about, and that's all I have to say.

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Georgette Cole: Yes.

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John Compton: Anyone else from the Council.

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John Compton: Anyone else.

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Peter Nagrod: My! My hand is raised for the 1st time, and you.

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John Compton: Oh, my God! Well, yeah, I'm not used to seeing that.

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Peter Nagrod: So. Yeah, just, Joe. I'm not putting you on the spot, Georgette, but you've mentioned several times that

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Peter Nagrod: there are.

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Peter Nagrod: you know, if if worst case scenario, the county decides to use the land, what would be just some examples of what they could do there. Besides, I know a school in the park.

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Peter Nagrod: Is there any other things.

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Georgette Cole: You know, act active recreation, like soccer fields, or

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Georgette Cole: oh.

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Georgette Cole: or anything that relates to schools, are the 1st thing that come to mind.

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Georgette Cole: Know how much trouble they're having over at Jeremiah Park.

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Georgette Cole: Yeah, they don't have the space for what they need to do. There.

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Peter Nagrod: Okay, thank yeah, thanks. That's.

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Georgette Cole: And

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Georgette Cole: the

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Georgette Cole: population of Montgomery County just keeps growing. That's not

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Georgette Cole: stop.

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Georgette Cole: But.

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marywarfield: But isn't the easement to maintain the rural rural nature of that meadow to preserve the historic

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marywarfield: nature of Washington Grove? So I don't know how they could put a school or something else, because that's not inconsistent with the easement. That's part of the original agreement.

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Georgette Cole: Yes.

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Georgette Cole: So our our case from the beginning has been that the open field maintains the historic integrity of

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Georgette Cole: the cam.

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Georgette Cole: and

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Georgette Cole: my concern was that we not do something that might indicate that

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Georgette Cole: an open

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Georgette Cole: rural field

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Georgette Cole: was no longer something that we thought was that important? IE.

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Georgette Cole: Maybe we should just let it go back to

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Georgette Cole: 4th succession

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Georgette Cole: or succession is not an open field.

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Bruce D/Anne V: Or anything that's ordinary.

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John Compton: I guess he.

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Bruce D/Anne V: She opens.

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John Compton: We're we're sorry we're not having a.

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Bruce D/Anne V: Okay. Okay.

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John Compton: Question or question and answer

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John Compton: anybody else.

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John Compton: All right, we're on to. Betsy has her hand up only one. This is the only question we need to finish the presentations in a timely way, and all questions will then be obviously open for consideration. So

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John Compton: go ahead, Betsy.

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Betsy Klinger: I just wanted to say, when people talked about the possibility that the school

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Betsy Klinger: that that it could become a recreation field for the school, I think, was, am I right in thinking that it was

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Betsy Klinger: People were saying, yeah, with

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Betsy Klinger: with lighting

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Betsy Klinger: at the meet.

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Betsy Klinger: you know.

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Betsy Klinger: for games and things like that we were worried about. Is that true?

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Betsy Klinger: Do you remember that

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Betsy Klinger: they were talking about? If they did use that for school recreation they could build fields that would be lit at night.

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Georgette Cole: Through.

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Betsy Klinger: Yeah, yeah, I just think that's worth knowing. Okay, that's all.

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John Compton: Okay, thanks. Let's move on to Ernie's Ernie Kawasaki's review of what the Meadow original legacy opens.

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John Compton: Field committee.

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John Compton: what? What? How? Their interaction went. So Ernie.

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Peter Nagrod: Already. You're muted.

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Ernie Kawasaki: Not muted. Yeah.

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Ernie Kawasaki: So as Georgette nicely put the history of the legacy, open space

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Ernie Kawasaki: came down to the fact that we own

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Ernie Kawasaki: the field, but the parks

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Ernie Kawasaki: have the appeasement on it. So

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Ernie Kawasaki: Mayor Daryl Anderson realized that we needed to establish a committee to work with Montgomery Park so that we could ensure that

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Ernie Kawasaki: the Grove had a good input on how the

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Ernie Kawasaki: park was managing all the other

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Ernie Kawasaki: things that goes that go with it. So the committee members were Jim Fletcher, Keith Gillis, Janetaro, Audrey Mascara, Mascara, Jolie, Mcatherine Greg, Silver, David Stopak myself

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Ernie Kawasaki: what they call a good motley group next slide please.

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Ernie Kawasaki: So

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Ernie Kawasaki: in April 2,011, the Field Committee 1st met, and we spent a few months going over and over and over as usual. There was some controversy. But in the end we came up with several ideas that seemed

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Ernie Kawasaki: okay for most of the people involved. So it was, 1st of all was, remove all invasive species and maintain ongoing removal. For instance, a mile a minute was starting to take off in the field, and

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Ernie Kawasaki: we decided that

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Ernie Kawasaki: if you. If you. We left that to go, it would just take over the whole field. So that was a easy

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Ernie Kawasaki: point to make.

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Ernie Kawasaki: We needed to develop an agreed maintenance. Schedule included periodic mowing. To make sure all the

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Ernie Kawasaki: non-invasives were removed, and also at that time the trees were very small or there were no trees.

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Ernie Kawasaki: We also wanted to maintain the natural, currently existing paths.

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Ernie Kawasaki: and we can also

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Ernie Kawasaki: include new paths if we wanted to.

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Ernie Kawasaki: And we decided the west end of the meadow between Brown Street border path that crosses it, to be maintained as a treeless meadow, where we could

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Ernie Kawasaki: plant wildflowers and things like that

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Ernie Kawasaki: and

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Ernie Kawasaki: the 3 islands we're talking about. We wanted to have

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Ernie Kawasaki: cluster of trees in several places, not spread out, but clusters

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Ernie Kawasaki: to help in the way the meadow looked, and to encourage wildlife.

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Ernie Kawasaki: habitat diversity.

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Ernie Kawasaki: and where possible, enhance animal habitat and aesthetics with

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Ernie Kawasaki: and pockets of appropriate wildflowers. Next slide.

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Ernie Kawasaki: Okay, if you look at the original 2,011. It actually is October Field Plan draft map.

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Ernie Kawasaki: You'll notice that on the left there the wildflower meadows

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Ernie Kawasaki: fairly really open space, no trees.

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Ernie Kawasaki: and there were supposed to be 3 cops of trees.

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Ernie Kawasaki: This middle one here in the center is kind of large. That was controversial, but that's going to change, probably on the hedge grow areas. There's the we had

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Ernie Kawasaki: the

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Ernie Kawasaki: Parks department plant trees

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Ernie Kawasaki: to make the buffer, would it buffer even

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Ernie Kawasaki: bigger?

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Ernie Kawasaki: And let's see, what else is there, anyway? Because you can see we wanted flower, wildflower meadows, and very few trees within the meadow meadows itself

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Ernie Kawasaki: next slide.

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Ernie Kawasaki: So the committee plan was taken to the Washington Grove Council in October 2,011 was accepted. Then we began negotiations with Brenda Sandberg. She was charged with the operation use plan, and

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Ernie Kawasaki: of the

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Ernie Kawasaki: she was in charge of your operation. Use plan taking into account our criteria for the meadow.

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Ernie Kawasaki: and a draft plan was completed and presented to Washington Grove, Town Council.

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Ernie Kawasaki: and October 8th 2,000.

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Ernie Kawasaki: Well.

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Ernie Kawasaki: so now we're up to 2,012, starting 2,011,

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Ernie Kawasaki: and we presented to the senior management October 2,013.

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Ernie Kawasaki: So you see, the years are going by at their headquarters, and

421
00:38:05.510 --> 00:38:09.249
Ernie Kawasaki: I was there. Georgette, Audrey and Jolie were also present

422
00:38:09.390 --> 00:38:10.570
Ernie Kawasaki: next slide.

423
00:38:12.060 --> 00:38:16.389
Ernie Kawasaki: So the final operation and use plan in 2,013.

424
00:38:17.430 --> 00:38:28.590
Ernie Kawasaki: But finally, vision includes preservation of rural open vistas of the agricultural fields. That part is very important in the rural open vistas of the agricultural fields.

425
00:38:28.920 --> 00:38:35.629
Ernie Kawasaki: Next thing was create creation of native meadow habitat to support native species, and we couldn't.

426
00:38:37.930 --> 00:38:43.760
Ernie Kawasaki: Wouldn't create a native meadow habitat if there are too many trees. So

427
00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:53.410
Ernie Kawasaki: that was another important point and revision for resource-based recreational opportunities. That's something the park puts up in in all our

428
00:38:53.780 --> 00:38:55.649
Ernie Kawasaki: all our parts in the

429
00:38:55.690 --> 00:38:57.760
Ernie Kawasaki: in the county next slide.

430
00:38:59.010 --> 00:39:03.910
Ernie Kawasaki: So, as Georgette said, Brenda originally proposed clear cutting the meadow.

431
00:39:04.010 --> 00:39:13.899
Ernie Kawasaki: Well, we didn't want that, because we wanted a few stands of native trees in the meadow to make it look nicer.

432
00:39:14.050 --> 00:39:21.750
Ernie Kawasaki: Compromise was to leave native trees over 4 to 5 feet tall, and to remove others at least annually.

433
00:39:22.720 --> 00:39:24.355
Ernie Kawasaki: My problem was

434
00:39:25.550 --> 00:39:26.690
Ernie Kawasaki: the

435
00:39:26.750 --> 00:39:38.479
Ernie Kawasaki: it took so long for the parks to get start mowing, and things like that. The trees that were small now grew larger, and in the end they didn't mow any of the trees down.

436
00:39:38.560 --> 00:39:47.599
Ernie Kawasaki: So at the end their original vision open meadow was not achieved because there were just a lot of trees there. They were, over 4 or 5 feet tall

437
00:39:47.740 --> 00:39:48.870
Ernie Kawasaki: next slide.

438
00:39:50.940 --> 00:39:51.950
Ernie Kawasaki: So

439
00:39:54.925 --> 00:40:00.630
Ernie Kawasaki: let's see, where are we? Oh, yeah, I'm gonna skip forward to 2,024. Here we are.

440
00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:14.589
Ernie Kawasaki: Operation use plan is also modified again, Ruth Stag is set up, is put in charge. The Meadow Committee and the Parks Department now has a Meadow Management Restoration Group.

441
00:40:14.790 --> 00:40:18.400
Ernie Kawasaki: Notice. It's called Middle Management and Restoration Group.

442
00:40:18.520 --> 00:40:22.819
Ernie Kawasaki: which is is working with us. And this didn't

443
00:40:22.880 --> 00:40:27.750
Ernie Kawasaki: this? The group didn't, wasn't around before, so we couldn't work with them.

444
00:40:28.040 --> 00:40:32.599
Ernie Kawasaki: Their plan is designed to return the field to more open metal, like Vista.

445
00:40:32.610 --> 00:40:47.290
Ernie Kawasaki: as a town originally intended to be, and hopefully, that was part of our original plan. This will add native flowers as recommended, etc. Etc. So we'll try to bring it closer to the native habitat cited in the original plan.

446
00:40:47.690 --> 00:41:01.570
Ernie Kawasaki: and, more importantly, it will preserve the rural open vistas of agricultural fields, and that is also part of the original plan and of the Los. And we need to keep that otherwise, as Georgette said.

447
00:41:02.080 --> 00:41:04.400
Ernie Kawasaki: there may be. If we don't

448
00:41:05.200 --> 00:41:05.685
Ernie Kawasaki: keep

449
00:41:06.520 --> 00:41:07.620
Ernie Kawasaki: the

450
00:41:07.970 --> 00:41:11.340
Ernie Kawasaki: field as a meadow, they may use it for

451
00:41:11.480 --> 00:41:18.490
Ernie Kawasaki: baseball Fields school and things like that. So I think we should move ahead with the Meadow Restoration plan.

452
00:41:18.500 --> 00:41:21.279
Ernie Kawasaki: and that's where we are right now, and

453
00:41:21.660 --> 00:41:23.209
Ernie Kawasaki: I'll stop there. Thank you.

454
00:41:26.120 --> 00:41:35.179
John Compton: Okay, thank you, Ernie. So questions from the Council concerning the original Meadow Committee. The original

455
00:41:35.630 --> 00:41:37.000
John Compton: use plan.

456
00:41:39.410 --> 00:41:42.990
John Compton: Don't see any questions from anyone else questions for Ernie.

457
00:41:44.850 --> 00:41:45.920
John Compton: Okay.

458
00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:57.522
John Compton: that brings us to the the Restoration plan. That is before the Council. And Bruce Daggy will

459
00:41:58.130 --> 00:42:07.289
John Compton: review. Why, specifically what that plan is designed to achieve and some of the details.

460
00:42:07.520 --> 00:42:08.225
John Compton: So,

461
00:42:09.340 --> 00:42:11.430
John Compton: Bruce, you are

462
00:42:11.930 --> 00:42:14.800
John Compton: at the floor and I'll put this up here.

463
00:42:16.360 --> 00:42:18.470
Bruce D/Anne V: Okay. Good morning. Everyone.

464
00:42:18.980 --> 00:42:26.520
Bruce D/Anne V: The people serving on the Meadows Committee bring different experience and perspectives to our community work.

465
00:42:26.630 --> 00:42:32.900
Bruce D/Anne V: while we all agree that the Meadow Restoration is the right thing to do. We have different perspectives on. Why?

466
00:42:32.990 --> 00:42:36.650
Bruce D/Anne V: And let's all speak very plainly to each other.

467
00:42:36.750 --> 00:42:47.819
Bruce D/Anne V: We're not here on a beautiful autumnal Saturday morning, because some volunteers want to remove mile a minute and introduce native wildflowers, while others

468
00:42:47.960 --> 00:42:56.069
Bruce D/Anne V: oppose that we're here because some of us believe there are too many red cedars, and that that's a problem. And some of us don't.

469
00:42:56.200 --> 00:42:59.399
Bruce D/Anne V: So let's just speak as good neighbors about that.

470
00:43:00.340 --> 00:43:07.860
Bruce D/Anne V: The red Cedar issue was raised long ago, as Georgette and Ernie have said, but I raised it again in December.

471
00:43:07.870 --> 00:43:10.630
Bruce D/Anne V: in my letter to the Mayor and Town Council.

472
00:43:10.900 --> 00:43:20.640
Bruce D/Anne V: and as a result, Town Council voted unanimously in January to establish the ad Hoc Meadows Committee to try to engage with Parks.

473
00:43:20.840 --> 00:43:23.390
Bruce D/Anne V: and the Cedars have been a central

474
00:43:23.880 --> 00:43:27.730
Bruce D/Anne V: facet of the Restoration discussion ever since.

475
00:43:28.260 --> 00:43:38.529
Bruce D/Anne V: Yeah, you're hearing so far, and and we'll hear more about the legal and historic preservation arguments for Meadow Restoration, and perhaps those are the most important.

476
00:43:38.610 --> 00:43:46.380
Bruce D/Anne V: because if we lose control that we currently have over the meadow, then any steps to preserve the meadow could be futile.

477
00:43:46.530 --> 00:43:58.450
Bruce D/Anne V: But I'm here really just to talk about the ecological reasons for restoring the meadow, and I will also go into our thus far productive and collegial working relationship with parks.

478
00:43:58.700 --> 00:44:00.020
Bruce D/Anne V: Next slide, please.

479
00:44:01.500 --> 00:44:09.129
Bruce D/Anne V: Meadow restoration is among the actions in the Montgomery County Climate Action plan seen here.

480
00:44:09.370 --> 00:44:15.859
Bruce D/Anne V: and it's seen as having 2 primary benefits. Greenhouse gas mitigation and climate risk reduction

481
00:44:16.170 --> 00:44:20.539
Bruce D/Anne V: because of their the meadows ability to hold water.

482
00:44:20.730 --> 00:44:28.570
Bruce D/Anne V: but it also has a number of co-benefits, and one you can see here a very positive effect on environmental stewardship.

483
00:44:28.590 --> 00:44:40.570
Bruce D/Anne V: The county has recognized that it's going to have to spend a considerable amount of money to achieve this action, and it has assigned as the lead to make it happen. Montgomery Parks.

484
00:44:41.220 --> 00:44:42.610
Bruce D/Anne V: next slide, please.

485
00:44:44.190 --> 00:45:06.689
Bruce D/Anne V: The climate Action Plan states in part that meadows are an essential carbon sink, and goes on to say that they provide habitat for declining species. Ryan has talked about this in our meetings, including the meeting that we all had in the meadow a while ago, that the species that Montgomery County is in most danger of losing are the meadow species.

486
00:45:07.210 --> 00:45:09.070
Bruce D/Anne V: Next slide.

487
00:45:10.190 --> 00:45:26.530
Bruce D/Anne V: There are other groups, other organizations that are advocating for the preservation of meadows around the world. I might say fish and wildlife service has stated that meadows are important to maintain the diversity of our ecosystems. Next slide

488
00:45:29.610 --> 00:45:53.290
Bruce D/Anne V: sustainable Maryland has made Meadow Restoration one of its key objectives, which is why the committee applied for a grant from sustainable Maryland to help with this project, that grant application process was inundated with applications. They had requests for

489
00:45:53.310 --> 00:46:01.830
Bruce D/Anne V: 3 times more money than they had available. And yet we received all that. We asked for the maximum grant of $10,000

490
00:46:03.210 --> 00:46:08.959
Bruce D/Anne V: so obviously sustainable. And, by the way, that was strictly for tree reduction

491
00:46:09.270 --> 00:46:12.989
Bruce D/Anne V: so sustainable. Maryland was very much

492
00:46:13.200 --> 00:46:16.959
Bruce D/Anne V: in support of what we were proposing next slide.

493
00:46:17.720 --> 00:46:25.029
Bruce D/Anne V: Other organizations supporting Meadow Restoration, Southern Grassland Institute, whose territory includes Maryland.

494
00:46:25.050 --> 00:46:32.479
Bruce D/Anne V: has stated that grassland loss is the single greatest conservation issue currently facing Eastern North American biodiversity

495
00:46:32.640 --> 00:46:51.560
Bruce D/Anne V: and the Xerxes Society, which is concerned about the loss of pollinators has said that in North America we're losing 28% of our bumblebee species already at risk of extinction. We've all heard about the monarch butterfly declines, and loss of other butterflies that are happening throughout the East and around the world.

496
00:46:51.650 --> 00:47:02.770
Bruce D/Anne V: and they say that while pollinators are only one group of wildlife that frequent urban green spaces. They're a fundamental building block of a healthy environment, providing many benefits. Next slide.

497
00:47:04.120 --> 00:47:14.350
Bruce D/Anne V: Last year the Sustainability committee had Doug Tallamy, the Professor of Entomology at University of Delaware, and best-selling author, speak to the Grove

498
00:47:14.650 --> 00:47:17.269
Bruce D/Anne V: about the importance of

499
00:47:17.330 --> 00:47:20.390
Bruce D/Anne V: natives bringing nature home next slide.

500
00:47:21.470 --> 00:47:29.869
Bruce D/Anne V: and he made the point that again, that we're losing key insects, the pollinators that he was just talking about with Xerxes, but also the caterpillars

501
00:47:29.960 --> 00:47:34.170
Bruce D/Anne V: which are essential for most species of birds to rear their young.

502
00:47:34.210 --> 00:47:59.660
Bruce D/Anne V: They transfer more energy from plants to animals than any other plant eaters. One clutch of chickadees, 8,000 caterpillars. So think about the bluebird trail that Ken Shapiro has done such a beautiful job maintaining in the meadows for the last 8 years those bluebirds benefit from the meadow flowers, and that's an important part of the ecosystem next slide

503
00:48:01.270 --> 00:48:14.219
Bruce D/Anne V: that brings me to the Meadow management and Restoration program at Montgomery Parks when Town Council agreed to create the ad hoc committee, and I agreed in in January to chair it.

504
00:48:14.330 --> 00:48:39.700
Bruce D/Anne V: I honestly didn't know if our work was going to go on for more than a few weeks. The town has not had, as Georgette has said, always a very productive cooperative interaction with Montgomery Parks, and I didn't know if they'd return our phone calls or emails. I didn't know if we would just run into a brick wall. Thought it might be the shortest lived

505
00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:43.500
Bruce D/Anne V: committee and the history of the town.

506
00:48:43.760 --> 00:48:44.880
Bruce D/Anne V: However

507
00:48:45.120 --> 00:49:02.439
Bruce D/Anne V: clearly times have changed with the county, putting meadow restoration in its climate action, plan, and in recent years creating this meadow management and restoration program. We've found this group to be a very

508
00:49:02.440 --> 00:49:19.949
Bruce D/Anne V: willing and supportive partner. They clearly love their work. They're very enthusiastic about it. You note in the lower left here you might be able to read that the park staff contact is named Diana Losher. So that is the person that we originally

509
00:49:19.970 --> 00:49:22.989
Bruce D/Anne V: reached out to. And when we spoke by phone.

510
00:49:23.360 --> 00:49:24.470
Bruce D/Anne V: I asked.

