 You have to be in the meeting. OK, I am now. I got a black one. So I'm going to call this meeting. I'm going to call this meeting to order. So the meeting is called to order, and video and audio recording has begun. We have two attendees, and I'm going to check in and see if they can hear me. So there's somebody named Nola, Stephen, or Stefan. And can you hear me, Nola? I can hear you, yes. Great, OK. And I'm going to mute you now, but it's good that you can hear me. And yeah, what was that? And now Peggy Matthews is also here. And Peggy, can you hear me? You've got them both muted, Jim. Nola and Peggy are muted. OK, there we go. Peggy, yep. So Peggy, can you hear me now? Yes. Great. My unmute. Good. My unmute isn't working for Nola. Nola, did you mute yourself? So there we go. There we go. OK, so welcome, everybody. So here's what's going to happen. I've already called the meeting to order. I'm going to be moderating the meeting, which means I will call on people to speak so we don't have multiple people talking at once. If you need to speak, this is for the panelists, the members of the committee, if you need to speak, you can raise your hand either physically like this or with the Zoom raise your hand. And then I'll recognize you when it's a good moment to do it. Any vote that we take will require a roll call. And if there's public comment, I will recognize you and you'll introduce yourselves before you speak. And I'll remind you again of that when we get to that. I expect that we'll get to the public comment portion of the meeting sometime in 45 minutes to an hour, but it's unclear exactly when it'll be. What I want to do now is go around the room and let the task force members introduce themselves. And I'll call on you one by one to introduce yourself. So Dave, you can go first. I think let me unmute everybody. I think I can do that. Oh, I'm not a task force member. There we go. So Dave. I'm Dave Zomak. I'm Dave Zomak. I function as staff to the task force and have been working on the duck park for a couple of years. But I'm not officially a voting member on this staff. Thanks. Thank you. And I'm Jim Pistrang and I am the chair of the task force and Nina. I am Nina Allen. I am a former member of the task force, but now I moved. So I'm just a non-voting member. So you're a non-voting member of the task force is what you are. And Gina. Hi, I'm Gina Piusco and I am a voting member of the task force. And Ted. I'm Ted Diamond and vice chair of the task force. Can you hear me? And Mike. Yes. Hi. Can you hear us, Ted? I'm Mike Chessworth and I've been on. Yeah. Okay. I've been on the task force since you started out with everyone. And I'm Mike Chessworth. Can you hear me? I'm Mike Chessworth. And yes, I'm a Doug Park member and Jack. Yeah, I, Jack jumps like I'm Jack. Task force as well. I live in South Amherst. Anna. Hi, everybody. I'm Anna Devlin-Gothier. Doug Park Task Force member, also South Amherst. And Ellen. My name is Ellen Kiter. I'm a voting member of the task force and I too live in South Amherst. Okay. The other person who sometimes appears at meetings is our animal control officer. But I don't know if she's gonna appear tonight or not. We'll wait and see if she shows up. A quick review of what our agenda is. We're going to appoint a secretary for the meeting. Then we will approve the minutes from the last two meetings from the January 21st meeting and the December 10th, 2019 meeting. Then we will hear about the current status of the project and the bids for construction. Then we'll talk briefly about our fundraising campaign and plans for that. Then we'll have a public comment period. Then other items not anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance. I don't have any yet, but maybe some will come up. And then we will set our next meeting date. So our first job is to appoint a secretary for the meeting. And this is gonna be an easy job because you can watch the video of the meeting afterwards and take your notes from that. So whoever Zoom raises their hand first can be the secretary for the meeting. One, two, three, go. Anybody? I'll do it. I said I'll do it. Okay, is that Anna? Oh, Ellen will do it, okay. No, it's Ellen. Okay, do you know? Thanks, Ellen. Okay, so the secretary, thank you, Ellen. So Ellen is the secretary for the meeting. Okay, so we have two sets of minutes that we need to approve. And that's because at the January 21st meeting we didn't have a quorum so we couldn't approve the December 10th minutes. So we have the December 10th and the January 21st. What I'm gonna do is ask to see if there's any comments or questions first on the December minutes, then on the January minutes, and then we'll vote to approve both of them at the same time so we only have to vote once instead of twice. So does anybody have any questions, comments on the December 10th minutes? And you can raise your little zoom hand if you do or raise your regular hands. I don't see any hands raised. Anybody have any questions, comments, issues with the January 21st minutes? Okay. Jim, this isn't about the minutes but do you want to mute our two members of the public? Do you want to mute our members of the public so that they don't have to mute themselves? Yeah, thanks. Okay. Sorry, my internet is unstable, otherwise I'd, yeah. So I'm a little delayed here. Yeah, mine claims to be unstable as well. But there's a definite delay. We briefly had three attendees. Yeah. We briefly had three attendees but it's back down to two again. Okay, we are now going to have a roll call vote on the approval of both the December 10th and January 21st minutes. So we're going to start with Gina and what's your vote? Yes means you approve the minutes, no means you don't. Gina. Yes. Yes. Okay. And you should probably say your name and then yes or no. Okay. Gina, please go yes. Good. Ted? Ted Diamond, yes. Michael. Mike Chesworth. Mike Chesworth, yes and yes. Good. And Jack. Jack, you're muted. I don't know if you're muted or not, or you are muted. I don't know why that happened. Sorry about that. I said I'm muted at all. It's not better, I'm usually, I'm a Zoom guy too, so sorry about that. Yes, Jack, you're on the side. Okay. And Anna. Anna Devlin-Gathier, yes and yes. Sorry about the delay. And Ellen. Okay. Ellen. Ellen Kiter, yes and yes. Okay. We have unanimous approval of our minutes, so they are all approved. I'm just curious. I'm gonna say one, two, three, go. And when you hear me say go, raise your hand. I'm curious to see what the lag is. One, two, three, go. Wow. That was like a five second lag. So we should just be aware of that. All right. Okay. I think they, yeah. So Dave, I think we're gonna turn things over to you to give us an update on the project and the bid status. Okay, good. So I'll try to be brief. My internet is a little unstable here at times too. So if I freeze or something, give me a signal and I'll keep going or stop or whatever or repeat things. So let me start. I think we have really good news. We're excited on the town level, on the staff level. We think we have a project and we are confident we have a contractor. So we are proceeding toward construction. So I'm gonna, I'm not gonna go into tremendous detail on bids, there are a number of things that still need to be worked out. So I may speak a little bit in generalities, but the bottom line is we got, and I should have counted before, but these are all, you can see these on the town website. Let me just count them, one, two, three. I didn't count them beforehand, but it looks like 13 different bids. There was a wide range of bids here that range from roughly $300,000 above $600,000. So I won't go into great detail on that. We can read into that, but the bottom line is certainly the bidding climate benefited us. And a lot of that frankly has to do with COVID-19. Contractors are very hungry right now. There's not a lot of money out there. There's not a lot of projects out there. So it is what it is. We were fortunate in a way to bid it when we did. So we have the lowest qualified bidder was a group out of New Bedford called Valiant Construction. We are proceeding as if they are the selected contractor to do the project. I say that with a little bit of, just qualifying that a little bit because there's a number of things that in a public bid has to have to be done. So we've gotten very good references on this company and we're working Anthony Delaney is our procurement officer and Anthony is working with Valiant. And I'm working with the Stanton Foundation to really kind of dot all the I's and cross the T's. So it'll take us a little while to contract with Valiant. There's a process with the Stanton Foundation that we need to go through. In short, we need to get a memorandum of understanding with the Stanton group that really outlines their expectations of us, but they know that we are going with the Valiant group. We're in the process of creating the, or responding to the MOU with Stanton and that MOU sets the tone or sets the stage for Stanton to cut the check, which would be for $225,000 from Stanton to the town of Amherst. So I think it's all good news there. We feel good about Valiant. The bid itself, and this is a, the bid itself is around $300,000. There's some discussion that always happens with a bid to make sure that we're all on the same page, but the base bid, which included all