 And hi, Mark. Hi, so to be late. I did not realize how much slipping and sliding I was going to do on the way here. Well, that's one reason I'm at home. Yeah. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Okay, so the agenda revisions or additions and I noted that we have this letter from this guy Bernie Pacquette. I sent you so we can talk about this later. We can't make any invasives. Excuse me about making the emissions. Talk about it later we can't make any decisions we can't you know like vote on anything but we can certainly discuss it. And then the minutes. It was the minutes from November do you guys I forgot to send them out again do you guys have them. Mark you did them and then I revised them some. Yeah, I was looking over them last night and I before me from what I saw they looked fine. And I saw I sent them all I sent them to all of you I know that. And they look fine to me Stephanie I mean I could quiver with a couple of things but that's, it's not worth it so yeah. Yeah you were the one that wrote them they were fine. Mark wrote them. Wow, Larry, Larry, never takes minutes. Oh, we need somebody to take minutes right now. Larry never takes minutes. That have a turn. That's one of his privileges. His vice chair and he does a lot of work. All right. So who's going to take minutes Tracy. I would say no because I have a very grouchy child upstairs right now so I'm probably going to have to bail. I don't know if you guys can hear it. What happened to Scott I thought Scott was going to come and take minutes. Well, Charlie can tell us but we can't hear. We can't hear you Charlotte we'd love to hear you, but we can't. Julie, how about it. Sure, let me, let me get something to write next. I got right notes. If you can hear us, you can try and type in the meeting chat to that might let you speak if you can't figure out how to unmute to what idea. Also, sorry for typing here the wrong way everybody I swear I had no grammar. I'm looking at it. Okay, when Julie comes back is there a motion for minutes to prove the minutes. Um, it's actually none of us are the host. There's no host here it's really interesting. You're not the host Larry. I should be, but I couldn't get on when I tried to go that route. And I, let's see what am I, where am I. Can you mute us or unmute us. No, I'm checked in, not as callous strong. I couldn't get in through callous strong you recall because that recorded patient I couldn't get access to. I'm just in as myself so apparently it's just us chickens and there is no host. I think that's good. Okay, well, we're okay. Yeah, all equal tonight. There you go. Are we all equal every night. Not when there's a host. The host has power the host can shut us out. The host can send you away send somebody away if they're bad. Okay. Okay, I'll just leave if you guys get bad. Okay, so we had a motion to approve the minutes and we had a second all in favor. Hi. Okay. Okay. Now the next item on the agenda is town report. Remember, we're supposed to do a town report every year for the town report. I'm in a callous conservation commission report for the town report. And Larry's been doing in the last few years and I did them all the years before that. So I sent that out and I got zero enthusiastic responses to do the report this year. And Larry said by golly, it's not fair. He said, I'll do it. I'll put it together but it's due the 15th so I'm going to try to do it. And it's going to be short and sweet and I'll send it all around and you can make little corrections and send it back. And then I'll send it to Barbara and Barbara, we always get extensions anyway, but if we can do it by the 15th that would be good. So I'll do that. Unless somebody else wants to do it. We just go you just go back through the minutes and see what we did in anyway. And look at last year's to see the format. Okay, now the budget is interesting. I didn't quite understand this budget so I asked Denise about it. And she didn't quite understand it either. We used to get, we used to ask for, I think, 8000 for the conservation fund. And then last year or the year before the cycle said that things were very, very tight, and they were trying to cut whatever they could and so they cut it down to this is 5000 I thought they cut it to 4000 And then at any event, I was talking to Larry about it earlier, and I said, Well, why don't we ask for 10,000, because there's only 25,000 is less a little less than $25,000 left in the fund. That is not a lot of money if we need to leverage something. I think we need to start building it back up. So, what do you think. We can only ask, you know, I mean, what do other town organizations get. You don't even want to know it's so little. You know, I once looked and thought, Well, I could use this to bolster our request for, for more. And it was so small that I like when. Let's just keep asking for what we think we need. What did you say Larry. The fund is not for us it's for the town, you know, I mean it's not like we're asking money for our committee to do stuff. Exactly. Exactly. So does somebody want to make a motion on that and we can, you know, about asking getting back to the select board she said by by Saturday with a request $10,000 for the fund. So how does it work does the select for at the end of the day decide what goes in the budget that goes before the voters. I have a question for you and this is probably just my lack of knowledge about how things are typically done in callus, but does the con com get any kind of fun set aside in case we want to purchase lands or anything like that or put into conservation, long term, I don't know how that works in callus. Raise the funds. That's what we're talking about actually now Tracy is the, the conservation fund it's called and that's the money that's being set purchase. So the reason, so the reason I asked is I obviously I looked at the budget and it's minuscule and having worked on a town conservation commission, obviously it was in New Hampshire and not Vermont. Our operating budget was significantly higher and it wasn't like I was living in a huge town, but we had, you know, obviously funds that we had built up over time that were specifically for if you wanted to, you know, purchase additional land to put into a conservation area and things like that but you know it wasn't necessarily a yearly operating budget, but we sometimes like rolled over money in case something popped up that's why I asked that's all. Where did the money come from? The budget. It was just by the town. Yeah. But it was. I was shocked. And I looked at the budget I was like wow that's not much. Well we have right now $25,000 in the fund. Oh we have 25, they said $5,000. No about 25. It's like a little bit more than $24,000 in the fund. Then that's not that different. I just saw the operating budget which is the much smaller budget. So I didn't see the $25,000. Then you're fine. I honestly that's not that much different from what we were operating out at my other town. But since you're new, I want to explain that we had 60,000 or 70,000 or something in it. And then the folks who are renovating Memorial Hall asked for $50,000. And what all we do, we make recommendations to the select board, they control the money. And then, and we made that recommendation and so it went. It went down $50,000 pretty suddenly. Yeah, but I got that's why it went down right like we chose to do something with said money. Okay, yeah that's, that was more I was just seeing the like five grand or whatever it was like that's not enough what if we want to buy something. Yeah, and then what we, the last project we did was the Armstrong farm down on the Pekin Brook Road on the at the intersection there. And I don't remember how much we gave toward that that was something, you know that we we worked with the land trust on that and I just don't remember it's anybody remember how much we looked before my time as well. That's Tracy I'm kind of in your space. Yeah. The other item that I'm sorry to be like annoying and have to ask so many questions, but other item that I wanted about when was like the last natural resources resource inventory done for town of Calis or is that like not something. These are, I'm just thinking about like big budget items that you could potentially use to justify asking for more money. What was it five years ago four or five years ago it's on. Have you seen it it's on the town's website. I probably looked at it and I probably read it and then probably forgot it because I just have too many things going on. And so for Vermont is it typically like a 10 year to 10 to 15 year cycle that those get updated. We've that was the first time we had done. So, there is no inventory cycle for things like that Tracy this was like, this was a standalone project that. Yeah, yeah, no that's just that's interesting to know yeah I know. It's not necessarily consistent town by town but I think in New Hampshire towns were starting to update them every 10 years every 15 years by the time it usually got done, and to sort of correspond with updates to the legislature updates. But, okay, interesting. Five years ago it should still be pretty accurate. Yeah, that's a really interesting thought because you know never made that we might want to have it updated someday so great thought. Yeah, I mean, you think about it right like land gets sold off people change the way they're using their lands. Things get filled in, you know, based on permits or God forbid the dam fails and Curtis ponds of totally different landscape and five years and supports different species right you need to have the flexibility to update those plans and understand how the natural resources that are being used in the town. So, you know, they are not stagnant. I'm actually glad you're asking these questions because it's kind of making me think of some things and one of them is that I just wanted to tell you all that it's just interesting that somebody on the Hardwick Conservation Commission who I know, contacted me and said we're looking at a couple of people to do a natural resources inventory for us, and Matt Peters is one of them. And I know he did one for you what do you think of them. And I said I thought he was terrific. And I think that, you know, he just he did a really good job he worked really well with us. He did a beautiful public presentation. And anyway, so they ended up hiring him so I just, she wrote back and said yeah we decided, you know, yes, he sounds great. Anyway, that was just nice. So, thinking out loud here you could also put in for some additional budget for invasive species management right we talked about not lead frag mites colts but is really aggressive in town I've noticed purple loose rice over Curtis pond right stuff like that you could use as a reason for increasing budget. You know, the, the invasive species issue is. It's kind of a little bit of a, I don't know, thorny one here, because we have some major, we have them. Chervil, Chervil that wild Chervil. Yeah, a lot of it and Peter a lot of everything and everywhere now, Peter Harvey lives an old West church road has taken upon himself for the last few years to organize his neighbors to pull Chervil. And he also has gotten the town road crew, not to mow along along there at certain times. And we, we also have something in the roadside management thing was at the roadside vegetation plan that Joanne Garten did for us a few years where she talked about some of the strategies of basically mowing not mowing or mowing at certain times. It's just so hard to implement these things you know you work with try to work with the road crew. Now there's a completely