511
00:49:24.610 --> 00:49:29.369
Bruce D/Anne V: Is Parks concerned about the number of red cedars? And she said, yes.

512
00:49:29.550 --> 00:49:33.649
Bruce D/Anne V: they. And in fact, they were generally concerned with the amount of tree cover.

513
00:49:33.750 --> 00:49:56.489
Bruce D/Anne V: And so we asked, Can you come out for a meeting? Can we meet with you. Can you talk to us about what you're going to do? And she said, Yes, she would. But when it came time for the actual meeting. It wasn't Diana. It was her supervisor, Ryan Colleton, and since then Ryan has been our primary contact. He 1st came out beginning of April, and next slide.

514
00:49:56.610 --> 00:50:00.129
Bruce D/Anne V: I just want to show you. You know, in brief.

515
00:50:00.190 --> 00:50:16.650
Bruce D/Anne V: how extensive our interaction has been with Parks. I mean, you know, contrasting with with what Georgette said before this group existed. So Ryan, who's the vegetation ecologist who is managing meadow restorations for Montgomery Parks.

516
00:50:16.740 --> 00:50:26.300
Bruce D/Anne V: has been out to the meadow for 4 in-person meetings in the meadow with with the committee, and in some cases with town residents.

517
00:50:26.320 --> 00:50:44.729
Bruce D/Anne V: and he has also attended one Meadows Committee meeting again. That's all since April, and we were not on their radar in January. He's connected us very importantly with other parks, resources. Parks operates in silos, so we needed to know who to talk to, to get other things done.

518
00:50:44.870 --> 00:50:56.739
Bruce D/Anne V: He's ensured compliance with the forest conservation regulations. He's developed and obtained parks approval for the Restoration plan, and he prepared a document for this meeting that's in the in the folder.

519
00:50:57.080 --> 00:51:12.360
Bruce D/Anne V: He introduced us to Corine Stevens, who manages the Weed warrior program. She came out for an in-person meeting in the meadow, and to assess the status of our invasive species, and made arrangements for access to training and supervision

520
00:51:12.790 --> 00:51:18.000
Bruce D/Anne V: that involved introducing us to Sylvia Nunes from the Weed Warrior program.

521
00:51:18.140 --> 00:51:25.660
Bruce D/Anne V: who's been out to the meadow for 5 in-person meetings with us, including 2 in which she supervised the weed warrior events.

522
00:51:25.710 --> 00:51:38.279
Bruce D/Anne V: She also coordinates the training and logging of hours for the volunteers, and finally through Ryan we found out who to talk to on the trails team and the maintenance team

523
00:51:38.500 --> 00:51:53.970
Bruce D/Anne V: trails team responded very quickly when there was a fallen tree across the path, and the maintenance team, at our request, came out to assess, replace, and level and bevel the new bollards that you've probably noticed along Ridge Road

524
00:51:54.640 --> 00:51:55.710
Bruce D/Anne V: next slide.

525
00:51:57.070 --> 00:52:17.340
Bruce D/Anne V: and this is just an illustration from a couple the couple of reed warrior events we've had so far didn't get a picture of everybody, but they've been great to do, and if you have the time and the body that will allow you to do it. I encourage everybody interested in the meadow to get involved and help us with this really valuable next slide.

526
00:52:18.430 --> 00:52:22.630
Bruce D/Anne V: The experience of working, particularly with the weed warrior team

527
00:52:22.800 --> 00:52:31.460
Bruce D/Anne V: also made it abundantly clear that Parks asserts its control over Park Flora. The box on the left

528
00:52:32.180 --> 00:52:48.750
Bruce D/Anne V: is from their website, which reads in part to maintain healthy, diverse plant communities, unauthorized planting or plant removal on park property is prohibited, and when we asked Parks, in response to a question from a resident about whether we could remove

529
00:52:48.810 --> 00:53:04.920
Bruce D/Anne V: poison ivy in the meadow. This is from the email response, and I did not add the boulding. It came this way in the email. You do not remove the poison ivy. It's a native. It's important. Don't touch it. If it's if it's obviously, if it's in the

530
00:53:05.480 --> 00:53:09.500
Bruce D/Anne V: in a path, it can be mowed. But we cannot eradicate it.

531
00:53:09.580 --> 00:53:13.610
Bruce D/Anne V: And you know we're here talking about whether or not.

532
00:53:13.860 --> 00:53:16.170
Bruce D/Anne V: you know, we, we can

533
00:53:16.440 --> 00:53:17.430
Bruce D/Anne V: remove

534
00:53:17.580 --> 00:53:23.240
Bruce D/Anne V: or support removal of Red Cedars. I think it's just important for people to realize. Ultimately.

535
00:53:23.290 --> 00:53:43.090
Bruce D/Anne V: Parks is in control. We we can, we can input. But Parks sees this as our as their land. And you know the scientists from parks are not going to enforce that Brian has made it abundantly clear. He doesn't want to get involved in town politics, but maybe we don't want to know if somebody higher up at Parks wants to

536
00:53:43.340 --> 00:53:45.379
Bruce D/Anne V: next slide, please.

537
00:53:46.270 --> 00:53:52.489
Bruce D/Anne V: So Georgette shared. This is this is what it looked like in 2,003 completely open next slide.

538
00:53:53.150 --> 00:53:59.680
Bruce D/Anne V: This is what it looked like in 2012, with those short cedars that should have been mowed next slide.

539
00:54:00.530 --> 00:54:04.380
Bruce D/Anne V: Here's a picture from the same perspective taken yesterday.

540
00:54:04.470 --> 00:54:11.539
Bruce D/Anne V: and you might want to toggle back and forth between those 2, because it's it's an immense contrast.

541
00:54:11.750 --> 00:54:17.109
Bruce D/Anne V: You could see all the way down to the houses at the other end. You can only see a few yards into the meadow now.

542
00:54:17.150 --> 00:54:23.930
Bruce D/Anne V: and those trees while they are considered mature. They're over 10 years old. They're not done growing.

543
00:54:24.110 --> 00:54:50.590
Bruce D/Anne V: They'll probably on average get to 40 to 50 feet in height up to 80 feet in height. They're spreading, as Ryan has put in the document that he prepared for this meeting, and, as he has said before, they are going to crowd out more of the native meadow wildflowers, they are going to shade them and make it more difficult for them to grow. So from an ecological standpoint, it's not what we want.

544
00:54:52.240 --> 00:54:53.790
Bruce D/Anne V: next slide.

545
00:54:54.880 --> 00:55:03.929
Bruce D/Anne V: I might also just add, the one thing we can't have is the meadow exactly like it is now. And if you think, think back to those 2 slides.

546
00:55:04.480 --> 00:55:07.969
Bruce D/Anne V: there's a lot a lot of change in 12 years. If we do nothing.

547
00:55:08.160 --> 00:55:12.189
Bruce D/Anne V: there's gonna continue to be a lot of change, and it's not in the direction of a meadow.

548
00:55:12.740 --> 00:55:17.095
Bruce D/Anne V: I shared this slide at an earlier

549
00:55:17.760 --> 00:55:35.219
Bruce D/Anne V: Meadows presentation at Town Council. The quote from Francis Smith, Who's Natural Resources planner for the Maryland department of natural resources, where he talks about the problem of red cedars that they are. They are native and they are useful.

550
00:55:35.220 --> 00:55:51.619
Bruce D/Anne V: They do help feed animals, it is true, but they are an aggressive native that can turn a meadow into a monoculture dead zone. And that's why we want to rebalance. We're not taking out all the cedars by any means, but we want to rebalance it. So there's room for other

551
00:55:52.120 --> 00:55:56.250
Bruce D/Anne V: truly meadow plants to occupy the space

552
00:55:56.490 --> 00:55:57.590
Bruce D/Anne V: next slide.

553
00:55:58.660 --> 00:56:02.390
Bruce D/Anne V: So here's here's the parks proposal

554
00:56:02.410 --> 00:56:31.109
Bruce D/Anne V: for the 2 phase reduction. The orange dots in the middle are phase one. The yellow dots are phase 2. The focus of phase. One is opening up the core of the meadow phase 2 is a little expansion of that core, but also a softening of the edges, creating more of a natural looking ecotone as the word that they would use. But if you look, there's still a lot of trees inside

555
00:56:31.497 --> 00:56:39.589
Bruce D/Anne V: the paths, and most of those are cedars. So it's as Ernie has said, it's not a return to the original vision.

556
00:56:39.770 --> 00:56:41.970
Bruce D/Anne V: but it is creating

557
00:56:42.010 --> 00:56:48.910
Bruce D/Anne V: more of that open space that I think we would all agree is a meadow. The

558
00:56:50.040 --> 00:56:51.850
Bruce D/Anne V: the plan is from Parks.

559
00:56:52.420 --> 00:57:04.830
Bruce D/Anne V: The committee did have some input, and one of the pieces of input that we had was the suggestion of doing it in 2 phases, because it gives us a chance to assess the impact.

560
00:57:04.880 --> 00:57:28.870
Bruce D/Anne V: And it also gives us another bite or 2 at the subsequent planting. We we didn't want the planting job to be overwhelming, and we thought, Well, if it's in 2 phases, it's a more manageable job. And also, if the weather is not very cooperative, we get multiple opportunities for the plants to get established

561
00:57:29.720 --> 00:57:30.830
Bruce D/Anne V: next slide.

562
00:57:31.870 --> 00:57:35.180
Bruce D/Anne V: So here's A. A. Gantt chart

563
00:57:35.350 --> 00:57:43.239
Bruce D/Anne V: of the Meadow Restoration plan. Through December of 2025, you see at the top the tree reduction

564
00:57:43.240 --> 00:58:06.309
Bruce D/Anne V: phase one and phase 2 phase one could happen as soon or shortly after. I suppose we had approval to go forward. We've already had a conversation with Myers and Laws, who would probably be who we would go with to use it. So we have a, you know, a draft budget and an idea. It would probably take 2 days.

565
00:58:06.330 --> 00:58:14.069
Bruce D/Anne V: not not the 2 months that you might be reading here. It would. It would happen over a couple of days. If we do phase 2.

566
00:58:14.350 --> 00:58:19.720
Bruce D/Anne V: We propose that that would be around September of October of next year.

567
00:58:21.510 --> 00:58:26.839
Bruce D/Anne V: once annual mowing happening in early spring again. Ryan has spoken to this.

568
00:58:26.900 --> 00:58:41.879
Bruce D/Anne V: He spoke, put it in writing, and spoke in the in the meadow meeting that early spring is the least disruptive time to do mowing with respect to wildlife. Also, if you do the mowing in the fall. You're scattering the seeds

569
00:58:41.880 --> 00:59:03.159
Bruce D/Anne V: of the non natives that you're trying to control. It's not that you never mow in the fall or never do anything different. But this is what he's recommending for our meadow at the state that it's in. We don't have the option of doing controlled Burns or doing controlled Burns at other sites that are further from houses and roads, but they can't do it here.

570
00:59:03.280 --> 00:59:16.299
Bruce D/Anne V: So once annual mowing happening in early spring the weed warrior events. We've again had 2 already. We're trying to get a 3rd one in before the end of the year. I'd like to see at least 3 next year. The restriction for us is

571
00:59:16.650 --> 00:59:22.789
Bruce D/Anne V: weed. Warrior events mean that people who are not certified can participate, but that requires a

572
00:59:22.800 --> 00:59:34.310
Bruce D/Anne V: person who is trained as a weed warrior, supervisor, and there is only one weed warrior, supervisor who lives near Washington Grove. So we're trying to get somebody elevated

573
00:59:34.310 --> 00:59:44.810
Bruce D/Anne V: to status of supervisor to make it easier for us to have hold events where non-certified people can participate. However.

574
00:59:44.810 --> 01:00:04.889
Bruce D/Anne V: we have a number of weed warriors in town already, and a number of people who have raised their hand to say they want to become weed warriors, so the training can happen anytime, and people who are trained can do what I'm calling forays and go into the meadow any day of the week, any month of the year, and find a target and start working on the non-native species.

575
01:00:05.170 --> 01:00:07.100
Bruce D/Anne V: The planting events.

576
01:00:07.390 --> 01:00:12.490
Bruce D/Anne V: Ryan has said the 1st planting event would happen after the spring mowing.

577
01:00:12.570 --> 01:00:25.099
Bruce D/Anne V: and that we could, so it would be one day event sometime when when the weather looked favorable. He's also indicated there could be a second planting event in the fall. They typically plant

578
01:00:25.230 --> 01:00:28.940
Bruce D/Anne V: up to spring and fall, not summer and winter.

579
01:00:29.120 --> 01:00:41.499
Bruce D/Anne V: and then there would be maintenance requests as needed. The Restoration plan in 2026 would look exactly the same, except there's no plan for further tree reduction. So maintenance requests. Next slide.

580
01:00:43.660 --> 01:01:10.970
Bruce D/Anne V: Again, we've submitted several, and probably the most visible one to everybody is the bollard replacement, and I want to acknowledge Dave Cossen did a lot of great work for the meadow when that was his responsibility. He's corresponded on multiple issues and got a lot of things resolved. But one of his frustrations was not getting those bollards replaced again. There just wasn't the wasn't the support. There wasn't the focus

581
01:01:10.980 --> 01:01:19.889
Bruce D/Anne V: from Montgomery Parks at the time, and here it it happened relatively quickly, relatively easily, and and I think they did a beautiful job of it

582
01:01:20.840 --> 01:01:22.130
Bruce D/Anne V: next slide.

583
01:01:23.690 --> 01:01:45.750
Bruce D/Anne V: The restoration, as proposed, is at 0 cost to the town. The committee has no budget. They were just volunteers. The tree reduction would be paid out of the sustainable Maryland. Grant, you know, hiring a contractor, and Parks has said, if there was any additional need with respect to tree reduction, they would use internal resources.

584
01:01:45.750 --> 01:01:55.129
Bruce D/Anne V: Parks would also continue to supply training and supervision, for things like the weed. Warriors supply the seeds and plants for the planning events for free

585
01:01:55.410 --> 01:02:02.509
Bruce D/Anne V: from their facility at Pope Farm and perform other maintenance activities, including annual mowing as needed.

586
01:02:04.010 --> 01:02:05.100
Bruce D/Anne V: next slide.

587
01:02:07.660 --> 01:02:32.969
Bruce D/Anne V: So I want to talk a little bit about the fact that we're working with an experienced team I mean their Meadow Restoration program has been up and running for years. Now they have 4 meadows listed on their site. A couple of them are really just like demonstration meadows. They're very small, but Rachel Carson Park is big. It's on the same order of magnitude as ours.

588
01:02:32.970 --> 01:02:45.559
Bruce D/Anne V: They've been working in phases on restoration of about 20 acres in total, the latest phase is about 12 acres, so just about exactly the same size as what we're talking about here.

589
01:02:46.000 --> 01:03:13.909
Bruce D/Anne V: They were starting from a worse place, so they have used herbicide, and when extensively on some of that acreage, and Ryan said, in his 1st meeting with us, that he didn't see the need for that kind of taking it back to soil. Here we have in terms of the meadow flowers. We are in better shape than the Rachel Carson was when they started.

590
01:03:13.910 --> 01:03:41.509
Bruce D/Anne V: but they're removing some of the same problem species that we have here, like the Japanese stiltgrass and the Milo minute. So again, they're experienced. They've been doing this. They know how to do it, and they're getting results there. They've also had planning events there. They've introduced over 45 native species. And now, because the meadow is more diverse, the pollinators have a consistent rotation of food sources, as the plants bloom at different times during the year.

591
01:03:41.720 --> 01:03:52.739
Bruce D/Anne V: That also results in a succession of color throughout the growing season, which I think is quite beautiful. You know we're we're really heavy in goldenrod. We can make it more balanced than that

592
01:03:52.740 --> 01:04:15.110
Bruce D/Anne V: now. It's a little late in the year to go out and see what they've done with this hot, dry weather we've been having, just as our meadow has gone kind of to its winter colors in the last few days. It's the same thing out there, but I would encourage you to take a look, maybe even now, if you look at the middle part of the meadow. They're going up the hill, you see a lot of seed pods.

593
01:04:15.110 --> 01:04:25.199
Bruce D/Anne V: you know clearly they've been successful in introducing a greater variety of plants, as they as they say, and as Ryan has said, and that's really good for the birds, and that's something that we can do here.

594
01:04:25.200 --> 01:04:29.290
Bruce D/Anne V: But go look at it next year, because I'm sure it'll be impressive.

595
01:04:29.830 --> 01:04:32.409
Bruce D/Anne V: and I think the last slide

596
01:04:33.050 --> 01:04:43.580
Bruce D/Anne V: just to summarize the the goals for the Washington Grove Conservation Meadow Park, as its full name reads more open vistas, whether for

597
01:04:44.120 --> 01:04:59.690
Bruce D/Anne V: legal, historic, or ecological reasons, they all align. We want more open vistas that will help from my perspective increasing biodiversity. And I also would say, it'll enhance the meadow aesthetics, as I just said about the

598
01:04:59.800 --> 01:05:01.170
Bruce D/Anne V: color

599
01:05:01.210 --> 01:05:08.699
Bruce D/Anne V: transformations. And, importantly, I think we want to maintain this cooperative relationship we now have with Parks.

600
01:05:08.760 --> 01:05:12.050
Bruce D/Anne V: Again. They love what they do. They're enthusiastic.

601
01:05:12.060 --> 01:05:13.740
Bruce D/Anne V: They've shown

602
01:05:14.180 --> 01:05:17.369
Bruce D/Anne V: high engagement. And let's not mess that up.

603
01:05:17.590 --> 01:05:18.380
Bruce D/Anne V: Thank you.

604
01:05:21.850 --> 01:05:22.870
John Compton: Okay.

605
01:05:22.880 --> 01:05:32.710
John Compton: thank you for staying right on time. Pretty much. So that's pretty much the the fullest explanation of

606
01:05:32.970 --> 01:05:37.661
John Compton: of both restoration planning and

607
01:05:39.740 --> 01:05:43.840
John Compton: at least for me, hearing that the the parks

608
01:05:44.030 --> 01:05:47.310
John Compton: is in a much more proactive.

609
01:05:47.500 --> 01:05:49.520
John Compton: I'm committed.

610
01:05:49.730 --> 01:05:58.200
John Compton: Position with respect to Meadows is very important important news, considering the

611
01:05:58.320 --> 01:06:04.780
John Compton: the lackadaisical approach to the management that went on for the previous 10 years.

612
01:06:05.620 --> 01:06:08.029
John Compton: All right, council questions for Bruce.

613
01:06:10.450 --> 01:06:12.069
John Compton: No, anybody else.

614
01:06:14.260 --> 01:06:30.537
John Compton: Okay, thank you, Bruce? So the next presentation will be presented by 3 of our residents, who, have have their own view about the proposed restoration of the meadow, and they're going to

615
01:06:31.380 --> 01:06:33.140
John Compton: going to

616
01:06:33.470 --> 01:06:42.180
John Compton: explain that to all of us. So I think, Deb, your debt savage is starting Deb.

617
01:06:42.180 --> 01:06:44.599
Deborah Tarasevich: Yes, John, can you put up our Powerpoint? Please?

618
01:06:44.600 --> 01:06:46.410
John Compton: Course I'm doing that as I'm

619
01:06:46.830 --> 01:06:48.800
John Compton: talking, at the same time

620
01:06:48.970 --> 01:06:50.070
John Compton: chewing gum.

621
01:06:50.660 --> 01:06:52.459
Deborah Tarasevich: Right. Thank thank

622
01:06:52.710 --> 01:07:07.070
Deborah Tarasevich: thank you, John and thank you, Mayor and members of the Town Council for holding this special town Council meeting. We appreciate that. The fact that you're here on a Saturday, and the opportunity that you're giving us to express our views

623
01:07:07.250 --> 01:07:08.990
Deborah Tarasevich: next slide, please.

624
01:07:08.990 --> 01:07:10.059
Marida Hines: Oh, this is Deb.

625
01:07:11.154 --> 01:07:23.540
Deborah Tarasevich: As an overview. I'll 1st talk about our views. Mariah will talk about the noise. I will then talk about the tree selection, and Barb Lang will conclude with the process, and some thoughts on moving forward.

626
01:07:23.870 --> 01:07:25.500
Deborah Tarasevich: Next slide, please.

627
01:07:26.070 --> 01:07:35.369
Deborah Tarasevich: We've heard from several of you and the mayor that because we disagree with the Meadows Committee proposal to remove the 75 Seaters.

628
01:07:35.410 --> 01:07:38.579
Deborah Tarasevich: We must want a forest next slide, please.

629
01:07:39.560 --> 01:07:40.150
Marida Hines: You too

630
01:07:40.760 --> 01:07:41.380
Marida Hines: perfect.

631
01:07:41.380 --> 01:07:42.729
Deborah Tarasevich: Next slide. Please.

632
01:07:44.410 --> 01:07:45.990
Deborah Tarasevich: Next. Slide. Please.

