Camden Conservation Commission weighs tree fines, heritage list, planning board role

[0:00] Lucia: So her place did you get here Chris can't make it? Yeah Chris can't make it and Brian isn't here. Oh okay the deer and okay is did our gal forget that she's supposed to get here at one so we'll let we'll let Dave who's that Lucia is that how we say it? I know I know but I feel like someone said Lucia I know I keep going back and forth so [0:28] Speaker B (unidentified): So,, so I talked with Shane and Shane is all done. Okay, cool. Wow. He said it was much more work than he anticipated it being and water was putting everything in the app. Oh yeah I just think it was well it's structured I mean anytime you incorporate structure into doing something there's a little extra time [1:07] Speaker C (unidentified): But okay he's okay with it doing the [1:10] Speaker D (unidentified): work and putting it in the app or did he have someone to help him with that? Well he had two [1:14] Speaker E (unidentified): people I think he had someone to help him I think I saw him one day he I think he was when I saw him he was like in the car when someone was treating a tree so I assume he was he was helping with it [1:26] Speaker B (unidentified): And then he would show another person and then two other people were doing it 's just a lot [1:31] Speaker D (unidentified): I just know it's a lot to do and then document. Yeah but you can't I mean we've got to document [1:36] Speaker B (unidentified): it totally. Yeah because in 10 years from now if you ever get to go back to that at least that's there you know you have documentation of the whole thing writing stuff on paper is just not like it doesn't seem to either way to move forward we document for the future [Speaker F (unidentified): Sure I know] But you gotta pick one media and no one's using paper. Yeah so you can't do both or you could you can print off a copy of the thing and then at the end of the year and put them in a yeah yep hanging folder but [2:21] Lucia: So he doesn't do he doesn't have to do it next year but he checks on him the following year [2:26] Speaker B (unidentified): How it works? Yeah so he's gonna I think it was what after two years he was going to do an evaluation three I can two or three was it two no we were gonna we were gonna look into where we're at after two years and then determine if it was going to be another round of treatment or we were going to try and stretch it out for three years because the efficacy of the chemical is reduced after three years that was kind of what I remember correct it was a super high value tree [2:59] Speaker E (unidentified): Did he seem to express a desire to do the treatment next time around or was his was your conversation did it sort of reflect a that was too much I'm not interested he said [3:10] Speaker B (unidentified): He said maybe what we would do is if it's in the area and we have like some really big trees that we would treat those. We wouldn't wait the three years, we do it at that two year mark so that we didn't take any chances, okay. He said something to that effect, but let's wait to see where we're at, okay. Like if it actually moves into this area and gets identified, then he might, we might think that we don't want to try to stretch it out for three years. [3:41] Speaker G (unidentified): So I noticed yesterday in the yard of a house on Thomas Street that I was looking at because my daughter is renting an apartment there, and there's three really big ash trees, like that big around at least. And one of them looks like it's in bad shape. I don't think it's ash borer, but the other two look great. And they are all together providing a lot of shade, but I have a feeling that a property owner like that person would not- [4:21] Speaker B (unidentified): Is this in the right of way or in the private property? No. On their private property. [4:25] Speaker G (unidentified): It's on their private property. [4:27] Lucia: Thomas, there was one house, one big estuary on public land, but there was some behind that house. [4:35] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah, I'm just wondering like if we're worried about like overall canopy in the downtown area, is there some way we could provide an incentive to [4:47] Lucia: people we do kind of because Shane's been doing this for lower than the average person we have to pay, okay, and anyone Camden who wants to contact him can get the same price. Oh okay, in the village, which in the village, yeah, and Thomas P would be in the village, yeah, and I mean they're not gonna, we're not gonna pay for doing people on people's private right [5:07] Speaker E (unidentified): right, but they, I think the incentive is that if they don't treat it, they're going to have to pay to take it down, exactly, and that's going to be a lot more expensive. My understanding is if it's a true financial burden, something they can't afford, there's the assistance fund that they [5:23] Lucia: could apply for, okay, so we just maybe need to the treatment's a couple hundred dollars, people about that, the treatment's a couple hundred dollars and free removal is a couple thousand dollars, yeah. [5:34] Speaker D (unidentified): So yeah, that's actually a good thing to know, probably like to have any sort of figure attached [5:40] Lucia: to it, can be, it depends on the what is it, the diameter of the tree, yeah, but we had a tree taken down last year in our middle of our yard, it wasn't massive or anything like that. [5:51] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, it was so expensive, it was over two thousand dollars, yeah, it's expensive, and he [5:58] Lucia: Didn't even take away the wood. Yeah, so I mean, pricey, it's just much more cost effective. And if you're a homeowner, this is part of being a homeowner. Yeah, you know, it's like, sorry, you know. [6:12] Speaker B (unidentified): What was the thing that Colleen, what was it calling you, was she working on the what was the trees, the Colleen, Kathleen, the heritage trees, the heritage tree thing. Yeah, maybe there's something where if we identify it as a hair, I haven't done that heritage thing yet. She sent me a thing like I've got most of everything I'm responsible for done and I haven't. [6:37] Speaker F (unidentified): Been able to get myself, I didn't think she said hey, but I have a couple ideas, but anyway, she. [6:42] Speaker B (unidentified): Wanted me to check over the ones, the list they gave me, but and then I wanted to know if there. [6:46] Lucia: Was any other ones I was aware of, but I saw, well, I know amazing ashtray in someone's backyard on. [6:51] Speaker G (unidentified): On Mountain Street, or you can't see if it's true or isn't she going to do the thing with the like the library or something. Yeah, nominating trees. Well, like so what list did she give you, trees that who thought were her originally, a list, I think the list, I think she, her Brian wanted me. [7:10] Speaker B (unidentified): To go over a list that I thought, a list that she, America, I'll ask her and have her send it to all of us. Tell her that Dave's, Dave's, Dave brought up the fact that he hasn't done that yet, whatever that is. Well, I think it was, I think it was, can you look at this, we have, these are the ones we're thinking of, do you know of any others, I know of some, we should all have this list, I know, but anyway, maybe that's something you guys, maybe, yeah, definitely, because I wanted. [7:40] Lucia: We want to mention charity trees too, because we do have to have that as a separate thing, but where. [7:44] Speaker B (unidentified): I was going with that is maybe we treat the heritage trees, if one of them's an ashtray, oh you're only, oh yeah, maybe we, because but maybe there's a set of like parameters that go along with that, is if you, if it's deemed a heritage tree and we invest in taking care of it or inoculated, if it's an ash tree, you can't just cut it down, right, it's protected, it's kind of like. [8:08] Lucia: A well, you know, I have to say, Brian and I did this walk of theoretical heritage trees that Nancy Johnson did years ago, which I have to say some of them were incredibly underwhelming. I mean, like one of them was acoustic dogwood, that was, it was just like, oh, she's not the right person, this is a heritage trees because mine's much bigger than this. But I wasn't on her trail that she wanted you to go on, you know, like it's sort of some of them seemed fairly arbitrary, others were like, oh yeah, that's really pretty cool tree, and others were like very ordinary, nothing special. And I, but she had this walking trail that she wanted you to take and look at these things, and who was this Nancy Johnson? Okay, and so it was a mixed bag. It wasn't something I'd recommend to me, but Brian and I did the whole thing and checked out every tree. One was missing, so I don't know, we [9:02] Speaker B (unidentified): didn't know what. Yeah, so she did give me a list tree court nomination. How many are on it? Seven. Okay, the catalpa tree on Harden half, I'm going backwards, the ash tree on C Street, an ash tree on the corner of Elm and Washington, the willow tree at Rawson 51 Ross and Avenue down, a group of maples on Trim Street 5 13 and 17, and ash tree at 17 Trim Street, Camden copper beach at 58 Washington. Oh yeah, that one, that's the one I got. Can you afford that [9:45] Speaker G (unidentified): yeah I'll just forward this to you. Does she have that silver maple that's down on, those are the only ones she's got listed here. There's what's the street that's just above C Street parallel. Eaton? Yeah, I think it's Eaton that there's this, I've never seen a silver maple, [10:07] Speaker C (unidentified): like it's like eight feet wide. [10:11] Speaker B (unidentified): I think I know which one you're talking about. [10:12] Speaker G (unidentified): I mean, going toward the water, yeah. [10:18] Lucia: And you know Susan Rider? Yep. Back property of her house has this massive ashtray, which has been pruned over the years and it's really very nice branching, like it's very balanced, it's very majestic and huge thing. Which street on Mountain Street? Oh yellow house, I'm on the street, I think, I don't think, oh Vicky's, no Vicky, no Susan Ryder, she's a writer. Oh hard no, Mountain Street, Mountain, it's right, you left me in the corner Mountain Street, but I'm spraying, but we'll go to your front door, take the left, okay, and then take another left, that's Mountain Street 105. Root 52. Oh wait, yeah, I know where that, I know what Mount Street about is, where you walk down if you're walking into town on the sidewalk side, it's a yellow house, but in the back property they have a really stunning ashtray. Oh, okay, I've never looked in the back. Yeah, it's a little hard to see from the road, but it is a very nice dream. Really, over the years it's been pruned, so it's not all broke the branches. Here is it the yellow house that the [11:22] Speaker G (unidentified): woman sells a little bouquet? No, okay, I'll go look. So what do we want to do about that? Okay, so what's the place? I just forwarded it to her. Okay, and you're going to contact Kathleen and [11:40] Lucia: I just thought we could all have that list so we can all take a look at it. Yeah, because we wanted to bring, I think they really should be, and it'd be great to have any, well, I don't to this yet, but we were talking about the tree ordinance. I think there should be a separate category of heritage trees accepted by the town, and that could be it, you could wrap up into the ordinance, right, and then and then when we have, I won't ask Chris, right, you can ask about that, and then when we get into the thing about tree ordinance fines or people cutting trees or pruning trees are not supposed to heritage trees with their own category, and then street trees would be there out of the category, and then private property trees would be maybe something different, and it looks like there's a street tree going down, someone's cutting down on I'm gonna Cook Street. I didn't have time to drive by it today, but I could see from bottom of your street, I don't know if it's dead or not. Yeah, way at the bottom [12:35] Speaker C (unidentified): around the corner, around the corner, and then up towards the top. Okay, you know, is the one [12:40] Lucia: Yeah, apparel's hard nav. Yeah, it was down near the bottom. Yeah, on the right hand side as going up the road, it looked like a big tree, and there was a big, you know, bucket thing over there cutting it down, but I had the dogs with me, and I was just over there, what's going on today? Oh, today I was meaning to drive by my way of meeting, but and you don't know what kind of tree? No, I wanted to drive by and see, but it looked very close to the road. Could you see for sure [13:07] Speaker D (unidentified): that it was tree cutting or treated like it? Okay, I was just asking because I had a guy in one of those bucket, I don't know what you call them, but like, you know, the crane in the bucket, they'll put infidium fiber up. Yeah, it was for the cables, I thought they were, I thought [13:26] Speaker C (unidentified): They were something. That's what they're doing. You think so? Yeah, I don't know. I'm, I met them on [13:32] Speaker D (unidentified): Magana Creek Street yesterday. You did? Yeah, I so you know my apartment is on the second and third floor and I was like, I like looked out and there was just a man and I was like, that's not, I don't normally see people I don't know. I was like, no, I don't remember that level [13:50] Lucia: song going on, but they could have been easy. It could have been a different thing. I was just [13:53] Speaker G (unidentified): curious