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Home My WebLink AboutCAC Minutes - 09_12_23Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 1 of 4 Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) Minutes of In-person Meeting in Town Hall and via videoconferencing Tuesday, September 12, 2023 Danby, New York Council Members present: Margaret Corbit (Meeting Chair), Jonathan Zisk, Joel Gagnon, Don Schaufler, Renee Owens, Katharine Hunter Council Members absent: Brittany Stein (formerly Lagaly) Others present: Elizabeth Keokosky (Secretary), Ronda Roaring (Danby resident – via Zoom), Anne Klingensmith (Danby resident perhaps interested in becoming a CAC member) Meeting was officially called to order at 7:07 Deletions or Additions to Agenda: None Privilege of the Floor (PoF): Roaring suggested that use the old brochure on. easements (which Gagnon had fortuitiously just found) and do some Spring event with tabling,. Another suggestion was an easement walk for the public. Approval of August 8, 2023 minutes Corbit moved to approve  Gagnon seconded  Approved by all present, except for Zisk who abstained. REPORTS AND UPDATES (from the agenda) 1. Status of redraft Timber Harvesting law after DEC meeting– Schaufler group Schaufler reported on the August 23 evening meeting he had scheduled with DEC. Zisk, Gagnon, and Hunter also attended. The DEC people made an important clarification on what had been assumed so far by Danby town laws. They said that timber harvesting is separate from agriculture. They refer to it as silviculture, which includes the health and management of the forest, not as agriculture, so it is does not carry the same exemption from Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 2 of 4 some Danby highway department rulings. DEC oversees silviculture, not agriculture. (AfterNote: this still might need to be further clarified with NY Ag and Markets). They also emailed Schaufler - among other documents - a copy of the Town of German’s (in Chenango County) Road Law, which they thought had some uselful ideas that Danby could perhaps use, such as a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP). (Afternote: clarification by Schaufler- he had mistakenly noted SWPPP plan in Town of German document.) A group was formed to redraft Danby Harvest law with these changes in mind (Gagnon, Zisk, Schaufler, Hunter) - they will email others. 2. Update on Conservation Easement Tax Abatement; Criteria for acceptance – Gagnon, Zisk Corbit reported that assessment of land in Danby is now at $2K per acre so a property of 100 acres is now assessed at $200K just for land. People with such properties really do need tax relief. Since county writes up tax bills that are sent to property owners, Danby would need to work with Jay Franklin, Director of Tompkins County Department of Assessment to determine a time line for implementation of easement abatement. Discussion followed on defining a participation policy, especially for temporary 15 year easements, where acreage and quality may not sufficiently justify overhead needed to create and monitor an easement. It would need a very special place. PoF:Klingensmith asked if there could be exceptions for multiply neighbors doing properties together? Answer was that it would require separate easements for each property so there is no real savings.. Zisk volunteered to take lead in a. Criteria for participation b. Meeting with Franklin for abatement discussion (could be by Zoom) Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 3 of 4 3. Easement monitoring: Recruiting easement monitors and developing a support packet - Corbit and Zisk Hunter had previously emailed two sample letters from the Deleware Highlands Conservancy with which her family had an easement in Pennsylvania. They were for pre and post-monitoring visits. She suggested that Danby could use the same wording. Corbit agreed. The letters also eliminated the need to negotiate the visit time since owner need not be present. Hunter reported that she had spoken to Anne Stork, who teaches environmental biology at IC, abour getting her college students involved in monitoring. Some kind of identification for monitors was discussed: a badge, a hat, a magnate on car? Decided on monogramed orange hats, which also protected against hunters. 4. Updates on on-going easements – from leads on each easement Ben Altman – nothing new to report Andi Gladstone – nothing new to report Mary Woodsen – nothing new to report Brian Caldwell – Zisk volunteered (later realized he didn’t have the time, and Corbit and Gagnon volunteered to take over) Judy Abrams – Makarainen Road – Hunter says Abrams wants to protect her property, but it is currently land-locked, though she does have a neighbor who is very cooperative about giving access for an easement. Hunter and Zisk will check it out. 5. Report on status of checklist to trigger CAC involvement in town planning/land use discussions – Zisk Nothing to report on this topic 6. Status of Bear presentation/webpage changes - Owens Owens reported that the bear article was originally just a way to get public involved in what CAC was doing and interest them to CAC web page. But the bottleneck problem is a limit on Danby newsletter pages, which leaves no room for non-municiple public information. Current editor is Pat Woodward who is volunteering her time. Town of Danby Conservation Advisory Council Minutes Page 4 of 4 Discussion on possible solutions to this followed. End result was that Corbit volunteered to put together a letter to the town board explaining why this space was important to CAC for communicating with public and encouraging them to increase the budget to allow for the extra pages, personnel, and technical expertise for this.. Remaining time 7. Continuing session on revisioning of CAC mission and message for CAC web page. Some continued discussion on ways CAC can better do its job. There was no Executive session Next Meeting is on October 10, 2023 at 7p.m. Adjournment at 9:05 pm _____________________________________________ Submitted by Elizabeth Keokosky (Secretary)