633
01:07:46.270 --> 01:07:46.940
Deborah Tarasevich: Yeah.

634
01:07:47.140 --> 01:07:48.876
Marida Hines: Oh, John, come on!

635
01:07:49.310 --> 01:07:51.040
John Compton: No, I did just what she said.

636
01:07:52.470 --> 01:07:55.200
John Compton: There's 3 slides which we do not want to force.

637
01:07:57.070 --> 01:07:58.120
Deborah Tarasevich: Thank you, John.

638
01:07:58.470 --> 01:08:01.659
Deborah Tarasevich: We do not want a forest. We want a meadow

639
01:08:02.950 --> 01:08:04.520
Deborah Tarasevich: next slide, please.

640
01:08:05.350 --> 01:08:07.810
Deborah Tarasevich: By all measures we have a meadow.

641
01:08:07.980 --> 01:08:17.049
Deborah Tarasevich: Parks uses a 25% tree cover threshold as their measurement of what a meadow is meaning that a meadow can have no more than 25% tree cover.

642
01:08:17.109 --> 01:08:29.340
Deborah Tarasevich: We learned about the 25% tree cover threshold from Ryan Colleton, the Park's principal national resource specialist at the September 18th Meadow walk and porch meeting

643
01:08:29.350 --> 01:08:32.070
Deborah Tarasevich: with the Meadows Committee and several town residents.

644
01:08:32.270 --> 01:08:41.889
Deborah Tarasevich: At that meeting several town residents asked Parks for information about the percentage of tree cover in the meadow which Ryan said he was, would be willing to provide.

645
01:08:41.930 --> 01:08:51.150
Deborah Tarasevich: We have since asked for this information several times through the Meadows Committee, as we are instructed to do, but we still have not received it. So we did our own analysis.

646
01:08:51.229 --> 01:09:08.229
Deborah Tarasevich: We took the same satellite photo that Parks used to designate, which cedars would be removed and measured the surface area of the tree cover we were over inclusive, we included not only tree cover, but also the shadows that the trees made. We then measured the surface area in pixels using 3 different programs

647
01:09:08.229 --> 01:09:21.810
Deborah Tarasevich: and based on that analysis, the tree cover was 22% using affinity, 25% using Photoshop and 24% using planet Calc, all within the 25% threshold that parks uses to define a meadow

648
01:09:22.160 --> 01:09:23.740
Deborah Tarasevich: next slide, please.

649
01:09:24.630 --> 01:09:28.000
Deborah Tarasevich: As for the Cedars themselves, what we know is that the.

650
01:09:28.000 --> 01:09:28.919
Betsy Klinger: Are you here?

651
01:09:29.729 --> 01:09:33.619
Deborah Tarasevich: What we know is that the 2,013.

652
01:09:33.620 --> 01:09:34.740
Betsy Klinger: Operation.

653
01:09:34.740 --> 01:09:38.949
Deborah Tarasevich: Planned between the parks and the town specifically specifically allowed for them.

654
01:09:39.050 --> 01:09:56.559
Deborah Tarasevich: and with respect to its implementation, the plan's instructions were to keep all existing native shrubs and trees taller than 4 to 5 feet, to provide a variety of habitats within the early succession meadow for birds and wildlife, identifying the red cedar as one of those species to retain.

655
01:09:57.360 --> 01:09:58.920
Deborah Tarasevich: Next slide, please.

656
01:10:01.420 --> 01:10:12.880
Deborah Tarasevich: These are pictures from the operation and use plan, and what they show is that most, if not all, cedars at the time of the operation and use plan were taller than 4, 4, or 5 feet.

657
01:10:13.050 --> 01:10:35.160
Deborah Tarasevich: I know we've seen several pictures from 2,012. My understanding from Ernie is that the Operation news Plan was not presented to, I think, to the planning or to whomever was supposed to be presented was not till October of 2013, and I think Ernie said that even by then most of the suitors were more than 4 or 5 feet tall.

658
01:10:35.640 --> 01:10:42.999
Deborah Tarasevich: Also, we've been told that we should forget about the meadow designation and the operation and use plan and look at original intent.

659
01:10:43.657 --> 01:10:51.710
Deborah Tarasevich: The operation use plan is the only document that memorializes any agreement between the town and parks about what the property is and how it should be managed.

660
01:10:51.780 --> 01:11:01.249
Deborah Tarasevich: and as Georgette wrote in a matter to in a letter to the County Council a few months ago, this plan was hammered out by the committee over many months

661
01:11:01.420 --> 01:11:14.389
Deborah Tarasevich: original 10 is useful, and if the language in the document is ambiguous or unclear, as shown in the previous slide, the language that the Town's Meadow committee hammered out over many months is not ambiguous, nor is it unclear.

662
01:11:14.880 --> 01:11:16.279
Deborah Tarasevich: Next slide, please.

663
01:11:18.160 --> 01:11:19.110
Deborah Tarasevich: Miranda.

664
01:11:21.440 --> 01:11:23.336
Marida Hines: Sorry. Let me unmute

665
01:11:24.070 --> 01:11:29.780
Marida Hines: so I just want to quickly stay on this slide for a second and show a recent

666
01:11:31.320 --> 01:11:37.160
Marida Hines: video. I don't know if you guys can see this. This was in front of Barb Lang's house.

667
01:11:37.960 --> 01:11:42.779
Marida Hines: This is very consistent typical situation with the noise.

668
01:11:43.710 --> 01:11:47.200
Eva Langston: Marita, we can't. I can't really see that maybe.

669
01:11:47.200 --> 01:11:48.470
Marida Hines: Can you hear it?

670
01:11:48.470 --> 01:11:55.379
Eva Langston: Stops. No, and maybe if John stops sharing the screen, I don't know. Can anybody? Is anybody else struggling.

671
01:11:56.040 --> 01:11:56.760
Kathy Lehman: Yeah.

672
01:12:04.200 --> 01:12:04.950
Marida Hines: Interesting.

673
01:12:05.660 --> 01:12:10.420
Deborah Tarasevich: Marta. We cannot we we cannot hear it. It's an audio recording, so we can.

674
01:12:10.420 --> 01:12:26.299
Marida Hines: It's okay. It's basically if you were to go and stand on Deb's porch or Barb's porch Barb's house, it's a deafening roar. And so next slide, please, John, you can. You can share your screen again.

675
01:12:29.020 --> 01:12:40.509
Marida Hines: So noise from I 200, I think we all know, has already has a serious impact on the quality of life for the people on Ridge Road, and to some extent for people further into town.

676
01:12:40.810 --> 01:13:06.890
Marida Hines: At times. If you're outside in my house, and I know in Barb's house it's difficult to have a conversation, because the noise is so loud, and I think we all agree that as a community. If the needs of our our neighbors. Even when the issue doesn't affect us, we need to respect the needs of our neighbors. We've certainly felt that way on in other issues that have affected people that have not affected us.

677
01:13:07.788 --> 01:13:20.220
Marida Hines: We have repeatedly heard from advocates of the Meadow Committee plan that the cedars have no impact on on sound, because we have raised this issue several times as Ridge Road residents.

678
01:13:20.810 --> 01:13:46.149
Marida Hines: The idea that these trees have no impact on sound has basically been put forward as a fact, supported by a conversation Bob Bouer had with an acoustics expert that the town did engage. But it turns out, after speaking with Bobby, very kindly spoke with us. At length we learned that the study was actually conducted when the Icc. Was being built, which is, I don't know what. 1314 years ago.

679
01:13:46.270 --> 01:14:05.410
Marida Hines: and it didn't include any examination of the role the role these leaders could in noise buffering, and we have not seen any documentation from the Meadows Committee in their plan that shows that they have looked at this and have any current documentation or any current research on

680
01:14:07.100 --> 01:14:12.725
Marida Hines: the role it might play. We know that trees do in general known to provide

681
01:14:13.160 --> 01:14:18.209
Marida Hines: offer. They they break up sound and change the behavior of sound waves

682
01:14:18.460 --> 01:14:29.059
Marida Hines: in particular, conifers are effective at that. And in this slide that diagram is from the Usda. So this is, I think, a respectable source

683
01:14:29.240 --> 01:14:31.039
Marida Hines: next slide, please, John.

684
01:14:32.150 --> 01:14:45.639
Marida Hines: So because there was such an information gap, we went out and did. Decibel counts around the meadow. We did a lot of them, and we used the downloadable app that was recommended by Bob Boer.

685
01:14:46.307 --> 01:14:58.189
Marida Hines: And there is a second difference. You go to the one side of the the Circle trail, where you're over by the breezeway, where noise from

686
01:14:58.560 --> 01:15:06.759
Marida Hines: 200 is just directly coming at you. You end up with, as you know, it's a very high decibel rate. It's 57

687
01:15:06.920 --> 01:15:35.380
Marida Hines: decibels, although we got different ratings depending on which app we were using. So it really, what's the information that really matters is, do these have the effect in lowering that decibel rate? And in fact, they do. If you go around to the other side of the meadow inside the Circle trail kind of level with John's house, Peggy's house. You can. You find a 15%

688
01:15:35.620 --> 01:15:37.790
Marida Hines: lower decibel rate.

689
01:15:38.190 --> 01:16:04.750
Marida Hines: and if you then go on to Ridge Road. It's it's roughly the same thing. So the areas where there are trees there is considerably less noise. I just wanted to address that because we have been told repeatedly that the trees have no noise, buffering, impact, and obviously they do. We would like moving forward for this aspect to at least be part of the conversation. That's it. Thank you, John.

690
01:16:06.590 --> 01:16:07.330
Deborah Tarasevich: Treat

691
01:16:08.590 --> 01:16:11.060
Deborah Tarasevich: tree selection. Next slide, please.

692
01:16:18.480 --> 01:16:19.642
Deborah Tarasevich: John, can you?

693
01:16:20.140 --> 01:16:26.600
Deborah Tarasevich: Can you hit the thank you. This is a cedar tree that was split in half and is growing horizontally and not vertically.

694
01:16:26.830 --> 01:16:28.200
Deborah Tarasevich: Next slide, please.

695
01:16:28.860 --> 01:16:33.950
Deborah Tarasevich: This is another cedar tree that was split several years ago through the weight of the snow on its branches.

696
01:16:33.960 --> 01:16:42.070
Deborah Tarasevich: I happen to know that because I was out there when I heard it split. The tree, too, is growing horizontally, not vertically, vertically. Next slide, please.

697
01:16:42.620 --> 01:16:43.570
Deborah Tarasevich: This.

698
01:16:44.910 --> 01:16:48.699
Deborah Tarasevich: This is a tree cedar tree that was planted by the town in the meadow. The tree is

699
01:16:49.200 --> 01:16:55.749
Deborah Tarasevich: Then it's been late. None of these trees were selected for removal. Next slide, please.

700
01:16:58.520 --> 01:17:07.439
Deborah Tarasevich: These are cedar trees in the northeast quadrant of the meadow. If you walk the meadow, this quadrant is the most densely packed area of cedars in the meadow.

701
01:17:07.560 --> 01:17:12.570
Deborah Tarasevich: None of these cedars were selected for removal. Next slide, please.

702
01:17:13.210 --> 01:17:39.529
Deborah Tarasevich: This is the Meadow Committee's proposal to remove the 75 seaters in 2 phases. If you look at the top left corner of the rectangle, these are the cedars that I'm referring to. I apologize. It's a little hard to see, but there are close to 50 seaters in this quadrant that are not selected for removal, and I'm only counting the cedars in the meadow proper that is, inside the walkway paths

703
01:17:39.540 --> 01:18:01.100
Deborah Tarasevich: on the ridge roadside. These cedars run from in front of the mayor's house down to Peggy Otis House, and on the shady grove crossing side the development side, about half the width of the meadow. In the minutes of a Meadow Committee's meeting. These cedars were referred to as the phalanx of red cedars along the housing at Shady Grove Crossing. That will remain

704
01:18:01.370 --> 01:18:14.489
Deborah Tarasevich: in minutes of a subsequent Meadows committee meeting. They explained that this phalanx of wet cedars will remain to satisfy those concerned about changes to the views from the houses on Ridge and Brown.

705
01:18:14.530 --> 01:18:35.330
Deborah Tarasevich: in other words, so that certain houses on Brown Street do not have to view certain houses at Shady Grove Crossing, and that so certain houses on Ridge road can maintain a buffer between them and the meadow, you know, and I get why, people may want a buffer between them and the meadow. I'd like a dense buffer, too, like this, or any buffer to help mitigate the noise from the Icc.

706
01:18:35.330 --> 01:18:48.140
Deborah Tarasevich: What doesn't make sense to me is the concern about the views from the houses on Brown Street, and it doesn't make sense to me, because if you look really closely at that slide, there are already 30 trees on the other side of the path

707
01:18:48.140 --> 01:19:10.779
Deborah Tarasevich: that blocked the view of Shady Grove Crossing in an area that's been designated according to the 2,013 operations use plan a reforestation area. In any event, what is apparent is that the Meadows Committee had a role in determining which trees would be selected for removal, and that the views of certain people in town were accommodated when making that selection

708
01:19:10.860 --> 01:19:12.160
Deborah Tarasevich: next slide. Please.

709
01:19:16.720 --> 01:19:17.450
John Compton: Sorry

710
01:19:17.570 --> 01:19:19.160
John Compton: have to get back down here.

711
01:19:21.730 --> 01:19:23.890
Deborah Tarasevich: And Barb will talk about the process.

712
01:19:24.140 --> 01:19:25.410
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Thanks. Deb.

713
01:19:26.150 --> 01:19:32.630
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: We prepared a timeline that drew largely from documents.

714
01:19:33.180 --> 01:19:34.470
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Can you hear me?

715
01:19:34.760 --> 01:19:44.300
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Yeah. Okay. Good. That was drawn largely from documents on the Meadows Committee, Town Web page, including Meadows Committee meeting minutes.

716
01:19:44.790 --> 01:19:50.310
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: I might reiterate that the process this whole process began by us

717
01:19:50.320 --> 01:19:53.639
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: going to the parks and not the reverse.

718
01:19:53.930 --> 01:19:55.890
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Next slide, please.

719
01:19:57.220 --> 01:20:02.459
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: I will try to just sort of highlight a few things. I don't want to be repetitive.

720
01:20:02.966 --> 01:20:07.160
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: January 31, st the ad hoc committee was formed.

721
01:20:07.806 --> 01:20:09.060
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: April 5.th

722
01:20:09.310 --> 01:20:18.819
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: The committee meets with the parks and identify will decide to identify red cedars for reduction. Next slide, please.

723
01:20:20.300 --> 01:20:23.129
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: On April 18th the parks

724
01:20:23.290 --> 01:20:37.000
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: will be willing to deal with the unwanted red cedars. In the fall of 2024, and June 19th the Parks has called for another meeting to decide which trees are to be removed

725
01:20:37.670 --> 01:20:39.280
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: next slide, please.

726
01:20:40.770 --> 01:20:55.569
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: In July. The committee submits an application for a $10,000 grant to pay for a contractor. The parks proposes removing 72 trees, and the committee expects that sufficient trees will remain on the periphery of the meadow

727
01:20:55.600 --> 01:21:02.150
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: to quote, satisfy those concerned about changes to the views from the houses on Ridge and brown

728
01:21:02.170 --> 01:21:03.820
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: next slide, please.

729
01:21:04.740 --> 01:21:06.300
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: in August.

730
01:21:07.200 --> 01:21:14.799
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: That's proposals to the proposal to the Town Council for the removal of 75 seaters in 2 phases.

731
01:21:15.280 --> 01:21:38.809
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Then in September the town residents submit a letter to the Town council, raising concerns that the proposal is contrary to the operation and use plan, that it will impact wildlife, that it will remove a much needed noise. Buffer, and further states that the meadow is currently a meadow, and that the cedars are not spreading.

732
01:21:38.920 --> 01:21:40.580
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Next slide, please.

733
01:21:41.330 --> 01:21:50.059
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: On September 18th the committee, the town residents and parks they meet for the meadow walk to discuss issues raised by the proposal.

734
01:21:51.130 --> 01:21:57.779
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: The requests and the concerns by residents are not reflected in the commitment.

735
01:21:58.340 --> 01:22:00.719
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Excuse me in the committee's minutes

736
01:22:01.250 --> 01:22:03.210
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: from this meeting.

737
01:22:03.740 --> 01:22:05.409
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Next slide, please.

738
01:22:06.070 --> 01:22:16.730
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: September 20.th The town residents reiterate a request for information on tree coverage, and also the trees role in mitigating noise from I. 200

739
01:22:17.070 --> 01:22:23.340
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: parks tagged 75 trees for removal, and several of us were present. When Ryan did this

740
01:22:23.740 --> 01:22:27.079
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: further, in September, the committee accepts the grant.

741
01:22:27.120 --> 01:22:38.240
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Then, in October 39 town residents submit a letter to the Council requesting postponement of the decision to remove all the trees.

742
01:22:42.360 --> 01:22:47.109
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Rob at the last town Council meeting you said

743
01:22:47.360 --> 01:22:51.029
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: that this special meeting comes down to values.

744
01:22:51.620 --> 01:22:54.429
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: whether you value having trees

745
01:22:54.690 --> 01:22:57.149
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: versus not having trees.

746
01:22:57.530 --> 01:22:59.470
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: That's some of it.

747
01:22:59.490 --> 01:23:06.200
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: but I think that's not all of it. In fact, there are other values at issue that are very important to us.

748
01:23:06.810 --> 01:23:20.139
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: the 1st one being transparency, ensuring a full and fair representation of all of the facts and issues involved, so that you, as decision makers, can make a well-informed decision

749
01:23:20.950 --> 01:23:27.159
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: at the beginning, the only talking points were about the cedar rust

750
01:23:27.310 --> 01:23:30.060
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: which impacts apple trees.

751
01:23:30.270 --> 01:23:37.759
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: It was about, of course, the decreased pollinators. It was about the birds of prey being able to perch on the trees.

752
01:23:37.800 --> 01:23:40.760
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: but it and it was also about the meadowlark.

753
01:23:41.030 --> 01:23:48.289
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: never being able to come to our meadow. But Ryan told us that the meadow lark is never going to come here

754
01:23:48.410 --> 01:23:52.579
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: any case. But there was never any discussion about

755
01:23:53.380 --> 01:23:55.990
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: the amount of noise

756
01:23:56.070 --> 01:23:58.060
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: it has tripled.

757
01:23:58.110 --> 01:24:08.290
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: even maybe more since 2,012, and before obviously it never, no one never discussed. How were we selecting the trees?

758
01:24:08.807 --> 01:24:13.680
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Were we cutting more females that carry the blueberry cone.

759
01:24:14.980 --> 01:24:15.830
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Or

760
01:24:16.120 --> 01:24:20.610
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: what happens after we cut all the trees? What's the plan?

761
01:24:21.350 --> 01:24:27.930
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: How are we getting rid of all the persimmons and the black walnuts that are 5 feet tall out in the field now.

762
01:24:28.500 --> 01:24:42.869
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: so that would be transparency value. The second value is respect is being considerate of listening to and understanding other viewpoints. Even if you disagree or they don't align with your objectives.

763
01:24:43.360 --> 01:24:47.090
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Residents, concerns have been dismissed.

764
01:24:47.180 --> 01:24:49.939
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Their input. Has been devalued.

765
01:24:50.736 --> 01:24:51.830
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: And I

766
01:24:51.860 --> 01:24:54.669
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: personally, I went to one

767
01:24:54.710 --> 01:24:56.760
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Meadow Committee meeting.

768
01:24:57.180 --> 01:25:02.489
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: and when I left I felt so strongly that the train had already left the station

769
01:25:03.180 --> 01:25:04.600
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: without any input

770
01:25:05.440 --> 01:25:07.910
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: and the 3rd and last collaboration.

771
01:25:08.160 --> 01:25:15.279
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: working together to get to a result that though it might not be perfect for any one person or group.

772
01:25:15.660 --> 01:25:17.580
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: it will work for everyone.

773
01:25:18.440 --> 01:25:21.470
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: It seems that a small group

774
01:25:22.690 --> 01:25:25.999
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: has come up with a pretty radical plan.

775
01:25:26.810 --> 01:25:52.249
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: but with very little input from those who would be most impacted by the tree removal, such as those of us who live on the field, those of us who use the meadow every day, or however often they use it, but they are actually using the meadow area every day, or close to it for walking dogs for their own pleasure, whatever it might be.

776
01:25:52.530 --> 01:26:03.110
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: There seems there's been more collaboration with the parks, which is wonderful, but I think there should be a lot more collaboration with residents here in town

777
01:26:04.410 --> 01:26:06.030
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: next slide, please.

778
01:26:07.830 --> 01:26:09.590
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: So, moving forward.

779
01:26:10.050 --> 01:26:11.559
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: we would like

780
01:26:11.870 --> 01:26:13.990
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: a collaborative process.

781
01:26:13.990 --> 01:26:16.640
Deborah Tarasevich: Next slide. Excuse me next slide, please, John.