new road crew. That's also not just the road crew too right like when electric companies come in and work at utility poles they move. That is one of the fastest way that invasive species get moved throughout North East is getting moved by electric companies when they go to do mowing and do work on poles. And that's incredibly challenging to control invasive species. Just grading the roads they would move the stuff around. You know, so I'm just throwing one thing about it. Palace has a couple of not very many but a couple of patches of fragmites and. Yeah, and it seems so worthwhile when it's not wholesale in the streams and and and and water areas that to try to deal with it so I just would put a big plug for thinking about how to manage that I mean I think some of it. You know, we talked about that last year and I think Neil went out didn't you Neil go out and pulse. Neil went out and he went on down and but we still there's a we need we need to sort of survey where it is. And then a lot of it's on I think some of it's on private land and I've done enough research to know that probably. If it's a big enough patch, you really have to fight you have to come up with a plan meaning it's going to get cut in July or you know you have to have an approach and then work it with somebody. Some of these were probably not going to get rid of, but we might be able to manage them so that they don't expand significantly. I agree and I think, you know, I'm not saying that we should target every invasive species right that's just not practicable, but things like fragmites that really are significantly damaging really both visually and to ecosystems I mean where they don't have tons of patches. I think putting in some budget to do town survey figure out where they're growing where we can come up with a plan like things like frag I think that's a great idea and I think it's a worthwhile use of budget. So you're talking about hiring somebody to do this because we don't we don't have the time or the expertise to do it ourselves. I have the expertise I definitely don't have the time yeah I know I mean there's like red start consulting at a current I think does a really like pretty. What's his name. Marcus was Julie's forster from red start. Yeah, oh yeah. I actually interviewed there 1000 years ago and got the job but I couldn't move because I just bought a house. So yeah but they're great and they're really well known for doing invasive species management remote so they do a lot of work for do team managing invasives. Basically to be come up with a plan and maybe and maybe implement the plan because we you know. I mean I really don't know what the cost would be. You know for like if you just do four or five patches of frag quote that would cost but I you know I think it would be worthwhile to at least dammit what it could potentially cost. I mean you really need a survey to know where it is so that we can decide where to target it. Right. Yeah I mean your conversation to me then kind of like oh should we throw something in the budget right now. I don't. I'm not sure if like if our budget if the conservation funds really works that way we kind of like asked for some money that and it's we asked for what we think the town will support. Yeah. I'm just saying that you could use that as a potential like here's why we're asking for more budget. I'm not saying we can just throw it in saying you could use it as justification to potentially ask for more. Well in the past. The question is going to be can you take that out of the conservation fund does it qualify and which makes me turn red with embarrassment because I was supposed to be working on updating our conservation fund guidelines like three years ago. Remember we all worked on it and then I said well I'll take a stab at coming up with some language and didn't. Now our as I recall the conservation fund guidelines include education. And I think we've used we used it in the past we use some of that money for education. The problem is is that the the the primary use of that money should be what was intended to be and should be for land conservation for purchasing or you know helping out with a purchase of some land to conserve so I'm just throwing out different thoughts about this about sort of what what we could do. We could certainly ask the select board in the context that Tracy you're explaining it but I don't begin to know how much money we would need. Even if we decided yes we're going to do try to get something going get hire somebody to start doing some kind of a invasive management plan or surveys or whatever. What kind of money were we asking for. Well you know I don't know maybe I should want me to contact Marcus and see if he has any ideas and how. I haven't been in touch with him for a long time and I don't you know I just because I just know him. You want me to do that. See if he has any ideas. Well I don't know. I don't know that there's time in that. Oh, they haven't they're not finalizing the budget on on the future. You know I don't know. No I think it's a good idea I think it'd be a great idea to talk to him and find out what they do. And what they could do what do do they do and then what what would the various I'm sure that there's different levels of work that they how do they do a survey for example. Yeah. I had to come back in and get unmuted. So typically what they do I mean. They look at, you know, aerial mapping. You can actually I frag pretty easily and aerial mapping though I don't know what level the aerial mapping is for callous but so that's one way to start the probably target roadside areas, roadside wet areas that probably the first area do like drive by surveys to the town. And then kind of identified them a maps, make a GIS map, go from there. That'd be how I would do it at least. You're just talking about frag mites right. Yeah, just for frag that's all the other ones are a lot of other ones, there's a lot of other. Yeah, for frag for example that's how I would approach it I'd also probably put something out to like towns people to report it if they knew it. That way you would catch some of that private land. That way. But that's one example about how you can start. So the question. This is something the conservation commission wants to take on. You want to. I don't know it's a huge amount of work. You know, I mean, it depends if we're looking for money to hire somebody to do we're not going to. I wouldn't suggest that we could do the survey. You know, I would suggest that we see if we can get the money. Right. You might even be able to get a grant, you know, Larry you still haven't you dealt with some of the organizations that do grants to people like conservation commissions. There must be something I mean the whole invasive species. It seems worthwhile to me to explore further, but I want to put it on a on an agenda for another meeting so that we can do credit to it. Noodle on it a little further. This would just be throwing stuff out right. It wasn't committing us to doing this but and even if we don't you know we don't ask for the budget this year I mean now we have that as something in our heads that maybe essentially we want to think about asking for some more budget in the future Okay, so do you agree we'll put that on agenda for a future meeting. Does that make sense to everybody. No. No, I mean you know if you want we'll just keep keep trying to remember to send you agendas. I mean this is sort of a, this is kind of a passion of mine because there's relatively little frag mites, I think in callus, which means, man, it's time to go for it. There's a big, yeah, there is a big patch on North callus road. Midway between where the North callus road where the. Sorry I'm almost where I'm sorry I can't figure where it is. From the town office, it's halfway between where the little bit beyond the town office, going towards. Oh yeah. North callus. Yeah, there's also a small patch at the bottom of Elmsley that I noticed. Okay, so I think we should put it we can put it on our agenda for January. Why don't we do that. Save it for after the holiday. There's a lot of frag mites here we come. That's frag mites or other invasive frag mites we're trying to jump on. Well, I think the Rean's point is a good one and that is that if they're not that many, I mean, something like we've got a controlling that one. You know we're not going to take on Japanese not we but so much of it and so impossible. But if frag mites is something that we might be able to get ahead of that. So if you want to get rid of it, do you just cut it or do you have to pull it, pull it spray it. They've also started looking at sugar watering as a way of controlling it, it can really dampen how it's ability to survive for some reason. I don't really know the science behind it. It's still pretty young, and they're still testing it but fish and wildlife services found some success with that. So we're not going to ask for money and faces page has a website has a lot of information on it. Yes, put it on the agenda for next time. So we're not going to ask for anything more in the budget except for $10,000 for the conservation fund. Is that what we decided. I second. Oh, I'll post anybody opposed to it. And I asked any why is green up included in our budget because we don't do green up, but she said well they didn't know where to put it so they put it in the conservation. Okay, so that's why that's there. Um, okay. Next is the Shaitree public comments if you get any Neil. No, a few people reached out and kind of ask me questions about it but I didn't get any feedback from anyone except Dan singleton and had a nice conversation with him he was the county forester for anyone who doesn't know, and lives here in and one of the things that came up, which we've been back and forth a little bit the people at this day is about this civil cultural exemption. So, there's a state law that says that towns can't can inhibit people from practicing civil culture and doing my forestry operations, but it sounds like it's really talking about town plans and zoning ordinances. So it doesn't really directly apply to this. Go ahead. Okay. Um, but I think Dan and I both like the idea of like that we're not trying to inhibit people from, you know, practicing civil culture on their own properties, which sometimes means removing trees along roadside for putting in log landings or whatever you're doing as part of a current land or things like that. But they would still be subject to the, to the rules about, I mean they'd have to contact you if it were certain. So, I don't think we can say those trees aren't shade trees because we don't know which trees they are ahead of time. Um, that's kind of my understanding of it. So, so I added a little bit of language in here, which feels like it doesn't do that much but it just says that the select board can't like, you know, if somebody puts out a tree that's going to get removed and it goes to the select board, the select board can't like stop people from practicing civil culture without a good reason. You put that in this, in this version. That's under section seven and I was particularly thinking of you, Stephanie, because I wrote. I can't find it here. I wrote the select board may not unreasonably prevent shade trees from being removed as part of accepted civil cultural practices on private land. Yes. Star. Right. In rights of way. Yeah. Yeah. Right, which are trees that belong to the land owner but they're in the right of way so they're governed by this. Yeah, that word unreasonably. I was writing it. I was thinking Stephanie is cringing right now as I write that because it's one of