wait a minute wait a minute so tree crony no tree who are you 're the tree warden tree warden has to like approve anything that's being done to a street tree we had a [14:08] Speaker B (unidentified): meeting with them and we, I basically told them that any kind of [14:15] Speaker G (unidentified): I mean, shouldn't they actually [14:18] Speaker B (unidentified): ask you about each tree? Well, I met with the lady who's been working in that industry for 40 years and kind of both were trying to establish dominance and right, I think she won one. [14:34] Speaker G (unidentified): You look like she won. [14:36] Speaker B (unidentified): She was tough. It's funny because yesterday when I go see what I go, it's so much easier if you would have just been a little bit more gentle. And she's, I said, I just had to establish, you know, establish the tone [14:53] Speaker D (unidentified): right from the beginning. And sorry, who is this person? [Speaker B (unidentified): She's from Phidiam.] Oh, okay. [14:58] Speaker B (unidentified): She's been working for Consolidated for a long time. [15:01] Speaker G (unidentified): She's pretty tough. Right, but she doesn't work for the town of Camden. No,. All these towns that don't have ordinance. [15:06] Speaker B (unidentified): We met with her boss, and her boss says, we're coming through and doing all this, and we're going to have to cut guys. I said, well, I've got to know about this. So then he told her, she met with me, and she's like, oh, God, I hate Camden. Because of the tree stuff. [15:21] Speaker D (unidentified): Because we care about our trees. [15:22] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, and it's always a lot. What a terrible town we are. Now whose side are we on? I know it's always a lot harder for them because she's like, we pay money to be have our stuff right away. I go, you don't pay anything, you know, CMP pays for it. I've been all through this with you and she's like, that's not true. We ended up fighting a little about fighting but arguing. We all agreed that we're all in on the same side and we're against the main [15:43] Speaker F (unidentified): you're against the man. Yeah, not a man but people, the man, the capital and everything's all right [15:50] Speaker B (unidentified): Right now and then she's been going over things with me a little out of time, like she brought me over to McGonagall Street. Now you can take a left, I think it's on Collins, yeah, there's that tree that they've got the metal things, yeah, it's holding it all, yeah. So she saw that and they're going through the next tree next to it on the left, and she's like, I called you because when I see somebody that put metal brackets up and put a tag on a tree in their front yard, they're probably, that's a good warning. Well, she's very sensitive, isn't she? Yeah, she's observing. So she called me, I said that's not gonna be a problem, go ahead, they're not cutting anything down, they just need to get like a hole through the tree canopy to pull the lashing wire that pulls, oh [16:35] Speaker F (unidentified): yeah, because they can't, you know, yeah. So is it fiber tree? It's all about fiber, has trouble when [16:43] Speaker B (unidentified): it grows in a year, yeah. Well, they want to cut everything down, but we're not letting them, okay. [16:48] Speaker G (unidentified): That's so this is a compromise. Do you know about the ash tree on Magonic, Vicky Harnden, and it, its branches grow out over the road, and I was just remarking to her about how cool it is to have a canopy that actually covers the road, and she said she thought the town might want to cut it down. Was it that or off cut the branch off? She had like a real steep, yes, yeah. [17:16] Speaker B (unidentified): What road is this? I said I think we might want to prune it so it's symmetrical, okay, because when the tree is like this, yeah, then it tends to develop problems as it gets bigger, because then it's all the weights on one side, so usually we try to shape them, okay, not saying cutting the branch off so it doesn't go across the road, I'm just saying I think I might have said it needs [17:41] Speaker G (unidentified): it would probably need to be shaped. Well, I mean, you probably need it to be a certain height of road too, like do you, yeah, how high does it, can it be, you got to be able to track the trailer underneath it, I mean, you don't know the number of feet, I [17:56] Speaker B (unidentified): think it's 12 feet, something like that. [17:57] Speaker F (unidentified): Okay, you [18:00] Speaker G (unidentified): know, yeah, because I like to be able to tell people like, you know, yeah, no, don't cut that [18:04] Speaker B (unidentified): unless you ask Dave. We don't usually use a measuring device, we usually take one of the big trucks and just see if it gets hit, and if it hits the top of the truck, we cut it, that's [18:14] Lucia: How we do it was a tree across the street from me, a little bit down, that they used to be when they small, like Sears robot type of houses. And in the old days, they would sometimes, when the married couple moved in, they newlyweds, they would plant the trees. And one tree went down years and years ago, but the other was still there, quite big. But since it got so big, they kept cutting it near the house, so then it was kind of the branches were leaning out over the street, which looked kind of cool as you're driving up, but the branches went all across the street and, oh wow, yard. And eventually, you know, in a storm, that just because it was so lopsided, it just kind of came down, and they had to take the whole thing down. But it was a problem because it was getting, it was so heavy and so unbalanced. So which is funny, I think it's exactly what he's talking [19:04] Speaker B (unidentified): That's what happens a lot of times when CMP does the pruning, you know, they prune so much [19:09] Speaker C (unidentified): one side off the tree that the other side. This had no wires on the outside of the street, but [19:13] Lucia: I think it because the tree had been planted a little too close to the house, they kept pruning it on the tree's house side, and the other side it just became lopsided. Okay, so on a bad note, [19:27] Speaker B (unidentified): oh good, huh, I said oh good, keep going, let's hear it. Dawn Street, we're putting that sidewalk in, and part of that D.O.T. did all the right-of-way work and everything, and there's a bunch of trees that are on the north side of the Lincolnville side of Gaunt Street that are gonna happen. Some of them are big, they have to be removed that way. Yes, oh yeah, but like this is one of the things, no, not that one in front of them, Pearl Street, not that big one, but there's a more closer to John Street, there's a couple more we're going to try and like try to maybe keep some of the ones that closer to the house, but they 're saying we got to remove the tree. Oh, I've seen a sidewalk go around a tree before, where so we have, we have some of that creativity that we can do in our own personal roads. This is a state road, and they had to do the drawings, and they had to do the engineering on the whole thing, and they have their way of doing it, of course. Their way was five times as much as ours, so the town basically Said we're not going to do it because of the cost, but we'd rather have, we'd rather do it ourselves because it's a lot less. So now we're doing the work, but the design is already done, so we got to follow it. But we may have some latitude about trying to save some of those trees. But the big one on the corner, Pearl, we did get to save that one, and I think there's two more there closer to John Street, I mean Elm Street, that I want to try and save. But then there's a bunch of other ones that are just kind of, they're big but they're not that nice, because one in front of that lady's house in the corner of Pearl Street next to the big oak, to the left, to the right of that, but it's all the bark's dead off of it, 's dying, so it's not like, not like you're saving anything special. No, so I think we cut the trees, we build the sidewalk, and we put new trees back. I mean, that's ultimately what you're going to do. But what do you do, you get here in some situations where you gotta like choose between a tree and [21:32] Speaker D (unidentified): a sidewalk, so it's tough. I mean, it's a struggle, you know what I mean? The John Street no sidewalk [21:40] Speaker B (unidentified): walk thing is an issue. It is, someone died there, they got hit by a car. Yeah, you took him two years [21:47] Speaker D (unidentified): ago, she got run over, the lady in the wheelchair. Yes, I remember that. I thought you were talking [21:53] Lucia: about a new, it's very dangerous road, it's super dangerous. Yeah, so I never felt comfortable. I don't [21:58] Speaker B (unidentified): like the idea of cutting a couple big, several big trees there, but it's, there's no way around it, and you can't go the other way because it's like a big slope [22:08] Lucia: hope. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it doesn't look like Lucia is, Lucia is going to be coming, or until it's just like, if, she comes, we can stop what we're doing, but you want, since we're still talking about trees, you want Cynthia, a little bit of work on tree warnings. And I didn't get as much done as I wanted because I got more involved in EV, dd chargers, but I did find out that the, right now we have a, we have a like 500 for if you cut down a tree or a tree something like that, but what most towns have turned to doing is basing it on the width of the tree. Like this is one of the ones that they have, like it's called the New England appraisal tool. Oh, I like that. And so you can put in the type of tree, well this one's for example, so this is an example, you could just have one value depending on size range but like for this one they're saying i put in red maple and if it's they said the cost per square inch is 65.39 but you know it's gonna be kind of who updates that 's what i'm not sure but what other towns have done is done something like this and said okay it's a hundred dollars per square inch no matter what any tree over 24 inches is 100 per square foot and any tree over pick a different size do you mean or you could do diameter well they're They're doing, yeah, doing DBH, that's okay. So that inch, not a square, this is going by square inch, but we can do, pick the way we want to do the measurement, like we could do the diameter, yeah, and then say so any trees over 24 inches on this would be x amount of money per square inch that you pay if you take from a tree, and if it's especially big one, let's say you decide what that especially big one is. I gotta, I'm not to [24:05] Speaker B (unidentified): Interrupt you, but this is an important part of this, usually when you're doing something about [24:09] Speaker C (unidentified): This, the tree is gone. I know what you, I know, but you still usually have the base, you still [24:14] Speaker F (unidentified): Need to have, that's what I was going to say, just as you measure this, it's not, yeah, it won't be [24:17] Speaker H (unidentified): DBH, so it won't be on the DBH, it'll be the stump, so that, right, that should say that, so it wouldn't [24:23] Lucia: Be easier in that way to do the square inch, square foot of the stump, and this is, we're really [24:30] Speaker E (unidentified): Early on this, can you remind me who to, what situations this time will apply to, people who [24:40] Speaker C (unidentified): Remove a street tree on town property, it's happened three times since I've been here, [24:44] Speaker E (unidentified): Street tree on town property or tree on town property, this is separate from the issues we've [24:52] Lucia: Had with people damaging neighbors, that's another, oh that's, that's, that's the next chapter, okay, so then you could have another part as if you, for people on removing or poisoning a tree on to improve review on neighbor's property or things like that, could be something based on, it should be higher, fine, I think, and they could also be just another chapter if you remove trees in a waterway, like on the ocean or on lake in the shoreline, on a shoreline zone or stream bed, like you had the bottom of Rockbrook Drive or something like that, so but rather than just say it's X amount for any tree, yeah, but X amount for any pruning, it's all based on how big the tree was and we pick a specific amount of money and then let's say, so maybe since we can't do breath width we have to do square inches of the existing stump or whatever, and then the persons find a pretty high five and are required to replant a tree, yeah, what about branches? [25:59] Speaker C (unidentified): Then that's another one too, but they don't have that because that's like the one on [26:07] Speaker B (unidentified): atlanta gav they cut down trees in branches you know so many caught there was a fine whatever [26:13] Speaker C (unidentified): The fine in the audience is which is almost nothing, right, they're so low and we've had people [26:18] Lucia: That who live, especially people who live on, there was people, somebody who Amos personal lived in Baby Street to just plow down all these trees along their property because they wanted to the water better, it's like five hundred dollars, okay, here you go, it was like totally worth it, well that's why I'm saying it's like, so this tool it's called the New England ISA, I'll send you it off all to you, it you put in the type of tree it is, but I think that might get a little confusing, so what other, right You might have done some of them, let's like this is saying red maple is in this case 65 per square inch