782
01:26:16.800 --> 01:26:17.620
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: And please.

783
01:26:17.830 --> 01:26:23.470
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: We would like a collaborative process between town residents, the committee

784
01:26:23.490 --> 01:26:31.429
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: and town decision makers to determine 1st how many and which trees should be removed.

785
01:26:31.490 --> 01:26:38.750
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: and the town's long term goals for the meadow, and how best to be able to achieve them.

786
01:26:39.620 --> 01:26:44.590
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Thank you, John. The rest of the council, and everyone who is present to listen.

787
01:26:47.320 --> 01:26:48.059
Marida Hines: On, that.

788
01:26:48.060 --> 01:26:48.960
John Compton: Alright.

789
01:26:49.260 --> 01:26:52.625
John Compton: thanks to the 3 of you for that presentation.

790
01:26:53.370 --> 01:26:56.160
John Compton: floor is open for questions from the Council.

791
01:27:00.020 --> 01:27:01.810
Peter Nagrod: Well, I'll I'll just ask.

792
01:27:02.610 --> 01:27:08.219
Peter Nagrod: what are we doing today? Is this, is this a collaborative effort or not? And

793
01:27:09.040 --> 01:27:13.750
Peter Nagrod: you're asking what what is a collaborative effort. Explain to me what that means

794
01:27:14.550 --> 01:27:18.080
Peter Nagrod: as opposed to everything that's happened over the last year.

795
01:27:18.300 --> 01:27:38.490
Deborah Tarasevich: I think it's more, as far as I'm concerned, it's more input from residents on, perhaps, which trees should be selected to come down. And I think, as we pointed out, there are several trees that are just growing awkwardly, that you know of the proposed trees to be cut. Maybe we should consider those trees. I think it is.

796
01:27:38.490 --> 01:27:48.460
Peter Nagrod: What's yeah, I understand. But what? What's what's the process that in your mind? What's the process to do this? We have a we have a committee that the Council

797
01:27:48.570 --> 01:27:50.400
Peter Nagrod: appointed.

798
01:27:50.440 --> 01:27:52.389
Peter Nagrod: and that's open to the public.

799
01:27:52.460 --> 01:27:56.490
Peter Nagrod: and we were kind of hoping that this collaborative process would take place

800
01:27:56.800 --> 01:27:58.719
Peter Nagrod: with that committee meeting.

801
01:27:59.130 --> 01:28:00.530
Peter Nagrod: but it seems like.

802
01:28:01.370 --> 01:28:18.460
Deborah Tarasevich: Yeah, and I understand your concerns. But but we didn't know what this proposal. I didn't know the Meadows Committee. Their intent was to cut down the cedars, and, as far as I understood, it was an ad hoc committee, and as far as until more recently.

803
01:28:18.500 --> 01:28:23.370
Deborah Tarasevich: the only proposal that the committee was making was to cut down Cedars period, stop nothing else.

804
01:28:24.027 --> 01:28:27.369
Deborah Tarasevich: And that proposal was not presented until August.

805
01:28:27.600 --> 01:28:35.869
Deborah Tarasevich: What less? About a month later I organized this meadows walk and the porch meeting. I had a happy hour.

806
01:28:35.870 --> 01:28:36.560
Peter Nagrod: Yeah.

807
01:28:36.560 --> 01:28:40.759
Deborah Tarasevich: There were. Yeah, there were a lot of views expressed by a lot of town residents.

808
01:28:40.810 --> 01:29:08.569
Deborah Tarasevich: and I think some of the frustration we're having minutes came out of that meeting, our views were not represented, and including the one. Ask the one ask for information which Parks said they'd be willing to give us. We still haven't seen, and we've been. We've been. We've been told we couldn't ask the Parks directly that we should go through the Meadows committee. I don't know why we haven't gotten an answer. We haven't heard anything. Why, we haven't gotten the answer, but I think it's just that we feel like that our views at some level are being diminished.

809
01:29:08.640 --> 01:29:27.950
Deborah Tarasevich: and maybe not adequately considered. And before this, and frankly, before this meeting, I think we only had 3 min to express our views in front of the town. We appreciate the 10 min we've been allowed today, and we appreciate you having this. But I think we just want more participation

810
01:29:28.080 --> 01:29:31.320
Deborah Tarasevich: in the selection of trees, and and

811
01:29:31.830 --> 01:29:55.570
Deborah Tarasevich: I am speaking. Probably I can't speak for everybody, because I don't know everyone's views. I don't think we're opposed to trees coming down, but it's more input in that selection of which trees should be coming down. And I frankly feel like this is something that we could accomplish over the next few months if if the Meadows Committee wants to work with us. I don't know if they're willing to hear from us, or work with us on that.

812
01:29:56.870 --> 01:29:57.370
Marida Hines: I'm.

813
01:29:57.370 --> 01:29:57.830
Peter Nagrod: Just like.

814
01:29:57.830 --> 01:29:58.359
Marida Hines: I've been.

815
01:29:58.360 --> 01:30:02.690
Peter Nagrod: Up council councils. We we it's our privilege. So

816
01:30:02.930 --> 01:30:07.180
Peter Nagrod: so just like the the problem I have is the word Us.

817
01:30:07.690 --> 01:30:13.389
Peter Nagrod: I don't know. We have a committee which we understand what the committee is. I'm not sure who us is.

818
01:30:13.410 --> 01:30:17.499
Peter Nagrod: And then how do? How do we get? How do we get this group working together.

819
01:30:19.200 --> 01:30:20.720
Marida Hines: Yeah. Can I answer that.

820
01:30:21.720 --> 01:30:22.706
Peter Nagrod: I'm done.

821
01:30:23.440 --> 01:30:38.680
Marida Hines: Yeah, I understand your confusion. I really do. You're looking at the existing process. It's always worked in town to have committees that advance things, and then the Council votes on them. The issue is that when we have raised

822
01:30:38.680 --> 01:30:59.629
Marida Hines: concerns they haven't been acted on or responded to, and, in fact, when we got the reason that we put together what ended up being a letter with 39 signatures was that repeated outreach to both council members and to the mayor were basically just being dismissed as

823
01:30:59.630 --> 01:31:01.640
Marida Hines: irrelevant.

824
01:31:01.640 --> 01:31:23.849
Marida Hines: At which point we decided that we needed to have a little bit more organization and our objections. And we created this letter that had, I think, 2 asks in it again, and 39 people did sign. So when you ask who that's who, and if you ask what the problem is with the process. That's been the problem.

825
01:31:27.360 --> 01:31:28.290
Bruce D/Anne V: Oh no!

826
01:31:28.290 --> 01:31:28.990
John Compton: Okay,

827
01:31:30.340 --> 01:31:31.165
John Compton: council.

828
01:31:32.020 --> 01:31:37.210
John Compton: Mary. Eva had a question. If if this is

829
01:31:37.450 --> 01:31:40.389
John Compton: on on from this Eva.

830
01:31:40.920 --> 01:32:10.670
Eva Langston: Okay, yeah. So I appreciate the the information from you all. I do understand that the noise is a big issue. That was one of my 1st questions. So I appreciate you guys doing a little investigation on that I guess one question that I have is, and I don't know if if anybody has an answer to this, because I am concerned about the pollinators, the the butterflies, and the bees, and I'm wondering if there's been any research into the the

831
01:32:11.550 --> 01:32:12.970
Eva Langston: if we

832
01:32:13.950 --> 01:32:22.609
Eva Langston: it sounds like if if we go with the parks plan, that's gonna be helpful to getting more pollinators, and if we don't follow that plan, is that going to

833
01:32:22.640 --> 01:32:28.780
Eva Langston: affect the pollinators and the caterpillars and the butterflies and the bees, and I don't know if anybody has

834
01:32:28.960 --> 01:32:30.690
Eva Langston: information about that.

835
01:32:33.000 --> 01:32:34.829
Bruce D/Anne V: Put your hat.

836
01:32:36.320 --> 01:32:40.020
Bruce D/Anne V: Okay. I don't know if you want me to speak to the.

837
01:32:40.300 --> 01:32:41.399
Eva Langston: Sure I'd I'd love.

838
01:32:41.400 --> 01:32:45.430
Bruce D/Anne V: That that I mean. That's that's what Ryan is saying.

839
01:32:45.460 --> 01:32:47.690
Bruce D/Anne V: You know that he he wants

840
01:32:48.160 --> 01:33:05.739
Bruce D/Anne V: to introduce a greater variety of wildflowers and and not have them shaded, you know. Help make it more meadow-like to support the the pollinators. Absolutely. That's the intent. If you look, if you look at Rachel Carson Park.

841
01:33:05.920 --> 01:33:08.533
Bruce D/Anne V: Even this time of year on you have.

842
01:33:08.860 --> 01:33:09.300
Eva Langston: Yeah.

843
01:33:09.300 --> 01:33:34.059
Bruce D/Anne V: There are, I mean, there are pockets of native trees. There are no red cedars, but there are pockets of native trees, but it's a much more open meadow. Right? You go to Glenstone. It's a much more open meadow. You go to Storm King in upstate New York. It's a much more open meadow. So it is about supporting the pollinators and and supporting the birds. And I didn't want to

844
01:33:34.060 --> 01:33:41.700
Bruce D/Anne V: talk about it today, because it's it's pretty technical, but we did post in the shared drive

845
01:33:42.420 --> 01:33:52.949
Bruce D/Anne V: a recent paper by Katie Silver. Well, she's the lead author. That's Greg Silver's daughter, who is a Phd. Ecologist who's been studying meadow birds.

846
01:33:53.020 --> 01:34:20.289
Bruce D/Anne V: And yes, Ryan did say, for obligate meadow birds. Our meadow is too small for some of them. For example, the Bob for nesting for nesting. He said this because they like a bigger meadow like a hundred acre, 80 acre meadow. We we're a little smaller than that, but he also said in that meeting, but we can make it a more attractive meadow for them to come in and rest

847
01:34:20.380 --> 01:34:21.610
Bruce D/Anne V: and feed.

848
01:34:21.720 --> 01:34:29.720
Bruce D/Anne V: so it will even help those birds and Katie's paper, which you're all welcome to read, said the ideal

849
01:34:29.820 --> 01:34:36.219
Bruce D/Anne V: tree coverage of a meadow for a meadow bird is less than 1%.

850
01:34:36.780 --> 01:34:56.330
Bruce D/Anne V: It's not 25%. So we should stop talking about 25% as though it's an ideal. It's not an ideal. I think what Parks is doing is looking at what they could call a meadow and what they could work on as a meadow, and they're taking the broadest possible view of that. But a meadow is an open space.

851
01:34:56.570 --> 01:34:58.359
Bruce D/Anne V: and that's what.

852
01:34:58.360 --> 01:35:01.870
Eva Langston: Yeah. So okay, so my understanding is that when

853
01:35:01.890 --> 01:35:12.069
Eva Langston: when the you know, if those trees are taken down, they'll be replaced by wildflowers and grasses that would attract the bees, and the butterflies and pollinators.

854
01:35:12.070 --> 01:35:12.680
Bruce D/Anne V: Correct.

855
01:35:13.073 --> 01:35:21.950
Eva Langston: Okay, yeah. And I think that was that was my only question. It is helpful to know about the the noise. I mean, I think there's a lot of competing issues. There's the noise there's

856
01:35:22.040 --> 01:35:32.079
Eva Langston: it is interesting to hear about the tree selection, and maybe there are some damaged trees that should be considered for removal instead of others. So thank you to everyone.

857
01:35:32.460 --> 01:35:37.280
John Compton: Okay, I don't know which of you was 1st Barbara or Mary. One of you. I know.

858
01:35:37.280 --> 01:35:38.949
marywarfield: Go ahead, Barbara!

859
01:35:39.100 --> 01:35:51.800
Barbara: Okay, thank you. Thanks for this presentation. I really appreciate the information. So I'm just a little. I want to get some clarification on your position. So you say you want it to remain a meadow.

860
01:35:51.910 --> 01:36:11.079
Barbara: but you object to the way the trees have been chosen to be taken down. So what is your idea for? Are you saying no trees should come down or like? What is your number that you would feel comfortable with, that you think fits into your goals.

861
01:36:12.030 --> 01:36:14.329
Marida Hines: We want a conversation about that.

862
01:36:15.530 --> 01:36:22.720
Barbara: So you have. You have given input to the Meadows Committee and to the Town council. And you're here today.

863
01:36:23.200 --> 01:36:24.900
Barbara: That's is that

864
01:36:25.180 --> 01:36:31.089
Barbara: it sounds like that's not adequate for you. To this is not considered input. Or am I misreading that.

865
01:36:31.440 --> 01:36:39.229
Marida Hines: Oh, gosh! It sounds like a done deal. I have to say and we would like to have any action

866
01:36:39.320 --> 01:36:40.939
Marida Hines: to be

867
01:36:41.030 --> 01:36:47.479
Marida Hines: a process that takes a little bit of time, and has a little bit more thought from everybody who might be affected.

868
01:36:50.580 --> 01:36:56.049
Barbara: So how much more time and how I mean I don't know. I think the Meadows Committee has

869
01:36:56.070 --> 01:37:02.119
Barbara: looked at your input and and the Council has looked at your input. I mean, I just want to be

870
01:37:02.190 --> 01:37:05.569
Barbara: understanding of what you're what you're asking for.

871
01:37:05.860 --> 01:37:13.820
John Compton: Let's let's stick to question and answer here. But I I understand that what Barbara saying is is a question of how to proceed.

872
01:37:13.820 --> 01:37:14.470
Deborah Tarasevich: I think.

873
01:37:14.470 --> 01:37:16.139
John Compton: I think, yeah, go ahead.

874
01:37:16.140 --> 01:37:39.860
Deborah Tarasevich: I think what we'd like to do is to move, to work with the Meadows Committee and to talk about the trees that our understanding is they've made this proposal, they said, this is the Parks proposal, and I don't know if they're willing to even compromise on what the proposal is, or to engage in a discussion. But I think we just we would like to participate in discussion for doing that.

875
01:37:39.860 --> 01:37:50.919
Deborah Tarasevich: I think that is something we can do over the next several weeks, and I just don't know what their position is. They keep saying, this is the proposal, and this is the Parks proposal. I don't know if they have. They're even willing to talk to us about it.

876
01:37:52.140 --> 01:37:53.200
John Compton: All right, Mary.

877
01:37:53.910 --> 01:38:22.479
marywarfield: I would like some clarification on the selection process. And what the basis is there's we talked about open spaces, so are the trees being selected so that we have a large open meadow space. And that's why the viewscape from the different things is where the trees are coming out. Are they being selected as percentage. You know, if if we're worried about whether Parks is going to help us maintain it as a meadow kind of making sure that they're

878
01:38:22.480 --> 01:38:46.280
marywarfield: that it meets the definition of a meadow, and I guess I kind of understand the perspective of the tree selection, which is, I don't think, from my understanding. Nobody disagrees that they want a meadow that they want all the objectives that the committee has come together with. But it's how you know. Just kind of a clarification of how you arrive at that. And taking in

879
01:38:46.280 --> 01:39:08.599
marywarfield: into consideration some of these other points in terms of which trees comes down, and what is the objective? Is it what it looks like? Is it where they are? You know what birds are there? I mean the combination. They're just a lot of questions, and it seems like, if you answer that before you start doing everything and have a clearer direction of where it's all going that you know that

880
01:39:08.710 --> 01:39:10.640
marywarfield: people might feel more comfortable.

881
01:39:10.930 --> 01:39:13.470
Bruce D/Anne V: Is, is that a question for me? Just

882
01:39:14.960 --> 01:39:16.230
Bruce D/Anne V: question for the committee? So.

883
01:39:16.230 --> 01:39:16.940
marywarfield: I mean, whoever

884
01:39:17.270 --> 01:39:19.150
marywarfield: the answer to clarify that.

885
01:39:19.150 --> 01:39:21.141
Bruce D/Anne V: Yeah, I think we can.

886
01:39:21.840 --> 01:39:28.910
Bruce D/Anne V: we can. Certainly we can have a conversation about tree selection. I I think there's there's a limitation

887
01:39:29.520 --> 01:39:42.989
Bruce D/Anne V: to micromanaging what Parks wants to do. But I think it's you know it's we didn't pick the trees. Nobody on the committee said this tree. Not that tree. I will say just to clarify that about the

888
01:39:43.000 --> 01:39:46.559
Bruce D/Anne V: the corner near the other development

889
01:39:47.050 --> 01:39:59.460
Bruce D/Anne V: that came up from a historic preservation argument, not by, not from anybody on the committee. It came actually came from Wendy, who pointed us to the viewshed argument.

890
01:39:59.460 --> 01:40:25.920
Bruce D/Anne V: and so we shared the viewshed argument in writing, I believe, and or certainly orally with Ryan in the committee. So in the meadow, in a meeting in the meadow, so he was conservative, I think, in terms of blocking the viewshed of the development outside of Washington Grove. So that's where that came from.

891
01:40:26.070 --> 01:40:50.360
Bruce D/Anne V: so Ryan said in the meadow meeting that the 1st thing to do was to open up the center of the meadow. So he picked the trees on that basis, and I think we can go back to him and say, hey, here's 3 damaged trees, you know. Here's 4 damaged trees, or whatever do you want to do? You want to take those 2? Do you want to take those instead. We can ask him. He doesn't report to us.

892
01:40:51.489 --> 01:41:17.379
Bruce D/Anne V: You know. He's he's ultimately going to make a you know, a recommendation, or he has made a recommendation to Parks, but we can. We can ask him that I did raise with him. I did let him know that the less than 25% question was still hanging. We didn't put it in the minutes, and that's that's true, and I'm sorry if anybody felt offended by that, he said in passing.

893
01:41:17.490 --> 01:41:37.930
Bruce D/Anne V: I could do that. I could go back to my desk, and I could do that. He said that. And then the conversation went on, and what we captured. What we thought was the correct sense was, we all wanted to walk into the meadow with him and see what trees he was talking about, and we started to do that, and the downpour happened, and it stopped.

894
01:41:37.930 --> 01:41:50.949
Bruce D/Anne V: And so that was the last thing. And we said, Well, that's what we should do, we should get Ryan to come and tag the trees phase one and phase 2. So people can really see what Parks has proposed.

895
01:41:51.000 --> 01:42:15.360
Bruce D/Anne V: And we asked him if he would do that, and he said he would. But I did let him know again just a few days ago. You know people are still asking about the 25%. And and I think I've given the best answer I I can give to that. I can try to get a more definitive answer from him again. He doesn't report to me, but I can. I can take it again. That's that's where it is. I don't know, Mary, did that answer your question?

896
01:42:15.360 --> 01:42:20.529
John Compton: Let me let me just show you another diagram that was provided that nobody has put up.

897
01:42:20.630 --> 01:42:26.559
John Compton: And this is you'll you'll recognize that it's sorry I just did the wrong thing.

898
01:42:27.475 --> 01:42:28.360
John Compton: There!

899
01:42:28.640 --> 01:42:34.539
John Compton: So this is the same removal tree removal to phase, but with arrows

900
01:42:34.570 --> 01:42:39.079
John Compton: indicating what removal of those trees does

901
01:42:39.430 --> 01:42:45.000
John Compton: with respect to a view in those directions. So there was method

902
01:42:45.260 --> 01:42:54.450
John Compton: to to the the selection with, I think, with regard to this, as this, this particular goal.

903
01:42:54.690 --> 01:42:57.950
John Compton: Obviously we could get more information on that

904
01:42:59.180 --> 01:43:08.020
John Compton: But I did want to just show this. It was my understanding they were not chosen at random. They were chosen for this distinct purpose.

905
01:43:09.550 --> 01:43:12.640
marywarfield: So I have another question. Is there a way that the.

906
01:43:13.320 --> 01:43:14.000
Robert’s iPhone: Can I

907
01:43:14.140 --> 01:43:15.410
Robert’s iPhone: go? Go ahead, Mary!

908
01:43:15.410 --> 01:43:20.539
John Compton: Yeah, Bob, Robert, Bob, sorry, Rob, are you the one.

909
01:43:20.950 --> 01:43:22.900
Bruce D/Anne V: Oh, it's a problem.

910
01:43:22.900 --> 01:43:24.129
Robert’s iPhone: Yeah, yeah. So

911
01:43:25.260 --> 01:43:29.617
Robert’s iPhone: I guess this is a question both for 1st of all, thank you for the presentation.

912
01:43:30.610 --> 01:43:33.360
Robert’s iPhone: Deb. Mirada and Barb

913
01:43:34.040 --> 01:43:36.569
Robert’s iPhone: and you know I

914
01:43:36.620 --> 01:43:57.350
Robert’s iPhone: I'm sure I'll speak on behalf of all the counselors like we want to make sure everyone is feeling empowered, and they're able to participate. You know, people can agree to disagree on the process thus far, but I certainly hope at this point everyone feels that their voices are being heard and taken seriously. And in that vein

915
01:43:57.520 --> 01:44:05.289
Robert’s iPhone: I'd ask both the Meadow Committee and the I'll call it the Dev barb Mariah group.