of our alternatives is around $300,000. So that's a very good number for us. It includes the shade structures, the parking, all of the things that you all wanted in the project are included. There are a few things that are excluded. We know that the entrance kiosk is excluded. We're assuming that is coming from a donor that Carol has arranged for. Things like the shed for equipment was not included in the bid. But shade structures, sand bounds, dog watering stations, electrical irrigation, all of that was included in the bid for around $300,000. So we're gonna proceed now. We've been in touch with the Natural Heritage Program. They understand that we wanna proceed as soon as we possibly can. We will, and I can get into more detail on this later, but we'll be required to do a survey for grasshopper sparrows out on the old landfill on the site. That could cost us some money or we may get that donated in kind, but we're working on that. So the goal would be to begin construction as soon as we get approvals from the Stanton Foundation, we get the money in hand. We can't start and we can't complete the contract until we have all the money needed to at least cover the base bid in hand. So that'll mean getting the Stanton Foundation. So we're still a couple of weeks away from having that. But I think it's all good news at this point. Jack, I see you have your hand raised. Do you wanna ask a question or make a comment now? Yeah, I just, I was looking, I found the bid site. So I just was looking for the link for that, so. Okay. I found it. I will lower your hand. Cool. Yeah, one of the biggest pieces of the bidding process was in order to level out the bowl, you know, the area we've selected for the large dog area is quite a bowl-shaped. You know, the topography there, the old landfill is very much a bowl. So we do have to fill in that bowl to make it easier to create the walkways for the large dog area and for the shade structures. So there's quite a bit of fill and we're still having some conversations with the contractor about that, but I think we're in a good place. So that's the good news. That's where we are. I can talk a little bit about next steps, but I think it would be completing the MOU with Stanton, getting the funding all in place. We are trying to finalize, you know, we have three sources of funding, so we're really trying to get down to, you know, getting all of our funding together. We have private donations that have come in. We have in-kind donations that have come in or will come in. We have the remaining CPA dollars and then we have the money from the Stanton Foundation. So I'll be working with planning and the procurement officer to make sure our whole package has everything to cover the base bid as well as any contingency money that we might need. And, you know, if all goes well, you know, we'll cover everything. I know we wanna talk a little bit about fundraising and whether we might need more fundraising. I think I'm still a week or 10 days away from knowing whether we're gonna need any more fundraising, but we're in a pretty good shape right now to move this thing forward. So maybe I'll stop there and take questions. I have a question. Just curious about the selection process. Did we, was it basically just the lowest number was selected? Was there, could there have been any consideration for local versus longer distance contractors or anything like that? No, there really isn't. The law doesn't allow for that. The law says in Massachusetts, the municipality must take the lowest qualified bidder. So you start with the lowest bid, you make sure that the contractor knew what they were bidding on, and then you check references, you make sure that they're qualified to do the job. And that's what the law requires of us. Okay, Ted. May I ask a question? No, excuse me. No, actually you can't. There'll be a time later when you can, but we're limiting the questions right now to the task force. So remember your question. Can I just clarify that it's the dog park that we're talking about now? Oh yes, it's absolutely, it's the dog park we're talking about. Right, right. Only the dog park, yes. Okay, only the dog park, okay, thanks. Okay. I was curious as to whether in consideration of the bids, you examine the materials and the actual specifics of what they're proposing because there can be a wide variety in the quality of fencing and sprinkler systems and even asphalt, you know. So are there certain specifications that they have to meet or how do you ensure that they're not gonna give you schlocky stuff? Yeah, that's a great, if I could Jim, I'm happy to answer that. Yeah. Yeah, so that's a great question. So I'm not sure the whole task force knows this. I'm pretty, I know Jim does, I'm not sure if Ted does, but two thirds of the way through the pulling the bid together, I really reached out to our DPW because I felt as though we needed some additional eyes on the project and some additional input. In addition to Mike Lou who was hired from Berkshire Design. So we brought in a team, we brought in Jason Skeels who's our town engineer and we also brought in Paul Deathier who works in the engineering department. Paul is actually a landscape architect. So the two of them really went through the bid specifications and the bid plans, the plan set with a fine tooth comb, they made some pretty significant improvements we think to the plan and that's actually the plan that went out to bid. I can probably, it's a pretty big document but I'd be happy to get the, I can send around the bid specifications to the task force if you'd like and you can read through them. So what happens, Ted, just to follow up on the rest of your question. So DPW used industry standards in that bid set. So quality of everything from the quality of the fill that goes in the basin that we're talking about to the quality of the bituminous pavement that'll go in the parking lot to the walkways, all of that is laid out and must meet the spec that they bid on. DPW is also going to be our eyes and ears. They are going to be the clerk of the works for this project. So they will be out on site every day during construction, which is a huge plus. So that was a pretty major addition to our team and we feel like it really made the big process go more smoothly and it'll certainly make the construction more rigorous for the contractor. So we're feeling pretty good about that but I'd be happy to send the bid specs to people. And again, all of the features that might, yeah, all of the features that Mike included from dog watering stations to the shade structures, all of that was included. And I can send you the bid specs. And so I'll actually also, if you send it to me, I'll probably also put it up on the task force webpage and maybe I'll put a link from the webpage to the site in the town site that has the bids as well. So everything is out there for people to see. Yeah, that might be more efficient because these are going to be huge files. So when we get it to you- So send it to me and I'll get them. You might do a link to the task force and just have a link back to and we can have them be on the town webpage. Let's all send the plans and the specs. Good. And again, the dead's question, we'll have an opportunity to go out there and do site visits with our engineering staff and with the contractor as things are being built. So if there are issues, if there's, whatever, we see things as it's going on, the sooner we correct them the better. Any other questions for Dave about the project? Yeah, Jack. I don't see the bid results. Those aren't posted yet. There's like six or seven documents on that. Are you looking on the town like the procurement website, Jack? Yeah, it's bid postings. Yeah. And the results are not there? No, you got the IFB, the Attachment A, the Addendum 1, specs, okay, all the things we've got, the prevailing wages, shade systems. Sure, I can ask Anthony to put those up there. Yeah, it's not something I usually look for. So, but I'll, no, it's good. We should get them up there. Yeah. Any other questions? Okay. So the next thing on our agenda is fundraising campaign status. So I'll tell you the little bit I know, and then maybe I'll see what Ellen, Ted, or anybody else have to say. What I know is that we did receive some nice private donations and mostly based on, some based on some letters and contacts that I made last summer and others from other task force members. And about a month ago, when we were getting serious about looking at bids, we asked all those people to actually send the money because as Dave said, we need to have the money in hand in order to actually sign a contract. And they did. So we did pretty well on kind of our first phase of looking for larger donations. We really haven't completed it. I know we had planned to talk more to the business community, but as we're all aware, it's a pretty difficult time to be asking any business to make any kind of donation. Pretty much every business is struggling. So I think the plan is still to be reaching out and asking for more larger donations for businesses, but we're not gonna do it yet. We really need to wait till there's a bit of more of a recovery. Ellen, you wanna contribute something beyond that? I see your hand raised. Go ahead. Oh, I wanted to ask if the town has received the pledge from the Amherst Rotary. $5,000, I