and some are more and some are less, so I think we 100, yeah, so I think we just pick something on the higher side of that and say it's at least this much per inch, we can always [27:07] Speaker B (unidentified): Say higher, where's that out of what area, oh it's New England, New England, New England, so it's cool [27:12] Lucia: It was recommended to me about you Jeff Tarling from he used to be the tree warden of Portland, the Portland, what's the resource called or the website, it's from the International Society of Arbor Culture and this is the New England chapter, so yeah, so I'm just wondering [27:30] Speaker G (unidentified): It seems like a shame that like all we're doing is penalizing people for having done it, like can we somehow figure out a way to beef up the preventive aspect of this, and one thought that I had was to what extent could, is it possible that arborists could participate [27:51] Speaker B (unidentified): I got a really good idea, yeah, what's that, like all the trees people should have a permit that [27:56] Speaker G (unidentified): Work in the town, like they have to take out the permit to cut the tree, yeah, no, to cut trees in [28:03] Speaker B (unidentified): Town they have to get a permit and they and that would have to have a training of some sort, yes [28:07] Speaker G (unidentified): So everybody knows what the rules are, right? And then can we somehow make them partially culpable if they go ahead and do it anyway? Yes, that's, I mean, that's the whole idea behind getting [28:21] Speaker B (unidentified): like a commercial from the waste industry. They have a haulage permit, so if you're gonna haul trash in town, you're gonna have a permit to do that. Yeah, you're gonna cut trees in town, you're gonna have a, because everybody just starts up a visit, I'm a tree cutter now. Yeah. [28:35] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, okay, so many tree cutters out there. Oh, so the idea would be to have different categories, one [28:41] Speaker G (unidentified): no, there isn't, it shouldn't. Yeah, an ordinance saying that you have to be, you have to have a [28:46] Speaker B (unidentified): person permitted yeah a license in the town to cut trees that 's sam which part about having a permit should have just that should have to have a permit that they get through the town even it's even if it's only 25 months it's not about the money but then [29:09] Speaker H (unidentified): thousand dollars, it's the education, it's the education, and then what could happen [29:13] Speaker B (unidentified): is you could take the money and put that in a pot somewhere where it would be up [29:18] Speaker G (unidentified): for like the tree inoculations and like, can we penalize them somehow if they go [29:24] Speaker B (unidentified): ahead and break the rule? That would be in the ordinance, right? License, I was, [29:28] Speaker G (unidentified): we're talking about is drafting an ordinance, right? Yeah, like you could say like the [29:32] Speaker B (unidentified): a license an arborist who's licensed to cut trees in camden knowingly not following the rules will be subject to a penalty yeah if they get caught cutting a tree without a license in the town of camden yeah it will be banished to rockland forever i don't know i 'm just making this up but you know you just gotta no but we could suspend their permit you could say they can't for [29:59] Lucia: a while if they do it, if they cut down a tree. Yeah, I mean, the other thing sometimes do is who have these towns that have more of a problem with people buying land than clearing it to build whatever, and then they just find people, it's like they have a thing that even if it's not a street tree or shoreline zone, but you can have, you can't remove more than x percentage of the trees in your property without, you know, and if you do, like it's so much per tree, so I don't know how much that applies here, but that's something that they have in a lot of bigger communities. Yeah, really? So that like you, so you don't have someone to come in and say, I'm gonna buy, you know, build six apartment buildings here and just clear it all out, put it in, you know, can I ask a question? [30:45] Speaker E (unidentified): Sure, this is just another category. Yeah, if we're trying to make it a real deterrent and not just a harsher punishment, right? It's kind of combo. Yeah, is there a way to factor into that math equation assessed property value? Because it's kind of crazy to charge someone with a five million dollar property at the same price you would charge, the same fine you would charge someone with a 100,000. That's a good point. It's no longer if the person a can afford that fine, it is not a [31:26] Speaker C (unidentified): punishment, right? That's true. That's a very good point. You know how they do it [31:31] Speaker B (unidentified): waste in the wastewater world is like when you're calculating things, it's a multiple equation. So it should be, should be the value of the tree comes the valuation per square foot of the property times gives you the number. So there's two, there's two variables there, the price of the tree and the price of the property, and that equals, that's a [31:53] Speaker G (unidentified): good, that's a good point. I like that. You can't even figure out whether somebody else has one [31:57] Lucia: of those already. That's discrimination. I'll look into that scale. Yes, I thought you said you knew [32:03] Speaker G (unidentified): somebody. No, I think it'd be a good idea to figure out if somebody has instead of just like this [32:09] Speaker B (unidentified): times that times that. Well, I know that to me about that, to me like thinking about it sounds like you're not being treated fairly. What [32:19] Speaker E (unidentified): what sounds like you're not being treated fairly? [32:22] Speaker B (unidentified): The thing I just, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm the one, I agreed with you, but I'm thinking like why should I be charged more because I own like I have a more valuable piece of property? Because I know, but that's not a good argument. Just because somebody has more, well more value, I don't know. [32:40] Speaker E (unidentified): I think you could make an argument that the, if the purpose of, I don't know. Yeah, the purpose of the fine is to prevent the behavior, and if the fine is, you need to match the prevention, the preventative measure to the individual you're trying to prevent from [33:05] Speaker B (unidentified): committing that act. I understand exactly what you're saying. I don't know, is that, is that okay? [33:10] Speaker E (unidentified): to do? Well, I think we would have to do some research. Well, I think it's like done that and [33:16] Speaker G (unidentified): it's like income tax i mean you it turns out to be a bigger amount if you have a bigger income right not necessarily and you don't go through all the loopholes but it's like it's really true that like jeff bezos would not bend down for a dime or a quarter or a dollar or a hundred dollars he 'd he'd been down to pick up a 45 000 bill yes you know yep so what i'm saying is that it just it should reflect a combination of how much they're investing in this i think it'd have [33:51] Lucia: to be based on per square foot value, per square foot of the property might make more sense, Mr. Like the whole that someone could own a five acre lot and someone else owns a well, I think [34:06] Speaker D (unidentified): should think about it, is there a fun, is there a way to detach it from finance, from financial impact, or is it, I mean financial impact like it's gonna affect somebody with a lower income [34:16] Lucia: more than it is somebody, well that's what she's talking about, right? So I'm saying can you [34:20] Speaker D (unidentified): can you, there might be a way to come up with an impact that's equally and I don't know what [34:26] Speaker F (unidentified): that is, like next time the assessed value of the property, I think, yeah, that's what it is, the [34:31] Speaker D (unidentified): best one, not their income, sorry, I'm saying income, I mean assessed value of the property, I'm, I guess [34:37] Speaker E (unidentified): I'm saying like it's your non-financial punishment, thank you, that one, they go in the town for Shane [34:43] Speaker D (unidentified): for Shane, right, can we shame them, can we, their first child, no, I'm just like, that's why [34:49] Lucia: the Metcalfe people, I've never moved back, but the Metcalfe people, I've never moved back [34:52] Speaker B (unidentified): put a stock here in the village green and they have to be in it for a week [34:56] Lucia: well but what other options do we have, I mean of course it's better just to get people on to not do it, but on the other hand we have these pitiful little fines that like, yeah, I'll tell you [35:06] Speaker B (unidentified): right now, I agree with, they are petrified, like people of people that got people's attention, oh yeah, we gave, we find two or three people after we did that, it was like, so the, you're finding that [35:19] Speaker D (unidentified): the fines are working regardless of how much the fine is, it's the, it's the trauma of the fine [35:26] Speaker B (unidentified): is what initiates it, but it's the whole talking about it and the shaming of it all that's tied [35:33] Speaker G (unidentified): to that, yeah, but what about people who haven't moved here yet, they don't even, the people of [35:36] Speaker F (unidentified): Atlantic Avenue don't, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't like, right, can you make it legal and then if it [35:43] Speaker D (unidentified): happens and you end up in the in the count, in the Knox County, what's it called, the court news [35:50] Speaker B (unidentified): Those people over there that really got their attention, yeah. And then I gave, I gave another. Who? I'm not there, I'm not there. I didn't get any Christmas cards from them into the Rogers over on Chestnut Street. Martha Rogers hates me now because I finder for cutting a tree down along the Chestnut Hill. Yeah, you should send her a card. Thanks for your business. They're not, I'm not popular with them anymore. And then the people, the break, the those people that, okay. Then there was Dan Gabriel got a fine for cutting the tree down at Harbor, the public landing. But remember by the, yeah, all right, interesting. So but I still [36:43] Lucia: think we still have really low fees. Yeah, so that's the idea. But I guess it's just interesting to not all trees have the same value. Yeah, that's why I think people completely agree. I completely [36:54] Speaker D (unidentified): agree with you. I'm just, it's interesting to me that regardless of the fee, it's more people are [37:00] Speaker B (unidentified): it's more the stigma. Yeah, it's more the oh, they're the ones that cut the tree down. It's interesting [37:05] Lucia: but it didn't, it made no difference to Collie when he did it. That's a little different. That's on another level. Yeah, but that's, I still think it's weight we're beyond the fact time when we can leave things the way they are. It still should be raised, and I think it's based on square inches, a better way to go. You just pick, totally not pick the highest thing in the world, but pick something that's more realistic to the value of a tree, like not differentiate each one based on, well, oak is seven 73 cents, you know, 73 per square inch, and this is 62. I mean, just like pick a number. How about how old the tree was, count the ring? That's usually by, well, if that's where you get the, you do that by size, and if it's a small tree, it has less value [37:51] Speaker G (unidentified): that's how many years in jail. Every way you immediately have to go to jail. [37:56] Speaker B (unidentified): You go to the, you go to the nursery to buy a tree, and the bigger the tree is more [38:01] Speaker D (unidentified): yeah, is it, is it the same, is do you happen to know if the tool is tied, is it all related to or tied to the way that people, because we know we're just talking about this, like when you remove a tree, it's very expensive. Is are those assessments at all aligned what cost to remove a tree, which can be thousands of dollars, compared to like how this tool is? Do we know? I'll send [38:27] Lucia: this all to you. I also have it in the, in the notes. I'm just curious, I'll send it to everybody, but I don't know what are they using for the assessment. I can also look at, I'm sorry, this [38:38] Speaker D (unidentified): Is I can look at it on my own time. How about how many times, how, like just multiply [38:44] Speaker G (unidentified): by a certain number, how much it cost them to cut it down. Just so you think that was expensive taking it down, what do you hear, like put it back up. Yeah, well, trees, you know, trees are between [39:01] Speaker B (unidentified): two and five thousand dollars or anything in this range, easily cost per square inch. Oh wow. Oh yeah, okay. Well, that's good that you got that done on the- [39:25] Lucia: Well, this is just a, it's still a working situation, but this is what we're looking at, looking at doing. And so, and making categories so that they could be potential categories that we can discuss. So that could be used for street trees. Yeah. Shoreland, shoreline trees or water, anything out of water they, because one of the things on Atlantic AB is that was an important place for like they need shady water for like fish to were coming up through the harbor into fresh water to lay eggs and stuff like that, and those people like taking all the trees out in the branches, it became a sunny situation and destroyed the fish habitat. You