916
01:44:05.680 --> 01:44:15.649
Robert’s iPhone: Can you guys get together over the next 30 days and come up with a compromise plan that you can jointly present to the town Council, which I think would be well received.

917
01:44:15.730 --> 01:44:17.670
Robert’s iPhone: because it sounds like

918
01:44:17.810 --> 01:44:43.569
Robert’s iPhone: the agreement really is, or the kind of the disagreement really is about like, maybe the number of trees and which trees. And maybe, if that's the case, it's not a fundamental philosophical, you know, kind of diametrically opposed position. Right? That's that's harder to get a compromise. But here it seems like, you know, no one's going to get a full loaf if we can get a half a loaf or half a trunk or whatever

919
01:44:43.936 --> 01:44:55.010
Robert’s iPhone: then I think it would be a lot easier, and I think we all would feel better. No one's going to be fully satisfied. But the outcome will be, you know, more or less or more satisfying to each group.

920
01:44:55.110 --> 01:45:01.619
Robert’s iPhone: I'd I'd urge that, and I guess that's a not a you know a question I'd present, but but more of a

921
01:45:01.660 --> 01:45:03.039
Robert’s iPhone: you know as much a

922
01:45:03.150 --> 01:45:04.650
Robert’s iPhone: exhortation, I guess.

923
01:45:04.900 --> 01:45:11.040
Marida Hines: Can I? Can I can. I have a little, add a comment, and and send me response to that.

924
01:45:11.040 --> 01:45:12.339
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Yes, and then me.

925
01:45:12.720 --> 01:45:13.070
Marida Hines: Yeah.

926
01:45:13.803 --> 01:45:14.170
Kathy Lehman: Rob.

927
01:45:14.170 --> 01:45:27.740
Marida Hines: We've repeatedly suggested that exact thing that isn't there room for compromise, and we've been repeatedly told that the plan as proposed is already a compromise, and there is no room for

928
01:45:27.860 --> 01:45:29.320
Marida Hines: deviation from that.

929
01:45:31.445 --> 01:45:32.039
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Yeah.

930
01:45:32.290 --> 01:45:37.789
Bruce D/Anne V: Sorry, told by who told by who I need to, by who.

931
01:45:37.790 --> 01:45:38.520
Marida Hines: John.

932
01:45:39.560 --> 01:45:44.529
Robert’s iPhone: Well, I I regardless of whether that's accurately what someone said or not.

933
01:45:44.870 --> 01:45:48.890
Robert’s iPhone: I certainly am sure that's not true, and I suspect that

934
01:45:49.550 --> 01:45:56.690
Robert’s iPhone: the Council feel that there's got to be room for a compromise, and would welcome a compromise jointly presented. Plan.

935
01:45:57.580 --> 01:45:59.750
Marida Hines: That would be. That would be fantastic.

936
01:46:00.230 --> 01:46:02.560
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: May I add something here?

937
01:46:03.355 --> 01:46:08.710
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: That, Peter? You asked, what is collaboration? That is collaboration.

938
01:46:08.890 --> 01:46:22.109
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: And I like the thought of being someone reaching out from the committee and inviting those of us. Specifically, I know that adds something. We could just go to a meeting, but to have

939
01:46:22.110 --> 01:46:39.319
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: a specific meeting. We are invited, or any of us that live on Ridge Road, or use this field on a daily basis. We are invited to please come to a Meadows Committee. We want to sit down, and we're all going to talk about this and

940
01:46:39.420 --> 01:46:48.979
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: throw out some ideas at least feel like we're being heard by somebody. We really have felt like there's been walls up. This is a done deal

941
01:46:49.410 --> 01:46:52.539
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: done deal. So this is wonderful, Rob. Thank.

942
01:46:52.540 --> 01:46:53.770
John Compton: Alright! Alright!

943
01:46:53.770 --> 01:47:03.179
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: Rob, I might add that you sat on Deb's porch, and all of a sudden, if you remember that. Oh, my God! The noise around here so.

944
01:47:03.180 --> 01:47:07.690
John Compton: Guys. Okay, I I think all those points have been made. We're not.

945
01:47:07.690 --> 01:47:08.220
Barbara Leng’s iPhone: John.

946
01:47:08.220 --> 01:47:13.070
John Compton: Not engaging a debate on on those particular points.

947
01:47:13.920 --> 01:47:15.759
Robert’s iPhone: We I mean we can. We can.

948
01:47:15.760 --> 01:47:16.090
John Compton: I could.

949
01:47:16.090 --> 01:47:18.569
Robert’s iPhone: Can have that debate. If we'd like to have that debate.

950
01:47:18.710 --> 01:47:20.289
Robert’s iPhone: We are a deliberative body.

951
01:47:20.820 --> 01:47:23.699
John Compton: Well, if you want. Then there I was

952
01:47:23.900 --> 01:47:28.480
John Compton: fine. The Council wants to continue just bantering back and forth.

953
01:47:28.520 --> 01:47:29.840
John Compton: I have no problem

954
01:47:30.540 --> 01:47:35.650
John Compton: but I, but since my name was invoked as saying that the plan is a compromise.

955
01:47:36.665 --> 01:47:39.820
John Compton: You heard, Georgette? You heard, Ernie.

956
01:47:40.940 --> 01:47:46.029
John Compton: that the me that the the meadow intent

957
01:47:46.440 --> 01:47:51.109
John Compton: was to have a large area of open space.

958
01:47:52.425 --> 01:47:53.130
John Compton: So

959
01:47:53.600 --> 01:47:55.540
John Compton: for for that.

960
01:47:55.670 --> 01:47:56.460
John Compton: don't.

961
01:47:57.500 --> 01:48:03.429
John Compton: and and you know nobody's asked directly for fear of getting the answer. I suspect.

962
01:48:03.660 --> 01:48:07.940
John Compton: What would Parks do if they didn't hear a word from Washington? Girls?

963
01:48:09.402 --> 01:48:17.959
John Compton: I don't know what they would do, but I'm fairly certain that they would remove a great many more trees. That would be my suggestion.

964
01:48:18.460 --> 01:48:23.179
John Compton: And so when a proposal that comes through not to remove

965
01:48:23.550 --> 01:48:28.240
John Compton: the majority of trees. As Georgette pointed out. 1 3, rd

966
01:48:28.890 --> 01:48:35.280
John Compton: I would call that a compromise. But perhaps no one wants to consider that. That's really

967
01:48:35.350 --> 01:48:38.090
John Compton: what the alternative, what a real

968
01:48:38.960 --> 01:48:44.660
John Compton: comparable restoration to the other meadows that the Parks Department is managing.

969
01:48:44.960 --> 01:49:03.650
John Compton: that the proposal here is a compromise. Now you may say, not good enough, I understand? That's that's what the the matter is. But I stand by my statement that this is a compromise restoration proposal.

970
01:49:04.270 --> 01:49:06.380
John Compton: Okay, where are we.

971
01:49:06.380 --> 01:49:07.210
Peter Nagrod: So I want to say.

972
01:49:07.210 --> 01:49:08.249
John Compton: I'm back here.

973
01:49:08.250 --> 01:49:36.000
Peter Nagrod: My name was mentioned also, John. So I agree. I agree, Rob said. Basically, I think Rob and I both thinking the same thing. I was against this meeting today, because this is a meeting where yes, we're letting everybody air their grievances. But it's not. But we have a divide. And this meeting is just making it worse in the way, but I think we've uncovered the fact that we need to have

974
01:49:36.330 --> 01:49:37.750
Peter Nagrod: the Dev group

975
01:49:37.970 --> 01:49:46.759
Peter Nagrod: and and the woods like like what? What Rob said. And we need to have the committee get together and hammer out a compromise.

976
01:49:46.840 --> 01:50:07.950
Peter Nagrod: because that those 2 groups are much more knowledgeable about this than the Council or the mayor is. You're the ones that you've invested a lot of time and effort into this, and it seems like we need you 2 to get together, and maybe we need to have a referee there or a facilitator to make everybody happy. But I think that would be our next steps.

977
01:50:08.187 --> 01:50:08.900
John Compton: Tell you what.

978
01:50:08.900 --> 01:50:12.058
Robert’s iPhone: I'm nervous that Peter and I are violent agreement.

979
01:50:12.410 --> 01:50:13.460
John Compton: Yeah, that's true.

980
01:50:13.758 --> 01:50:20.909
Robert’s iPhone: But I I offer. I think that's a good idea, and I'm willing to be the referee if both sides are good. With that.

981
01:50:20.910 --> 01:50:26.979
John Compton: I see Eva wants them say something, and Chris is going to going to speak up. We have one more presentation by Tom.

982
01:50:28.050 --> 01:50:49.229
John Compton: and it's not going to settle this hash to hear it, and maybe we should hear what Tom has to say and then continue and then include anybody else with their public appearance statements who have not had a chance, and Bob is also Bob Doer is also

983
01:50:49.310 --> 01:50:58.910
John Compton: here. It's up to the Council. I mean, we can. We can divert the agenda. But I would say, Let's do Tom and Bob's presentation, and then

984
01:50:58.930 --> 01:51:04.860
John Compton: then then continue this discussion. Obviously Rob has made a suggestion to the Council.

985
01:51:05.359 --> 01:51:09.790
John Compton: And I do have a contribution to that, but I'll save it.

986
01:51:11.530 --> 01:51:13.910
John Compton: Is that all right? Can we go on to Tom's.

987
01:51:13.910 --> 01:51:20.139
Barbara: This is Barbara. We have 2 counselors who have their hands up. I think they need to have the floor.

988
01:51:20.140 --> 01:51:21.180
John Compton: Well as

989
01:51:21.190 --> 01:51:25.469
John Compton: you, you we can do whatever the Council chooses. It's you.

990
01:51:25.470 --> 01:51:27.679
Barbara: Is a town council meeting. The Town Councillors.

991
01:51:27.680 --> 01:51:28.090
John Compton: I know.

992
01:51:28.090 --> 01:51:28.735
Barbara: Of

993
01:51:29.440 --> 01:51:31.109
Barbara: the right to speak.

994
01:51:32.330 --> 01:51:34.600
John Compton: Well, I was asking a question, Barbara.

995
01:51:34.610 --> 01:51:42.320
John Compton: so if the question is, no, we want to speak now, that's the answer. So so I think Chris should go first, st and then Eve a second time.

996
01:51:43.660 --> 01:51:44.420
John Compton: But.

997
01:51:44.420 --> 01:51:46.419
Kriss Grisham: Thank you. And and you know.

998
01:51:46.870 --> 01:52:00.023
Kriss Grisham: I guess so not to belabor this much longer than it already has been. But what what Rob had suggested. You know, I had been putting in emails back and forth between the Meadows Committee and and

999
01:52:00.510 --> 01:52:04.860
Kriss Grisham: and you know the I guess maybe the the

1000
01:52:06.120 --> 01:52:08.535
Kriss Grisham: for lack of a better term, Debs

1001
01:52:09.100 --> 01:52:18.030
Kriss Grisham: group. And you know, and I think communication is essential. And I think that's what we're trying to say. And and maybe even a

1002
01:52:18.040 --> 01:52:22.629
Kriss Grisham: a subgroup of both committees is is all I wanted to suggest.

1003
01:52:23.220 --> 01:52:24.970
Kriss Grisham: and that's all I have to say. Thanks.

1004
01:52:26.530 --> 01:52:27.260
John Compton: Aliba.

1005
01:52:28.536 --> 01:52:38.450
Eva Langston: Yeah. My only clarifying question is, is, the is the essential only difference of opinions. Between these the Meadow group and the other Meadow group.

1006
01:52:38.580 --> 01:52:40.980
Eva Langston: the selection of trees.

1007
01:52:41.970 --> 01:52:47.419
Eva Langston: I just want to clarify like, are they both saying, yes, we are going to cut.

1008
01:52:47.520 --> 01:53:01.390
Eva Langston: you know. I can't remember the exact number. This number of trees in phase one, and our only disagreement is the selection of which trees to cut is, that is, that the only thing. That is the difference here, or are there more differences.

1009
01:53:05.700 --> 01:53:08.550
Deborah Tarasevich: I think this is Deb. I mean, I I think it's

1010
01:53:08.730 --> 01:53:16.215
Deborah Tarasevich: it's hard for me to speak, because it's a broader group that I'm representing

1011
01:53:17.260 --> 01:53:19.230
Deborah Tarasevich: personally

1012
01:53:19.440 --> 01:53:48.029
Deborah Tarasevich: perhaps the number of trees on the margin. If the proposal is 37. Personally, I think on the margins, there might be some disagreement on that precise number. But personally, I think we're near the right number. I cannot speak for everybody, so there might be some some disagreement from some people on the number of trees, but I think generally it's a selection is the issue.

1013
01:53:48.030 --> 01:53:56.309
Eva Langston: That's really good news. So that's you know. I think that sounds like something that could could be found to compromise with. Okay, that was my only question. Thank you, John.

1014
01:53:57.200 --> 01:53:58.170
Bruce D/Anne V: No sorry.

1015
01:53:58.730 --> 01:54:02.939
John Compton: Okay? We're not I. If the

1016
01:54:03.070 --> 01:54:09.100
John Compton: with the Council's agreement, we can go on and have the next presentations, we can

1017
01:54:09.180 --> 01:54:13.560
John Compton: skip the presentations. We can do whatever the Council feels.

1018
01:54:13.780 --> 01:54:19.160
John Compton: I don't want to give the impression I'm running. I'm railroading the Council in any direction.

1019
01:54:19.980 --> 01:54:20.869
John Compton: Keep going.

1020
01:54:20.870 --> 01:54:21.570
marywarfield: I.

1021
01:54:21.570 --> 01:54:25.739
Robert’s iPhone: I? Yeah, let's keep going. I don't. I don't want people who have a presentation ready to feel like they're not.

1022
01:54:25.740 --> 01:54:28.139
marywarfield: Yeah. And we should get we should get all the information.

1023
01:54:28.140 --> 01:54:29.020
Eva Langston: We need the presentation.

1024
01:54:29.020 --> 01:54:30.670
marywarfield: Right. Now, yeah. Alright.

1025
01:54:30.670 --> 01:54:38.300
John Compton: In which case we are on to Tom Land's presentation, and Tom.

1026
01:54:38.300 --> 01:54:41.989
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: The the agenda has Bob's bob making his presentation.

1027
01:54:41.990 --> 01:54:47.530
John Compton: Oh, I'm sorry, Bob. I you're absolutely right. I don't know why. It's because of the way the discussion is going.

1028
01:54:47.550 --> 01:54:49.430
John Compton: So apologize.

1029
01:54:49.530 --> 01:54:52.779
John Compton: I I do. It's Bob's.

1030
01:54:53.250 --> 01:54:55.639
John Compton: and of course, naturally I don't have his.

1031
01:54:56.040 --> 01:54:57.420
John Compton: Unfortunately.

1032
01:54:57.610 --> 01:54:58.839
John Compton: I seem to have

1033
01:55:03.470 --> 01:55:04.180
John Compton: well.

1034
01:55:04.180 --> 01:55:05.800
Robert Booher: Well, while John.

1035
01:55:05.800 --> 01:55:06.490
John Compton: Add Bob.

1036
01:55:06.490 --> 01:55:17.599
Robert Booher: Searches, for. There's a lot that's been said already, of course, with the for the significance of the meadow from an historical standpoint, and

1037
01:55:17.700 --> 01:55:23.070
Robert Booher: and the fact that it is in part of the historic district now.

1038
01:55:23.090 --> 01:55:24.810
Robert Booher: But I just wanted to

1039
01:55:24.950 --> 01:55:41.229
Robert Booher: mention how unusual it is for for this to actually have happened for a planned development that that a developer had a buy right density, the amount of houses to to go on it in a residential zone.

1040
01:55:41.230 --> 01:55:54.970
Robert Booher: how we we were successful in in mitigating that. And there were 2 2 reasons. One is, of course, that we're. We are a historic district, and that is the basis for the argument for for the protection.

1041
01:55:55.190 --> 01:55:59.300
Robert Booher: The other is that we leveraged an enormous amount of

1042
01:55:59.320 --> 01:56:18.459
Robert Booher: of support from a coalition of local and State politicians from the Montgomery County, Hbc. To the Montgomery preservations, the Maryland Historic Trust, the National Trust for historic preservation. 1,000 friends of Maryland and

1043
01:56:18.460 --> 01:56:32.910
Robert Booher: neighboring the communities that pitched in with us. There are tons of meetings, and even a letter writing campaign by the children of Washington Grove that was presented to the to the planning Board

1044
01:56:33.040 --> 01:56:52.740
Robert Booher: legacy. Open space never had used the heritage designation for advancing the site from the Class 3 to the class 2 which required, then the developer to negotiate with planning in the town to mitigate the impacts. There was no intrinsic

1045
01:56:52.740 --> 01:57:07.380
Robert Booher: obligation to dedicate the land, but keeping it open was the was the only thing that really met the criteria. So in the end, that's that's what we did, and and to usefully negotiate the town, hired

1046
01:57:07.610 --> 01:57:19.249
Robert Booher: an architect to draw up an alternative site plan that showed how to get the the number of houses without use, the same number of houses without using the meadow to keep the meadow open.

1047
01:57:19.620 --> 01:57:25.469
Robert Booher: and the developer was satisfied with this, and he adopted it. And so then we supported the plan.

1048
01:57:25.560 --> 01:57:55.079
Robert Booher: and the essence of that was of what was to be protected was this historic setting? Was the sense of an open hayfield bounded by hedgerow, the document forward to 2022. The document that you're seeing here is a document that was prepared by Robinson Association as associates, as a prelude to the the update of the of the nomination.

1049
01:57:55.472 --> 01:58:00.950
Robert Booher: John, if you can go to sort of to the next next slide that shows the

1050
01:58:01.190 --> 01:58:07.358
Robert Booher: shows the views. This is the viewshed document that that Bruce referred to in

1051
01:58:08.290 --> 01:58:18.960
Robert Booher: in in that that was was provided to the Parks department, to to in their decision process of what? What views were actually important.

1052
01:58:19.210 --> 01:58:27.219
Robert Booher: And I just want to sort of read one part of it which is the significance of the relationship to the historic district.

1053
01:58:27.390 --> 01:58:44.080
Robert Booher: The original boundaries of Washington Grove once included a 40 acre farm on the east side of Ridge Road. This farm, which encompassed the land now part of Washington Grove Meadow Conservation Park was sold in 1890 to Andrew Reagan to help pay off Association debt

1054
01:58:44.120 --> 01:58:55.490
Robert Booher: for decades. This parcel and other agricultural resources on the fringes of Washington Grove defined the rural character, and reinforced the idea of the Grove as a place apart. Quote unquote

1055
01:58:55.780 --> 01:59:00.970
Robert Booher: the farm contributed to the Montgomery County's strong art. Agricultural

1056
01:59:01.020 --> 01:59:06.879
Robert Booher: heritage which influenced the region's settlement and land use patterns well into the 20th century.

1057
01:59:06.970 --> 01:59:23.669
Robert Booher: Today the park provides a critical buffer between town and surrounding high density, residential and highway development, and preserves the rural open vistas and spatial organization of the agricultural fields, and historically formed the setting of Washington

1058
01:59:23.790 --> 01:59:31.059
Robert Booher: Grove, and this this was in anticipation of updating the the boundaries of the.

1059
01:59:32.460 --> 01:59:41.950
Robert Booher: and thus in the end, the field, even though it is not part of the town per se. It is part of the historic district

1060
01:59:42.390 --> 01:59:55.709
Robert Booher: meadow, so the sense of the space of the of the hedgerow containing it are sort of the key to the perception of of it being part of the town, the space itself being part of the town. So

1061
01:59:55.790 --> 02:00:12.880
Robert Booher: one of the dangers to the historic district. Any historic district is the gradual erosion of the historic integrity that keeps it on the register. So the support for the original sense of the meadow has been broad and consistent so far.

1062
02:00:12.900 --> 02:00:22.319
Robert Booher: but consistency in our commitments is important to retain both the integrity and the of of the district, and trust in the town's word.

1063
02:00:22.880 --> 02:00:27.189
Robert Booher: but on on the other point of of the sound.

1064
02:00:27.300 --> 02:00:34.169
Robert Booher: Some also related to the historic district, in a way, is that in our battle with the Icc

1065
02:00:34.780 --> 02:00:43.180
Robert Booher: Sound was one of the principal issues that we were arguing about the impacts of the Icc on the town

1066
02:00:43.670 --> 02:00:44.535
Robert Booher: and

1067
02:00:45.910 --> 02:00:47.150
Robert Booher: the

1068
02:00:47.370 --> 02:01:01.719
Robert Booher: the the actually, the developer of the as part of the original development agreement of the Casey property. They were to do a noise abatement study which would map out the sound levels at 60

1069
02:01:02.080 --> 02:01:08.740
Robert Booher: decibels and 65 decibels that the planned Icc at the time would actually

1070
02:01:10.500 --> 02:01:14.590
Robert Booher: how how that would map out on the property, and where mitigation might be needed.