believe. The answer is yes, we did receive. Dave. Yeah. Great. Thank you. So, so I think Go ahead, Dave. Go ahead, Dave. Jim has the list of all the donors, I think. You know, I think we need to talk a little bit about whether that's kind of a confidential list or not, but all of the donors did receive a letter confirming the generosity of their gift and also the amount of their gift from the town. I think I would leave it to Jim and Ted to decide if additional letters are going out from the task force. Yeah. And I've also been attempting to keep track because some of the donations involved having a plaque of some sort on a bench or something larger, something like that. So I'm trying to keep track of all those. And I do think at some point we should come up with and send out a letter to everybody who's donated something so far from the task force. I don't know if anyone wants to volunteer to draft something, but it doesn't have to happen instantly, but it is something we should do at some point, even though they've already received a letter from the town, something from us will be good as well. Ted. So, obviously the situation has changed the world in so many ways, and especially when it comes to going out and looking for donations for anything, it's gonna be very difficult for quite a while, probably till after the park is already under construction because things aren't gonna change, businesses aren't gonna be ready to make large commitments until they know where they stand. So I feel like our original strategy, which was developing a list of people and businesses who are able to donate is possibly a little, it's taken a backseat to the idea of sponsorships after it's open or as it's going to open or ongoing sponsorships, because I think while we still can solicit people, especially as construction is taking place, I think it'll be a lot easier, not only because it'll be hopefully several months down the road, but because when there's something concrete happening, as we've said before, it's a lot easier for people to feel comfortable about writing a check. But I also think that as time goes by, the things that we talked about in terms of ongoing sponsorships, that may be something that businesses will want to get be part of and be able to be an ongoing source of revenue for the parks for maintenance. It sounds like the bids that we got are significantly below what we were thinking they might be. So we're fortunate as they were saying that we got kind of a COVID discount on the park and that's kind of offset the fact that we're not doing this fundraising that we had expected to do. It sounds like we don't really need a huge amount of money, probably Dave, in order to sign the contract and start construction, which we didn't anticipate that being the case when we started. Yeah, I believe it's correct that based on the Stanton money and the remaining CPA funds and the donations we have enough to meet this bid that we're gonna be accepting. Does that sound right to you, Dave? I believe that to be true, but I'd like still a little bit of time just to work these numbers a little bit more with our accounting department and with the engineers. So I think we're, as I said at the outset, I think we're in good shape, but I just, as I look at the potential for additional costs with obviously having a contingency, anything to do with plaques, with donor acknowledgement, with the supply shed, the equipment shed, things of that sort, I just wanna make sure we still have a comfortable cushion there. So I think by the time we all have our next meeting, we'll have all those numbers rock solid, but I'm feeling good about it, but to go to Ted's point, we may be talking about a different kind of fundraising and once we put a shovel in the ground, maybe we have some sort of socially distanced groundbreaking event, I think it might also appeal, I think there'll be more appeal to individuals as well, that even if people wanna make 50 or $100 donations, those add up and we can use those in the future for when signage gets damaged or old or weathered or whatever. There's gonna be a lot of ongoing expenses to this thing. So yeah, I think we're in a comfortable place, but let me crank those numbers and then we can focus on this more specifically at your next meeting. That sounds like it makes sense to me. I think, yeah, we'll certainly have fundraising and plans moving forward be a top topic at our next meeting. So we can talk about what strategy we have, but I think we had talked all along about shifting towards annual, not exactly memberships, but annual sponsorships and looking for many smaller donations to cover maintenance costs and annual costs. So I think that's what we'll be heading towards and still hoping and getting those sponsorships from businesses as well as they're able to do them. I do agree with Ted now is not the time for us to be sending out letters to businesses. So I think not can wait. Anything else on fundraising yet, Jack? I guess it's been a while. I'm trying to put my arms around the value of the different grants we have, because we know we got the bid for 300,000. What was the sum total for Stanton again, just to jog my memory and what are we looking at in terms of, I know it's complicated, it'd be nice to have a little table or something like that, but just generally, if someone can go over those numbers again, just to refresh my memory. Sure, so we started out with a $25,000 grant from Stanton for the design, which is mostly spent at this point on Berkshire Design. If all goes well, that leads to a $220,000 grant for construction, and that's what I was talking about now is we're moving toward that now that we have our selected bidder and we'll do an MOU with Stanton and get that money flowing to the town. We started out with $90,000 in CPA funds and we had to spend some of that money on wetlands, wetlands work on the southern end, and then the P cup, the post closure use permit around building a dog park on a landfill. So I need to kind of zero in on how much of that CPA funding is still remaining. And then the third pot of money is really the private donations that you all have brought in. And then lastly is just the in-kind piece. I think the big ticket item there is the entry kiosk, which we do need Carol to just confirm that the donor of that is still on board to build that entry kiosk for us. And those are manager businesses. Yeah, and in terms of the private donations, plus things like rotary, we're talking over $45,000 that have been contributed. So that clearly brings us that plus the Stanton plus the remaining CPA brings us over that $300,000 mark, which is good news. We might actually get a dog park eventually, who knows. Anything else on fundraising or money at this time? I think we can, I'm gonna open things up to public comment. I see a third attendee, Colleen Austin. And Colleen, can you hear me? Yes, thank you. I came in late, I missed a lot of the beginning. Well, lucky for you, the whole thing is being recorded. So, you know, when you run out of Netflix shows, everybody can watch our meeting over and over again. So, I'm... Is it okay to ask a question now? Yes, it is. Okay, so I'm known as Stephen... Actually, first, if you would identify yourself with your name and address, that would be good. I'm known as Stephen, 31 Trillium Way in Amherst Woods. Okay. So, I don't know if you can see me. I know we can't, actually. Okay, no, that's fine. I haven't brushed my hair very well, so this is all good. So, anyway, my question is, I wanted to sort of clarify for myself, for us, what point we're at in the process? Has a contract been signed with the construction company? Why don't you go through all of your questions first, and then we'll try and answer them. Okay, so, first of all, we are dog people, love dogs, but we have some concerns about, certainly the grasshopper's sparrow issue, the wildlife that goes through that, how that would be affected by dogs, what about the noise and the smell from this? I know I read something, and I'm sorry I didn't make notes on it, but there's another dog park where there was information that the town or the area had to ask for some money for our help with maintenance, et cetera, because of the care of the park. So, you know, many dog owners are responsible, many are not responsible, and I have seen the results of that. So, and also I'm wondering about the final cost to us as taxpayers, I know that you've been talking a lot about donations and grants, et cetera, but my thought about this is, my own, our feelings are that maybe a dog park at this time is not a good idea. Would there be issues and problems in terms of wildlife, in terms of noise, in terms of smell, in terms of upkeep, and in terms of the money that would be going from the town, this is probably the worst time for us to get involved in a project that is going to take money that may be badly needed in other areas. So, one information about the process right now, about input of different people, I can tell obviously that you're a ways along in the process, can you fill me in in terms of some of this? Okay, I'll try and give a shot at it first, and then others can add in if they want. So, first of all, I don't know if you're on the Amherst Woods listserv that's been discussing this, but I posted a fairly long post there that actually answers