those like, what does that mean. But I don't, I don't know how else to kind of say that without, I don't know, having some whole big set of arbitrary. I mean you'd have to go into, you know what what would be the circumstances under which somebody could do that and, you know, I mean that's not something you want to put into this I don't think. Does that feel to you folks like a reasonable way to haven't given enough background is everyone know what we're talking about. Am I making sense here. I think so. Okay, is it do you feel like this is a good way to address that particular thing kind of saying, look it's these trees if they're bigger than a certain size and on road sides they are shade trees you do have to follow this process. And that if it's a civil cultural thing, you can't be like prohibited from doing it without a really good reason. Is this something you ran by dancing. I mean, does he you think he might buy this. Yeah, he would like it to be somehow he would like it to be written in that there's an exemption for civil cultural activities that you don't have to contact the tree warden at all. But I don't think we can do that because you can't identify those trees ahead of time you don't know which trees they are, you know, I'm not familiar with the statute I haven't looked at it a while ago but it seems to me that a town, doing things in its own road rights of way ought to be able to at least have a discussion about it. Yeah, if a landowner wants to cut right up into the town's road right away. Yeah. That's what I'm so I talked to Joanne that urban community forestry and she ended up getting in touch with League of Cities and towns and that's what their lawyer said was like, know that there is this law about civil cultural exemption but it doesn't apply here like you. Oh good. So, so you also, you also added that paragraph in the beginning which I thought was terrific about making it. Ali asked me to add just because it wasn't clear. A lot of people kind of how how it works with trees. Yeah. So I added that just explaining that those trees belong to the landowners but they don't have the right to cut them down. And then I added a link to this resilient right of ways vegetation assessment which I had mentioned what hadn't linked to. And then there was one rewording in that section seven tree removal, which was someone on the select board asked me to change the wording because they found it confusing. As I said, I said something about approval from the tree ward and they said well it's not really a approval it's following the notification process. And then that's what you said. That's what I said what they said. And then this thing about the civil cultural exemptions those are the only things that changed. And then the other thing that I wanted to talk about was, we had in here that shade trees on road size in right of ways are any tree greater than six inches in diameter, which is totally arbitrary and it's because that was what was in the road standards before so we kind of held on to it. And that was one that Dan specifically asked us to consider, like, what if we made that a little bit bigger and and his thinking is that it would be easier for people to do kind of inning tending type stuff along the roadside if they had a little bit more latitude, like they could cut trees that were eight or 10 inches, but still include the larger trees as shade trees. So, here's an eight inch tree. Here's a 10 inch tree. I don't know I personally I'm fine with that like I think it still does what we want and if it makes it easier for landowners I'm fine with pushing the diameter up to eight or 10 inches instead of six. But you're saying the definition of a shade tree is going to be eight to 10 inches not just six inches. It could be one of the other right. It would be one or the other yeah we could say we could leave it at six inches and greater. We could say eight inches and greater we could say 10 inches and greater. I have a question about that Neil how does that. I remember we had fairly extensive discussions about this issue of wanting to make sure that all the saplings aren't being taken down I mean because these trees are going to grow up and they could be important later. So, I thought that's one of the reasons that we kind of settled on the six inch. Yeah. Yeah, there's a separate section in here about managing small roadside trees and it was kind of. We didn't feel like we could include those as shade trees because people have to be able to know and, you know, rush. But we kind of did it as a separate section like recognizing we want to promote some of those young trees to replace older ones, and then we can have a voluntary program and work with people. And I think that would excuse me to do that. So this wouldn't have any that this isn't connected with that at all it wouldn't make any. I mean I don't know it would be like, like if a landowner, you know can cut those small trees if they if they choose to not save young trees they could do it up to six inches they could do it up to eight inches. How it would, how it would affect that recruiting those young trees to make them bigger depends on the goodwill of people either way, I guess. But there's some subset of trees that are between six and eight inches that would be saved if or would be subject to these regulations now and they wouldn't increase the diameter. It doesn't feel like a huge difference to me but I don't really know. Anybody. Do you think we do you think we should increase it is that what you're saying. To be honest, I like, I don't really care. I don't think it makes a huge difference either way and I see Dan's point and I like, see how it might be nice for landowners to have a little bit more flexibility. So I guess if it were just up to me I would push it up to eight inches, but I can see if people are concerned that we're like. Well, it's pushing it up to eight inches would mean Dan singleton wouldn't go after the client that might be, that might be an additional reason to do it I mean I. It's not that we need to placate one person and I think the, I think the select board would probably would, you know, do what we recommend at the end of the day, but I don't know how to think about it, you know, I don't, I don't really know how to think about it. But the reason I said that I would go along with it is because I think that Dan represents more people, you know, there's probably a fair number of people who aren't like, whatever responding to my front porch forum post, but who do appreciate the flexibility to place the trees on your property and and if it helps them out a little bit. I can, I can see that point of view, you know, on my own property. Oh yeah I can see how that's nice to be able to kind of have a little bit more latitude to. I mean frankly I can't imagine anybody following any of these rules. Great. You know, I don't know that it makes any difference because I just mean how are people, you know, I mean I just find I also find it kind of dismaying that you got so little response. You know what do people care about they don't care about our trees. I don't know. There's kind of this dynamic where we've been thinking about it in relation to the road crew and what the road crew does, and it will have a real effect there. But it kind of like oh it also impacts landowners. That's interesting so it's something the road crew will have to pay attention to one way or another either six inches or eight inches or whatever. Yeah, that's true. You know I think that landowners just don't see how it's going to affect them. So what I have a couple trees on the roadside that's six inches or eight inches out. I think most people just don't see. Don't care about that it's there are more the, the trees that are growing more on the inner in their property, you know, in a part of their property. So they need to for some reason. It could be I don't remember how much information was given at the various, you know, front porch forum and place about what this is but it could be a lot of people said I don't care about shade trees. Yeah, right the other, you know, I'm not going to read that. They are important in terms of, you know, you've discussed before and in terms of holding water on this, you know, erosion, we're holding water areas where we have, you know, no trees at all, make a big difference. So those kinds of areas are important. But I don't think the landowners see that. So anyway, my two cents. So what, what do you folks want to do. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I, I don't feel like I'm qualified to tell you, or do I qualify to have an opinion about whether a six industry or a tree is necessary to retain water or makes the difference or Yeah, I lean towards taking your recommendation. Yeah, I don't, I don't know either. Right. Totally aperture to me. I'm sure six inches. Yeah. I don't think it should be 14 inches. You know, then we're talking these big trees that people care about or whatever. So on. We have to do something. We have to, we have to make a decision to somebody want to move something. Let's keep it. Let's say eight inches. No, I say six inches. I'm gonna say six inches. That's big enough tree to start making a difference and I think we should do eight inches. I think it gives landowners more flexibility and the road cruise. Okay. Okay, one for six inches one for eight inches. I'm taking a poll here mark six or eight. Think about that six inch tree. Okay. So here's a six inch tree. Here's an eight inch tree. I'd say eight inches are bigger. All right. Eight inches are bigger. Okay. So do we need to take a formal vote? I don't know. We've been like formally approving this, but I don't know if it matters or not. I also knew I have a couple, before we end a discussion about this plan, I, I have a, I have a question and I have a comment in addition to this. There's nothing to do with the size of the trees. So let's resolve the size of the trees. And then I'll make my comment and question. So all in favor of eight, raise your hand. All in favor of six, all is abstain. Okay. Eight inches it is. Sounds good. Okay. Every time I read this, I have more questions. I'm really sorry, Neil. That's okay. Get them out now before I go back to the select part. Under hazardous trees. Number eight. Yeah. All right. So I think it's important that Deputy tree warden should advise landowners to road crew and other town officials on which shade trees are a hazard to public safety. Now how and when and where would that be done? It's a, it like only can be done if people ask us, you know, we can't like go do an inventory of all the thousands of trees and say. years of your life looking at trees every day up and down the roads. But the implication the implication or sort of is that I mean it's like it's putting something on you that you're supposed to be advising landowners and road crews in town officials it's like wait a minute they don't they don't have time to do that you know I just wonder it can be phrased so that it's clear that this isn't something some responsibility of yours you know to go around advising everybody sentence there if individuals wishing to remove shade trees are unsure whether those trees are hazardous they must contact the tree warden or deputy tree warden for a hazard evaluation I was kind of I was trying to say like it's like we should advise people in that context when they ask for it well you could just start out by saying if asked if asked would it make sense I don't know maybe so and then your sentence that follows it now that's the first thing you might be tweaked a little bit yeah that's a great idea if I