know, there's repercussions to this kind of stuff, and so that's why I think there should be at least a few categories and just to make the deterrent a little more painful, and then of course educating people on why you shouldn't ever do that, and I love the idea of having some kind of arborists have to be licensed. Yeah. [40:41] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah,, and the shoreland things should be a different kind of sign, because it's the problem with that is not only just you know shading the habitat, the water habitat, but encouraging, yes, so disproportionate to how big the tree is, it can be bushes, and then if you remove them [41:01] Speaker B (unidentified): they're destroyed, those should be even higher. And the other thing too is if they're getting a license, you can put in the requirements of what they need to have a license, like they should have, they should be able to provide proof of insurance, they should be, and that's another way of like, yeah, through those people, yeah, because some people can say hey I'm a, I'm an arborist, doesn't mean they have insurance, doesn't mean they have anything, and if they cut a tree down it, that's something damaging, yeah. So you're protecting the residents by actually making sure that someone doing that work in town has got the right, is legitimate. Yeah. [41:41] Speaker E (unidentified): I asked Claude some questions, good old Claude, Claudette if you will. She says tying fines to assess property value is rare for a few reasons. It would charge two owners different amounts for same harm, which raises equal protection in Eighth Amendment excessive fines concerns. Providence's tree fine was challenged on Eighth Amendment grounds to Rhode Island court for example. Simple assessed value also has little connection to the ecological cost the ordinance is meant to address. Yeah, that sounds like a dangerous place to go. Yeah, fortunately I think the better thing [42:20] Speaker B (unidentified): to do is just to based on its size and its value. Yeah, because a bigger tree is going to have just [42:26] Lucia: a lot more value. Yeah, see on this I'm going to put an ash just to save but you know [42:35] Speaker G (unidentified): like some trees grow a lot slower than others, you know. Yeah, and the hardwoods just grow faster than [42:41] Speaker B (unidentified): it's not I know, but for one they get big, I mean go slower than so [42:48] Speaker G (unidentified): when they're really big they're [42:50] Speaker B (unidentified): really valuable. Yeah, because they've made it through all the droughts and the diseases and all these things, so just like a person so [43:06] Lucia: they put crap is crown with that's a top height. Yeah, [43:13] Speaker B (unidentified): and the biggest tree that we've ever had to cut down, the cut that had to be cut down on Bokera right when you get before Canaan Avenue heading towards 52. Yeah, it was over 120 feet tall, but it had like a crack going all the way down it like this, and it was like leaning over the road, and we still don't have a whole thing. I have to get a crane to take it down, that's how big it is. Wow, oh you haven't done it yet. Well I took all the limbs off of it just recently. Yeah, but it was, it was in, it's in rough shape, really rough shape. I mean it's got a crack as tall as me in it this way kind of going at an angle. Yeah, it's a giant pine tree. Yeah, [44:05] Speaker G (unidentified): people particularly hate pine trees nowadays, they think that they're so dangerous, and I think what they really care about more is they drop sap on their cars. [44:31] Speaker B (unidentified): They're dangerous when they get tall anyway. [44:36] Lucia: Well I'll do some more research with maybe Cynthia's help to come up with some categories and prices on what we think we could do. Great, thank you. We'll take out the obsessed property value, but I do think there should be categories for street trees, on waterways of any kind, or shore land, and maybe separate for streams and stuff like that, I don't know. And then maybe just consideration, even though it's not a big deal for us right now, is if someone buys a big lot, it's what's once just clear-cut it, to have a limit on how much they can take out. Because it's pretty typical of big- [45:13] Speaker E (unidentified): Do we not have a- We do. I thought that was a problem at that corner lot on Chestnut and that development on private property you can cut all the trees down on [45:23] Speaker B (unidentified): private property. Well, that was because I was protected by a conservative conservation easement. Yeah, that's why they couldn't do that there, because that was part of a subdivision. [45:35] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay, and when they did this, I remember they were not allowed to do that. Okay, that was because that [45:40] Lucia: That was because of the subprovision. I see. Where does it stand, though? [45:45] Speaker B (unidentified): I don't know. The guy kind of comes and he goes and he comes and he goes. [45:50] Speaker E (unidentified): And would that be just in the village? I don't. You know, what about someone who wants to buy a big piece of land and make a farm? They have to clear it to do that. [46:01] Lucia: Well, I mean, I think it depends. That's why I think that this should be a process if you want to completely clear it. Talk to the tree warden and, you know, like even on farms need to treat a few trees here and there, you know, not saying you can't cut a couple of trees in your property, it's just it should be you need permission from the tree board and if you're planning to cut more than x number of trees in your property. What's Claude say about that? I think that came up when I used, I used Claudette too, so I didn't ask that specific [46:27] Speaker B (unidentified): question, but I will. I'm kind of curious if like that's a normal thing to kind of regulate how [46:32] Lucia: how much you can cut. I did find out in one of the places on non-shoreland, right, because [46:40] Speaker B (unidentified): sometimes actually cutting in forestry, when you're cutting trees, that's actually part of tree maintenance is to clear, is the clear cut is actually a is a approved tree conservation [46:56] Lucia: practice. So there's a place in New Jersey that says it had his ordinance to make it unlawful to remove trees, a separate violation aimed at deterring clear cutting, the record size of two thousand dollars as an illustrated penalty per tree and more clear cutting. I think a better [47:16] Speaker B (unidentified): way to go about it is you say you need to have a forestry plan, okay, something like that, and then if it's over a certain amount of area you would have to, it would have to be approved by the board or something, you know, something like that, because if you make it well there is a law in the state [47:35] Speaker G (unidentified): state of maine against clear cutting but i don't know if it only applies to certain i don't think there's any real law against yeah no there is the it's very it's very it's easy to comply with it because you're allowed to leave like a tree every you know 20 feet or something I don't remember what it is. I'll just, I'll see if I can find it. [47:59] Speaker B (unidentified): But I mean, I'm just thinking of this from a, from a, you're presenting this to the select board, right? For an ordinance. You want it to, you want it to not get thrown out with something really that's maybe they, think is not appropriate. So it needs to be somewhat reasonable, but not overarching. [48:23] Lucia: overarching well but I mean I want to take into consideration that the cost of the town has been putting into planting trees and taking care of these streets this is private property oh that's [48:33] Speaker B (unidentified): true this is what this is see if you I think you need to I think if it was me I wouldn't keep I wouldn't have them together first of all okay because then if one doesn't is it successful [48:44] Speaker E (unidentified): you don't get the other one okay all right so suburban tree ordinances are common in fast growing areas such as blah these more often protect individual trees above a certain trunk size require replacement plantings or set minimum canopy retention targets that cap clearing as a flat percentage so i mean it's not unheard of for i is that it seems like it would need to be in some sort of contained area i don't think it can be in all of camden i think if you a rural lot in camden i'm not sure i don't know that's why i said like a forestry plan because [49:23] Lucia: that'll say we're going to put that on they're going to be private property stuff on heartbeat [49:27] Speaker G (unidentified): so if anybody's interested revisit after the first part the clear cutting rule law in maine is that a clear cut of any is any timber harvesting site greater than five acres that leaves a residual basal area of trees over five inches diameter of less than 30 square feet per acre, unless it meets specific young tree regeneration height standards. So I guess it only applies to five acres or more. [49:57] Speaker E (unidentified): But does that apply to homeowners, like landowners that said tree harvesting? I'm just wondering if that definitionally means tree harvesting for sale versus- [50:09] Speaker G (unidentified): I think that's absolute. loot it's just any five acres and no single clear cut may exceed 250 acres but [50:25] Lucia: I mean, like, there was one of the ones I was looking at. Find, oh, the other thing I was gonna say, I think there should be a separate category of a hair and a separate fine thing for heritage trees. So once the heritage trees are defined and labeled, and I was thinking of heritage trees should, like, my brother has a heritage tree in his property in Wellesley, and they have this, like, little tag on it that finds it. So, like, the tree is getting so big it was pulling up the driveway, so they wanted to they basically just said they moved the driveway, you know, because the driver was, like, rising up like that. They said, let's take this pavement up and take the part of that line and using a driveway move the light driveway over, like, couldn't touch the tree because it's pretty huge, but it's funny, it's just massive trees. It's like, it's like from here, and they have had a small house, yes, but they just kind of said move the driveway, okay. So, but maybe some on heritage trees we could get some of those little things to indicate it isn't that was what they wanted to do [51:27] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, I think that's part of her plan for sure. Yeah, give them a [51:31] Speaker G (unidentified): certificate, but they would say you can, you can clear trees for residential yard driveway right [51:37] Lucia: away or hazard removal if it's less than two acres, and California pruning or cut removing a heritage tree can be up to thirty thousand dollars, from ten thousand to thirty thousand dollars, three hundred thousand dollars, depend on the size and everything like that. I like that [52:01] Speaker E (unidentified): I like it, and I, oh man, it kills me, it kills me to think that we could you give that fine to someone who makes 21 000. Don't kill it, don't take it down. I know, but is [52:13] Lucia: that just don't take it down. If you don't have the money to pay the fine, then don't do it, leave [52:18] Speaker G (unidentified): it. Well, maybe they're worried that's gonna land on their house. Is that what you're thinking? I just I [52:24] Lucia: this is heritage trees are largely on street properties, not completely, but oh I [52:34] Speaker B (unidentified): I know somebody that's going to blow a gasket. It's very problematic that has a heritage tree. They don't want any rules on it because they want to be able to cut it down [52:45] Speaker C (unidentified): if they want to be able to cut it down. What's the street? [52:50] Speaker B (unidentified): No, it's on Elm Street. [52:54] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, so what is the process? Let's say the homeowner at the time of nomination has to approve it, I think. I think I believe that was on Kathleen's thing. Yeah, oh well, that would take, I mean, I'm [53:09] Speaker G (unidentified): sure it would have to be legally if you're planning, if you're making rules about it and [53:15] Lucia: it's on their property but if it's on town property no right correct well it can be their [53:24] Speaker G (unidentified): property and still be in the town right away that's so that's great gray area right no i know [53:30] Lucia: like i know one trick one tree that i was going to nominate isn't on town property it's on private property but still pretty amazing tree and like the one on c street that's amazing that amazing actually that's not on top property but they want to reserve it so yes so you could nominate [53:47] Speaker D (unidentified): the tree but the property owner assuming it's on private property would have to approve it yeah [53:55] Speaker G (unidentified): because if they ever we're going to write it up you know like put in a little book and stuff and people are gonna be coming and hocking at it. So you have to be on board with that. And probably there's a little story to a lot of them. That's part of the designations. If it's a tree that has a good story or a tree that has aesthetics. [54:23] Lucia: Okay, the other thing is one of the things we're supposed to talk about was priorities for the street tree program, which a bunch of trees got put up in the last month and we still need more people to go out and solicit people to do it and this little blurb here is what he wrote up it's I think it's decent I