1071
02:01:14.720 --> 02:01:17.179
Robert Booher: I don't remember that actually happening.

1072
02:01:17.580 --> 02:01:25.750
Robert Booher: but the town actually hired our own acoustical engineer in this whole process, mostly related to the Icc

1073
02:01:25.930 --> 02:01:32.819
Robert Booher: to advise us on what the impacts would be to the stark district.

1074
02:01:33.220 --> 02:01:39.689
Robert Booher: and we discussed the impacts of vehicle speed and and the noise on various surfaces.

1075
02:01:39.930 --> 02:01:51.639
Robert Booher: His advice was that it's unlikely the Decibel readings would reach actionable levels required for the Dot department of transportation to construct a sound wall.

1076
02:01:51.840 --> 02:01:57.780
Robert Booher: so there was no sound wall that was going to be constructed to protect the town.

1077
02:01:57.920 --> 02:02:06.000
Robert Booher: He also advised that the effects, like sound walls only, are feasible, adjacent to the source, IE. The road.

1078
02:02:06.100 --> 02:02:10.390
Robert Booher: and for the, for the direct line of sight, noise.

1079
02:02:10.610 --> 02:02:25.680
Robert Booher: and that most of the noise would actually, we, we would experience would actually be what he called environmental noise, which is dispersed generally through the atmosphere, and degrades really only with distance.

1080
02:02:25.820 --> 02:02:32.840
Robert Booher: When asked if if we should advocate the thickening of the tree line between the 2 fields to block the sound.

1081
02:02:33.040 --> 02:02:46.089
Robert Booher: He indicated that adding trees, unfortunately, would not be effective in in doing that so the we we have not certainly measured the in any way measured. The

1082
02:02:46.360 --> 02:03:04.400
Robert Booher: the effect of what the field is, what the trees and the cedars in the field do now. But his point was that it was really the distance from the from the source that was the had the most impact, and he was very skeptical of trees, actually providing any any assistance.

1083
02:03:04.890 --> 02:03:05.900
Larry French: Okay.

1084
02:03:07.010 --> 02:03:07.760
Robert Booher: That's it.

1085
02:03:08.230 --> 02:03:09.110
Robert Booher: Thank you.

1086
02:03:09.490 --> 02:03:10.990
John Compton: Okay, thanks, Bob.

1087
02:03:14.230 --> 02:03:15.889
John Compton: Questions for Bob.

1088
02:03:19.030 --> 02:03:21.050
John Compton: None from the council, anybody else.

1089
02:03:23.040 --> 02:03:25.109
John Compton: Okay, we'll move on to

1090
02:03:25.120 --> 02:03:27.470
John Compton: our last presentation, which is

1091
02:03:27.910 --> 02:03:30.010
John Compton: and I do have this

1092
02:03:30.250 --> 02:03:32.350
John Compton: up here. You go go for it.

1093
02:03:33.840 --> 02:03:41.539
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Thank you very much, John, for giving it me a chance, and thank you everybody else who's made a presentation. And hopefully, my

1094
02:03:42.800 --> 02:03:47.320
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: proposal ideas actually land in the middle.

1095
02:03:47.824 --> 02:04:02.029
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: I would like to see the town develop a detailed plan with the Park service. I think that it's important to do so to protect the town's long term interests, and I'll explain why. Next slide.

1096
02:04:04.240 --> 02:04:11.410
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: I mean. I went back and looked at the minutes of the Meadow Group ad Hoc Meadow Committee.

1097
02:04:11.700 --> 02:04:31.303
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: and in their 1st meeting they came up with this language that's now on the town website for their what they wanted to accomplish, and it says very clearly, revisit and or make more specific and prescriptive the objectives stated in the operations and use plan

1098
02:04:31.820 --> 02:04:38.289
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: I would love to see that happen, and I think it would be in the best interest to

1099
02:04:38.390 --> 02:04:59.570
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: take the current interest of the Park service in focusing on our meadow. They are engaged, and they want to work with us, and I would like to see a return to developing a detailed plan with, as the ad hoc group said, more specific and prescriptive objectives next slide.

1100
02:05:00.740 --> 02:05:01.740
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: So

1101
02:05:02.729 --> 02:05:19.740
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Bruce and I had back and forth email exchange. And then Ryan actually wrote a plan, he actually submitted it to the town on Thursday. The current proposed 4 actions that are part of this plan

1102
02:05:19.740 --> 02:05:34.979
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: don't address all the issues facing the Meadow Restoration and its future maintenance as a meadow, and I will explain why the proposed cedars that are slated to be cut were chosen

1103
02:05:35.120 --> 02:05:37.460
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: clearly by

1104
02:05:37.560 --> 02:05:59.260
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Colin Ryan. Sorry, Ryan Colleton. While he was sitting at his desk looking at an aerial chart. They were not chosen by walking around the meadow to identify unhealthy cedars and cedars, with 2 trunks that will in time, as they grow to 60 80 feet, will split and fall over.

1105
02:05:59.400 --> 02:06:25.879
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: I've walked around the meadow. I am one of those people who walks in the meadow every single day. I can show you where the only purple aster is, and has been for the last 5 years. I can tell you that there are only black eyed Susans in the lower meadow and not in the upper meadow. I can show you where the fireweed shows up each year. In the upper meadow and in the lower meadow there are 2 places

1106
02:06:26.070 --> 02:06:30.829
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: I have walked around, and there are a lot of

1107
02:06:31.050 --> 02:06:47.169
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: cedars that have 2 trunks or forked trunks, and they may actually be the same number. We may end up getting to the same 75 number. I don't know but there are a lot of them, but in Ryan's choosing

1108
02:06:47.620 --> 02:07:05.610
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: trees to be cut red cedars to be cut. He was doing it from the aerial photo. He wasn't walking around, and he has flagged because there are now orange and red flags on trees, lots that have a single trunk which we may want to keep

1109
02:07:05.730 --> 02:07:09.260
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: and switch out in addition, when he flagged them.

1110
02:07:09.280 --> 02:07:22.249
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: we're walking from on the path from Jones House down to the path between the 2 meadows, and there are 3 cedars that block the view of the beautiful

1111
02:07:22.750 --> 02:07:25.149
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: dogwood in the middle of the meadow.

1112
02:07:25.290 --> 02:07:41.569
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: and I said, Why wouldn't you take out these 3 cedars so that you could see that beautiful dogwood? It's in smack in the middle of the meadow, and you know, leave 3 others, and he said, Yeah, we could do that. So he's totally amenable to

1113
02:07:41.860 --> 02:07:48.540
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: changing what has been selected and what has not been selected for removal.

1114
02:07:49.290 --> 02:08:11.329
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: One of the big concerns I have is that the current restoration and future maintenance plan for maintaining a meadow doesn't address other woody tree species that Barb mentioned proliferating each year crowding out meadow pollinator species. And I'm going to show you pictures

1115
02:08:11.590 --> 02:08:20.510
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: in the next slides. In addition, there's no explicit discussion about using herbicides to address non-native species.

1116
02:08:20.550 --> 02:08:37.570
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: that the weed warrior, pulling events can't manage. In the northern corner in front of John's house, over towards John and Merida's corner of the meadow there is an enormous amount of wisteria

1117
02:08:37.890 --> 02:08:40.449
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: wisteria can't be pulled out.

1118
02:08:40.690 --> 02:08:44.280
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: It has to be cut and dressed with herbicide.

1119
02:08:44.290 --> 02:08:56.999
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: and I will also make the same point about persimmons in the next slides. Are we going to use herbicides in the meadow, are we not? I would like a plan that actually addresses that

1120
02:08:57.240 --> 02:09:04.120
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: the maintenance of the phalanx, as Deb referred to it, of cedars in the north corner northeast corner.

1121
02:09:04.220 --> 02:09:26.959
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: The map that John showed with the view from in front of his house makes no sense. Why wouldn't you want a viewscape of the meadow? Why would you leave a bunch of cedars there? I think there's a discussion to be had about which to take out and which not to take out. And

1122
02:09:27.060 --> 02:09:42.989
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: since the proposal came from Ryan, let's have that discussion as a town and work with him. This is a perfect opportunity to do that. And finally, and this one is really gonna be a hard pill for everybody in town.

1123
02:09:43.620 --> 02:09:52.390
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: There are a bunch of large canopy trees, oaks, maples that park service planted at the bottom of the meadow.

1124
02:09:54.110 --> 02:10:10.470
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Bruce and Ryan have made it clear in what they've written and what Bruce presented, that shading the meadow will not encourage the pollinator species, Flora, that we want that will encourage pollinators.

1125
02:10:10.530 --> 02:10:22.809
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: The big oak where the path from Jones House down to the middle of the lower meadow, and where the oak path come together is a beautiful oak. I love that oak, but

1126
02:10:23.130 --> 02:10:43.749
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: in a hundred years 80 years it will have an enormous canopy, because it's not competing with anything. Its branches will extend, like the oak along in Woodward Park. Those branches of those oaks in Woodward Park actually extend 100 feet

1127
02:10:43.870 --> 02:10:45.570
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: from the trunk.

1128
02:10:45.610 --> 02:10:47.270
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: That's a lot of shade.

1129
02:10:47.410 --> 02:10:49.530
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Do we take out that tree?

1130
02:10:49.730 --> 02:11:00.010
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Do we use part of the grant funding to actually spade the tree? Now, if it's possible, and move it somewhere where it would benefit the town.

1131
02:11:00.050 --> 02:11:18.430
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Peggy and Bob are the great beneficiaries of a beautiful, huge Japanese maple that was spaded from the Kershaw's house and moved to their property. You can spade big trees and move them. I wonder whether we should do that with some of the

1132
02:11:18.510 --> 02:11:20.390
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: big canopy trees

1133
02:11:20.470 --> 02:11:22.190
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: put at the lower meadow.

1134
02:11:23.643 --> 02:11:24.950
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Next slide.

1135
02:11:26.450 --> 02:11:27.410
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: So

1136
02:11:27.560 --> 02:11:53.499
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: those circled trees are predominantly black locust and the yellow ones are persimmons. There are other sweet gums, autumn olives and black walnuts that are starting to crowd out the pollinator species in our meadow. They have proliferated year by year.

1137
02:11:53.520 --> 02:12:02.010
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: though, that growth that you see in this photo happened in one year after the mowing of the meadow.

1138
02:12:03.540 --> 02:12:12.530
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: It is crowding out what we want, and we have to deal with that if we want it to look like a meadow into the future next

1139
02:12:12.730 --> 02:12:14.240
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: slide.

1140
02:12:15.240 --> 02:12:21.139
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: All the circles are around very beautiful purple leafed, sweet gum

1141
02:12:21.160 --> 02:12:47.079
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: they really have proliferated throughout the meadow, and the plan that we are looking at does not address this in any way. In talking to Ryan about it, he said. If we mowed twice a year. The sweet gum, the black locust, the black walnut, and the autumn olive would be exhausted next slide.

1142
02:12:48.990 --> 02:12:52.549
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: These are in the left one. They're black

1143
02:12:52.600 --> 02:12:55.470
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: locusts down by the tree line

1144
02:12:55.590 --> 02:12:57.020
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: in the

1145
02:12:57.930 --> 02:13:15.480
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: photo on the right you have black walnuts. Notice that they are all taller than the meadow species that we are trying to encourage. They are crowding out what we want. We need to have something in a plan that will address this next slide.

1146
02:13:16.940 --> 02:13:46.080
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Bruce's presentation talked about one mowing per year, according to his working with Ryan. If we want to deal with the black locust, black walnut, bottom, olive, everything other than the persimmon, he suggested. 2 mowings a year. If you go to Rachel Carson right now, the larger portion of it, the 2 thirds portion farthest away from the parking lot they have mowed to

1147
02:13:46.120 --> 02:13:49.230
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: maybe an inch 2 inches high.

1148
02:13:49.490 --> 02:13:57.589
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: already done in October. My guess is, they did that to actually deal with the incursion of these woody species.

1149
02:13:57.750 --> 02:14:03.189
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: This, this photo is of a huge patch of persimmon.

1150
02:14:03.340 --> 02:14:04.880
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: The persimmons

1151
02:14:05.410 --> 02:14:12.689
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: have grown in one year to 7 to 8 feet tall, and the patch is probably 10 by 10.

1152
02:14:13.120 --> 02:14:24.179
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: There are many persimmons throughout the meadow. The only way, Ryan said, to deal with the persimmon is to actually cut and use herbicide. So

1153
02:14:24.420 --> 02:14:33.269
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: do we, do we not? Do we want the persimmon to take over the meadow, which it will do through time unless we have a long term plan.

1154
02:14:33.460 --> 02:14:58.760
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: We're talking about restoring the meadow. I think we need to actually have a longer term vision. I shared a photo of a very, very healthy, tall cedar next to Greg Silver's house. I encourage everybody to go see his 2 very large, tall cedars to see what the future of red cedars in the meadow will look like next slide, please.

1155
02:14:59.760 --> 02:15:16.870
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: So my request is that we actually work together to develop a detailed meadow restoration and management plan with Park service. I think that it will be in the best interest of the town over

1156
02:15:16.900 --> 02:15:35.499
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: the long term. The Park service right now seems very interested in restoration, and we can take advantage of that to develop a more comprehensive detailed plan for restoration and maintenance into the future. I don't think.

1157
02:15:35.560 --> 02:15:47.550
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: as Georgette's presentation, Bob's presentation, Ernie's presentation all made clear. I don't think we can count on the Perk service. Having continued interest in the meadow

1158
02:15:48.200 --> 02:15:50.010
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: and its management

1159
02:15:50.240 --> 02:16:07.520
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: through time into the future, due to personnel changes and budgets, shrinking and priorities shifting. I think we need something in writing that's more comprehensive and more detailed, so that we can point to it as an agreement.

1160
02:16:09.010 --> 02:16:18.419
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: I think the town residents deserve a more detailed plan than even what Ryan submitted on Thursday. Thank you.

1161
02:16:20.740 --> 02:16:34.209
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Let me add one more thing. I am very happy and willing to work with the people on the Meadow Committee and everybody else who's made a presentation and has a view on this to actually work with Ryan

1162
02:16:34.639 --> 02:16:38.909
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: constructively, to actually come up with a detailed plan.

1163
02:16:41.469 --> 02:16:50.789
John Compton: All right. We're on to questions now regarding Tom's proposal, Betsy. 1st the Council, and then then Betsy.

1164
02:16:51.859 --> 02:16:53.189
John Compton: Anybody on the Council?

1165
02:16:54.439 --> 02:16:56.139
John Compton: All right, Betsy, you're on.

1166
02:16:56.639 --> 02:17:00.599
Betsy Klinger: Okay. I wanted to point out that back when the meadow.

1167
02:17:00.789 --> 02:17:02.409
Betsy Klinger: when the county or

1168
02:17:02.429 --> 02:17:07.969
Betsy Klinger: you know they they mowed much more than people thought, and they took out

1169
02:17:09.109 --> 02:17:10.709
Betsy Klinger: what they took out

1170
02:17:10.989 --> 02:17:13.769
Betsy Klinger: mainly in that meadow wasn't

1171
02:17:13.909 --> 02:17:15.289
Betsy Klinger: really

1172
02:17:15.699 --> 02:17:17.759
Betsy Klinger: beautiful. Stand

1173
02:17:18.249 --> 02:17:20.869
Betsy Klinger: quite a good number of persimmons

1174
02:17:21.179 --> 02:17:23.499
Betsy Klinger: that were old persimmons.

1175
02:17:23.589 --> 02:17:30.639
Betsy Klinger: and they are native persimmons, not the ones that you're going to buy in a nursery or anything. They are native persimmons.

1176
02:17:31.049 --> 02:17:35.239
Betsy Klinger: and they were very mature. I used to harvest from those persimmons.

1177
02:17:35.689 --> 02:17:39.049
Betsy Klinger: and it was a real gift that we had.

1178
02:17:40.109 --> 02:17:47.639
Betsy Klinger: and what the what the county took out when they mowed, or when they ate. When they put in a chewer upper thing

1179
02:17:47.879 --> 02:17:50.209
Betsy Klinger: they chewed up all the persimmons.

1180
02:17:51.139 --> 02:17:53.169
Betsy Klinger: and they didn't take up

1181
02:17:53.179 --> 02:17:56.479
Betsy Klinger: what I call junipers. They are junipers. The red cedars.

1182
02:17:56.779 --> 02:18:03.959
Betsy Klinger: They didn't take out the red cedars, and the explanation was they were too hard to get into. They couldn't. They were tour-uppers.

1183
02:18:04.009 --> 02:18:05.799
Betsy Klinger: didn't deal with that very well.

1184
02:18:05.839 --> 02:18:08.519
Betsy Klinger: So so they cut these incredibly

1185
02:18:08.909 --> 02:18:10.759
Betsy Klinger: valuable. In my opinion.

1186
02:18:11.189 --> 02:18:14.929
Betsy Klinger: persimmons. I don't think that that

1187
02:18:15.489 --> 02:18:20.149
Betsy Klinger: foregoing that people should be trying to suppress

1188
02:18:20.429 --> 02:18:22.479
Betsy Klinger: any persimmons that persist.

1189
02:18:22.599 --> 02:18:24.609
Betsy Klinger: That was part of that field.

1190
02:18:25.039 --> 02:18:29.279
Betsy Klinger: And it was. It's it's native persimmons.

1191
02:18:30.319 --> 02:18:35.259
Betsy Klinger: and they've been there for a long. Those were not young trees at all.

1192
02:18:35.339 --> 02:18:41.459
Betsy Klinger: They were very, very mature and twisty. They didn't do very much shading.

1193
02:18:42.619 --> 02:18:43.919
Betsy Klinger: and

1194
02:18:44.939 --> 02:18:46.689
Betsy Klinger: and that's all I wanted to say.

1195
02:18:47.440 --> 02:18:48.870
John Compton: So no question.

1196
02:18:49.580 --> 02:18:51.979
John Compton: Any other. Any questions here.

1197
02:18:51.980 --> 02:19:13.554
marywarfield: Yeah, yeah, I have a question question for Bruce. Given what? Tom suggested. And you've been working with Ryan and Parks, and he seems at least I mean I wasn't at the meetings, but from what you said, seems to be pretty amenable to discussing with us how to go forward. How do you feel like if we came to him, or tried to, you know, be a little bit more

1198
02:19:13.879 --> 02:19:21.450
marywarfield: prescriptive in what our plan was, since we've got such good relationship with them. Now, how do you think that would?

1199
02:19:21.959 --> 02:19:22.770
marywarfield: Yeah.

1200
02:19:22.870 --> 02:19:24.800
marywarfield: I mean, we're not disagreeing with.

1201
02:19:24.809 --> 02:19:25.189
Bruce D/Anne V: Right.

1202
02:19:25.190 --> 02:19:42.600
marywarfield: The view which is, we really want to restore this meadow, but I think it makes a whole lot of sense, as Tom said to, you know, to do it, you know, in a more overall viewpoint, instead of just kind of jumping in and then doing it and also relying on them.

1203
02:19:42.620 --> 02:19:46.329
marywarfield: you know as to what the next stages are, because it seemed kind of

1204
02:19:46.799 --> 02:19:48.399
marywarfield: you're not so specific.

1205
02:19:48.459 --> 02:19:49.750
marywarfield: anyway. That's my question.

1206
02:19:49.750 --> 02:19:58.459
Bruce D/Anne V: Okay, sure@firstst Tom, thank you. You made some really good thoughtful comments. And I I appreciate the

1207
02:19:58.820 --> 02:20:02.140
Bruce D/Anne V: the attitude that you're bringing to it, and the and the

1208
02:20:02.370 --> 02:20:04.100
Bruce D/Anne V: your.

1209
02:20:04.460 --> 02:20:08.560
Bruce D/Anne V: the time you spend in the meadow to to take a look at it. So thank you for that

1210
02:20:10.600 --> 02:20:11.700
Bruce D/Anne V: The

1211
02:20:12.880 --> 02:20:33.040
Bruce D/Anne V: I think I think Ryan is amenable. I did say in an earlier town council meeting I'm trying to get this in writing. You might remember, I said, that it's also in the notes from the of the meadow files that Dave Cossen has collected over the years that

1212
02:20:33.320 --> 02:20:36.120
Bruce D/Anne V: Parks does not do. O, and ups anymore.

1213
02:20:36.280 --> 02:20:40.510
Bruce D/Anne V: So I'm not sure exactly what the detailed plan would look like.

1214
02:20:40.540 --> 02:20:50.540
Bruce D/Anne V: That would come out of it. But I do want to get it in writing, and that's why I was encouraged to see what Ryan submitted this time, and you know how I I

1215
02:20:50.680 --> 02:20:54.339
Bruce D/Anne V: distilled that into the gantt chart that I presented.