pretty much all these questions, but I'll go over them again now anyway. Sure, I don't think I am on the listserv, but I certainly will check. Okay, so first of all, you're coming into this process about three years into it, we've been working for a long time in the dog park, and where we're at now is the contract has been put out to bid, nothing has, the product has been put out to bid, and we're in the process of selecting a contractor, we're losing in on that, no contract has been signed yet, no contract will be signed until all the money's in hand and the contractor who's put in this bid has been completely vetted. So that's the status now. We expect the contract will be signed sometime in the near future within the next month, I would hope. Okay, going over some of your concerns, which first of all, I really wanna point out that there are concerns as well. All the things you talked about have been discussed in quite a bit of detail over these three years of meetings, and I don't know if you can see our faces or not, but you're looking at a group of people who really care about all the same things that you care about. But getting to the specifics, in terms of the birds and the rest of the landfill, first of all, the dog park is occupying just a very small portion of the landfill. It's occupying 1.5 acres out of the landfill that's over 50 acres. Right. And the dog park has been placed in a corner of the landfill that actually can't be seen by the rest of the landfill. We're kind of in a bowl that Dave referenced with a rise and sort of a ridge beyond where the dog park is, and then it drops down to the other side and that's where the rest of the landfill is. So standing in the dog park, you can't even see the rest of the landfill. And if you're a human or a bird and the rest of the landfill, you can't see the dog park. So that was done deliberately because we don't want to have an impact on the rest of the landfill. We've discussed and vetted this project with local people such as the conservation department as well as state wildlife people and bird authorities. And the one concern that came up was the breeding of the grasshopper sparrow. There was never any concern that once birds were done nesting and breeding, they couldn't cohabit this landfill with the dog park. The concern was with the nesting while the construction was going on. It was the noise of the construction that was the only concern of all the experts we talked to. So we agreed that if there's evidence of nesting during the construction season, we will hold off on the project and we will only be building if there's no evidence of nesting of the grasshopper sparrows. Nowhere has anybody stated any thoughts that the life of the birds would be disrupted once the construction was complete. In terms of noise and smells, again, it wasn't the concern of anybody we consulted with and I don't think it's gonna be noticed on the other side of the landfill from where the dog park is. It's interesting, there used to be a local kennel in our neighborhood and when you wandered by it with the dog, all the dogs were barking like crazy and it was a noisy place. I personally haven't experienced that with dog parks. It's not full of dogs barking like crazy. The dogs are running around, they're not on a leash, they're not being restrained and they tend to run around and play and not bark that much. And again, all of the people we consulted weren't concerned with the actual presence of the dog park once it's done with its construction phase. In terms of the money, there's no town money that isn't already allocated that's gonna be spent on this project. And if suddenly magically we all decided we're not gonna have a dog park after all, none of the money targeted the dog park could be used for anything else. The CPA funds that were granted to us were granted specifically for the dog park, the private donations we've gotten are specifically for the dog park and the Stanton Foundation funds are specifically for the dog park. So we're not taking money away from any other budget or any other portion of the town. I understand very well the state that the town is gonna be in budget wise. We're losing a huge amount of revenue. Lauren only knows what we're gonna get from the state this year but it's not gonna be as much as any other year and there's gonna be a lot of constraints and budgets. But none of the dog park funds could be used to alleviate any of that. The dog park funds are specifically targeted towards the dog park and can't be allocated to anything else. In terms of- How much money was that? How much money is the town money that was allocated? So back about three years ago, $90,000 was allocated out of the Community Preservation Act. Not all of that exists anymore. I think about half of it or a little more than half was already used for the different kinds of permitting and studies that needed to be done to make sure the landfill was a safe place to put the dog park. So the CPA money is the only money that you might consider town money but CPA Community Preservation Act money is in a different category from the rest of the budget. It can only be used for certain projects that it has been allocated to by the CPA committee and then approved by either town meeting before the council or by the council. It can't be used for anything else. It can't be given back to the town to be used for anything else other than this project. And then the stamp money and the private donations have nothing to do with town budget or town funds. Right. In terms of money for maintenance, yes, DPW will be swinging by to empty the trash and they will be mowing now and then. They'll basically be doing the same kind of maintenance that they do at all of the other parks and all of the areas that they maintain in town. So it is a little bit more work for them but not enough to warrant them asking for more budget money or to hire any other people. So there's no additional funding being requested in any of the town budgets to support the dog park. We also, well, okay, hang on, let me just finish a little more. We recognize that there might be some larger maintenance projects every couple of years and there's two different ways to approach that. The same Stanton Foundation that gave us this large amount to build a dog park also offers maintenance grants and we intend to apply for those as they're needed. Relationship with the Stanton Foundation is a very good one. They were very happy with our initial grant proposal and they feel that we've done everything correctly and done everything well and we feel it's highly likely that we'll get these maintenance grants when we need them. In addition to that, we do plan on forming a Friends of Amherst Dog Park group that will have maintenance days kind of similar to the way the Friends of Puffer's Pond works where I think either once or twice a year they gather and they do a bunch of maintenance so the community gets involved and we have every reason to believe that our friends group will be successful and we'll do that same kind of work. So we don't feel that this is gonna be a financial burden on the town. I'm gonna see if Peggy or Colleen have any questions at this point. So Peggy, do you have any questions or anything you wanna say? Yes, hi, hi everyone. My concern mostly is how far along in the process this dog park location is considering that there was really, as far as I can tell, no reaching out to the neighbors or a butters for the project. And I read in the notes that there were no neighbors and a butters to the project, but I remember, I'm sure you all remember that when a solar array was proposed on that very same location, the town really emphasized how important it was to reach out to neighbors and to reach out to a butters. So my concern is that Amherst Woods and some of the areas in Eastwoods that are directly abutting the old landfill haven't really been reached out. A lot of our residents here don't know about the dog park or don't have any idea how far along this task force is in its proceedings. So that's my first, it's a comment, just a concern and a comment. Let's see, second of all, I wanted to ask, I looked on the webpage for the task force and I couldn't find the authorities, the any documents around what bird authorities were actually contacted and any documents that talked about the potential impact of an endangered species with an ongoing presence of dogs and foot traffic. So that would be something I'd be interested as a request if the town and the task force could post on your webpage the specific bird authorities and documents that were used to concerning the impact of a dog park on protected habitat. As far as I Googled and I couldn't find any information, in fact, the Boneyard dog park, which I believe the town cited as an example that this proposed park would be similar. One, in its considerations of a location, it also is on a landfill, but there's no protected habitat on that. And one of the guidelines in their consideration was to make sure that there were, that there was no sensitive habitat in the vicinity. So that's a concern that I have. Let's see, another comment is that, Jim, you mentioned that the funds used for the project could not be used for anything other than the dog park. But my question to the task force is if it's found that there are problems