just move that last sentence up to the beginning yeah and then yeah and then exactly and then it continues with then you should advise them tree warden and deputy tree warden will advise them yeah well you'll provide advice or whatever it is you're advising it not overseeing it yeah no I'm I am determining whether it's a hazard tree or not if they ask me if they ask okay change that first sentence to say something like a make a determination if if individuals wishing to remove shade trees are unsure if they're hazardous they must contact the tree warden or deputy tree warden who will conduct a hazard evaluation and then I put that at the beginning and delete the current first sentence I will but what also about the road crew um you know it's not just individuals but it's if individuals will recruit other town officials too okay that's all those yeah Tracy looks like she's about to burst out laughing oh maybe she's just frozen she is frozen my frozen that sounds about right for my internet so Tracy so spacey yeah it looks nice you have no smile I haven't talked to Drew in quite a while he might be interested in how much work you're giving it you could take you could just put take out tree warden you could just say the deputy tree warden or the assistant tree warden you don't have to hey he had a chance to comment on it that's right is Drew the assistant tree warden he was Drew was appointed so you want to hear my comment yeah dying too this is something that has been bugging me from the beginning why is it called a shade tree now I have a proposal I have a foot note here okay I would put under number three maybe put it at the end of the first sentence shall be considered shade trees asterisk footnote something like this shade trees in quotes is a term used by the legislature to denote I don't even remember what it denotes but it denotes something however the trees identified as shade trees do not actually have to provide shade I mean seriously it's like why did they when they revised the statue two years ago why did they continue calling it a shade tree but it's not right it's any tree am I right or am I wrong is it just a tree that provides shade absolutely right it's any tree it's a dumb name idiotic we can't change it but we could yeah I'd like to clarify because maybe that's why nobody commented because he's all many shade trees you know yeah yeah it doesn't it doesn't hurt to clarify in here but but we have to keep the term yes I understand that which is why I thought maybe a footnote and I can send you that sentence that'd be great but I'm not sure what it was denoting the legislature it's a term used by the legislature to denote trees that towns might want to preserve trees that are critical to the town's cultural historic or aesthetic character okay I think that's what they say however the trees identified as shade trees do not actually have to provide shade do you do you put an exclamation point in there is that a little over the top for a plan yes thanks legislature okay cool okay everyone's happy with the other changes I've made here and what do you what do you do with it now go back to the select board with it yeah what a headache that's a lot of work and we have to do an ordinance right oh let's not talk about yeah someday this has to be passed first and then the ordinance has to actually go think ordinances have to actually go to town meeting like it voted on this doesn't select board just has to adopt it yeah okay yeah you've done a just a stupendous job you really yeah you know commitment to attention and just the specifics it's so impressive thanks your willingness to keep on with it too it's like I haven't moved to Mexico yet but he's you're probably thinking about they don't have shade trees in Mexico sure they do it's misdicated and I repeat my observation that if you ever get tired of what you're doing you'd probably be a pretty good lawyer okay so we will move on now to Noreen sorry for for separating about shade trees but Noreen has been with Larry with her has been dogging dogging the planning commission on the Shirland zoning and they had another meeting that Noreen and I think Larry too attended so Noreen is going to update us right Noreen I will unless Larry wants to Larry you want to do it I'd be happy for you to give it a try and mine would be a very short update okay we're a small group of us Larry myself David Ellen Bogan and sometimes John Rosenblum regularly now attend the planning commission meetings and Shirland zoning is on the meeting and it always is followed by on the agenda and it's always followed by two or three more items but we always get stuck someplace in the middle of Shirland zoning so the agenda from each one could just be carried forward for at least five meetings I think the comment I would make is I think we have moved into a constructive relationship with the planning commission and they are there they're willing to let us make comments during the meeting and I think they actually consider them so I feel good about that I think that's a positive I think also on the moment now I'm going to move from those general comments to where we are one of the things that I think the planning commission members have finally grasped and appreciate is the fact that when talking about Shirland you're really talking about two areas the buffer where virtually nothing can be done you can't cut trees etc and then we're talking about the upland area which is still allows some level of development and has different standards that apply so most of the Shirland zoning standards will now be split between the buffer and the upland zone which I think is a really constructive way to organize and and if you are picking this up as a user to be able to understand what goes on so we now are going to have we went through I'm not going to repeat what we did last week I think we're we've now got it included in the language that the area definition of the Shirland goes across public and private roads that has been accepted by the planning commission and we've now separated thing we now got stuck at this last meeting on on uses split between the buffer zone and the upland zone and the sticking point is really the fact that because it's a Shirland overlay district as opposed to just a Shirland district you get to this issue of well do you specify the use in the overlay area or do you best rely on the uses as specified in the underlying district I think we left the meeting and Larry correct me if I'm wrong we finally left the meeting where Gary root is assigned the job to look at what all the underlying uses are because we can some places will have village district some most of it will be rural residential and some place will be the resource whatever it is district and they say this didn't know read and this didn't convince them that they should get rid of the overlay and go back Larry tried one more time and and you know it was like yeah it was the conversation must have gone on for over half an hour on this okay so it was really and the question was should we specify in the overlay district what uses are allowable or conditional use I mean the permitted or conditional or should we rely on the underlying district to specify these and then say which one uses in the underlying district are not allowed in the overlay if they want to do that that's I think that's it's going to make some it's met I mean it's clear from the discussion it was very difficult it'll come back again next time and where we'll end up is hard to forecast I think we did go on to from there and it's very positive though that they are separating the buffer zone permitted and conditional uses from the upland permitted and conditional uses we went on from there to dimensional standards and nothing has changed still a hundred foot set back is 300 foot minimum shoreline frontage it's minimum I'm sorry maximum impervious surface of 10% and after some discussion they have now voted on and accepted that total maximum cleared area and impervious surface will be measured in the upland zone at 40% it'll no longer be measured as part of the total shroud it'll only be based on the upland zone that was an incredibly tendentious if that's the right word process I have to say I'm delighted that they got out came out where they did but it was work to get everybody on board it was real work and I finally dawned on them that you know they began to which somehow Gary Root did a very nice job writing up can't can't hear you Noreen I'm sorry when you think about can you hear me now yes okay so when you think about a lake as opposed to an individual parcel then you start thinking about the buffer as being like a ring that goes around the lake and that it really becomes then an effective protection for the lake as you and then you think of the upland as an outer ring that goes around the buffer zone so I think that helps help them to get a vision of why that was important and I think it was also helpful to have them understand that if you specified this dimension based on the total area of the shroud it basically would mean that you were going to allow most of the upland to be cut if not all and and that's really detrimental to lakes and ponds okay so that we got we got through that I think although these things have a way of hiccuping and coming around again for the next meeting but I think we've got we they took a boat so hopefully that'll hold we then broached briefly the subject of nonconforming structures and I think that language that they have are hanging on so far is no nonconforming structure shall be enlarged or expanded or move towards the shorelines section 3.8 goes on to specify that you cannot enclose a porch or a deck and there was a great deal of discussion about whether that was reasonable to prohibit people from enclosing a porch or a deck and I think that at this point they're leaning to say you can enclose a porch and heat it it would be a conditional use approval and the decision would be heavily made based on adequacy of septic system if this enclosed space were used for bedrooms or you know additional people in the house. Well no I mean that would be the only issue wouldn't it that would be the only issue of the if the change in use of a of a room of a from a from a porch to a to a room what other issue would there you know that came up to the DRB recently what other issue would there be other than septic as long as no outside work is being done. Now in that case on Curtis Pound on the Worcester Road there was outside work being done that was not disclosed to the it was John McCulloch told them they could go ahead and do it which was to change the footings change the footings and he just told them to do it that that they didn't need a permit to do that and the DRB was quite taken aback by that but they'd already done it. Well got well that that you know if you're not doing it right I mean it would seem that here's me talking and you're closer to it than I am the DRB but if somebody wants if this is the language that ended up in the zoning IE people would be allowed to include enclose a porch and make it a heated space if the DRB as a conditional use and it would it would seem that that would have to go to the DRB for decision and perhaps whatever material the DRB wants to be included with that conditional use permit to justify in other words if you're enclosing the porch you know gets into building code issues of what what kind of flooring what kind of structural support and all of those kinds of things but if it's a conditional at least if it's a conditional use it would mean that it would come to the DRB for review prior to issuing