don't know people are better at proofreading if they want to like see if there's anything we're missing if we want to read who [54:50] Speaker D (unidentified): wrote this up baby oh okay did she do this little drawing too yeah that's delightful but [55:06] Lucia: every i was you know she's repeatedly sent this email that she sent recently did you guys all get it i think that's the third or fourth time i've seen it but more or less the same thing but it's just not really accurate anymore you know i she must have run into something at some point but i think most people have been really enthusiastic about it especially as we're getting hotter summers and i just think there's a difference with climate change and everything people are more realistic about the value of trees you know i don't know [55:36] Speaker B (unidentified): depending on you guys feel that way i just got a text message you want to know what it's hey this is dave cutler with lucas tree working on that dead pine adjacent with the hollow base would you like to put that on the ground too [55:52] Speaker G (unidentified): where yes it's dead it's right now well i don't know dead trees are valuable too [56:01] Speaker B (unidentified): dead trees have value too yeah for animals and stuff yeah big time i know but this one's like leaning we got the right on the on the part their power lines wow sometimes they have to go the power lines [56:16] Speaker F (unidentified): I love it Dave. Did you have more streets than you wanted us to go? [56:25] Speaker B (unidentified): Well this is it, this is the final push, so I've got, I planted 11, I've got about 20 trees planted, maybe a little bit, 20. Yeah, it's really not that bad considering how busy we've been. [56:42] Speaker C (unidentified): But do you have any more that need to be planted? Barb just showed me five on Park Street. [56:50] Speaker B (unidentified): And if you could give me spots, yeah, okay, spots, and then I've got a list of people that want [56:57] Speaker C (unidentified): some trees that aren't in the app. We get five on Harden Avenue and I'm gonna, I really like [57:04] Speaker B (unidentified): another one if that box is gone, it's not gone yet, it might not be until like, I'll just, we'll [57:11] Lucia: wait, yeah, on that, wait next year, five spots on Harden or we planted five trees planted on bottom, yes, and there's five spots on Park Street, and I want to work on someone's Spring Street if you want to go with me, the other side of Spring Street, a lot of trees went down, it's not hard, really, did you guys see, you guys more or less familiar with the app? [57:36] Speaker D (unidentified): I've done the app before but it's been a couple years, it was during one of the [57:41] Lucia: Allison trainings. The key thing, the key thing I found I was doing wrong is when you, when you open the, when you open the app and you know you get to a tree and you remark it, yeah, the key thing is to hit the thing, it so then it tells you talk to the owner, we have got, gave consent, give con, consent, you could add a photograph, photo with spots, oh yeah, I remember [58:06] Speaker B (unidentified): that. So if you're on like the main app, like when you open it up it says notes and then it says contacted homeowner, yeah, you can't click it, you can't, unless you hit it, you have to hit edit it and then go in and they say, and that says yes or no contact an owner, and if you hit yes I think it turns the thing right around it, that means it's good to go, okay, so like there's ones that have just the little, the little star that's blue, that means no one's checked with a homeowner or anything yet, there's the potential for a tree, it could be a tree there, that's what that means, so [58:42] Lucia: if you, if you want to do it like open the app and look at Pearl Street, let's say, or somewhere, you neighborhood, cross streets, done well, or any other, yeah, any other streets near like within walking distance of your house, and you can look for ones that have a little blue star, and then you can just go there and see if anything's planted, and if not you just knock on the door and give one of these, I 'm going to see if I, if you guys don't like this I'll have something against the town office to print. Them out and print them up on something like green paper or something like that, and then we can all have a handful to delete. It is that accurate? Kendall's the one to call. [59:15] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah, dude is. [59:22] Speaker E (unidentified): Is this, did she type this up herself? I hate this so much though because [59:28] Speaker B (unidentified): then she calls Kendall and Kendall gives me the sheet and then it's like going through that whole [59:32] Speaker H (unidentified): thing again. She just called, so what do you want? The better me? Well, it's, it's, it's not a big deal, [59:36] Speaker B (unidentified): but I can go out and then I gotta go in, I gotta check with the homeowner, I gotta pick up the spot. [59:41] Lucia: But then if they call Kendall, they'll send it to me. Yeah. [59:44] Speaker B (unidentified): I mean, it's getting away from like the whole idea of like you guys managing where everything goes. Well, when we, when we have them call them, we can. It's, but it's, but it's right. But it sounds kind of petty because I'm like, doesn't sound petty. [59:59] Speaker H (unidentified): Doesn't sound petty. It sounds petty to me. [1:00:01] Speaker B (unidentified): I feel like I'm being a little bit like nobody. [1:00:03] Lucia: But if Joe Schmoe calls Kendall says, oh, I don't know. Schmo on Elm Street wants a tree, and then she can call me. I'll say, I'll say, oh great, can we cut [1:00:12] Speaker F (unidentified): out the middle person and just have them call you? Well, yeah, I think calling Kendall makes sense. I [1:00:17] Lucia: it's just that, yeah, who knows what if, what if I get hit by a truck or something? I don't know. [1:00:21] Speaker D (unidentified): You know, it's like if Oprah calls, that's sorry, that's that, go ahead, just call me and I'll put in the app, so don't worry. Oh wait, look, it's Oprah, it's the, it's the, it's the alternative that has been suggested to me sometimes when I've been like, what if I get hit by a bus? Someone's like, what? Oh, what if something good happens is what they're trying to say. Oh, I just saw, I was, I was [1:00:48] Lucia: remembering that, I, yeah, anyway, well, it's just, I think the idea was that it's just if initially it was Rebecca and then it was Kathleen. No, I thought it was just, yes, I hear you, yes, I keep it right town off, she works in this half of the town and it is the public work, but Kendall could easily call me, she has myself, or you could say, I don't think she's Kendall's [1:01:08] Speaker C (unidentified): going to be getting 300 calls a day about this. No, but you could also just not put a name in there [1:01:13] Speaker H (unidentified): too and just say call for sure. Okay, so that's called public works, because then if Kendall's [1:01:18] Speaker F (unidentified): not there, you know, because Kendall may not be there forever either. I love that. Should we [1:01:25] Speaker E (unidentified): Is there an email, a different email that you would like it sent to if people prefer email? [1:01:30] Speaker B (unidentified): A general? No, that's getting into a person's email. We'll just do an email. Everyone has a phone. [1:01:36] Lucia: Wait, what? Everyone has a phone. Okay, so we'll take, let me just do this right here. [1:01:41] Speaker B (unidentified): Oh, I see what you're saying. Because it has Kendall's email? Yes. Just leave it like that then. Just leave it there. And if we have to change it, we'll change it. You're right. People probably do need the email. [1:01:52] Speaker F (unidentified): This needs to be printed up too. [1:01:54] Speaker B (unidentified): You know, there's people out there that don't like these. There's some edits. [1:01:56] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay, let's check. [1:01:58] Speaker G (unidentified): There are people that don't like these. [1:02:01] Speaker F (unidentified): Did you put this together? I'm confused how she did it. [1:02:05] Lucia: This is like old. [1:02:07] Speaker E (unidentified): She gave this to me when I visited and I went and had tea with her. Delightful creatures. And then, not Rebecca. [1:02:17] Speaker H (unidentified): Pam. Picture her when you put it in here. Pam. Hi, Pam. [1:02:22] Speaker E (unidentified): Was watching the panel where we were talking about this and she had the she had the computer copy she had the hard the file the whatever so she then also sent this to me already typed up so I have it as a pages document and we can edit this. Oh, perfect. Yeah, because I think like here let's see I [1:02:48] Speaker B (unidentified): think this is fine and [1:02:58] Lucia: you know one thing that we didn't talk about because we didn't have it on here but I was wondering if any of you guys have any input on the draft of the mission statement for the conservation commission. What's not on the agenda but I'm just putting it there. Oh, I thought he asked us to. Well, he sent it to us because I asked him about it but it's not on the agenda. Okay, so yeah, I really [1:03:22] Speaker G (unidentified): was interested in hearing what other people [1:03:26] Speaker E (unidentified): I missed that. What did you print? Brian was trying to revise the mission statement. Yeah, he did attach it. Yes, right. I was wondering if what [1:03:36] Lucia: people if people had any other thoughts on that. So too many things up mission statement. [1:03:46] Speaker G (unidentified): I'm going to take a moment. I thought we could fiddle with the order of those, the list. We're going to keep everything on it. Agenda, mission statement, I mean that the item advise town boards and committees on environmental impacts, that it's just like sort of it doesn't really tell me [1:04:13] Speaker B (unidentified): advise towns and boards and committees impacts I [1:04:21] Speaker D (unidentified): think it just so I'm curious what we have now. [1:04:23] Lucia: No, well, that is on the current one we have. [1:04:28] Speaker B (unidentified): How about would it just reorganizing how the words are, would that change how you feel about it? [1:04:36] Speaker G (unidentified): Well, it just seems so vague in general. [1:04:41] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, can I read what we have now? Yeah. Yes. The purpose of the Camden Conservation Commission is to serve as a research advisory and advocacy group on environmental and conservation issues relating to the town. So this is more specific than that. So for to replace that first bullet I assume so, because that's the only thing on our page that says anything about what we do. So where did you get, you say it one more time? Yeah, where [1:05:12] Speaker B (unidentified): did you get that? 'S ours now. Yeah. So why did he change it to this? I think it should be more [1:05:18] Speaker E (unidentified): specific. I'll read it one more time. The purpose of the Camden Conservation Commission is to serve as a research advisory and advocacy group on environmental and conservation issues relating [1:05:29] Lucia: to the town i'd like to have something about like to protect to serve for generations to come stuff like that like to be more future thinking because like part of to me that's like the whole dam removal and stuff like that you know that's not just for to reduce the cost of this decrepit dam but it was like to what make the town a better place for generations to come even though some people could care less about future generations because a few of them said that i think more people think that 's how I, you know, and I just, I'd like to have something like that. I think so generations down the road people say those people in the 20s, in the 20s for so long [1:06:16] Speaker D (unidentified): in the 20s. Oh yeah. Oh, that's a weird thing to think about, this being the 20s. [1:06:23] Speaker B (unidentified): So what do you not like about the way, the way that first part's worded? Is it 's not specific [1:06:30] Speaker G (unidentified): enough? Is that what you were saying? Yeah. Okay. I mean, what is the context on environmental impact? I mean, we might know what that means, but I don't know, I don't actually know what that means. [1:06:45] Speaker D (unidentified): So I mean, to just consider as we talk about this is, I think like a year and a half ago I submitted some changes for the website and noticed that the mission statement had been updated, like the language had been changed, and I asked Holly about it, and she had changed it on her own, and when I, she had, yes, and when I provided some feedback about how we might feel about that, it seemed like I [1:07:28] Speaker F (unidentified): don't know how to say this, you don't, you don't change your mission [1:07:30] Speaker D (unidentified): statement. That's how I felt. But we would probably consult with her ahead of making of getting too deep down a path of like what we think the language [1:07:44] Speaker B (unidentified): should be. I don't, I don't think Holly really probably is gonna should be like, if you guys come up with a mission statement of your committee, yep, I agree. [1:07:59] Speaker G (unidentified): I agree with you. So is that, is it the part of, I'm telling you what happened is the web, so the website you're talking about, it's the town website, and like, so she's in charge of the page, right? I [1:08:11] Speaker E (unidentified): mean the website, yeah, you have the language of what you were, we tried to update it to [1:08:18] Speaker D (unidentified): a year