To:  Conservation Commission Members                    cc: Selectboard and Public Notice

From:  Larry T. Spencer, Chair

Date:  19 December 2005

 

Minutes of the 15 December 2005 Meeting

  1. Approval of Minutes from the 17th of November meeting. Approval of the minutes of the special meeting of 1 December.—Approved as distributed. One spelling correction on the 1 December minutes (matters)
  2. Permits and other matters
    1. Permits
      1. Beale—Know boat house near Piper Cove. Approved
      2. Karp—Garland Road. Approved boathouse repairs
    2. Cuts    
      1. Webster Woodlands, 207/09, Perch Pond Road. Approved
      2. Pierce, 239/34, Approved.
  3. Up Coming Meetings:
    1. 19th of January 2006 with other conservation commissions in the region-chair noted that members will receive invitation letter soon. This will take the place of our normal meeting.
  4. Old Business
    1. Peirce-Beij Easement (Chair)—Chair will contact Roger LaRochelle again to remind him. Suggest to him to write a letter to Selectboard
    2. Letter to William Russell re property on Mt. Prospect (Chair)—letter was written, no response yet.
    3. Progress with respect to future trail work on Pilote Property (Reggie)—Reggie will get back to trail people. He will also write letter to Selectboard requesting that the money for the materials be carried over into the 2006 budget ( i.e., unless materials are purchased before then). Barbara mentioned that Peter Furmanic said we could store stuff at the Town Sheds.
    4. Memo to Peter Francesco concerning Lot 16 compliance items. Receipt of e-mails from Peter Francesco. Discussion of what to do now (Commission)
      1. The commission first went over with Peter his compliance with our letter. Items 1, 2, and 4 have been done. Still no progress on item 3. There is a problem with respect to the underground lines from the pole to the house. These lines are buried three feet deep and sweep from the pole at a 45 degree angle towards the house somewhat parallel to the road edge and then passing under the road to the house and enter the house at the junction of the “garage” and the house. (Garage is set back two feet from front of house). Actual position of wires is not completely known as trench that carries the wires was filled before final inspection by NHEC officials and no map or plot of their location was made. Peter hired a soil scientist (Nicol Whitney, a certified soil scientist with Ames Associates). In his conversations with her he asked her whether any RSAs were broken. No straight answer, but she indicated negative. Also asked her opinion about facilitating access to Lot 17. As part of her response they had a conversation with the officer of the day at the DES. No formal response from DES. Another thought was that by adding fill to existing road bed on 17 and removing a small amount from height of road on Lot 16, the slope of road could be minimized. Peter also mentioned another issue associated with the safety issue of access to and from the house. If slope of drive into garage were to be increased, he was worried that his daughter might slip “into the swamp”. He felt that by lowering the road that goes to Lot 17, the slope of the driveway might be too steep for safety. Commission suggested that his daughter back into her garage, so that when exiting the garage, she had control over the car (rather than backing out).
      2. Letter from Sid Lovett was noted. Chair will respond to it. It was put in the record of the meeting.
      3. Janet Cocchiaro, President of the White Oak Pond Association then posed some questions about the relationships between White Oak Pond and the wetlands. Past sampling has shown changes in conductivity and studies have shown that construction activity in general has some affects of the measurement of same. Chair mentioned that salt from the area of the dam probably has more affect than construction. It was also noted that the work on Lot 16 is somewhat distant from lake proper. The association is worried about changes in water quality and the commission agreed that those concerns are good ones to track.
      4. Theresa Long had some more questions about the easement.
      5. Peter Francesco mentioned that there were other infringements of the 75’ buffer by other properties along the road. This is a true observation, but most of those were carried out to provide access to the property. (Note in retrospect—Perhaps we should sponsor a homeowners meeting about the easement and the duties of abutters with respect to the easement—we can talk about this idea at a subsequent meeting)
      6. Because of the unclearness about the relationship of the commission to Selectboard, compliance officer, etc., Jacque Jewell suggested that we request a consultation with the town lawyer. This was seconded by Anne. We then discussed what the outcomes of such a meeting might be and whether we had funds to pay for it. The conclusion was that at present we had no money for such a consultation. Jacque and Anne withdrew the motion, but then it was moved and seconded to request the Budget Committee to amend our request for “other professional“ category from $2000 to $4000 with the idea that the additional money could be used for consultation (lawyers, soil scientists, wetland scientists) The vote was 4 to 0. The chair will write up the request and ask Walter to pass it on to the Budget Committee.
      7. After further discussion, it was decided to postpone any action on item 3 until our March/April meeting (after the snow is gone). In the mean time Peter will work with Hiltz and others to identify the actual location of the power line, to determine how much fill can be removed from the road/driveway, to determine what effects removal of the fill will have on the slope of the driveway and also what the new cross-section of the slope into the wetlands would be if fill were to be removed from the road bed. The commission feels from their perspective that any slope adjacent to the wetland should be minimized and definitely by spring should be re-vegetated by native grasses, shrubs and trees. Peter should also keep in contact with Theresa Long, the owner of Lot 17, on this matter and indicate his plans and how they might affect her access to her property.
      8. It was also thought that we should work with the Selectboard to organize a formal meeting with the CC, the Selectboard, the Planning Board, the Compliance Officer, and the ZBA.  The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss process and procedures to determine the functionality of same and whether new procedures need to be developed.  Barbara will take it up with the Selectboard. Suggested time frame was February or if it can’t be done before town meeting, then April.
    5. Work on annual report (carried over from November meeting--Commission)—The commission went through the 2004 report. Chair will send 2005 report to Walter. If there is time, we will review that document on the 19th of January.
    6. Report on site visit by Jacque and Anne to Reynolds property, report of special meeting and memo to Planning Board on Reynold’s development.
      1. Minutes and memo were distributed. Chair said that Earl Hansen had welcomed our input (Note in passing—at the end of our meeting Earl poked his head in the door and mentioned what had transpired on the matter. They’ve asked for additional studies by the Reynolds)
  1. New Business
    1. Setting up 2006 meeting schedule
      1. 19 January—Boyd Hall meeting
      2. 16 February
      3. 16 March
      4. 20 April
      5. 18 May
  1. Other Business
    1. Report of Woodsville meeting (Jacque and Chair)—Jacque said it was very good.  Both she and chair felt that the soils presentation was A1, but the stuff on the role of the Conservation Commission was not really very useful.
    2. Chance meeting with Fred Allen—both chair and Barbara Currier had talked with him on a two different occasions. It was agreed that we should have joint meeting with Fred and his board. Chair was directed to contact Fred by letter to determine a date in February or March for such a meeting.
    3. Barbara brought to our attention comments from the Selectboard about our questions on the Pemi Fish and Game Club. Members felt that it was very helpful to actually see the responses.

 

 

 

CC members in attendance

 Jacque Jewell, Anne Packard, Reggie Pettitt and Larry Spencer, Conservation Commission; Barbara Currier, Selectboard

Visitors:  Peter Francesco, Theresa Long (abutter), Janet Cocchiaro (White Oak Pond Association), Lisa Lovett (Member WOPA)