permits. But this is just you just said enlarge expanded or move closer to the shoreline but doesn't say any other change in use or does you know it doesn't and so that's one line sentence that would stand but then there'll be something that second that says that that will say about enclosing porch is would be a conditional use but that enclosing decks would not be permitted and I'm trying to say I'm the one with a giant deck who argued for not allowing that to happen. What about about what about changing the I mean this is what happened on Curtis Pond was they just were changing the use from a screened in porch and then they were insulating it they were they weren't changing the footprint at all but they were and they need a conditional use permit but are they going to know that would that would my understanding is that would be still and a condition allowable under a conditional use permitting. Okay I just don't see the language and what you've it language is not because this was a discussion now the language has to be finalized and hopefully we'll see that before the next meeting in December 20th. I think the only point to take away is the question was first was that no porches are allowed to be enclosed and then as people said well yeah maybe we should enclose porches but why can't we enclose decks to and I think they're there was a big discussion and finally I think people settled that okay it's a can it should be a legitimate use allow to allow people to enclose their porches but assuming a conditional use permit is granted not decks in other words you can't just have this big deck and and build a giant structure on top of it right so there's some discussion about needing definitions for porches and decks and I may be putting that in as well right so so that was a general idea I guess I guess I could say it's general idea they were sent away they left working to going they left with the need to create actual language the other comment I would make we didn't we never talked about these in detail Neil I don't know if you've ever looked at all of the tree the vegetated the tree management that's part of this you know this the language in here is just basically a straight adoption from the state regs the state Vermont Shoreland Act Protection Act has been you know I don't I can't say that anybody in the you know I don't think that we felt qualified to take that on but you know it's one of those complicated measurement systems of so many trees are allowed within this 25 square you know it's a it's a complex system yeah it's hard to imagine how you enforce it my understanding having read their thing is that they it's just exactly what the state said in the Shoreland Protection Act right and I agree it's this they were trying to kind of have a complicated system that would let people do thoughtful management but not get away with too much and it's just a mass because because it's unenforceable right and the Planning Commission is kind of saying well we're going to go with that people have to follow it anyway I'm I'm frankly not sure they all understand that even yet if I can be candid because they still persist in talking about how there'll be no tree cutting in the buffer and I tried unsuccessfully one time I guess to explain that yes in fact there will be under the standard of sinning that the state has because because John McCullough at least understands this and nobody contradicts him that that's that's what cows will follow to and if the state says it's okay it's okay with cows well why don't they just prohibit any cutting in the buffer if that's what they well I think they may not fully understand that I mean and probably just as somebody who's a homeowner there I mean it does make it when you've got trees that are really overgrown you might really want to thin the trees if you you know and then the question also comes up is it legitimate to limb up trees and they allow you to limb up trees but you know if you have a I don't know just a jungle sort of of baby hemlocks all growing do you really are people not supposed to live within those hemlocks I mean this one it gets to sort of a mess okay I think they should have to consult with the treeward no the deputy treeward and that's better all right and I'm nickel diming them on one more you'll be proud of me on this Stephanie I'm really pushing them on language it says it has this opening paragraph under standards under the treeward and it says new development shall comply with all these lists of regs that's good however I believe it should say new development and acknowledge I'm going to say and other activities within this standard or you can John McCullough said new development uses and tree management but this this shrouds standards do not apply exclusively just to new development so we'll see how we'll see how that rings itself out next time as well. That's about as far as we got right Noreen last night. That's it that's where we got so what happens next are they meeting every week or every other week or what every other week for December 20th and Merry Christmas it's another meeting of the planning commission. Yeah sometimes every week it just kind of has been well they depend I think they meet like the second and fourth or the first and third or something like that Tuesdays or something like that but what Larry you said they've been augmenting that schedule I think you know they're trying hard to to to get a finished product and it's extremely difficult to do that and so it's taking a long time. Well last time as I recall somebody sent out was it Jan sent out or it was Jan or Ann Winchester sent out the latest version. Yes they now gotten into that pattern for the last two meetings they sent us the latest version so I think Ann is then you know based on either votes or discussion she's revising the language and then bringing it back and I think we're now in the loop for getting copies. That's great. Are you getting those Stephanie did you get this is James Draftmore before did you get that. I believe I did. Okay. It came from Ann. The last one came from Ann the previous one I think came from Jan. I got the one from Ann just recently yeah in fact I had some communication with her about some of it yeah I mean I just find it easier personally to deal with Ann than the whole planning commission and then you know she agrees she takes it to them. Yeah I think she's very helpful to you know just keeping this document straight and incorporating and then of course she with her experience on the DRB and the planning commission you know she's asking very practical questions of how does this you know is this language adequate or is this language confusing or whatever. As I said I think it's terrific that she got involved and that they've accepted her her help you know I mean there's only four of them you know look at what we try to do and we don't do anything close to what they do with just you know six of us four of them doing this major overhaul of the because it's not just the shoreline zoning they're doing other stuff too and other aspects of the zoning regulations so. Yeah it's a big job there's no question. Well thank you Ann Larry for staying on this. Yeah. It's just great. I think it's just really good and I'm just pleased that they're going to work with you. Yeah they were almost part of the group now. I mean when they let when we left last night they said are you coming back on the 20th I thought whoa we've come a long way. You know for the beginning my comments I was surprised that they they're dealing with you know specific you know water quality stuff and you know it's stuff that the conservation commission and especially the lakes and streams committee has some expertise on and so I was surprised in fact I was flabbergasted that they didn't do more to include you over the last few years when they were working on this stuff and I think they could have saved themselves a lot of time and difficulty if they had just done this from the beginning but at least they'd finally come around and I think it's terrific and it'll be a much much better product and we'll have much better protection. Thanks. Thanks to you guys and your your diligence. Yeah. Your input. And we just sit around and listen to what everybody else is doing and say oh that's great. Thanks for doing it. Okay so you'll you'll go back and continue and send us anything you want and you know I guess you know we won't be meeting until the beginning of January but they might still be working on it right? They're not going to finalize something on December 20th it doesn't sound like. Well then if we're going to kind of speed we've been it won't happen next time. Yeah so we might have another chance to talk about it with you before something gets finalized and then it goes to the select board but my understanding is just likely going to be a big change on the select board. Oh so. What? What? What? I don't know what I'm afraid to disclose. Okay. You know Rick's term is up and Sharon's term is up I have no idea if they're going to run again. Mark Kelly was just elected to the legislature he's not going to stay around. Well there was some talk about him staying at least a year and perhaps for his term I think some of his colleagues suggested that he should stay. It's a lot of work. I don't know that he's going to. Yeah so anyway um but this isn't going to get you know they they have like four months or something to um. I'm not sure how it's 120 days and I'm not sure 120 days to what do they have to do it within 120 days? Thanks. Take at least 120 I just don't remember. Oh yeah you're right I don't know either. You what what's it? The select board has to hold a hearing. Yeah there has to be a they have to have a hearing and then at some point once the select board has signed off on whatever the document whatever shape it's in uh at that point it goes to the town or the townspeople to vote on and that could happen at a town meeting but it doesn't have to it could be especially called vote. And it won't be done in time for this town meeting I understand. It's not definitely not happening for this town meeting. I'm going to. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to say goodbye to you all. Thank you. Bye. Thanks a lot. See you next time I hope. Yep. All right thank you. See you. Thank you so much. Bye. Okay okay so the next thing on the agenda is the curb put ordinance and everybody had an assignment. Yep. And did anybody do them? Yeah I did. I didn't find anything really except my assignment was to look up um you know the connection between um you know the curb cut and natural history you know any kind of it's effect on living things ecology. I didn't find anything except I did find um I think it came up with it was was the Vermont rain garden manual rain gardens and so I thought that could be interesting either to put in when there's a controversial rain garden I mean there's a controversial curb cut that you either require people to put in um rain gardens or the town puts in a rain garden or I have no idea I don't understand because I've never put one in before. But what is the same manual I mean what is it that they would under what circumstances would they want they'd be required and what would they be required. I have no idea I would think in situations where um it's running out like there's I mean I don't know because it seems like most of the that as far as I know most of the um curb cuts are usually on a driveway to a main road or to another road and so I don't know what situations exist that would in which a rain guard might be appropriate. Julie I thought about this after you and I had quickly emailed back and forth um something that we should look at potentially for curb cuts it's just not something that I have tons of familiarity with other than like my general understanding about how curb cuts affect everything. We should look at the stormwater standards for the state. The other thing that I was thinking that we could potentially look at would be the DOT manual and see if there's anything in the Department of Transportation standards for how curb cuts are done and things like that. Those are the only thing that I could just sort of off the top of my head was thinking about as other sources of information we could potentially get some information from. I just curb cuts really aren't where I live with my job so I didn't you know I haven't really thought about them so. No I don't know it's all new to me too. Well I think so I'm thinking about say there's a vernal pool and somebody wants to put a driveway in next to the vernal pool. Well it still be the same standards that the state applies where you'd have to identify the vernal pool then you look at the boundaries the buffers and things like that. Directionality of buffers what species you're seeing in the pool it's all the same kind of it's all the same thing you would see in fragmentation or in forestry if they're doing like a large clear cut or something like that same same general idea just on a smaller scale hopefully. You said you said you would look at the state standards so what state standards are you talking about and you know what is the state? I think for Vermont for like for a vernal pool I think the state regulation is 50 feet buffer you're not allowed to cut anything but there's another. I don't think the state has any standards about vernal pools. I think there are kind of things that have fall between the tracks. It's wild life road crossings those kinds of things. Mel I'm having a hard time understanding you I don't know. Yeah I couldn't hear you Neil I heard something about road crossings that's all I got. I don't I don't can you hear me? Yeah. I don't think that the state has any regulations about vernal pools they're just kind of best practices or recommendations and similarly for wildlife road crossings and amphibian road crossings those things there there are no rules about them but it's kind of an oversight like those are things we would like to be able to consider I would think. So we would want to come up with some standards where would we find some suggestions? No Neil there are standards and for vernal pools they're considered class two wetlands because they're considered significant. Okay but they're not mostly not mapped. Right right that's a problem right so most of them are on private property or on map so you would have to you know require that of wetland delineation and a wetland scientist go out on site identify it there'd be a whole host of things that would have to happen in order to require that. The section that I was working on was like the surface water section and I included wetlands in there I wonder if it makes sense to just have a sentence in my section that says like this. I would I would put vernal pools under wetlands they are a wetland resource they're regulated as a wetland resource and obviously you know there's a whole wildlife factor associated with how those species move in the landscape but I would toss that under wetlands. The other the big one another big one related to wildlife I feel like is these wildlife road crossings which we have mapped and there aren't any you know there's not much to look about about then you can look at like kind of how they were mapped in the first place whatever but we should just have a standard that says you can't put a curb cut in a wildlife road crossing unless you really need to or whatever. Well what would be the distance I mean would there you know how far away from a road how a wildlife crossing. Well they've mapped out these like areas that are it's not a point it's an area of the road. They're corridors. Yeah they're these corridors it's like this 30 foot section is a wildlife road crossing. I think the kind of easy way to do it is to just send a like you can't put a curb cut in one of those areas. Yeah that's about the most straightforward of all these things I think. Yeah I agree this is definitely the road there's no question that is part of the road. I got my my point with unless you want to was like there probably is some language to allow people to in some circumstances. There are there are properties where you just wouldn't be able to have a driveway anywhere. I was gonna say like what if so here would be my question like what if somebody buys a piece of property and then they like don't know that wildlife corridors are a thing and then of course that's like the only frontage that they have. Like what if you're avoiding a wetland and the only place if you're avoiding this wetland to put in your driveway is through the middle of the wildlife corridor right? Like do we want them to go through the wetland to avoid the wildlife corridor? Well you know that's just one of those things that comes up. I mean there obviously there has to be some stability or I'm assuming there does. You know I'm thinking about the hearing they're having right in the town hall right now about the proposed subdivision on the Bank Kamoli Road and the driveway goes very close to a wetland in fact goes into part of the wetland and you know they're all trying to figure out what to do about that and I think it's a wildlife crossing there too. You know so you know I mean obviously depends on how the language is written but there needs to be more consciousness of this. There really does and I think you know in terms of curb cuts this is a good place to make it because of the potential damage that driveways can do and you know so you know it's definitely I think it's definitely worth coming trying to come up with some language that accomplishes. But how might somebody know that they have their their driveway is in a wildlife crossing area? Well they they put in an application for a curb cut and there's this form that the town has to fill out and they have to check off and somebody's got to look at the map and say oh that's not a wildlife crossing or or it is we're going to give them that feedback yeah somebody's got to check it off. And if they say it is maybe it's it's that's the time at which you know and and I guess the form should include the information on where to go to find out and then if they do find out that say it's the wildlife crossing there what they need to do is maybe at that point hire somebody to evaluate it. Same thing with the wetland if it's a wetland they need to find somebody I don't know whether it's this well with wetlands it would be the state because it would have because state has regulations about wetlands. I don't know the state has regulations about wildlife crossings do they? I think so. But but all this information would be in the application for a curb cut that would then guide them to what they should be doing after that. I mean in the language would have to have something about you know attempts to avoid at all possible or whatever you know that's just something. Stephanie could I there's something that troubles me about this whole enterprise because I don't understand it and maybe you do or Neil might I mean a curb cut in some ways is just a section right at the edge of the public highway and the traditional concern is if you're at that point is that a safe place can you get out how does you know how does it affect the traffic on that public roads blah blah blah we're talking about something else we're talking about the roads that that are going to be used from this curb cut and how they tie into development and what's going to happen on that property and and so forth is there is and I have a trouble thinking about using the curb cut concept if that's what we're really looking at is the overall question of how is any of this development but specifically the road as well mainly only the road affecting what's back there on that property. I think you're going further than we're talking about I mean the curb cut itself goes into a road right I mean that's what happens it's a it's a driveway of some sort of goes into a road and there's a section there where it's actually in the right of way right there's a right of way there and it could be it could even be I understand what your concern is because you know and that was one of the questions I think we had that came up last time is to what extent is the driveway involved itself in the in the curb cut you know to what extent can can what happens on the driveway or what the driveway is doing be considered as part of the curb cut application and I think I was going to look into it and I didn't I don't even know where to look into it but um like for instance the existing uh state law is that there has to be a flat area before you enter the road the road so if the driveway is on a slope it can't just slide you know right into the road they have regulations about how much it has to how much flat area there has to be and I I guess in my mind conceptually that's sort of the area I'm thinking about you know those are the area where they took the trees down along the road in order to improve the sight lines you know because the sight lines are the focus of the curb cut or ordinance and law that that's right now that's mostly the focus is sight lines can you know can people see when they come out if people come around the curb they're going to be able to see but in the in the in dealing with that it seems to me that it implicates other things and in the case of the one on Nelson Pond it clearly implicated trees because they were taking trees down to improve the sight lines at which the road commissioner said oh great just take these trees down and you'll comply and I'm saying wait there's other that's other things that might be implicated and one of them is trees and another one might be that that happens to be a wildlife crossing or right there we're talking about right there or maybe there's a wetland right there so what about slopes if that's if that's true that it's kind of limited just to the right of way and you need a flat area then and how does it affect slow can we say anything about slope like that's a hilarious I did a lot of research on I've got two pages of it on like four towns around this but but it's not but it but if the curb cut is just about that little part that attached to the road and this doesn't apply right like I we've got rules about slope and building on slope and callous that all say 15 percent or goes to conditional review by the drb woodbury doesn't have the word slope anywhere in their zoning ordinance at all in their zoning woodbury does not have the word slope anywhere and the woodbury zoning ordinance is 30 pages and it's a image not a pdf so you can't search you just have to scan through and read every word the only percentages in that entire ordinance are about the amount of trees you can remove but the word slope is not there anywhere eastmont piliar is very similar to us their language is really similar about whether or not you can build and where you can build except everything where callous says 15 percent eastmont piliar says 25 percent yikes playing field is pretty much the same as us it's 15 percent they actually have curb cuts in their zoning plan too and it says as a condition of access approval and they call curb cuts access management and then they have parentheses right next to that curb cuts yeah the condition of access approval compliance with all ordinances and regulations