and a half ago, I think it was more website changes, and through that, through that process, I like, because she went through and she did a ton of work, like updating a lot of the communication on the website, and godspeed, it was a no small project, so props, and as part of that, I think she went through and started updating the language on each board, and yeah, that's not, so I, she was trying to help, I can hear, I 100 agree with you, I think she wanted to make, I forget what she said, but it was like making it more accessible, modernizing the language, all things that make sense to me, and also it felt a little bit like clarification of whose role it was to do that could be helpful, and I brought it up, but we were doing other things, including I think the poetry thing [1:09:15] Speaker B (unidentified): about something like serve as a technical resource for town decision makers to evaluate natural resources impacts, support climate resilience, and promote sustainable, where'd that come from? I'm not gonna say [1:09:34] Speaker D (unidentified): your AI is showing [1:09:38] Speaker B (unidentified): I'm just, I'm just throwing it out there, because I put in what we had, I said what we're trying [1:09:43] Speaker H (unidentified): to do, yeah, and I, and I just want to see what it would say, well, I mean, I think climate change and [1:09:48] Lucia: and sea rise, sea level rise should be, are such big pieces of what we're dealing with, and they [1:09:54] Speaker C (unidentified): should be somehow incorporated in there, yes, yeah, so let's listen to this one, provide technical [1:10:03] Speaker B (unidentified): analysis and actionable guidance to town boards and committees and departments on local environmental, ecological, natural resource impacts, can we promise technical analysis? Yeah, no [Speaker C (unidentified): developed] science-based recommendations from municipal boards [1:10:25] Speaker E (unidentified): I'm just saying I like what Brian did, I did too, I like it now, I don't mind making it like a little more specific, or adding, you know, changing, I don't, I just, I don't know that we need to reinvent his [1:10:37] Lucia: wheel is my take, I would just, the two, I would just like to see something more mentioning climate [1:10:43] Speaker C (unidentified): change and sea level okay in there somehow, but maybe that goes somewhere else, why don't we go [1:10:47] Speaker G (unidentified): through all of them, well, it does say research emerging environmental threats, right, okay, we [1:10:54] Speaker D (unidentified): Could also say including global warming. I like that because we don't necessarily know what future threats will look like, right? And we want to have a large bucket to collect those, right? But we don't. [1:11:05] Speaker G (unidentified): But we want to, we want to hold ourselves to thinking about global warming too, so you don't. [1:11:13] Speaker D (unidentified): Want to put in global warming or do? Oh no, I'm just showing examples. Is a great idea. I just also liked keeping it open-ended as well. Yeah, as well. Emerging environmental threats like including. [1:11:26] Lucia: Including C-level. Yeah. [1:11:31] Speaker E (unidentified): All right, you're tracking changes over there, Barb? A little bit, yes. [1:11:39] Speaker G (unidentified): Now, we advise town board. Okay, advising town boards and committees on environmental impacts. Does that imply that they've asked us to? [1:11:50] Lucia: No, but not really. Well, sort of. I mean, well, were you paying attention to this whole pier moratorium thing? Yeah, so if you, if either of you guys weren't really, so the select board, this is when we first restarted the conservation commission, the select board asked the harbor committee to update the peer ordinance, and at the time the people on the harbor committee it came up back with recommendations, and at the time people on the harbor committee who used to be very environmentally conscientious and make all the decisions based on what's best for the environment of the harbor, the coastline, we had. Switched to basically what's best for people who live on the harbor, and so their recommended peer ordinance was to lengthen peers, raise peers, add more peers, blah, all things was what the people who lived on the harbor and wanted peers wanted, and it turns out, you know, those peers one are on public land, when that big storm we had in December a couple years ago, back to back, one of the brand new peers gone and other peers went, and then what was left to the town to clean them up, and they're, they. Damaged because by the shading out what's underneath them, you know, shades out the eel grass and other things which are detrimental to the fragile environment. There's a lot of reasons not to do a lot of those things, and so because it came to our attention via the select board liaison we had at the time, that's like this was the recommendations, and everyone's like, what? So we came up with our own recommendations and brought in some experts too from the state and presented to the select board and in. The end, they went with what we decided. Yeah, so, you know, and it was pretty interesting. And we, some of those, in fact, if you go to, you can make town of Camden YouTube page. On the front page of the, town of Camden things, one of the first videos has been up there for a long time is, it's, if you click on videos, one of the first ones, nope, that's not there anymore. But one, there was one there by, I can send you a link to it because it was really interesting. It talked, had Jeremy put it together and had this woman who gets a short presentation on the important eelgrass, really interesting. And someone else who did something on how like anchors and stuff like that in the harbor and all kinds of stuff. It was very interesting. And so it's there for someday you have a rainy day and you're just sitting around knitting, you might want to watch that because it was fascinating. And we reached a lot of information from that [1:14:39] Speaker C (unidentified): Zoom discussion. Yeah, to make base our recommendations on. You guys have a lot [1:14:46] Speaker B (unidentified): more authority than just a committee because your commission i think is that's there's a difference and you don't always recognize it but because you 're in the committee but or the commission but the other departments and the select board do, I think, more of this group than you probably realize. [1:15:09] Lucia: Actually, we went to the planning board too, and they were the ones who said, thank you for bringing this to our attention. And like, we didn't realize this. And so then they came on board with what we were recommending as well, as opposed to just over stamping what the Harvard committee wanted. And over the next following year, I've got several other people on the Harvard committee who were really mad that their recommendations weren't adhered to left. And so now it's a little bit more balanced between people who like want to protect the harbor and people who want to build up the harbor. Interesting. So, you know, because committees have these kind of like [1:15:43] Speaker G (unidentified): you know, so that's my understanding. Okay, I feel, I feel more comfortable than now at this point fiddling with the words just a little and like we can all do [1:15:56] Speaker E (unidentified): and yeah, we can do that by email then. Yeah, around some ideas, make one email chain about [1:16:01] Lucia: suggested changes to the, those tweaks to the, I have, I have the email from Holly too if [1:16:10] Speaker D (unidentified): It's pretty long with and I don't, I don't mean that. I just mean like there's a lot of guidance here about why she changed it. Oh, she says it's not, she says the CCC webpage is not a legal document. There are legal documents accessible on the town's website, but the site and its pages are not governed by state law or the Select Board. In working to make all the pages as consistent as possible for those searching for information, I am also working to make the language consistent, the headings, font sizes, etc. This helps the reader. I'm also weeding out legal language where it's not needed and converting words and information to plain language. The reader wants to know what you do in a descriptive way that they can fully understand. And to that end, I think the CCC's mission could be enhanced to become a role or responsibility or reason for being, informed that describes even more what you do and what you strive to do. Let people know the kinds of things you all are watching, looking for, and hoping to help within the community. Think about how you can involve others who might say, hey, what's going on with this thing over here? Would you look into it? The CR Pathways Committee's page included their legal mission statement at 1.2, and I edited it to be informative. It could use more, but it's a start and a work in progress, check it out. If you guys wanna write something up like that, the CCC page would be more informative. In fact, the page has plenty of room for more content, so don't feel you have to keep it to [1:17:49] Speaker G (unidentified): one sentence and then she goes on but okay was his was his was his intent in drafting this to be the that this would be the wording on the town website because like i can understand what she can't be saying that we aren't allowed to have a mission statement of our own no i don't think that 's what she's saying she's just saying for the purposes of the website to make [1:18:14] Speaker D (unidentified): it clear to people. Yes, but in doing so, in doing so, the, my understanding is that the actual mission, I mean, we don't have more than one mission statement, right? We have one mission statement. That's what was on the website. That's what was edited. Well, you wouldn't call the website [1:18:30] Speaker E (unidentified): pathways to give you a sense of what she's like. So I think she, maybe we can convert that into to more of just like a paragraph form. Yeah, okay. So established in 2000 by the Camden and Rockport select boards, the Camden Rockport Pathways Committee was formed to develop and make recommendations to enhance bicycle, pedestrian transportation and quality of life opportunities, reducing major traffic congestion and mitigating environmental pollution and parking problems, while also strengthening the quote vitality of the village centers. Further the Pathway Committee, new paragraph, further the Pathway Committee's roles and responsibilities include exploring and recommending bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure to complement traffic calming, Smart Growth, Highway access management and land use planning both locally and regionally. [1:19:22] Speaker G (unidentified): So wordiness is not a problem for her. Yes, yeah. Well we can write pros, but I don't actually know how the Kim Conservation Commission was formed initially, like that's what she's talking [1:19:36] Lucia: about, different but origin story. Years ago the Conservation Commission's one of their things was getting that plastic bag ban in town, one of the things they did. So we don't really need to know that because it's irrelevant. I know, but like that was important to that group at that time. I'm [1:19:55] Speaker G (unidentified): no, I'm trying to figure out what she would think was constructive. Yeah, oh yeah, oh I just [1:20:01] Lucia: thought you meant. Yeah, no, okay. So like what's, what are you guys doing, what's important [1:20:06] Speaker D (unidentified): to you right now? Yeah, to me that's like whatever. We could also tell her here's what we're thinking, here's what's valuable to us, can you help, can you put something together and we will tweak it and then go back and forth and we can say if you think there should be history on here, why don't you let us know what that is since we don't know it, and you know we can [1:20:28] Lucia: collaborate. I don't know, what do you think? We've always been strong on trees and being a tree [1:20:33] Speaker D (unidentified): city, so that's important. Yeah, so we could say we're really strong on trees, tree cities like a big deal, you know, like that's like a main priority. Yeah, and then we could just basically like come up with what we want to be in there and then she seems to have an idea of what is good for the website, she can tweak it to fit into [1:20:58] Speaker G (unidentified): that template. I don't know, let me take a stab at putting what Brian said in paragraph form, circulated. Thank You Cynthia, your responsibilities are sure [1:21:12] Speaker H (unidentified): sure, so that might be kind of like a good place to and where is that made the [1:21:19] Speaker B (unidentified): Well, so I asked AI to check the ordinance under what your responsibilities are. Oh, so if [1:21:25] Speaker E (unidentified): you're already in AI, then tell it to distill it into two paragraphs, 14 sentences. Wait, there's a [1:21:36] Speaker B (unidentified): that's very short. I mean, it just says because you guys have actually, you have a certain [1:21:46] Speaker G (unidentified): amount of like authority. Wait, who established who, what is this reading from? This is, this is what [1:21:53] Speaker B (unidentified): AI is saying your responsibility is based on the town's charter. Oh, okay, so there's a town ordinance [1:22:00] Speaker G (unidentified): establishing the conservation commission, what your responsibilities are as the conservation Commission. Hmm, okay, what's the, does it cite it like by numbers? So I mean, that's [1:22:14] Speaker B (unidentified): all right, so this is what it says, primary duties under ordinance and statute says research and inventory, conduct