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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-04-30Town of Dryden Conservation Board Tuesday, 30 April 2013 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Dryden Town Hall 93 East Main Street, Dryden, NY 13053 1. Call to order (7:07 p.m.) - C. Smith 2. Completion of Record of Attendance by Members Present: Bob Beck, Charlie Smith, Jeremy Sherman, Bard Prentiss, Craig Schutt, Milo Richmond, Steven Bissen, Richard Ryan, Nancy Munkenbeck ex officio: Jane Nicholson (Planning Department), Anna Belcher (Planning Department), Mary Ann Sumner (Town Supervisor), Alex Lalonde (Recreation Department) Guests: Jacques Schickel, Helen Thompson, David Thompson, Kathleen Elliott 3. Review and approval of minutes from 26 March 2013 Meeting Smith inserted a part into the April minutes about the Ad Hoc Agricultural Committee, which came directly from an e-mail. Beck moved to approve the March minutes. Prentiss seconds the motion. All approve. 4. Additions to agenda? No new additions to agenda. 5. Reports and Updates (briefly, 3-5 minutes, please) a. Town Board - L. Lavine No report. b. Town Planning Board - David Weinstein No report. c. Tompkins County EMC - Steve Bissen Bissen reports that the treatments done on Dryden Lake were 100% effective. Schutt explains that the treatments killed back all the biomass, but more treatment will have to be done. Sumner expresses her concern for boat launching in Dryden Lake. She fears that the boats will spread the biomass. d. Ad Hoc Agriculture Committee - N. Munkenbeck (see also Item 6a below, under Old Business) No report. e. Other Town Boards and Commissions - Jane Nicholson No report. 6. Old business a. Status of Ad Hoc Agriculture Committee Smith states that he reviewed the minutes and gathered that the status of the Ad Hoc Agriculture Committee was not resolved at the last Conservation meeting. Beck makes a motion to disband the committee. Prentiss seconds the motion. Sherman comments that the Ad Hoc Agricultural Committee does things for more than just the town. Smith explains that the board has the benefit of having Munkenbeck, Schutt, and Ryan, without having the committee. He feels that the committee may not be necessary. Munkenbeck called the question whether to dismiss the Ad Hoc Committee with thanks to the group or to retain the committee. No members want to dismiss the committee. Five members want to retain the committee. The committee is to be retained until the end of this calendar year. Munkenbeck makes a motion to have Craig Schutt be the official Conservation Board liaison to the Agricultural Advisory Committee. Sherman seconds the motion. All approve. b. Addition of non-voting members to Conservation Board Smith thinks the resolution that Craig drafted, to add up to two non-voting members to this committee, was not sustained. There was a tie vote. The resolution is dead unless someone wants to reintroduce it as a motion in the future. Due to the full agenda tonight, Smith recommended that if someone were to reintroduce it, to do so at a later meeting. He gathered from the March minutes that there were some suggestions for editing Craig’s resolution. Smith recommends editing the resolution before reintroducing it. Schutt comments that he does not know if it is worth bring back or not. Sumner comments that she thinks it is a cool idea in terms of succession planning. She thinks one of the reasons why it was stalled is because it is different from the Zoning Board and the Planning Board. The Zoning Board and the Planning Board have legal functions that require quorums and votes. The Zoning Board has the ability to have alternates. The Conservation Board is more of a succession planning idea/recruitment idea. The process for appointing alternate members of the Planning, Zoning and Conservation Board is to serve when members are absent or unable to participate on an application or matter before the respective board. Sumner explains that she reviewed the legislation for Conservation Board, which points out that one of the board’s functions is to review any permit applications that may have conservation. Sumner explains that overall, it is unnecessary for alternates to have votes. Munkenbeck said that she and Craig got the idea for suggesting it because the Ag Board developed it. Smith recommends numbering (whereas) when editing if someone want to introduce it later. Smith explains that if calling it an associate member has the same weight as identifying an alternate member then it does have to go through a review process and the board would have to change its policies and procedures. Sumner says that if the issue is raised again that she would appreciate the direction of making a recommendation to the Town Board and giving them an opportunity to indorse it. 7. New business a. Report on status of CEA reviews by Town Board - Mary Ann Sumner Sumner discussed that at the last Town Board meeting they realized that they failed in the community outreach effort. She handed out a map of Dryden which showed significant natural communities and natural communities of vicinity. Beck comments that his impression in that a lot of personal at DEC don’t care for environmental management councils in every country in every state. Sumner comments that the reason for designating the CEAs in the first place was that it was a way for making the UNAs a part of the state`s data system. Prentiss expresses that he feels that CEAs are the friendliest way of dealing with possible environmental issues. Discussing the status of the CEAs, Sumner reports that CEAs are on the back burner until they can have neighborhood meetings. She fears that the meeting will not happen very soon. Everyone agrees that having the map on the table is a valuable tool. Munkenbeck questions whether the planning department works for the Conservation Board or vise versa. Sumner explains that the Conservation Board and the Planning Department are both accountable to the Town Board. Smith suggests discussing this topic in a future meeting, to give everyone a chance to look at the e-mail that Munkenbeck sent out. b. Open Space Plan Next Steps - Jane Nicholson Nicholson explains that they need to move on to the open space plan, with hopes to finish within 6 months. The strategy used is the three system approach: recreation, agriculture, and conservation. She will be attending the recreation meeting at the end of the month to introduce them to the Open Space Plan. She and Dan Kwasnowski feel the CEAs provide a great foundation for putting the plan together. The process is to go back to the fist CEA and look at each of them and define the level of effort that it’s going to take with each one. Level one would show that it got support and you would know exactly what’s there. Level two would show who the landowners are, prove that the landowners generally support it, verify that they may need to be worked with a little more and demonstrate that you generally know what’s there. Level three would be classified as not knowing what’s in the area, permission to work with the landowners and to survey the property would be required, and more information would be needed. The largest part of the Conservation Board’s participation will be categorizing and creating a justification for the CEAs. The other part is implementation and recommendations. Nicholson explains that the Board needs to come up with a strategy. She will discuss strategies for completing the tails, development plans, and developing standards for new development with the Recreation Committee. Munkenbeck comments that when they first started on this, it was brought up that the Recreation Department was good at active kinds of controlled recreation, but they felt that the Conservation Board should assess things like hiking trails and the finger lake trails. Nicholson tells the board that together, they need to come up with a plan to how they’re going to start writing this plan and getting it together. Nicholson says that the board should develop the best strategy for their strategy by answering questions such as; how they’re going to do this and what will work best for this group. Kathleen Elliott asks the board, “How many of you own land that are within CEAs?” Many members on the board raised their hand. Munkenbeck moves to support the resolution of April 10th from the Ag Advisory Committee. Richmond seconds the motion. Smith makes a motion that the Conservation Board recommends to the Town Board to review and consider the Ag Advisory Commission Resolution for April 10th, 2013. Milo calls the question. Unanimously supported. Smith discusses the time of the Conservation Meetings. A few members recommended moving the meetings to 7:30 p.m. instead of 7:00 p.m. Bissen makes a motion to change the meeting time to 7:30 p.m. Munkenbeck seconds the motion. Six in favor. Two oppose. Future Conservation Board meetings will begin at 7:30 p.m. 8. Adjourn (8:26 pm) Schutt makes motion to adjourn the meeting. Munkenbeck seconds the motion. All in favor.