Date:  10 September 2007

 

 

To:  Holderness Selectboard

 

From:  Larry T. Spencer, Chair, Holderness Conservation Commission

 

Copies to:  Members, HCC; Walter Johnson, Town Administrator; Jake Partridge, Chief of Police

 

Subject:  Items for tonight’s meeting

 

  1. Snowy Owl Development:  We apologize that the town was not copied the letter we sent to NHDES. It is our policy to copy not only the town, but also our website with relevant documents. In this instance, we were under the pressure of time to submit a letter to NHDES with respect to the Snowy Owl development project. In our rush to get that document in on time, we neglected to copy the town and to post it on the website. I should note that we have been dealing with the issue for at least two years and all documents we have written in the past have been endorsed by the commission. This particular document really didn’t say to much different about the issues at hand.
  2. Work done by e-mail: It is not the intent of the Commission to be secretive about our work. It at all possible, most of our work is done in open meetings. It is particularly difficult during the summer time when the volunteer members of the Commission have many other duties, for us to meet on a regular basis, particularly with respect to items that have deadlines for submission. As noted above with respect to the Snowy Owl Development, the commission needed to make a response to the report submitted by Mr. Reynolds to the NHDES. Before we could do that, it was necessary for some of the commission members to travel to Concord to view the relevant documents on file at the NHDES. This was done by commissioners Packard and Jewell. Since Commissioner Packard has been following this matter very closely, she wrote the document and submitted it to the other members of the commission for input. After a few minor comments, the document was submitted to the NHDES. There was no time for a formal meeting to act on this and in fact, our submission was actually late. (Note in passing. I actually talked with Mr. Reynolds at Hanna fords and mentioned that we were going to submit a letter to the NHDES. At that time I believe the letter had not been written, but I did mention some of the points that we were going to make in the letter).
  3. Livermore Beach. It was brought to my attention that the Selectboard was concerned about conditions at the Livermore Beach property. I called Chief Partridge and we agreed to cooperatively do a clean up. I think called the PSU Office of Community Service and arranged for a team of volunteers from the University. On August the 29th, the chief and I, four volunteers from the University and some beach goers worked for two hours cleaning up the beach property. Our main accomplishment was the destruction and clean-up of the fire pit in the middle of the beach. Some of the volunteers also cleaned up the trails leading away from the beach. Five full sacks of glass, cans, etc. were hauled to the Holderness Transfer Station. A stringer from the Laconia Citizen was present during the early part of the clean-up. He not only assisted in the clean-up, but also I believe wrote an article for the paper.
  4. The Saga of the Elm Tree. I’m not sure whether Peter Hoag has submitted an invoice for the work he has done, but the initial injections have been done. Two items have clouded the work on the tree. The first is/was a debate about when to prune. Peter had planned to prune early winter. In consultation with other arborists, it was determined that immediate pruning should be done to prevent the spread of the disease. This has tentatively been scheduled for Tuesday the 11th of September. Doug McLane is doing the fund-raising for this aspect. The other matter deals with cabling the tree.  During a recent windstorm, a new crack appeared on the Holderness side of the tree. Again, in consultation with a number of arborists, it was determined that the tree should be cabled immediately.  I believe that this will be done when the pruning takes place.