1216
02:20:54.740 --> 02:21:17.859
Bruce D/Anne V: I think Tom is correct, that there are other woody species there, Ryan mentioned in the meeting that we had in the meadow, that well, we can manage those as woody shrubs if we mow every year, and that is one way to do it. The other way to do it is what Tom is suggesting either more frequent mowing which has its downside, or the use of herbicide

1217
02:21:17.860 --> 02:21:31.520
Bruce D/Anne V: and my understanding and correct me if anybody knows this is wrong, the parks has periodically come into that meadow and used herbicide on things like myelomenon. Right? Okay. Tom is nodding. Yes. So you know.

1218
02:21:31.670 --> 02:21:33.299
Bruce D/Anne V: Parks will do what.

1219
02:21:33.300 --> 02:21:34.890
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Johnson's grass.

1220
02:21:35.230 --> 02:22:00.109
Bruce D/Anne V: Yeah. Okay. So Parks will do that just like the contractor for the Woods Committee, you know, comes in sometimes and and uses herbicide. If they feel that it's necessary to do, and I think we can have that conversation with Ryan. All I can tell you is, and all the conversations that the committee has had with him so far, he said. No, I don't think we'll need to do that, but it was a no, I don't think we'll need to do that. Not a no, we will not do that.

1221
02:22:00.520 --> 02:22:21.589
Bruce D/Anne V: And it's what I was saying before. This is a living thing, the meadows a living thing, and it's like you're a doctor with a patient. You can't have a 20 year plan for a patient, but you can have a plan that looks a bit to the future, and then you're going to reassess you're going to have them come back in. You're going to do some more testing. You're going to make some changes, and that's what this is

1222
02:22:21.590 --> 02:22:42.909
Bruce D/Anne V: the. And that's why the committee has only voted on phase one. We did not vote on phase one and phase 2 we did not recommend, you know. Let's approve everything we just, we said, here's the here's the baby step together with the weed warrior events, together with the planting events and and other maintenance items that'll get us started in the right direction.

1223
02:22:42.910 --> 02:22:48.469
Bruce D/Anne V: But I agree with Tom. It's it's not. It's not a complete picture in that sense. I just.

1224
02:22:48.470 --> 02:23:04.900
Bruce D/Anne V: I would just caution us all to realize that with a living system like this you can't be totally prescriptive, and I think, Ryan. Yes, I think he would be very open to our questions. There is actually a note in the old meadow files from

1225
02:23:05.190 --> 02:23:14.120
Bruce D/Anne V: Dave Cossen, where he captured that the parks was concerned about the Black Locust.

1226
02:23:14.220 --> 02:23:32.650
Bruce D/Anne V: and that was also echoed in a statement that Diana Losher made to me in a phone call. So they are aware that there are other woody species. And she said, We're keeping an eye on that. So yes, it is a dialogue, and it. And it is going to be interactive.

1227
02:23:32.660 --> 02:23:49.280
Bruce D/Anne V: And I think that would be great if we could go together in that spirit. And I'm more than happy to, you know. Talk to Ryan about any damaged trees, you know, if we yeah additional damaged trees. Yes, we can do that absolutely.

1228
02:23:49.625 --> 02:23:59.010
Bruce D/Anne V: But again, they, unless unless the information in Dave's files is wrong, they don't do own up, so I don't know exactly what the document will look like.

1229
02:23:59.010 --> 02:24:04.999
John Compton: Well, there are. There are other ways to create. A cooperative plan.

1230
02:24:05.436 --> 02:24:10.703
John Compton: Forward doesn't have to be an oup, and and there are other ways to

1231
02:24:11.340 --> 02:24:14.410
John Compton: Address how successful it is, and

1232
02:24:14.460 --> 02:24:16.790
John Compton: add steps and remove them.

1233
02:24:16.870 --> 02:24:19.520
John Compton: such as an annual report

1234
02:24:19.660 --> 02:24:34.139
John Compton: on how the meadow is doing and where it is deficient, and where it's successful we don't get that sort of thing. So I mean, don't let's not discount the that. There are other other ways of

1235
02:24:34.200 --> 02:24:44.299
John Compton: of maintaining cooperation and ensuring that the experts continually are what are really looking at at how things are going.

1236
02:24:44.480 --> 02:24:45.154
John Compton: So

1237
02:24:46.630 --> 02:24:50.429
John Compton: alright we. We've heard a lot of stuff, Mary, you have a question.

1238
02:24:50.430 --> 02:24:54.740
marywarfield: I just. I just have one more question in terms of going back to

1239
02:24:55.328 --> 02:24:58.019
marywarfield: the meadow. We we own it.

1240
02:24:58.360 --> 02:25:08.570
marywarfield: and the parks is supposed to maintain it based on the easement that they got to maintain it as a rural area, and they can't do anything without our.

1241
02:25:08.830 --> 02:25:14.300
marywarfield: We have to do it collaboratively. So it seems to me that I mean I've no, that's not true.

1242
02:25:14.300 --> 02:25:27.839
John Compton: No, I. And and just for the Council's information, at Rob, suggested that it might be useful to consult our town attorney

1243
02:25:27.880 --> 02:25:36.360
John Compton: for a her a review for the Council as to where the legal responsibilities lie.

1244
02:25:36.850 --> 02:25:47.440
John Compton: Based on the all the existing documentation. She was not there during any of this process. The the Georgette, for example, reviewed.

1245
02:25:47.450 --> 02:26:06.010
John Compton: So she has to look at all the documents and compare and and and advise us, and it would perhaps appropriate that a decade or more has gone by and we can get that. So yeah, I don't. Wanna I, you know, I'll offer my my understanding.

1246
02:26:06.923 --> 02:26:09.989
John Compton: And it's it's it's dark.

1247
02:26:10.250 --> 02:26:13.960
John Compton: The facts are that they manage it

1248
02:26:14.240 --> 02:26:15.880
John Compton: according to

1249
02:26:15.890 --> 02:26:18.020
John Compton: the legacy. Open Space

1250
02:26:18.150 --> 02:26:20.340
John Compton: post prescription

1251
02:26:20.550 --> 02:26:22.549
John Compton: for this historic

1252
02:26:23.010 --> 02:26:24.240
John Compton: resource

1253
02:26:25.390 --> 02:26:26.779
John Compton: piece of property

1254
02:26:27.800 --> 02:26:32.590
John Compton: in its connection with Washington Grove. The extent to which they

1255
02:26:32.880 --> 02:26:36.100
John Compton: that would would incorporate the

1256
02:26:36.560 --> 02:26:39.080
John Compton: wants of the town

1257
02:26:39.260 --> 02:26:41.836
John Compton: is not described anywhere.

1258
02:26:42.520 --> 02:27:06.869
John Compton: my, my take on. It is that in general, as we've seen with Ryan. But he wisely, he's not a decision maker is that they wouldn't want to, you know, create controversy between Parks and the town, and currently that certainly is the case, and whether that would continue in the future. But but if push came to shove.

1259
02:27:07.290 --> 02:27:09.179
John Compton: they can literally

1260
02:27:09.460 --> 02:27:10.919
John Compton: do what they want

1261
02:27:11.040 --> 02:27:13.470
John Compton: if their idea is to make a meadow. And

1262
02:27:13.490 --> 02:27:18.240
John Compton: the town's idea is this sort of meadow, and their idea is that sort of meadow.

1263
02:27:18.470 --> 02:27:24.970
John Compton: If they were to ignore the relations with the town, they could do it. There's nothing, no legal

1264
02:27:25.580 --> 02:27:29.190
John Compton: authority for the town to interfere with that.

1265
02:27:29.674 --> 02:27:32.579
Robert’s iPhone: Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!

1266
02:27:32.580 --> 02:27:33.210
John Compton: My opinion.

1267
02:27:33.210 --> 02:27:37.520
Robert’s iPhone: Hold on. I understand, John. I don't think that that is not.

1268
02:27:37.530 --> 02:28:01.769
Robert’s iPhone: I don't think that we should present it. I'm not saying you were, but I don't think we should present it as the official town's position, because ultimately we may conclude it's different. Frankly, I don't based on reading Bill Roberts letter, which is in the materials. I'm not sure that I fully agree with that characterization that they can do whatever they want. I tend to disagree. We own the property. All they have is an easement.

1269
02:28:02.161 --> 02:28:05.280
Robert’s iPhone: I I think it would behoove the town to get

1270
02:28:05.290 --> 02:28:15.010
Robert’s iPhone: Sue Ellen's input on a legally privileged basis. I don't want us making public record admissions against the town's interest, about the lack of control we have. So

1271
02:28:15.050 --> 02:28:16.540
Robert’s iPhone: I'll just leave that down.

1272
02:28:16.540 --> 02:28:20.260
John Compton: Preface this, but this is

1273
02:28:21.450 --> 02:28:24.349
John Compton: based on more than Bill Roberts letter.

1274
02:28:25.200 --> 02:28:31.200
John Compton: that this is the status of our interest in the field. We have

1275
02:28:31.280 --> 02:28:33.340
John Compton: substantial rights

1276
02:28:33.630 --> 02:28:37.240
John Compton: to any proposed change in the use.

1277
02:28:38.060 --> 02:28:40.530
John Compton: That's why we bought the property.

1278
02:28:41.320 --> 02:28:43.930
John Compton: We have limited rights.

1279
02:28:44.230 --> 02:28:49.209
John Compton: and my my assertion is they're ultimately they're very limited.

1280
02:28:49.610 --> 02:28:51.696
John Compton: and and

1281
02:28:53.030 --> 02:28:54.380
John Compton: requiring

1282
02:28:54.430 --> 02:28:55.930
John Compton: that the

1283
02:28:55.990 --> 02:29:01.489
John Compton: the terms of the easement go in this direction rather than that direction. That's all I'm saying.

1284
02:29:01.550 --> 02:29:07.600
John Compton: and we'll I know you'll be more comfortable, Rob, if you hear it from the town attorney.

1285
02:29:08.168 --> 02:29:20.972
John Compton: I don't think we should operate like we're we're either telling Parks what to do, we, or or or what we want to do, as you've heard repeatedly. Here is we want to

1286
02:29:21.590 --> 02:29:25.790
John Compton: have all of the actions that go on. There be a

1287
02:29:25.880 --> 02:29:34.840
John Compton: be cooperative, and, you know, demonstrate agreement that yeah, we're good with doing that, and they will in turn

1288
02:29:35.320 --> 02:29:40.750
John Compton: account take into account our preferences in in that process. So

1289
02:29:42.190 --> 02:29:45.100
John Compton: this is one of those situations where

1290
02:29:45.730 --> 02:29:48.349
John Compton: falling back on your legal rights.

1291
02:29:48.580 --> 02:29:51.509
John Compton: I'm just saying will be damaging

1292
02:29:52.920 --> 02:29:53.900
John Compton: my opinion.

1293
02:29:55.400 --> 02:29:56.220
Kathy Lehman: All right.

1294
02:29:56.220 --> 02:30:02.570
John Compton: Hear from anyone else as a public appearance at the Council's will.

1295
02:30:03.050 --> 02:30:05.769
John Compton: People here haven't spoken. If if

1296
02:30:05.890 --> 02:30:09.829
John Compton: if we have anyone who wants to add anything to this conversation.

1297
02:30:12.540 --> 02:30:13.670
John Compton: Diverse.

1298
02:30:13.950 --> 02:30:14.690
Peter Nagrod: Deborah.

1299
02:30:15.080 --> 02:30:15.630
Deborah Chambers: Bye.

1300
02:30:15.630 --> 02:30:20.349
John Compton: Oh, yes, Debra, you've been sitting there. I apologize you. It's been there so long. I'm not.

1301
02:30:20.883 --> 02:30:21.949
Peter Nagrod: Go ahead!

1302
02:30:21.950 --> 02:30:44.560
Deborah Chambers: Well, thank you very much for allowing me to speak, and I'm a town resident. I live along Ridge Road, but not right in front of the. My viewscape is not in front of the meadow, and I'm very thankful that everybody in all the presentations have been in support of maintaining the meadow. I had a couple of questions. One question was in terms of the tree selection.

1303
02:30:44.660 --> 02:31:06.950
Deborah Chambers: Are they selecting the trees based on the groupings of trees so that we're trying to get rid of certain groups of trees, because it sounds like if we're saying, Well, we don't like this tree over here. But can we just spread it out? So is it. The number or the grouping of trees? Is one question that I have. And I just also want to say again, you know how important I think the meadow is for the town, because it gives us a totally new.

1304
02:31:07.550 --> 02:31:08.640
Deborah Chambers: a system.

1305
02:31:08.650 --> 02:31:17.140
Deborah Chambers: and that, you know, we're able to support the pollinators, which I think is, you know, it's almost our civic duty at this point.

1306
02:31:17.160 --> 02:31:35.180
Deborah Chambers: but also the other question that I have. So I have a question about the grouping of trees is that they were. We're trying to take out different groups of trees so that there's large clumps that are gone? Or is it really the number of trees that we're interested in? And then the other question I have is, How does a person join the ad Hoc Meadow Committee?

1307
02:31:36.830 --> 02:31:46.519
Deborah Chambers: So that would be another question I would have, because I would, you know, because it seems like there's been this tension between some of the residents on on Bridge Road and the committee. But

1308
02:31:46.580 --> 02:31:50.760
Deborah Chambers: was there not a possibility for just joining the committee to have more? Input

1309
02:31:51.150 --> 02:31:58.029
Deborah Chambers: and those are my 2 questions, and just to thank everybody for all this work you've done, and I certainly appreciate it and learned so much today.

1310
02:32:00.750 --> 02:32:02.610
Bruce D/Anne V: Shall I

1311
02:32:02.690 --> 02:32:03.770
Bruce D/Anne V: answer that.

1312
02:32:05.600 --> 02:32:07.060
John Compton: Go ahead!

1313
02:32:07.060 --> 02:32:15.507
Bruce D/Anne V: So yeah. So, Deborah, thank. Thank you for your comment. First, st yes, others can join the committee where our

1314
02:32:16.370 --> 02:32:38.670
Bruce D/Anne V: our schedule is posted in the Bulletin, and I get a reminder out on the Listserv when my brain is functioning, anyway. So yes, we would welcome other people to join the committee. The tree selection process, as Ryan described it in the document he submitted for this meeting was the 1st phase again primarily opening up the middle of the meadow.

1315
02:32:38.860 --> 02:32:55.130
Bruce D/Anne V: And and then, yeah, so there are. There are some groups of trees, but it's it's, you know, to John's Point, creating some some open, more open viewshed, and then the second phase was more about creating a a natural edge

1316
02:32:55.310 --> 02:33:03.020
Bruce D/Anne V: to that open space. So that's that's I don't know if I can add anything more to that. That's basically what it was.

1317
02:33:06.550 --> 02:33:07.070
John Compton: Okay.

1318
02:33:08.260 --> 02:33:12.580
Bruce D/Anne V: Could I? Could I make one comment because I I.

1319
02:33:12.580 --> 02:33:13.305
John Compton: All.

1320
02:33:14.030 --> 02:33:14.900
Bruce D/Anne V: Okay. I'm.

1321
02:33:14.900 --> 02:33:22.739
John Compton: Of comments to be made. Okay. I'm sure I saw Paula. She would like to speak so.

1322
02:33:22.910 --> 02:33:24.140
Paula Puglisi: Yeah, thank, you.

1323
02:33:24.140 --> 02:33:26.949
John Compton: Timing everything carefully, as you can see, but.

1324
02:33:26.950 --> 02:33:30.284
Paula Puglisi: Yes, thank you. Good training, John.

1325
02:33:30.880 --> 02:33:38.220
Paula Puglisi: okay. Thank you. Everybody. I think that the presentation was excellent.

1326
02:33:38.400 --> 02:33:42.779
Paula Puglisi: and from what I'm hearing, it seems like there are really just

1327
02:33:43.070 --> 02:33:46.170
Paula Puglisi: mainly 2 points of contention.

1328
02:33:46.250 --> 02:33:50.160
Paula Puglisi: and that is which theaters should be cut.

1329
02:33:50.470 --> 02:33:54.010
Paula Puglisi: and with more resident. Input.

1330
02:33:54.170 --> 02:34:01.300
Paula Puglisi: And then consideration for other species in terms of a longer term, more detailed plan.

1331
02:34:01.940 --> 02:34:11.910
Paula Puglisi: Having said that, I really want to make sure that the momentum right now that the current Meadows

1332
02:34:11.930 --> 02:34:17.750
Paula Puglisi: Committee has started is maintained in terms of the relationship

1333
02:34:17.760 --> 02:34:23.880
Paula Puglisi: between park and planning and the town, and in terms of not stalling

1334
02:34:23.910 --> 02:34:44.900
Paula Puglisi: actions to interrupt the rapid succession that's occurring in the meadow. So I'm just concerned about adding a lot of bureaucracy in between that could really make any action a lot less effective if we don't do something quickly. So I'm proposing that

1335
02:34:45.430 --> 02:34:58.459
Paula Puglisi: there can be another added just another phase that we go on and follow the suggestion of the Meadows Committee, but

1336
02:34:58.570 --> 02:35:02.719
Paula Puglisi: with another walk around before trees are removed

1337
02:35:02.830 --> 02:35:12.160
Paula Puglisi: by the concerned residents, and Ryan and the Meadow Committee, just in terms of the selection of trees that will will be cut.

1338
02:35:12.440 --> 02:35:15.740
Paula Puglisi: and then, after phase, 2.

1339
02:35:15.930 --> 02:35:33.560
Paula Puglisi: To just have some just, some very simple written agreement that the parks and planning will meet again to talk about the other issues that Tom brought up in terms of the other species.

1340
02:35:33.670 --> 02:35:48.580
Paula Puglisi: and some ideas about longer term planning or just regular meetings with them to discuss those specified issues. So I'm just concerned about losing this momentum. If there's a lot of time lost

1341
02:35:48.670 --> 02:35:52.690
Paula Puglisi: in between. So anyway, that's it for me. Thank you.

1342
02:35:52.900 --> 02:35:53.920
John Compton: Thank you, Paula.

1343
02:35:54.860 --> 02:35:56.160
John Compton: Anybody else.

1344
02:35:58.830 --> 02:36:03.520
Marida Hines: John, I'd like to speak, but I I don't. I can't find the function for the the hand hand.

1345
02:36:03.840 --> 02:36:05.206
John Compton: Well, then, you catch me.

1346
02:36:07.270 --> 02:36:08.410
Marida Hines: Night, anyway.

1347
02:36:08.980 --> 02:36:10.080
John Compton: You get me off. I just.

1348
02:36:10.080 --> 02:36:13.470
Marida Hines: Have a couple things. One of them is that I,

1349
02:36:13.590 --> 02:36:14.410
Marida Hines: and

1350
02:36:14.770 --> 02:36:16.790
Marida Hines: having trouble understanding the

1351
02:36:17.070 --> 02:36:22.980
Marida Hines: core purpose from the ad hoc committee. When I 1st started talking with them. It was

1352
02:36:23.180 --> 02:36:43.409
Marida Hines: was kind of like. If we don't cut all these trees down, we'll have a forest which really made absolutely no sense to me. And then we talked about the definition of a meadow, because that's what we were told they wanted. And from Ryan we learned that 25% tree coverage coverage is how they would define a meadow.

1353
02:36:43.550 --> 02:36:55.969
Marida Hines: And now today, Bruce has told us where there's actually the specific kind of bird that he thinks we should be accommodating. It's an example of how hard it is to work with a committee. That's

1354
02:36:57.550 --> 02:37:06.900
Marida Hines: kind of changing the goalpost. So that's the 1st thing. The second thing is the noise. I don't really care what the highway department says about noise. I can tell the difference with my own ears.

1355
02:37:07.696 --> 02:37:14.430
Marida Hines: I think that they talk about noise at a much higher level than we're talking about noise.

1356
02:37:14.760 --> 02:37:30.970
Marida Hines: I think they could. They get concerned over regulatory requirements when they might have to build a wall. I'm talking about the noise that changes the historic nature of our town from a rural community to a community where you're hearing

1357
02:37:31.250 --> 02:37:44.809
Marida Hines: motorcycles and cars racing down the highway, and to anything we can do to reduce that would make a lot of people. I'm speaking for the people I've talked to on Ridge Road. Happier.

1358
02:37:45.502 --> 02:37:47.560
Marida Hines: So those are my 2 points.

1359
02:37:48.800 --> 02:37:49.500
Marida Hines: Yeah.

1360
02:37:52.950 --> 02:37:55.179
John Compton: Okay, thank you. Terry.

1361
02:37:57.020 --> 02:37:58.460
John Compton: Last call

1362
02:38:01.270 --> 02:38:10.930
John Compton: all right. Well, let's see. Thanks, everybody. Let's get back to the agenda, which has nothing after public appearances. But we've had

1363
02:38:11.960 --> 02:38:15.430
John Compton: some suggestions, both from

1364
02:38:15.690 --> 02:38:21.489
John Compton: the people expressing their views and from council members.