with bird habitat and a dog park coexisting, could those funds be used for another location for a dog park? So I'm sorry to be bringing this. I'm the vice president of the homeowners association here in Amherst Woods. And I'm sorry to bring this to you at such a late time in the process, but we were not notified. In fact, I didn't hear from anyone from the town about this project. So we're coming to the party late, but we have some real concerns about the state's mandate to protect this habitat and perpetuity and the impact of a dog park on that habitat. Yes. Okay, thank you. Jack, I saw you raise your hand. So I worked, I have been working research drive for maybe 15 years in the last 20 years off and on. And I see a lot of trespassing there, a lot of dog walking that's happening in that area of the landfill that is beyond the area where the dog park is into the Grasshopper Sparrow habitat. And my feeling is with the dog park that would actually restrict these trespassers going into the actual habitat area. Clearly the dog park is removed from the habitat. It's out of the viewshed of that habitat. And it actually probably could enhance that habitat in terms of keeping activity down near the road outside the viewshed of the Grasshoppers and vice versa. Just wanted to say that. There's a lot of people that are trespassing up in the landfill walking through there with dogs, so I see this actually could be an improvement in terms of protecting that Grasshopper habitat. And I'd like to make a brief comment about your first point about being new to the game and not being aware of things. And I guess I apologize. We've been a very public process for the past three years. There have been newspaper articles. Back when we first proposed to town meeting that we get the CPA funding, there was a big article then talking very specifically about the location we were gonna be using. And there've been articles in every six months to a year. There's been another article in the paper talking about the progress of the park. Obviously all of our meetings are public meetings under open meeting laws. They're all posted with the town. So it's frustrating. There's always people that you don't reach. But we've really, you know, we've been a very public process all the way through. We're never trying to hide anything in terms of location on the landfill. We didn't have very many choices. We were very committed to not use any space that was already being used as a public space. We didn't wanna take away a part of Groff Park or Mill River or anything like that. You know, Dog Park might be lovely on the common in town, but nobody was interested in that. So, and there were other things that we were very concerned about. We wanted the Dog Park to be on public transportation. We wanted it to be accessible for people with different kinds of accessibility needs. And for all those reasons, even though there were some negatives about the landfill, certainly it was more costly for us to build on a landfill. It became by far the best choice. You know, everybody thinks of Amherst as this wide open place with lots and lots of places where you can do something like this. But the truth is there were very few choices of where we could build the park. Again, we didn't take any of this lightly and we really thought things through. And if you go take a look at where the Dog Park is or if you go to the list serve and see what I posted, which is a map of the Dog Park showing where it is on the landfill, you'll see that we're way off in a corner and we really don't feel that what we're gonna be doing or what the Dog Park is gonna be doing is gonna be disrupting to the landfill. Anyone else have any comments on Peggy's comments or can I move on to Colleen? Yeah, Dave. I'm just unmuting myself. Yeah, just to kind of build on what you were talking about, Jim, and first of all, for Peggy or anybody, any of the attendees, I would be happy to meet with any or all of you, you know, safely, socially distanced out on the site or on the landfill anytime in the coming days or weeks to answer any of your questions. I did wanna reiterate that there have certainly been multiple, multiple media stories on this project over the last three years. I did also wanna note that this project has gone through at least three, if not four major town processes over the last three years. So as Jim noted, it was highly and extensively discussed on the floor of town meeting. It went through the Planning Board, the Conservation Commission, and the Design Review Board. Jim, just go ahead. And the Disability Access. The Disability Access Advisory Committee, all public meetings, all posted meetings. I would be very surprised if the Director Butters should have gotten Planning Board, Concom, and other notices, but that would have been many, many months ago because this project is, has been on the drawing board for a long, long time. We are working very closely with the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. This is a state agency. Their mandate is to protect the habitat of rare and endangered species. We have had multiple meetings with them at their Westboro office. They have been working with us from the beginning on the design of the dog park. Nothing can proceed and nothing has proceeded without their full knowledge of the project. We've also worked with the Department of Environmental Protection. They oversee capped landfills and active landfills, but this one is capped. And we have submitted all the necessary documents that they need to review this project and approve this project. And I did want to reiterate finally that of the roughly 55 acres of the dog, of the old landfill than the South landfill, our plan is to protect 50 or more of those acres in a conservation restriction. So as Jim noted, this is about one and a half acres. The entire rest of the site will be permanently protected in a conservation restriction that will be held by the Kestrel Trust. And that conservation restriction is being required as part of the solar landfill project across the street on the North landfill. So the entire site will be permanently protected as open space. The grassland habitat will be specifically managed for grassland birds like the grasshopper sparrow, bobble-link Kestrel, American Kestrel, and similar savanna sparrows, similar species that require open field habitat. So in the end, the Natural Heritage Program has been extremely supportive and very grateful that we are protecting in a, it's kind of a, I would call it, almost a groundbreaking project where I've never been involved in a project where a municipality put a conservation restriction on a capped landfill. So this is novel, this is unique, and all the state players have been very pleased with ultimately what the outcome will be. The trail will be maintained on the south side of the landfill. We will also maintain the sledding hill for those people, families and children who have enjoyed that on the south end of the landfill. All of those activities will remain for generations to come. Thanks. Thank you. So I wanna check in with our third attendee, Colleen, to see if you have any questions or comments. Thank you. So my name is Colleen Austin and I live on Larkspur Drive. And first I just wanna say that it's clear that you've been working for three years and between the fundraising and the planning, there's a tremendous amount of work that's been invested and I appreciate all of your time and commitment to this as a dog lover. I had two brief questions and one, I just can't look at the website at the same time. The entrance to the park, is that off of Wildflower or off of Old Belcher Town Road? It is off of Old Belcher Town Road. So where the like little tiny parking spot is now will be where the dog park is. I mean, the entrance to it, kind of there. There's like a fence and like two spots that you can park in currently where people when they do walk their dogs park. It's beyond that heading towards Amherst Woods away from Route 9. Okay. Basically, if you look on your right-hand side, right before you get to the woods, there's a kind of a little bowl area of the park, a grassy area and that's where it's gonna be. I mean, area of the landfill. So it's after that, what looks like sort of a maintenance entrance and a little clump of trees and then it's beyond that. Okay. And then the other question I had was for people that walk the dogs now, there's like a loop that people tend to do. Are they still gonna be able to do that outside of the park or will that be restricted in some way? I would say, actually I'll let Dave answer that. So that's a great question. I'm not familiar with the loop that people currently, I know where the trail is. I know where the Robert Frost trail goes through. I'm not familiar with where people walk up on the mound itself, up on the landfill itself. Yeah. When you pull into that gated area, it's paved for a short period of time. And then to the right, there's a path that kind of makes a big circle. And people tend to go around that a few times with their dogs. Right. So I'll answer your question in just a second. So this is a, it's a very interesting kind of illustrative question. So from the natural heritage standpoint, the whole concept of having people and dogs walk right through the prime habitat of a state listed species is in fact, counter