studies and inventory local land areas, watershed, coastal resources, wetlands, and open space in conjunction with the Planning Board, main state legislature. Oh my god, we don't do that at all. No, that's why I was like, that's always good to look at the ordinance to see what the actual ordinance really saying your responsibilities are. Well, this is what it's, it just cites that in the [1:22:50] Speaker G (unidentified): of air right here, okay, title 30 section three two six one conservation commissions. Okay, so that's, that's what a conservation commission is in the state of may. Okay, so advisory role to municipal [1:23:03] Speaker B (unidentified): boards, review and advise the select board, planning board, and town planner or environmental on environmental impacts of proposed land use development ordinances updates and climate and climate resiliency initiatives. Record keeping and annual reporting, keep detailed records of all meetings and submit, blah,. Coordination, coordinate activities with private, state, and local conservation groups, land trust, watershed, social, blah,, blah. Powers granted under the local and state provisions. Public power oversights, but that's state. So, that's state. You have key focus areas in Camden watershed protection, monitor and advocating for water quality policies across Camden's major watersheds like the kind of lake, coastal harbor areas, shade tree and park stewardship, collaborating with urban forestry, invasive species management, public trail maintenance, cross town home conservation parcels, climate resiliency, accessing sea level rise or accessing sea level rise, coastal erosion and stormwater runoff mitigation to update local developments to update but I mean maybe what we should do is just like pull the ordinance. I have, I think the ordinance [1:24:36] Speaker E (unidentified): Ordinance here from our from the code, so and it's not an ordinance, is a local thing like, yeah. [1:24:42] Speaker G (unidentified): Statute is a state thing, right, so there's two, but I think state statutes to conservation, I [1:24:48] Speaker B (unidentified): think that I think they're and I don't know the answer to this, but I think that the conservation commission has like more authority because of the state statute. Oh yeah, that's why everybody thinks, right, yeah, it's like a little bit more to a commission, yeah, okay, and I'm not the right person, I just know that there's something to do with that piece of it. [1:25:12] Speaker E (unidentified): I didn't know that, all right, I'm gonna send the code, you're not just like a regular committee, [1:25:18] Speaker B (unidentified): you have a little bit more of like scope and authority than that's why I think that we should [1:25:25] Speaker G (unidentified): have swag, we should have swag, and you found us, you found a local ordinance, yes, if you go to [1:25:33] Speaker B (unidentified): the town charter, I can pull that up. [1:25:37] Speaker G (unidentified): Charter conservation [1:25:47] Speaker F (unidentified): commission, not helpful, so [1:26:03] Speaker B (unidentified): canon [1:26:04] Speaker E (unidentified): code of ordinances here, yeah, the document I have is there's like the charter and the code are separate sections, and conservation commission stuff is under the code chapter [1:26:22] Speaker B (unidentified): 51, right, yes, yeah, so chapter 51 conservation commission adopted by the town of Camden six eight 1999, mm-hmm, amendments no to were applicable, purpose, probably that one, right, purpose of camera conservation a commission, she'll serve as a research advisory and advocacy group on environmental and conservation issues related to the town, is that which that's pretty much the first time, right, I [1:26:55] Speaker E (unidentified): think, say it [1:26:57] Speaker G (unidentified): again, the purpose of the hold on, research advisory and advocacy, yeah, research advisory and advocacy [1:27:04] Speaker E (unidentified): group, that's what was on there, on environmental and conservation issues, so she took that right [1:27:08] Speaker B (unidentified): out of the code, so that's where she got that from, yeah, so qualifications, all members, there's some knowledge, interest, concert, powers and duties, she'll keep records of its meaning, so conduct research in conjunction with the planning board and local land area, shall seek to coordinate the activities of the conservation bodies organized for similar purposes, that's supposed to be, oh, that's the thing you want me to go to, maybe an index for all may keep, whether publicly or privately owned, including open marshlands swamps and other wetlands for the purpose of obtaining information related to the proper protection development or use of those open areas the commission may recommend to the board of selectmen or to any board of the town or to any body politic or public agency of the state a program for the better protection development or use of such open areas which may include the acquisition of conservation easements may advertise prepare print and distribute books maps charts plans pamphlets which it considers necessary if municipal appropriations provide financial resources to do so she'll undertake any conservation i think she changed it back i have a screenshot i want to take any other conservation environmental activity referred to by the boards that just [1:28:47] Speaker D (unidentified): happened. She was listening, so that's what it was, that's what it was, that's, and I was like [1:28:54] Speaker F (unidentified): acceptance of gifts, and maybe she did, yeah, so okay, so [1:29:03] Speaker D (unidentified): that's why it reflects, she'll carry out [1:29:05] Speaker B (unidentified): the guidelines in the community forest management plan approved by the board of selectmen. [1:29:13] Speaker G (unidentified): What's that, Camden community forest management plan, that's that thing that means [1:29:19] Speaker B (unidentified): probably it was what needs to be updated, is that, no idea what that is, but that's the, so it says here [1:29:27] Speaker C (unidentified): these big notebooks of stuff, who knows where those are, Janice has the binder in her office [1:29:32] Speaker B (unidentified): I think, and that's the approve, that's the forest management plan approved by the board of selectmen. Wow, and we're supposed to be managing it, says shall carry out the guidelines in the Camden community forest management plan approved by the board of selectmen. Where are you [1:29:53] Speaker D (unidentified): getting, and that's in the charter, that's in the, okay then [1:30:00] Speaker B (unidentified): it should be kept in each meaning limits of authority, nothing contained within the section shall [1:30:06] Speaker F (unidentified): supersede the provisions of the town Charter or the code book, yeah, in a way [1:30:21] Speaker E (unidentified): there's been no shortage of things to talk about. Oh I'm sure, where would you like, anywhere your heart desires, that's good, that's the secrets right there. Thank you for coming, I'm Barb, Cynthia, Molly, and Sam, thank [1:30:51] Lucia: you, nice meeting you, I'm Lucia. [1:30:53] Speaker E (unidentified): Yes, so Lucia's on the planning board, welcome, thank you, and Brian, we had discussed last time, yeah, bringing her here to like talk about, yeah, I know it's pretty important. [1:31:10] Speaker B (unidentified): Maybe I'm just curious, like what do you think the Camden Conservation Commission's like [1:31:16] Speaker F (unidentified): scope is, when you, from your perspective, so that's a good question, yeah, it's a very good [Lucia: Good question. So,...] We're [1:31:27] Speaker B (unidentified): Working on that right now, and it's good to get like somebody's perspective of what we do or what they do. [1:31:33] Speaker F (unidentified): Right. From your point of view. [1:31:36] Lucia: So I would imagine that your interests lie in lots of different places, but mostly conserving environmentally, and a lot to do with the harbor, and I have to tell you tell you sort of put me on the spot I'm trying to remember I know I read when I first got your I was reading a little bit about it but it's not a test yeah but I think I think mostly you know water issues you deal with a lot of different issues, but mostly water issues, mostly how things are affected in the town as far as any construction or anything like that, making sure that there are no adverse effects on whether it's water quality, air quality, I guess I'm not sure to what extent that goes, but the various streams, habitats that are in and around town. But I'm sure you deal with a lot of other nuance items that I'm not even familiar with. I know right now we're looking at a moratorium for seawall construction. And so I would imagine that's something that you have a huge interest in. When we were looking at a moratorium for piers, that's something that you would have an interest in. We do a lot of different development. There was one, the Nordhavn, that has stream effects and various other things. I mean there's lots of environmental you know possibilities with that one but also I would think that you might and this is what I'm interested in to see to what extent you deal with conservation of character you know town character I mean because conservation is not just environmental. To your extent it might be, but from my world, I come from the development architecture, there's a lot of history, historic conservation that deals with some different things, but could also possibly be some of your purview. You so I don't know you know to what extent you get involved in something like that or the historic character or just the even the environmental character I mean a lot of it has changed a lot it's not natural but to the extent that it's changed and how much of that do you want to [1:34:43] Speaker G (unidentified): Preserve. Okay, and so how long have you been on the couple of years? Okay, and so what comes to mind as far as the Conservation Commission's role vis-a-vis planning board decision-making? Yeah. But you primarily have in mind that we might want to give input on things that are having an impact on the waterfront here, the streams there. So what kind of activity do you expect from, like what's your idea of what the conservation commission can help you with so [1:35:27] Speaker E (unidentified): Can I interrupt briefly to answer your question you kind of asked at the end there? I think we are really environmentally focused and okay I don't see any historical precedent nor any particular except heritage personal interests. Yeah, heritage trees, yes, so like in environmental character, yes, architectural character and all of that, I think not, we're not going to be into like building [1:35:52] Lucia: Also talking about site development, yes, so in my mind I there is a lot of crossover, you know, because when you when you talk about some of the conservation features or environmental conservation and urban or built, you know, environment a lot of that crosses over. I mean, there, you know, in many ways, you know, an ecology is created by how things are developed, et cetera. And then you've got a new, you know, thing to either conserve or not. And so I think there is crossover. Over, I also think that there are ways to conserve by building respectfully or you know focusing building in different ways for example, and this is where it would be really nice to get a sense from the conservation commission on how you see different development sites. For example, we have the one on Elm Street happening now, which is right across from Rennie's. Right. And so there is there are some wetlands back there. But I don't know what the history of those connecting to and affecting runoff down to the harbor is and or you know are they quality wetlands is this something that you know if it's not a high quality wetland should it become a nice feature in the neighborhood? Or is it necessary to preserve it exactly? I mean, I think there are many towns that I've worked in that have utilized ecological preservation in a way that also becomes a really nice feature. And I think particularly in neighborhoods and development areas where people are required to manage runoff on the same parcel and then you know they're taught how to create like swamp gardens or those kinds of things and many times they're along the roadside and they become features of the neighborhood so I think you know I don't know how to what extent the Conservation Commission has actually looked at things like that? Because I know we have a lot of natural features around here. We have a lot of nature. So you're trying to preserve that, but then to the extent that some of that is developed, how can you make that live in both worlds? One thing you didn't mention, but do you think we do, which is mostly on tech but we have a big part of what we do is trees okay preserving trees are there healthy and adding trees street trees to keep shading the roads and yes and it's [1:39:24] Speaker G (unidentified): trees along waterways, okay, that's great, but like I'm not aware of any particular time that the Planning Board has actually asked us to weigh in on, yeah, environmental impact, and that's a shame. [1:39:39] Speaker B (unidentified): Well, like if you read the purpose of the Conservation Commission, just so, because, right, let me just say this right now, because I think this, it says the purpose of the Conservation Commission is to be, it shall be to serve as a research, advisory, and advocacy group on environmental and conservation issues related to the town. [1:40:01] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah, so I'm just saying like, well, I bet you there's a