1365
02:38:22.910 --> 02:38:25.280
John Compton: that that

1366
02:38:25.520 --> 02:38:38.560
John Compton: groups of residents and and the Meadow committee get together to come to some compromise position, or at least a jointly agreed position.

1367
02:38:40.320 --> 02:38:43.890
John Compton: I did have a comment on that for the Council.

1368
02:38:46.070 --> 02:38:47.690
John Compton: It would be

1369
02:38:49.420 --> 02:38:51.409
John Compton: it would. We would get

1370
02:38:52.260 --> 02:38:54.890
John Compton: more effective

1371
02:38:55.630 --> 02:39:01.880
John Compton: advice, I think, if the Council were to see fit to offer some guidance

1372
02:39:02.380 --> 02:39:04.430
John Compton: with respect to this

1373
02:39:04.620 --> 02:39:05.540
John Compton: matter?

1374
02:39:06.364 --> 02:39:13.360
John Compton: And I'm not suggesting we do it today. This is, we have another. We have a council meeting coming up on on

1375
02:39:13.550 --> 02:39:33.859
John Compton: on Monday, the 11.th And right now it's not heavily, and the agenda, I don't see is is terribly full, but that always changes right up to the meeting. But but at that meeting. After some thought by the Council that that the kind of guidance

1376
02:39:33.920 --> 02:39:46.270
John Compton: that that might be provided could be could be proposed, and I can express. What my the kind of guidance I think is, is really necessary here

1377
02:39:46.370 --> 02:39:47.879
John Compton: in order to

1378
02:39:49.770 --> 02:39:57.710
John Compton: guide what what does restoration mean, and what sort of meadow

1379
02:39:58.550 --> 02:40:01.180
John Compton: is.

1380
02:40:01.260 --> 02:40:03.020
John Compton: does the town support?

1381
02:40:03.960 --> 02:40:11.250
John Compton: And I think that that can be summed up fairly cogently without being too

1382
02:40:11.955 --> 02:40:17.179
John Compton: restrictive? I mean, I would propose it might be summed up cogently.

1383
02:40:17.690 --> 02:40:19.445
John Compton: So we either

1384
02:40:20.330 --> 02:40:26.109
John Compton: reemphasize we, the Council, can reemphasize that the

1385
02:40:26.350 --> 02:40:32.919
John Compton: original rationale for maintaining the field.

1386
02:40:33.890 --> 02:40:37.900
John Compton: It's still a field. It's just also a meadow.

1387
02:40:38.550 --> 02:40:41.209
John Compton: the original rationale for the field

1388
02:40:41.260 --> 02:40:43.639
John Compton: we're fully committed to.

1389
02:40:44.340 --> 02:40:46.429
John Compton: And what does that mean?

1390
02:40:46.950 --> 02:40:51.839
John Compton: You've heard numerous times. It's in the record throughout

1391
02:40:52.000 --> 02:40:59.480
John Compton: the historic record. It's it's also in, as Bob pointed out, it's in our national registry.

1392
02:41:00.880 --> 02:41:04.219
John Compton: application and successful application.

1393
02:41:04.230 --> 02:41:07.779
John Compton: And that is that our connection to our rural heritage

1394
02:41:07.880 --> 02:41:11.710
John Compton: in a rural and and and that is agricultural

1395
02:41:12.170 --> 02:41:13.890
John Compton: land and

1396
02:41:13.930 --> 02:41:15.580
John Compton: a treed

1397
02:41:17.500 --> 02:41:18.450
John Compton: field.

1398
02:41:19.680 --> 02:41:22.060
John Compton: The extent to which a tree field

1399
02:41:22.260 --> 02:41:24.149
John Compton: meets that requirement

1400
02:41:24.780 --> 02:41:26.790
John Compton: needs to be assessed.

1401
02:41:27.790 --> 02:41:30.959
John Compton: That's that's the top point. The second point is, then

1402
02:41:31.070 --> 02:41:33.500
John Compton: we all agree that it should be a meadow.

1403
02:41:33.670 --> 02:41:34.670
John Compton: And

1404
02:41:35.090 --> 02:41:41.649
John Compton: the question is, is a 25% tree covered a meadow. This is now the ecological argument.

1405
02:41:42.240 --> 02:41:43.770
John Compton: Can the Council

1406
02:41:44.060 --> 02:41:46.490
John Compton: give some guidance as to

1407
02:41:50.620 --> 02:42:05.139
John Compton: what sort of what would what would we be restoring towards? We're not actually restoring anything we're if we're restoring, we're restoring it back to 2,012, or we're restoring it back to 2,005.

1408
02:42:05.430 --> 02:42:09.849
John Compton: But if we're developing or promoting a meadow.

1409
02:42:10.110 --> 02:42:12.779
John Compton: what does? What sort of meadow is that?

1410
02:42:13.537 --> 02:42:26.440
John Compton: And that's a top. I mean all discussions of of trees and invasive, and these species and that species, I believe, need to need, I think, should

1411
02:42:26.640 --> 02:42:31.010
John Compton: be be decided with with these several

1412
02:42:31.140 --> 02:42:32.410
John Compton: umbrella

1413
02:42:34.820 --> 02:42:35.390
John Compton: but

1414
02:42:36.590 --> 02:42:37.910
John Compton: goals in mind.

1415
02:42:38.340 --> 02:42:41.380
John Compton: That might be the viewscapes.

1416
02:42:41.550 --> 02:42:43.189
John Compton: and it might be

1417
02:42:45.020 --> 02:42:48.309
John Compton: we want to promote pollinators and

1418
02:42:48.430 --> 02:42:56.019
John Compton: meadow habitat, and we want to maximize that, or maybe we don't want to maximize that we want to, whatever.

1419
02:42:56.080 --> 02:43:08.489
John Compton: So if if with that sort of thing, you can make all of the, I think, then it becomes possible to actually, you know, have a discussion about deciding about the specifics of the plan. But without it.

1420
02:43:08.580 --> 02:43:11.080
John Compton: that's where this I think

1421
02:43:11.960 --> 02:43:16.740
John Compton: I'm still hearing a a discrepancy in in viewpoints.

1422
02:43:18.550 --> 02:43:19.939
John Compton: the noise argument.

1423
02:43:20.650 --> 02:43:23.300
John Compton: If you, if if you

1424
02:43:24.640 --> 02:43:27.439
John Compton: believe that argument is important.

1425
02:43:27.470 --> 02:43:30.160
John Compton: then one of the guidances would be.

1426
02:43:30.520 --> 02:43:38.960
John Compton: you know that the main, the maintenance of the meadow, or the restoration, or the promotion of the meadow, should maximize noise, reduction or

1427
02:43:40.643 --> 02:43:42.029
John Compton: or not.

1428
02:43:43.570 --> 02:43:55.580
John Compton: Okay. So that's my recommendation that everybody be being, you know, absolutely talk about. I mean, it's it's absolutely amazing how much

1429
02:43:55.880 --> 02:44:14.169
John Compton: knowledgeability there is, you know, within the town people who have spoken, lots of people who haven't spoken, and we know how many people care and know a lot about this, and have been willing to work as weed warriors or work on this whole idea.

1430
02:44:14.220 --> 02:44:20.639
John Compton: And you know we're going to. We're going to want to have that going into the future, whatever

1431
02:44:20.930 --> 02:44:23.869
John Compton: direction we take.

1432
02:44:23.980 --> 02:44:26.530
John Compton: But but I hope the Council will consider

1433
02:44:26.590 --> 02:44:30.490
John Compton: giving some guidance, because I feel without that guidance we will

1434
02:44:31.300 --> 02:44:33.050
John Compton: continue to have some

1435
02:44:33.720 --> 02:44:37.430
John Compton: differences. There won't. There will won't be a

1436
02:44:37.560 --> 02:44:40.000
John Compton: a way to resolve

1437
02:44:40.320 --> 02:44:42.599
John Compton: some differences of opinion.

1438
02:44:43.170 --> 02:44:48.759
Peter Nagrod: So, John, there's this. So there's 2 directions. One direction is the one that Rob

1439
02:44:49.100 --> 02:44:58.240
Peter Nagrod: presented, which I agree with is collaboration between these 3 groups, as as Mary and Eva both pointed out.

1440
02:44:58.260 --> 02:44:59.900
Peter Nagrod: there's not a lot.

1441
02:44:59.970 --> 02:45:13.759
Peter Nagrod: There's not a lot difference going on here, and instead of being antagonistic towards each other. I mean, this meeting has been a great meeting to get us all together, and to understand that we're not that far apart we all have. We all have similar goals.

1442
02:45:14.030 --> 02:45:18.440
Peter Nagrod: whereas if we're going to have the Council giving guidance on this

1443
02:45:20.070 --> 02:45:26.159
Peter Nagrod: is that going to work? And is that the best way to proceed. I'm just asking this question because it seems like it'd be much better

1444
02:45:26.200 --> 02:45:29.629
Peter Nagrod: to have the the people who are most knowledgeable about this

1445
02:45:30.540 --> 02:45:33.219
Peter Nagrod: collaborate together and come up with a solution.

1446
02:45:33.270 --> 02:45:45.639
Peter Nagrod: And at the same time I totally agree that we need to have a definitive answer on what we can and can't do with with the meadow. I think that would be helpful for everybody, also, because that's always lurking there in the background.

1447
02:45:48.210 --> 02:45:53.799
Robert’s iPhone: Yeah, I agree with Peter again. I'm getting very nervous.

1448
02:45:53.840 --> 02:45:55.020
Robert’s iPhone: We.

1449
02:45:56.050 --> 02:46:11.430
Robert’s iPhone: but I'm not sure that I can give, or even want to give. You know, kind of prescriptions on what the the group should do other than there's going to be some compromise. It seems that

1450
02:46:11.440 --> 02:46:14.842
Robert’s iPhone: as much of the kind of

1451
02:46:15.850 --> 02:46:24.548
Robert’s iPhone: I don't use the word antagonism, but but sort of agittas, as was the lack of

1452
02:46:25.120 --> 02:46:32.589
Robert’s iPhone: kind of what? What people various people perceived as like not being part of the process or the process being

1453
02:46:32.690 --> 02:46:36.490
Robert’s iPhone: unfair. So we're we're remedying that.

1454
02:46:36.540 --> 02:46:52.999
Robert’s iPhone: And the way to remedy that is, you know, essentially, I mean, I don't know if everyone who has been interested the I'll call it the kind of dev Mirida Barb group really kind of group of interested neighbors get, join the the committee and

1455
02:46:53.000 --> 02:47:09.459
Robert’s iPhone: work out a compromise. I mean, you all can be part of the committee. I'm sure Bruce is fine with that. It sounds like, he said. It's open to anyone. It's not one of these committees that has restrictions, and that's fine and good. So. But but even if you don't formally join.

1456
02:47:09.460 --> 02:47:35.479
Robert’s iPhone: come up with a compromise plan. Again, if the disagreement really is sort of number, and which trees, informed by some of the observations about everything from which trees are healthy, the kind of split trunk or problematic trunk trees that Tom was talking about, that sounds like an important consideration view sheds and noise, blocking considerations

1457
02:47:35.650 --> 02:47:55.509
Robert’s iPhone: those all sound reasonable. And and Ryan Colleton sounds like, you know. He struck me as a perfectly reasonable and pleasant guy. He doesn't seem to be pushing any kind of agenda, so you know, elicit his views, the extent he has any on all these considerations, and then, you know, hopefully

1458
02:47:55.520 --> 02:48:07.290
Robert’s iPhone: come back to us. Probably not the next meeting, but maybe the December meeting with a proposal. I mean, if you can get something done by the November meeting even better. But that's that's rushing it a little bit.

1459
02:48:07.600 --> 02:48:08.860
Robert’s iPhone: That's my view.

1460
02:48:09.490 --> 02:48:11.640
marywarfield: I do agree somewhat with

1461
02:48:12.080 --> 02:48:36.280
marywarfield: with John about having some idea of what we want it to be, because, you know, it's different. If you, I mean, rural is kind of a general idea. A lot of things can go under that. And is it open space, or is it just a meadow that is functioning. For all the reasons that we say so, I think a little bit of clarification of that. Maybe when group gets together would be helpful in terms of making these decisions.

1462
02:48:36.440 --> 02:48:46.859
marywarfield: because it's very different. If you want to make it look like agriculture and be a field versus be a productive, you know, vibrant meadow that has a combination of different things.

1463
02:48:48.010 --> 02:48:50.290
Robert’s iPhone: I mean I I'll personally

1464
02:48:50.330 --> 02:48:55.980
Robert’s iPhone: all I think is it? It should stay a meadow, and arguably has to stay a meadow

1465
02:48:56.582 --> 02:49:14.550
Robert’s iPhone: and meadow seems to be a relatively flexible but not completely indefinite concept. I don't think it could be like a fully grown in woods like the Westwoods or the east woods. I don't think we're talking about that. I don't think that would be a meadow.

1466
02:49:14.610 --> 02:49:22.229
Robert’s iPhone: I don't think we should clear cut it, either. I don't think Meadow requires it to be clear cut, and I don't think that.

1467
02:49:22.380 --> 02:49:24.930
Robert’s iPhone: you know. I don't think anyone is advocating clear funding

1468
02:49:25.070 --> 02:49:28.170
Robert’s iPhone: so, but beyond that I don't really have a

1469
02:49:29.870 --> 02:49:34.560
Robert’s iPhone: I mean, I, personally am not speaking for the Council. I just I don't have any other particular preferences, and.

1470
02:49:35.160 --> 02:49:45.529
Robert’s iPhone: Kind of again defer to the people who've studied this, and the people who are most impacted, which are the neighbors living directly on Ridge Road, and a brown street, cul-de-sac, etc.

1471
02:49:48.720 --> 02:49:59.599
Barbara: This is Barbara. There has been tons of information conveyed at this meeting, and prior to this meeting, and I think the committee and Deb and Barb and Merida.

1472
02:49:59.600 --> 02:50:24.140
Barbara: You know they have all that information, and they have the feel of what we're trying to do here. They know the tone of where we want to go with this, and I trust that they will get together and hammer out something that will be amenable to the most number of people. I think that there is more, far more agree from what I've heard. I think there's far more agreement

1473
02:50:24.180 --> 02:50:34.630
Barbara: on the people who have spoken today. Then there is disagreement. So if you can resolve those small areas of disagreement, then I think that's a really good path forward.

1474
02:50:37.300 --> 02:50:38.200
Peter Nagrod: Okay.

1475
02:50:41.010 --> 02:50:45.589
Kriss Grisham: I I was trying to figure out how to use this hand gesture thing to put up my hand. But

1476
02:50:45.600 --> 02:50:47.449
Kriss Grisham: so so, you know.

1477
02:50:47.700 --> 02:50:52.559
Kriss Grisham: I guess we're kinda to me. It sounds like we're going around around in in circles, because.

1478
02:50:52.740 --> 02:50:56.710
Kriss Grisham: you know, as as Barbara just mentioned, it sounds like there's a lot of

1479
02:50:56.930 --> 02:51:02.990
Kriss Grisham: you know. Agreement, you know. Something needs to be done with the meadow, so I guess you know, if I may just

1480
02:51:03.030 --> 02:51:06.140
Kriss Grisham: continue on with what Rob was saying, and and

1481
02:51:06.310 --> 02:51:08.926
Kriss Grisham: and Peter and everybody else, is it

1482
02:51:09.500 --> 02:51:16.060
Kriss Grisham: we should get together? I've been trying to get folks together, but you know, maybe this meeting will be a good impetus to

1483
02:51:16.070 --> 02:51:19.420
Kriss Grisham: to set up a schedule. Maybe that's what we ought to do now is to just

1484
02:51:19.460 --> 02:51:20.540
Kriss Grisham: when can

1485
02:51:20.690 --> 02:51:32.349
Kriss Grisham: the groups meet, and let's set a date. Let's set a time and move forward, and this kind of goes along with what Paul had to say. Let's not lose the momentum. You know, there's there's money in the bank

1486
02:51:32.510 --> 02:51:40.449
Kriss Grisham: that the committee was able to successfully get. It's it's amazing. And and you know we don't. Wanna we don't wanna

1487
02:51:40.750 --> 02:51:46.830
Kriss Grisham: run that out, you know, at some point there's going to be an expiration date on those funds, I'm sure.

1488
02:51:47.381 --> 02:51:52.879
Kriss Grisham: Yeah. So that's my suggestion is, let's try to set a date if we can, even now, before we hang up.

1489
02:51:53.530 --> 02:51:54.320
Kriss Grisham: Thank you.

1490
02:51:59.440 --> 02:52:00.660
John Compton: All right.

1491
02:52:02.620 --> 02:52:03.560
John Compton: Well, if

1492
02:52:04.750 --> 02:52:08.017
John Compton: if everyone feels that this is a good place to leave it,

1493
02:52:08.290 --> 02:52:08.840
Peter Nagrod: Yeah.

1494
02:52:09.580 --> 02:52:12.139
John Compton: We can have a motion to adjourn.

1495
02:52:13.136 --> 02:52:18.379
John Compton: We'll create some minutes for this. Which will I just wanna propose

1496
02:52:18.480 --> 02:52:21.170
John Compton: any minutes for this meeting

1497
02:52:21.300 --> 02:52:36.299
John Compton: will just be a kind of a recitation of who spoke, and and a reference to what the what the subject was. I think there were a lot of give and take and and views expressed.

1498
02:52:36.340 --> 02:52:37.899
John Compton: The recording.

1499
02:52:37.980 --> 02:52:40.590
John Compton: we've all agreed, is part of the minutes.

1500
02:52:40.660 --> 02:52:42.890
John Compton: so we don't need to try and

1501
02:52:43.160 --> 02:52:44.290
John Compton: write down

1502
02:52:44.670 --> 02:52:49.160
John Compton: the various and sundry aspects. So the minute you'll see

1503
02:52:49.810 --> 02:52:53.920
John Compton: relatively spare, but will include, of course, the recording

1504
02:52:54.220 --> 02:52:56.390
John Compton: or anyone who wants to actually

1505
02:52:56.430 --> 02:52:57.700
John Compton: review

1506
02:52:59.380 --> 02:53:04.099
John Compton: hope that makes sense you'll get to weigh in on it. Obviously, when the minutes come up for

1507
02:53:06.490 --> 02:53:08.549
John Compton: Bob, one more thing.

1508
02:53:09.254 --> 02:53:14.569
Robert Booher: may I suggest? Maybe the next Meadow Committee meeting might be a a good time to

1509
02:53:14.620 --> 02:53:15.660
Robert Booher: get together.

1510
02:53:15.930 --> 02:53:23.119
Deborah Tarasevich: Can you? Can you let us know? What is that? The date of that meeting? Because some of us have not been able to make the meetings because of conflicts.

1511
02:53:23.650 --> 02:53:25.170
Deborah Tarasevich: What date is that, Bob?

1512
02:53:25.170 --> 02:53:32.170
Bruce D/Anne V: It's the 3.rd It's usually the 3rd Wednesday. It will be the 3rd Wednesday this month, whatever that day is.

1513
02:53:33.140 --> 02:53:34.390
Deborah Tarasevich: Can you give us a date?

1514
02:53:36.340 --> 02:53:37.690
John Compton: Abolishing.

1515
02:53:39.040 --> 02:53:40.090
Bruce D/Anne V: Bulletin.

1516
02:53:41.380 --> 02:53:41.940
John Compton: Right.

1517
02:53:41.940 --> 02:53:42.470
Bruce D/Anne V: 20.th

1518
02:53:42.470 --> 02:53:43.679
Eva Langston: Today is the 20.th

1519
02:53:43.680 --> 02:53:45.409
Bruce D/Anne V: The 20.th Yeah.

1520
02:53:50.300 --> 02:53:51.440
Peter Nagrod: Okay.

1521
02:53:53.290 --> 02:53:53.990
John Compton: Hey!

1522
02:53:55.065 --> 02:53:56.400
Peter Nagrod: Motion to adjourn.

1523
02:53:56.830 --> 02:53:57.625
John Compton: Second.

1524
02:53:59.290 --> 02:54:01.889
John Compton: are there any objections to adjournment?

1525
02:54:02.850 --> 02:54:04.859
John Compton: Alright, guys? We made it under.

1526
02:54:04.860 --> 02:54:05.930
Peter Nagrod: Yay!

1527
02:54:06.320 --> 02:54:06.800
marywarfield: Alright!

1528
02:54:06.800 --> 02:54:07.969
Robert’s iPhone: Thank you. Everyone.

1529
02:54:08.346 --> 02:54:10.230
Peter Nagrod: Have a great day. Excellent.

1530
02:54:10.230 --> 02:54:11.170
marywarfield: Bye, bye.

1531
02:54:11.170 --> 02:54:12.369
Robert’s iPhone: Excellent meeting. Thank you.

1532
02:54:12.370 --> 02:54:13.939
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: For organizing it.

1533
02:54:14.040 --> 02:54:14.730
Tom Land & Dan Tutas: Yeah.

1534
02:54:14.730 --> 02:54:15.285
marywarfield: Excellent.