to everything they do. So in fact, our just our human activity and the, you know, just what we all do, taking a walk ourselves or with our children or with our dogs or a mountain bike is exactly the kind of interruption to breeding habitat and breeding activity that the natural heritage would like to cease. So our goal here is kind of twofold. This group is talking about the dog park. We also have the project across the street, which will be a solar landfill, or excuse me, solar on the landfill. That project is going to result in the conservation restriction I talked about for the grass upper sparrow habitat on the south landfill. In addition to that, that project will have, as one of its elements, a fence around the cap of the old landfill. So this is something that's been talked about for years. It is part of the solar project that the remainder of the cap for the south landfill will be fenced at some point. I don't think we'll see this until 2021 or 22. It's not part of the dog park project. It will be a fence around the dog park, but eventually the cap of the old landfill will be fenced. This is something that DEP, the Department of Environmental Protection, would like to see. And it's also something that the natural heritage program is supportive of. What we've designed in our plan for the area is to have a loop trail on the outside of the fence. So you'll be able to kind of, you will be able to come down. The last speaker was talking about the paved area where two cars can park now. So you will be able to continue, let's say if you, I'm trying to get my bearings. You'll be able to go around the fenced area is what I'm saying. And you'll be able to connect to the Robert Foss trail on the south. We also intend to have kind of a viewing area up there where bird watchers, or if you wanna look at the view of the Mount Hoyok Range, we might have a little platform up there where people can get a little elevated. It'll be a five foot fence around the cap of the landfill. But what will be excluded from that is the Robert Foss trail, obviously the area over near the pond and the sledding hill to the south. So that was a long one. Lots of sense to me and thank you for such a thorough answer. Yeah, and so bottom line, you'll still be able to make the loop just outside the fence. Right, perfect. I just wanna add in terms of people and dogs making the loop. I would assume in that area, a dog would need to be on a leash, but anywhere where a dog is allowed to be on a leash, they will still be allowed to be there. The dog park doesn't change any of the town bylaws outside of the dog park in terms of what is permitted on leash or off leash for dogs. Great. I would like to ask for some clarification. In terms of the- Okay, this is Nola. Why don't you tell us who you are again? Yeah, it's Nola Steven, 31 from Inway. Hi, I don't know if you want me to do one at a time, but in terms of what the last speaker talked about in terms of the location, is there a map available so we could see that? Boy, you know, I just posted something on the list, sir, on the Amherst Woods listserv, but I will put that map up on the task force webpage tomorrow morning, probably. That would be good so we could see where exactly, you know, what the location is. So I'll try to go through these quickly. The second question is about parking with, let's say a number of dog owners come with their dogs. They're only the two spaces as has been mentioned. What about parking? Okay, so the plans include 18 new parking spots along old Belcher Town Road. I know there were some concern on the listserv. You know, there were people, I read some of the comments of people talking about a giant paved parking lot and an 18 car parking lot is not very big. It comes out to less than four one hundredths of an acre. So a very small parking lot along old Belcher Town Road, which also will be out of view of the rest of the landfall. Yes, Anna. So, oh, sorry. I had two other quick things. Can I just follow up really quickly? If you Google Amherst Dog Park, if you Google Amherst Dog Park, you'll come up with all of the Gazette articles and the Amherst Indie articles and all of the media about the dog park and many of them have, at least one of them, the one from 416, 2019, has a rough map of the park and you can see where the parking spots are along the road. Okay, health and safety question. What about dog feces? Will owners be required to clean those up? You know, for people who do walk there or do the loop or whatever, is there gonna be some requirement that the feces is controlled? Yes, absolutely. There's a whole set of dog park rules that we will have for our dog park similar to others. Again, if you Google on amherstdogpark.org, so amherstdogparkalloneword.org, you will find our webpage that includes a separate page all about the rules of the park. And yes, absolutely, one of the requirements is owners clean up after their dogs. Hang on, one of our committee members has a comment so Jack, go ahead. I would offer to share my screen if she just immediately wanna see where it is and I have the plans right here for the benefit of the meeting, but I can do that. I think I'd rather look at it and examine it on my own afterwards. Okay. Okay. Okay, so last but not least, I realized what you're saying about this has been a long process and we weren't really aware of this. I'm sure we've come across and seen it but we were thinking more about the library project and the fire station, there were all these other projects going on but this is again, late in the process but in talking with people in our neighborhood if people do strongly object, is there a loom, what does one do if one does not wanna support the dog park? I'll try to answer that. I've lived in this town for 32 years. I love this town. I'm not aware of any project in the town that was supported unanimously by everybody in the town. It's just not gonna happen. I think what we look for and we've always looked for is people to come to our meetings and talk to us and raise comments and concerns. There has been an overwhelming level of support for the dog park. Up until this meeting, we've virtually had no concerns from any of the public about the dog park. The one concern was a worry of dog owners who currently take their dogs off lesion conservation areas legally before 10 o'clock worried that that bylaw would be changed and we voted as a committee in support of keeping the town bylaws the way they are in terms of when off leash activity is allowed. Other than that, the response has been very positive, including donations from some of the closest people to being a butters of the park. So in terms of what you can do if you're against the park, I would say talk to us and we'll talk to you about your concerns and if there are legitimate concerns, then we will do our best to mitigate them and make things better. Hang on, I see one of our members wants to make a comment so Nina, go ahead. I have a question. What's the official definition of in a butter? Dave, you know. As in a butter, I know what it is but what are the qualifications of that? It depends on what process. So anyone whose property abuts the parcel would be considered on a butter and then depending on what process in a town, the planning board or the zoning board of appeals determines a distance. It's typically something like 300 feet or 400 feet. And it varies depending on the process. So who would be in a butter to this project? Anybody's property who touches this is certainly on a butter whose private property abuts the 50 some odd acre landfill is in a butter. And then it depends where you go from there, yeah. So like anyone whose property touches the whole entire 50 acres, not just the dog park would be in a butter? Since we're building it on one parcel, it's all, there may be two or three small parcels but the landfill itself is one big parcel. So yeah, it would be, you know, a lot of it is, so there's not as many abutters to a 55 acre parcel as you might think, direct abutters because the town owns route nine, which is the northern edge. And then there's one landowner who abuts us to the south because this parcel kind of goes right through the pond to the south. If you know where the kettle pond is to the south, the Mr. Leverty owns that parcel. So most of the abutters are to the west and southwest along Amherst Woods. I remember when we did have a conversation about abutters a while ago and I just wanted clarification because I remembered it didn't seem like there were very many that would be, you know, their property touching the... Again, you know, we'd be either downstaff or Jim as chair, we'd be happy to meet with anyone on this Zoom call that has questions or if anyone in the neighborhood has questions or concerns. Happy to meet with them. Just looking at a map in terms of the dog park area, the closest anything to the dog park is the transfer station on the other side of route nine. And then the next closest thing after that are the businesses that you can see from Larkspur Drive but are actually on Research Drive. That's where Kate Atkinson's medical practices and a couple other things, pretty far away. There are no residential abutters to where the dog park is going to be. Jim? Yeah. So Nola Steven here, there was a question Peggy asked which wasn't answered. And she asked about if