pertaining to roads and land development is required and this is immediately after the one that names 15 percent as a steep slope it's like they've all got slope in them except for woodbury and it's all 15 percent except eastmont piliar but if the curb cut by state law is the like the last four feet that's flat then kind of this applies because there's no and it's a zoning thing yeah well it's yeah that's it's in the zoning it didn't occur to me to look in zoning i was looking in i was looking at curb cut ordinances from other towns um and they're mostly they're mostly just sort of track what the state law says but remember what the state law says remember the state law talks about having to be in compliance with the existing land use you know let me go find it remember we talked about that last time so it's not it's kind of interesting because they talk about it having to be in compliance and with the planning goals of of of 24 title 24 section i think it's 4302 which which kind of implies that it goes beyond just that little chunk of something at the end of the you know that's going on to the road i mean what kind of planning goals you know are they talking about um you know and and i i thought i printed it out but i don't see it here with my stuff i thought i printed out those planning goals because you know they're really broad and they don't they don't on at first they really don't seem to have a lot to do with you know traditional curb cuts and yet the state statute says they have to be in compliance with it says um da da da da da da and then and necessary okay wait a minute protection of the public investment in existing highway infrastructure as a test for reasonableness okay wait let me go back it's one of these long long sentences the agency or legislative okay wait god i don't want to bore everybody with this but it it's a long long section second sentence as a condition of any such permit compliance with all local ordinances and regulations relating to highways and land use shall be required it sounds like that's what planefield put in its zoning yeah the agency or legislative body may make such rules to carry as will adequately protect and promote the safety of the traveling public here we go maintain reasonable levels of service on the existing highway system protect the public investment in the existing highway infrastructure but in shall in no case deny reasonable entrance and exit to or from property abutting the highways except on limitous access highways comma using safety maintenance of reasonable levels of service on the existing highways and necessary to be consistent with the planning goals of 24 vsa 4302 and to be compatible with any regional plan state agency or approved municipal plan that is one sentence yeah yeah so so that is what gave our town attorney joe mcclean when he told me that he argued this and for for a town and it was a town of unreal that they could do that because that they could have environmental criteria because of all of this language and that's what to me it implies something more than the little 20 rod white right of ways that what it is 20 rods or whatever it is the little tiny bit of public land at the end of the driveway so i i that's what gave me the idea that we could include more but i don't know you know Stephanie i mentioned something about the town of ethics at a meeting previously when i mistakenly recalled that one of the town official sent me was talking about curb cuts it was really talking about zoning in connection with scenic interferes and all that but i looked at their regulations and something that very similar to or in part at least to what neil was just talking about is in theirs and it ties together the kind of zoning d r b approval of what's going to happen there to the acquisition of the access i.e. the curb cut and it's maybe very close to the same language subdivision or site plan approval is also required highway access approval curb cuts shall be obtained following the issuance of such approvals town or state highway access approval must be obtained prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy so this is basically saying you got to tell us what you're going to do with this and if it's part of some development thing you got to get the development thing approved before you can get your curb cut approved that's really interesting can you send that around yeah i could i can send the one page that i'll find some way to send it or a link to the zoning itself on the yeah maybe maybe that's what i'll do and just tell you what page this particular thing is on that's so interesting yeah that is but what i understand is that we're talking about the regulations so you need a flat area before you come out on and oh yeah you know they even they do have it a little bit on that disaster on nelson pond road you know but there's lots of places where driveways where people come out and it's not flat somewhere here i can find it with the language is about it i mean i just i'm thinking of i mean there's lots of hilly entrance driveways driveways that enter are they come just jutting down right into the road your road i mean i'm thinking of walter forest driveway goes right into the road on a hill there's a hill i'm thinking if you can come down before you get from new root 14 before you get to the intersection of peck hill there's a driveway a very very steep driveway there i thought that there was language about it i thought so too i remember that well here you know this is the entrance i didn't check this it says access grades the entrance area from the proposed access to the town of highway shall be constructed in accordance with for my agency of transportation standard sheet b 71 this requirement is to allow vehicles a safe place to enter and exit the road during slippery conditions i suspect that that's the there's a reference that's a reference to that although it you know then where standard sheet b 11 or b 71 is that attached to their ordinance no this is callus's ordinance um i can look at the state statute again um you'll be interesting you got i think i sent you all the state statute it'd be interesting to if you look at it again because keep finding things in it um and a lot of it isn't relevant but a lot of it is lots to do with utilities and stuff um it's that b driveway entrances that i was reading from before um well should take a look at it and see if this you see anything in there that's interesting um it's all about sewer lines and installing sewer lines and then there's a lot of language about what to do somebody violates it but anyway i can't find it off the top of my head i thought there was something in there and there may be about it um but in any event there is a there is a piece that is in the highway right of way which i suppose can be regulated i don't know i don't know what else to say um i mean i don't know i don't know how far we can go in learning how much regulation you know the or i'm sorry the how much area actual area can be subsumed or included in you know a curb cut do you need a zoning permit to build a driveway no no however well maybe john was looking i remember that one on on nelson pond road i said at the site visit holy gamoli look at the slope and john mccullough the zoning administrator said it complies it's under 15 percent so i don't know now that i'm thinking about it what he was referring to because you don't need to i i don't think you need a zoning permit i think you only need a curb cut permit but is there a slope i don't think there's a slope in the callous ordinance regulating you mean a slope a maximum slope not in at least not in the curb cut approval it doesn't mention anything about so i could ask john where you got that i mean where does the uh i can ask john what else applies to a curb cut in addition to the ordinance and where the slope regulated so i remember he said that kind of where's the measure right is it just you know i wonder who's an accessory use i wonder if he did need a zoning permit because this was a um garage this was a driveway to a garage that was an accessory to the house and maybe that's what they needed they needed some kind they needed a zoning permit because it was an accessory used to a house i i just don't know i have to ask john yeah the district standards and they they do mention driveways uh driveways are permitted in setbacks there shall be at least five feet from the side of your property line driveway slopes greater than 15 percent are subject to conditional reuse review what are you reading neil that's our zoning our zoning regs um and that's like in the village district but that sentence is right if they say yeah in every district they say the same thing so they do oh okay driveway slopes yeah it does seem like this some of the stuff should like should be in the zoning yeah i mean that's yeah it should be harder for us to move the need along but but if it's not we could still do it as long as it we come within those parameters of those standards that they talk about in that section of the state law that i read mm-hmm you know and as i said when i talk i'm gonna talk to him again i'm gonna call a town attorney again talk to him about a little more um because we were talking about it you know i was talking about environmental criteria i wasn't talking about specifically how much how much of the land is is included in the curb cut yeah isn't that the question we have yeah and so so i suppose before we it's except for the um the wildlife crossing and and any wetlands i guess that are right there right i mean i think that's much more straightforward and tree cutting because we're talking about yeah that's in you know people trees in order to it should probably also mention like they i if they're shade trees they technically need to follow the shade tree ordinance too so that should probably be mentioned that they have complicated things but if if a shade tree is in is blocking the sight line which takes precedence well they still have to talk to the um to the tree warden yeah you know they'd have to warn it and if someone had a problem with it they'd have to bring it to the select board and then the select board would decide yeah okay yeah really the question is of is slopes huh like wetlands wildlife road crossings um trees are all things that even if it was only talking about the right of way itself would still apply and also you know the other question would be if um in addition to slopes if if curb cut permits could actually it's like how far can they go you know i mean what if there's a wetland it's not right in the town right of way but it's just past it i mean but you know and but then you think that would that would have to come up in the zoning yeah it would also you'd have to talk about wetlands and buffers right because certain buffers or excuse me certain wetlands have buffers um depending on the class and that has to be confirmed by the state of vermont somebody from the state agency needs to come out and confirm their wetland class too so but if it's not if it's on somebody's land adjacent to their driveway doesn't it doesn't matter if it's a wetland with a buffer that buffer would still exist on necessarily a curb cut issue that's all i understand they still need to get their own they have to you know they have to deal with the wetland permit from the state but that's not necessarily something that can be included in a curb cut ordinance that's all i'm saying it might not understand yeah how many cents yeah so it would be regulated that way it would be regulated otherwise it would be regulated under a state of vermont wetland permit yeah but like