lot of things that come across the Planning Board thing that we would have an interest in commenting on, but we don't like [1:40:11] Lucia: track the Planning Boards, right? So I guess, so have you ever been asked by the Planning Board to weigh in on something? [1:40:21] Speaker G (unidentified): I know we have weighed in on this thing. We have. [1:40:23] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, maybe Allison has asked us. [1:40:25] Lucia: Allison recommended we do that, like with the peers and stuff like that. So for example, one of the, I mean, so I've dealt with a lot of planning boards sort of on the other side of things, where working with developers, et cetera, or with the community. Community. And it has been my experience that yes, all the commissions do weigh in on, you know, on different development projects, et cetera, because they're always an interest in there. And, so this is the first place that I've been that, these kinds of things don't happen unless there's like push comes to shove. Right. How was that previously coordinated [1:41:10] Speaker E (unidentified): in places you've had a different experience? Was there like a liaison? [1:41:14] Lucia: Usually, yes, usually through the planner, usually through whoever is responsible for the, yeah, the development project, but,, you know, there were, I'm sure somewhere in the code, it required this, right? Where it might not hear. So it, you know, it's just not here [1:41:39] Speaker G (unidentified): because there is not a process right in and perhaps that's something [1:41:44] Lucia: that the Planning Board should you know I mean maybe that's something you bring to the Planning Board and say you know they're you know we need to look at zoning and perhaps there needs to be some sort of a requirement of weigh-in from different organizations in all well maybe not all planning projects but all particularly when there's changing in zoning you know when they're asking for certain changes [1:42:16] Speaker B (unidentified): etc or site plans like the site plans like there's a sign off machine on the site and one of the things they ask is does the like the fire department has to well there's a fire department there's public works there's police then there's the pathways committees yeah well my point is like that should be where it should be there should be like a check box sounds right and then you would get a copy of that and you'd be notified at that point that this is going on yeah and then you can look into it you know well I mean we right now the way [1:42:57] Speaker G (unidentified): the system that we have is that our liaison our select board liaison at their will you know tells us what is the thing that we might want to be looking at so you may not hear about everything [1:43:10] Speaker B (unidentified): but if you were on that checklist like that would be at least a way where you'd see like something coming up a lot of times it's nothing yeah it doesn't pertain to you and who's responsible [1:43:20] Speaker F (unidentified): for putting things on that checklist do you know it's more about who needs to change the checklist list I think oh yeah no that's what I mean yeah it's Jeremy okay yeah okay but I mean the [1:43:31] Lucia: two things that right off the top I had would be I mean we're interested in how new building affects the surrounding water quality and trees sure like especially short trees but the other thing we have we haven't really discussed as a committee yet but Shenley had given me something last year and I was fascinating about how the having like a lot of paved driveway space how that changes the whole water you know yes hydrology of the area and neighbors and things like that and something I'm just wanting to learn more about personally but you know and There's so many different alternatives. Sure, so these were all questions that came up on one of the one of the projects, the one across from Rennie's, and that was a that was a public meeting when we all got together, and those were questions that all came up regarding water quality and water runoff off the site, but also the street trees. And you know, in part of what I'm not clear on is if there is a there is a public right-of-way along that frontage, or let's just say along the whole frontage of Elm Street and My Street, whatever, where trees are in the public right-of-way, and trees sometimes are on the property itself, but they function as street trees. Yeah, and but if they're on the property itself, the property owner has the ability to take those down. Well, it depends, right, so the it's a street tree if like I mean what you're talking about on the sidewalk and stuff like that, which is probably going to be all changed hopefully in their future, but if this is if this is a lot and that's the road that the street the town owned, a certain number he should be able to tell you like from the middle of the road up to a specific thing, so that could go right away. That's the on pride of private property, right, so you don't have any control, you can't do that as a as a property owner, correct, but I'm saying the opposite. Yes, okay, yeah, if they're because so the so if they're in the right of way, I would think that you know that's where the conservation commission could get involved and you know say look at the quality of that tree and maybe make recommendations of if they have to take that down for any particular reason, then make recommendations for replacement. Yeah, and appropriate trees for replacement and caliper of trees for replacement, for example. I mean, to me, that would be very useful. [1:46:23] Speaker E (unidentified): I think that system kind of exists already. If a tree in the right of way is gonna come down, usually public works should be notified. By Dave's the tree warden he would have to be involved in that decision, and then it would need [1:46:35] Lucia: to be replaced, but what do you replace it with, what is recommended, so he oh okay no we have a list of yeah okay the trees we usually play plant street trees are not necessarily all native but they're all climate adaptive to this area so what will eventually be our native trees so as the climate changes. So it might be right now, not needed here, but needed in Maryland. [1:47:02] Speaker G (unidentified): How about we get notified if a tree's canopy is being used as shade tree for the, like, you know what I mean? It's a street tree in effect, even though it is on the private property. I mean, should we be able to have any, I mean, [1:47:22] Speaker E (unidentified): Regardless if it's on private property, I don't, we can be like in an advisory past story capacity. We can talk to the owner, but we would have no authority. Yeah, how many say that we got added [1:47:37] Lucia: to that checklist? How many projects are we talking about a year? Are you guys, it varies. I mean, like, so I just in this past year I became chair just by default because people moved out, but I'm fairly new to the planning board. But I would say in the time that I've been on the planning board, we've had four larger projects that would be appropriate for you to advise on. So maybe two a year. The New Haven ones, the ones that seem very concerning to lots of people. Yes, at least on this committee. And it's very interesting, because, you know, I had no idea. But, you know, from my background, one of the things that, you know, is very important to me is screening, right. And, any trees that you do lose, if there's a way to compensate for that appropriately and in the appropriate places, because then you don't want to put in a tree unit because developers have a tendency to just put in anything just to get that canopy count or whatever. But what was surprising to you? I thought you were saying no, it was surprising to me that there wasn't more input. But I didn't know that was the very first project that I started on, so I wasn't sure what the process was for that input, I think [1:49:16] Speaker E (unidentified): we need to improve that process, adding us to that checklist, just making sure we're, yeah, and I think [1:49:24] Lucia: that would be very helpful to the planning board as well. Yeah, and water quality and just various things, because there are a lot of questions though, you know, that we don't necessarily so they have expertise on or, you know, and it would be interesting to find out what the rest of the planning board thought about that. But I would imagine that they would like to have more, you know, input. It's just very helpful. And I don't know to what extent, so this is the question for you all. I don't know to what extent you get involved or listen to some of these hearings that you know the planning board has on some of these big projects, because you're obviously aware of some of these projects. Yeah, but have you followed any of them? And to what extent does one of your members actually, well, sometimes we've heard about things like almost after the fact or we're in the middle of something big, and then, oh, did you hear this, tonight there's a decision could be made on blah, [1:50:34] Speaker E (unidentified): like what? We do not have a system where someone is proactively following, and that's maybe one of the things we need to decide amongst ourselves that we decide to do. [1:50:45] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, sure. [1:50:46] Lucia: Jeremy has been sending to me and Rebecca, who is technically not on this committee anymore because her timing was too bad, and she's much more informed than I am about people who make, what's the word? [Speaker D (unidentified): DEP things,] requests to the DEP for like building or changing things on the shoreline, and Rebecca's good at like saying, you know, make sure that this native grass is here, and then she has better idea. That's her specialty. Sure. And so he has been good about that, 's usually Rebecca that gives them the information that sure [1:51:28] Speaker G (unidentified): and looking for technicalities of the show as well, yeah, very detailed [1:51:34] Lucia: because there are three projects right now that I would imagine that you would all be interested in. One is the Nordhavn, and that is at the moment per the developer on hold, well, I shouldn't say on hold, but they're going, they're working through a few things because they're adding 18 more units I think, and then of course the one on Elm Street, and then there is one on the corner of that you all probably know about, Camden and one, yeah, and that would, that one we haven't heard, you know, that's not come back to us, we did a site walk, which would be very helpful too if you know which one, if someone, it's kind of on the corner of like across from where the subway was, or like if you're at Hannaford's and you take a left and you're going to Camden, there's an intersection there, John Street's on one side, across the street, it's very good, it's called, it's called John, it's called Camden Street, yeah, it's a very strange intersection, it is, yeah, it's kind of like a, it's almost like a pepper, ridiculous, but it's just off a little bit, and I'm sorry there was [1:52:44] Speaker E (unidentified): is the Elm Street across from Rennie's, Nordhavn and Camden, Camford, okay, I thought you said great [1:52:51] Lucia: Okay great, I think those are the three developments that, you know, that we that have been brought to the planning board, let's put it that way. And so that one, that the one neck on chemistry is really, it's really wooded. I thought it was a little more open. the middle of it is open but the there's a wetland down there it crosses over a little tiny bit of rock port boundary and then it's wooded all along the edge you know and that corner is very wooded, so which you would think they would want to maintain so that for noise and privacy of the people who are gonna live there. But there are a lot of competitive, you know, issues. For example, the fire department needs a big turnaround. And so when you're putting, you know, and the slope there on the site also causes some issues of drainage and whatever. So there are multiple factors that have influence on the design, right, so whether you can keep all those trees or not is another question. Absolutely, so okay. Yes, thank you for coming. Yeah, of course, I mean this is just [1:54:24] Speaker E (unidentified): the beginning of a conversation. Yeah, no, we definitely like to be more involved in some [1:54:29] Lucia: of the things like especially, yeah, as it moves along. Yeah, is Chris Oak still going to your meetings, or he's, is he? No, well sometimes he comes, he comes to the meetings. And did the previous chair ever in involve you guys? And no, I mean, I it was a guy before, was it yes,, I remember listening in a few times on especially regarding all the peer stuff. Yeah, right, and but it was during zoom stuff mostly, yeah, but very interesting, and it would be, you know, I would love to know how you feel you would be able to, you know, help the planning board as well. I think everybody here, I know we're really short-handed, but yeah, we're down one person, and then our coach here Brian is had to go to town and yeah, and again my apologies for being today, it was it was crazy day, and for some reason I kept putting myself on Tuesday today instead of Wednesday. I had to run down to Rockland to go get some stuff, and I thought I've got enough time for this and this, and so thank you for emailing. Yeah, my husband called me and goes I didn't realize, like no, it was fine, totally fine. Okay, thank you, thank you for coming. We would like to support each other more. I've learned a lot in the last bit, and I had it, I moved [1:56:09] Speaker C (unidentified): I second