the money, if the funds that were sort of locked in were not used for the dog park, could it be used for another special project? And I'm not sure if that was answered. In other words, another project that would fit into the general category. Okay, so the bulk of our funds are from the Stanton Foundation. They're the ones who are really funding the building of the park. And the answer is a definite note of that. Our grant was a very site specific grant. And so if we change sites at this date, it would involve a new grant proposal to Stanton Foundation. In terms of the people who have donated money, I don't know, we would really need to go back to every individual and find out if their donation still held or not. The bulk of the funding, the answer is no. It cannot be switched by us to a different location. We would have to get new funding. I think that we were thinking of the funds from the town that would go towards that. So the town funding, the CPA grant, we'd have to look at the wording to see if it's site specific. But I think it is site specific as well. But I'm not sure about that. Again, that's a little more than 10% of the project. So it's not a big part of it. Great, thanks. Actually, I asked you just one quick thing. Dave, you should identify yourself because it's hard to tell sometimes. I'm sorry, it's Colleen speaking again. Dave, you've generously offered a couple of times to meet people at the site. I'm wondering if maybe through the Amherst Woods listserv, we could have a date where anybody that's interested could meet you there to get a walkthrough. And it would allow neighbors to get a firsthand look at it. Instead of you meeting up with just one or two people, maybe advertise it. Dave, up your muted, Dave. Sorry, there I am. Yeah, no, again, yeah, the offer stands. I guess what would be most effective is maybe if someone from the association, perhaps one of you on this call could email me and we could come up with a couple of possible dates. And I'm not opposed to if it's more convenient doing it on a Saturday morning or something like that. We could do that if that would gather more people. And what I would probably do is have Stephanie Ciccarello, our sustainability coordinator come along because again, tonight's focus is the dog park. But I know from the questions that are being generated, it sounds to me like there are as many questions about what might happen relative to the solar project on the North landfill across Route nine. So these projects are related, but one is not contingent on the other. So the dog park is moving ahead in all likelihood this summer. We are moving forward with solar on the landfill. That project, frankly, that's been in the landfill on one of the land, excuse me, solar on one of the landfills has been in the works longer than the dog park, but that project is moving forward as well. So I think having Stephanie and myself there, between the two of us, we could answer any questions addressing concerns about the dog park project or what might happen on the remainder of the 50 plus or minus acres on the old landfill. So if that would be helpful, I'd offer that and somebody could just email me and then we could coordinate a date. Jack, do you have something to add to that? Yeah, I'm just looking at the map and it's really over a thousand feet to the nearest residences within Amherst Woods, which is on Tanglewood Road. And again, there's no line of sight to the dog park from Tanglewood or from the rear of the properties on Tanglewood that border the landfill. I just want to make that, no, and obviously there will be, with the parking on Old Belgertown Road, which I think we've discussed, but I can see that being perhaps an issue, but I just, I feel like it's very far from the Amherst Woods community. And Peggy, this is Peggy Matthews Nelson speaking. I'd be happy to schedule something with you, David, but I'm wondering if we could have, and maybe it would be possible to have someone from the state also walk the property with us. Would that be possible? Because I also want to clarify about the location of this project. We've always said that the landfill, the two neighborhoods, they're actually two neighborhoods in question here. One is Eastwoods, which is Tanglewood Road. That's not part of Amherst Woods. But our main street, the main street of Amherst Woods is Wildflower Drive, which is one entrance to the old landfill. And we have another street, Lady Slipper Circle, that overlooks the pond portion. And then a little farther over is Larkspur Drive, which is a good distance from the landfill. But the end of Larkspur does meet at Old Belcher Town Road. Again, that's slightly outside the confines of the Amherst Woods neighborhood property. But so we've always said that we are three-sided with the old South landfill. So anything that happens on that old landfill is in fact right in the middle of the Eastwoods neighborhood and the Amherst Woods neighborhood. So it's always of great interest to the residents here. It does have an impact on our properties and on the quality of life here. So that's, I was a bit chagrin that we are in fact a butters and live a neighbors of this property, as Dave pointed out. But we really weren't involved in the process, which now I understand has been going on for three years. And that is of concern. Yes. Yes. The other thing I wanted to say that another point that was brought up much, much earlier was the idea that the dog part might enhance the bird habitat. And from just a short review of the Massachusetts Audubon Society guidelines for grassland bird habitat, 60 acres is usually what's preferred for the grasshopper sparrow. The acreage on the old landfill is only 53, as you all have cited. So anything that obscures the view or seems to diminish the open space for the grassland birds can impact from the Audubon Society's perspective anyway. They talk about avoiding disturbances and limiting any visual barriers to encourage the grassland birds, the endangered birds to nest on the site. So I don't, I really, it seems, I think when I first heard that this site was proposed, that the old landfill site that was designated protected habitat in perpetuity, that was part of the settlement that allowed the solar array on the North landfill to go forward, I thought that couldn't possibly happen because it's protected bird habitat. Who would put dogs, a dog park on protected bird habitat? So I think that's why I'm here tonight feeling very confused that this has gone as far as it has gone and that the neighborhood hasn't been part of the process. And I'm really interested to find out what the state national, natural heritage and endangered species authorities, I'm wondering how they're actually looking at this process from the bird's perspective, not from the dog's perspective. I'm also a dog lover, but I also love birds. So I just wanna repeat, I think it's really important to look at the map and to look at the location of the dog park as it relates to the rest of the landfill. The portion of the landfill that's currently a breeding area and a habitation for the birds is not in view of the dog park. The dog park is not in view of this other section. It's a tiny portion of the landfill. It's actually the portion physically farthest away from Tanglewood Road or from Wildflower. So as Jack said earlier, there are no sight lines and all this was taken into consideration. I feel that based on the emails that I receive from people that I saw on the listserv, people have this impression of the entire landfill being paved over and filled with crazy barking dogs. And it's really not the case. You really need to look carefully at the map and look at our site location and go there and walk around and see what it's like. And I think that'll help you understand why we've come to understand based on discussions with a lot of different people that the dog park will not have a negative impact on the rest of the landfill. In fact, it's the people walking through looking at these lovely birds that probably have more of a negative impact on the habitat than the dog park will. Which is why even though it might affect some people's walks and some people's views, in the long run, people like the state agencies and the Kestrel Foundation are in agreement that a fence around the larger portion of the landfill is probably a good idea. Yeah, I've got a couple committee members with their hands raised. We'll go to Gina first and then Ted. Dave, I just think I just was wondering if you could just repeat how many times you met with the Natural Heritage Foundation about the bird issue? How many times that you've met with the state already about this? Sure, so just to clarify, it's called the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. These folks, this is their job. They are there to protect the habitat for what we call state listed species. And those species like the grasshopper sparrow and various plants, insects, mussels in streams, all of this is their purview. And so there is, as I said before, a relationship between the dog park and the solar project. But on this site, really, the only addition to the 50 plus acres out back to the West will be a fence that will safeguard the habitat of the grasshopper sparrow and perpetuity. Now, keep in mind the landfill itself, the habitat is not currently protected in