the same thing with the you know vernal pools would be regulated under state um streams things like that or at least they should be unless somebody does it without getting a permit and maybe our zoning mentions wetlands they're regulated by the state but we still our zoning still says there's this 50 foot having a buffer for wetlands and that's only independent from the state regulations but it's not a bad thing and it feels especially not a bad thing for vernal pools to me like that's yes it's regulated by the state but nobody's enforcing it but if we put it in the curb cut ordinance then someone's got to go check the box that they looked at right exactly i'm like i feel like wetlands are more far more understood than at least by the general public from what a vernal pool is um a lot of people just look at it like well that only fills up with water you know two months three months of the year that's not a wetland it's dry most of the year and i can feel that and it's not a it's just a hole um so a lot of people just don't understand that significance and like you said most vernal pools are not mapped most people don't know what they are they don't know they're there they don't so i that to me is a more delicate issue that if we could rope that in i would feel that would be good um stefanie just going back for a minute to that thing i was talking about um clearly it would be great if our curb cut standards worked in tandem with our underlying zoning standards and this Essex and then what was it plain feel plain feeling um saying that here's how it works you do the zoning stuff first and if you get the zoning stuff approved then you ask us for a curb cut yeah but that would mean to me that everything including the driveway and whether the driveway is approved and anything else you're going to do has already been approved and you've gotten drb permission to do it and you say okay i got all this can i please have the curb cut you can see far enough down the road this way in that way yeah speak of what do you think that uh that's something we could put in the curb cut ordinance that they have their zoning permit first uh yes i well i think we could try it yeah yeah i do too but it's not always the case like curb cuts are also for like farm entrances when you drive the tractor into mow the field or whatever and there's not i sort of like it should happen in tandem i don't necessarily think they should be separate are you going to approve it and then tell them they can't cut the driveway at the last minute that seems like poor planning good point so i mean it would make it's like neil's talking about a curb cut that doesn't relate to zoning i would assume because it's just for giving tractors the field right but we're not in charge of this i'm assuming but it wouldn't make sense that if the zoning like the zoning application requires you to do all the steps including getting the curb cut approved which connects back to the like it's the tandem thing you're saying right it's one thing you can't get the zoning you can't get everything else approved that also get the curb cut approved and they're one form one process or one stack of form if you all submit it once you know that's interesting i wonder if um if it could be added without changing the zoning if it could be added to the uh zoning application form that you that's what i'm yeah yeah something they have to check you would still also be able to do a curb get a curb cut without a zoning application right yeah if you don't need a zoning permit so you'd still want the curb cut to stand alone and give provided protections that we want to yeah this is always more complicated than what it would be there would be two issues it would be the curb cut itself and also possibly going through zoning seems like there's gotta be a way to say that right to say that this curb cut application with its requirements will be done at the same time as zoning if that is part of the larger project and if it's just the curb cut for the tractor to the field then it's just this document and it still has these concerns about wildlife crossings and other things but yeah you don't have to do the rest but if you have to do the rest it's all one packet that you do together yeah just sort of what i think they were getting out in in playing fields i think that's what i seem to say mark you found that was that on playing fields website yeah it was um it's there in their zoning regulations just my laptop nearly did but i'll see if i can find it before it dies the kind of crux of it would be would be related to the zoning right you wouldn't get your permit until yeah you had approved curb cut basically yeah and of course the way i look at it you couldn't get your curb cut until you had approved zoning right one thing yeah but it is yeah it is different people like the curb cut application is like goes to the select board goes to the select board they asked the road commissioner whatever the director of public works to go out and like fill out their form and that comes back to them we can change that you know because one of the things i would change is having them being required to somehow consult with the conservation commission you know which reminds me that when i started working on this the other day i took out the town's ordinance and read it really closely and when this thing is so confusing and redundant and repetitious and so i was thinking you know of kind of a bigger picture of just this thing needs to be rewritten you know i think it's it waits field i looked at they have a very clear process for getting a curb cut first very clear not not we're not so clear and and in doing that we could put in the process some of the things we're talking about i am i am wary of the needing to consult with the conservation commission because it feels like that makes it a bigger process like having been involved who would they talk to i mean you know if if the zoning if the uh curb cut application says that they they can't be in a wildlife corridor how you know who are they going to talk to about that the zoning administrator certainly doesn't know anything about wildlife corridors well it's it's there on the map it's like it would have to be the person filling out that curb cut form would have to be able to go it has to be easy for them they have to be able to like okay here's what i do here's the url i go to the website i see it i check the box um i'm just thinking the way it is now it's like it's not too big a pain for that farmer who wants to get in and cut the field or whatever goes to the town office does this and then he goes to the next select board meeting and they tell him yep you're good to go does he really need to get a curb cut permit now yeah wow i mean i think a lot of you know a lot of field entrances are already whatever grandfathered in so it probably doesn't happen all the time but you know it's nine o'clock i think this has been a great discussion it's like really interesting more much more complicated than i had i'll say so um i guess you know i mean we could start working on i'm not sure how to proceed how should we proceed i need to find out if anybody like our lawyer has any thoughts about how far it could go the you know how far into a property um you could go but what larry's saying about or mark is saying about the planfield one it seems like yeah they kind of vary that's why i'm trying to find it again took a while to get around to it yeah Stephanie would it make sense for us to think about talking with our colleagues on the drb and possibly the planning commission about this sort of conundrum that we have about you know how do these curb cuts you know how far can they go regulation go under the curb cut provisions i'm afraid they wouldn't know anything more than we do pardon i don't think they would know anything more than we do no but there's just more people who are concerned about the process thinking about how it could work you get their attention in their time i'll do it um you know i mean i just think we should go ahead and do what we want to do and then take it out for public comment and see what happens meaning we should kind of ignore this idea that it should be combined with the zoning permits and stuff and just focus on the curb cut well we could say that we could suggest or recommend that it i mean they're not going to change the zoning right now so the question is could we do that in the curb cut permit application could could could the permit curb cut application get tired i can't make a sense could it could it could it require a concurrent zoning up you know process to try to have the processes happen at the same time in some way even though it's in front of different people we have to think that through about and yeah i mean other people might have some ideas larry i'm not trying to reject that suggestion you know because we really all there really are only six of us and while we're six very brilliant uh we're only six and more people sometimes are helpful so what do you want to do i think because my sense is that because zoning regulations aren't going to change anytime we're not in the process of changing zoning regulations i think we should really work on this curb cut and make some curb cut regulations that are clear and then maybe at a later time we can combine the two somehow or make them i don't know that's my thought yeah i mean the slide board is just there you know their minds are on a lot of other things they they they started you know we've got to do something about this ordinance it's from 2004 and it's really out of date and stephanie says the conservation commission thinks there should be some environmental criteria involved and yes you know let's hear from them sometime you know now they're doing budget you know they're meeting like twice a week or something to do budget so it's not anything urgent i think we have time to play around with this and come up with various things so i would just suggest that everybody you know just think about i'll i'll find out what i can find out legally if there's anything to find out legally and then just think some more about you know how how you would want to do it what kind of language would you want in in each of these areas um or or you know if if you have the time or inclination just keep poking around and seeing what else you could find that i mean that that's really helpful the Essex and the Plainfield you know that people have come up with so i i would just you know i'll put on the agenda for for january and you know what i just put it on the agenda for next time we'll keep poking around for now let's you know we'll only go to sleep before brain's class or the rest good luck everybody driving and what's the date january um something like the fourth i think i'm not sure about that yeah it's fourth yeah well so let's plan on let's plan i just lost you all where are you zoom let's plan on doing it january fourth is that sure it's all good and and then we'll see too where the shoreland zoning is by then and we'll get to go back to school sometime around then we'll go back down to tuesday it's not sounds great okay thank you can i know how much time do you get off um we get all our last day is the 22nd and then we go back um i think the second third something like that so it's like at least two weeks yeah it's just about two weeks yeah that's amazing that's a good less long one break can i move that we adjourn so that our good friend from orca can go home and go to bed and we can talk as long as i get i completely forgot orca but thank you all from for coming or appearing or whatever you've done we appear magically