perpetuity. The only way that happens is when we go to build the solar project, the town will be required to put a conservation restriction on the land. That is a legally binding document. It'll be held by the Kestrel Trust and they will essentially watch over that habitat. We will manage it for grassland birds, but the Kestrel Trust will be the third party that will watch over the habitat and watch the town in perpetuity to make sure we keep that habitat open and available for grassland birds. I'm gonna say we have probably, between conversations and in-person meetings, I'm gonna say probably eight to 10 meetings with the Natural Heritage Program. We've had almost that number of meetings with the Department of Environmental Protection. As I said before, they oversee kept landfills. So we've studied that landfill, we've studied that area of the landfill where we're building the dog park to make sure it's safe for humans, to make sure it's safe for dogs, and to make sure what we're building is safe for the landfill cap itself. And all of those conversations have happened with DEP. Ted, you had a comment? Yeah, I just wanna add, I'm Ted Diamond. I live in Amherst Woods down on Woodlott Road. I'm also a veterinarian who's been in the community for more than 35 years. And I just don't think that we brought up tonight. We haven't discussed all the positive effects of having a dog park. I understand that there might be a concern on the part of neighbors of having such a development in their neighborhood. I think it's been pointed out how far away it is from any home. And it's very unlikely that anyone in the neighborhood will even though it's there, except if they pay a visit. And I agree with Dave, if you go down and walk around and see how far it is from anywhere, you'll realize that even if a dog is barking, you're never gonna hear it up on Tanglewood or Lark's Bear or Wildflower. I think that the, in fact, it's the opposite. If you live in Amherst Woods or Amherst up on Tanglewood there, this is a positive thing for your property value, not a negative, a very positive thing. When people are looking to move into the neighborhood and they're dog owners and lovers, which many are, finding that there's a dog park within walking distance is a very positive thing for anybody looking to come into this neighborhood. And I think you should consider that more so than any negative effects. I think that it's also, you have to realize how important it is for the dogs in this area to have an opportunity to socialize off the leash, especially those dogs that are not able to run free off the leash in other conservation areas where they do at the appointed hours. And so many dogs in this town have no socialization with other dogs and that creates a lot of aggressive and poorly socialized animals. If you walk with your dog down the street around here, more often than not, the dogs that you might meet are very poorly socialized and not friendly with each other when they're on a leash. And I believe it's partly because they don't have opportunities to play with other dogs from the time they're puppies and adults. And finally, I think it needs to be said that this is a very positive thing for the town as a whole because it's an area where dog lovers, as they do at all the parks, will be able to gather but will bring a whole another community of dog people together, especially following COVID, the need for people to reconnect with each other through their dogs is gonna be greater than ever. And I think it also can be done safely from a social distance point of view at a dog park because it is large enough that even if there's six or eight dogs there, the people don't have to be on top of each other. So I think it has many positive benefits for not only the people at Amherst Woods, but for the town as a whole. And I think those need to be weighed against the concerns that I've heard raised tonight. So those are my comments. Yeah, Nina. I just wanna add that something that I've thought about a lot is right now people are, we're allowed to walk the dogs off leash before 10 a.m. And that's a great thing to have but it's not accessible to everyone. I mean, a lot of people work in the morning and yes, you can get up before work and walk your dog, I do it, but it is very difficult. And I think that like having somewhere that doesn't have that type of restriction will allow people from different working situations, different classes can form a community like over their shared love of dogs. So I think that that's one important piece because the before 10 a.m. restriction really gets in the way for a lot of people. So it'll be great to have more access to that kind of thing. So Nola, Steven here, I just wanna support Peggy. I don't feel that the neighborhood has been directly involved in consultation and I would like to see something, maybe a late morning on a weekend. And I don't see the problem in having someone from the state being involved in this. I think it would be important certainly to people in the neighborhood. And if somebody from the neighborhood wants to email me that's fine and we can find a time to meet. I really, I can't guarantee anybody from the state. The state doesn't work for me or for the town of Amherst. I will say that this has been an exhaustive process with the leading experts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for grassland birds and no disrespect to the Audubon Society. I've worked with them for 25 years but they are not a regulatory agency. They do wonderful conservation work and they're very knowledgeable about grassland birds. But we have been working with the experts and the regulators of these kinds of projects. So we are moving toward finalizing all of our permits and our management agreement with the state for not only this project but also for the landfill solar across the way. So happy to meet on a Saturday, let's exchange emails. I think everybody can reach me at zomecd.amherstma.gov and we can set up a time that and see how many neighbors or butters might come and we'll talk it through and I'll ask Stephanie Ciccarello to be there who does work for me and works alongside me for the town. And I would hope that you could set up something that would allow some other representatives to be part of this. I think what Dave is saying is he'll do the best he can but there's no guarantee. Sure. And I think we've been involved in the public comment section of our meeting for a long time and I think we need to wrap it up. We have a couple more committee business things to do and our meeting was scheduled to end at 8.30 and we're passed out already. So I think we need to wrap things up. Okay, here just one more comment. I just wanted to say that I'm not at all opposed to a dog park. My concern is with the impact of a dog park on the bird habitat and that's my only concern about this. It's not about the impact of property values. It's not about the visual sight lines of a dog park or any of that on the old landfill. It's really concern about the impact that a dog park and that kind of presence of people and 18 parking spaces, people and dogs on that site what kind of impact that might have on the bird habitat. So that's been my concern, not opposed to a dog park in Amherst, love dogs and that's why we're raising these concerns now and wish we had been involved earlier. Okay, thank you. Thank you both for participating and being here in our meeting. Moving on, I don't have any other items not anticipated by the chair to any other committee members have any other items that they feel need to be discussed in this meeting. I don't see any hands raised. In terms of our next meeting date, I think rather than try and pick a date at this moment, we should sort of pick a timeframe of what we wanna meet and then I can send out a doodle poll to get an actual date. So, Dave, do you have a sense of how soon our next meeting should be? Looking at the calendar here, somewhere say, the week of maybe the 15th of June. Okay. Maybe the 18th. Okay, so why don't I, I will send out a doodle poll for probably for every day that week and we'll see what we have in common. And nobody yet knows if we're back at work during the day at those times or not. So I'll probably do in the poll, there'll be a morning time slot, an afternoon time slot and an evening time slot again and we'll try and find something we all have in common. That sound good? Okay, in that case, I think, I thank everybody for coming and participating and taking the time out of your evening. Your home spaces and rooms all look lovely. And this meeting, I guess we need to have a roll call vote on adjourning, I guess we do. So the motion I'm making is to adjourn this meeting and I'm Jim Pistrang and I'm in favor of adjourning and Gina, how about you? I'm Gina Fusco and I'm in favor of adjourning. And Ted. Ted Diamond, adjourn please. Michael. Michael Cheswer is adjourned. Anna. Anna Devlin-Gothier, agree, time to adjourn. And Ellen. Ellen Kiter, yes, adjourned. And Jack. We can't hear you, you're muted. You're holding up the whole process. Oh my gosh, okay. Yes, adjourn. Hey! Hey! Go to somewhere sunny and sandy. Okay, it's an unanimous agreement to adjourn. So in that case, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for coming. I'm gonna end the meeting. Thanks Dave. Good to see everyone. Bye. Bye.