Town of Sutton Selectmen Meeting Minutes

TOWN OF SUTTON
Pillsbury Memorial Town Hall
93 Main Street Sutton Mills, NH
Sutton Mills, NH  03221

Sutton Conservation Commission

Draft Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, May 9, 2018 

 

Present: Dan Sundquist, Chair; Don Davis; Jane Williamson; Barbara Hoffman; and Debbie Lang.

Absent: Henry Howell, Chuck Bolduc, Chris Ashton and Bonnie Hill, secretary.

 

Members of the Public Present: Wally Baker, Tom Schamberg.

 

Call to order: Dan Sundquist called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m.

 

Previous Meeting’s Minutes: A motion was made by Barbara and seconded by Jane to approve the minutes of April 11th, 2018. There were no issues found with the minutes, and they were approved.

 

Financial Report:

The town budget report as of April 30 shows about 83.71% of the money left in the town account.

 

Correspondence:

  • None.

Review of Wetland Applications and Issues:

  • None.

 

Review of Intents to Cut and Logging Issues:

  • T. Friel, T/L# 7-430,450 and 7-455,213, Kearsarge Valley Rd, 300 of 300 acres. Forrest Hicks, logger. Don noted that the Lincoln Trail will be re-routed to Mastin Road during the timber harvest as the loggers will use the parking lot on Kearsarge Valley Road.

 

 

New business

 

Discussion on the results of the Q2C plan as it relates to the strategic conservation plan Dan presented a map of the final core conservation focus areas and connectivity corridors for the Quabbin to Cardigan (Q2C) regional conservation plan which he is developing for the Forest Society.  Sutton has two core focus areas, one in the northwestern part of town, and the other in the south-central area.  There is also a network of connectivity corridors north-south and east-west connecting these areas with Stony Brook in Newbury and Mt. Kearsarge in Warner and other neighboring towns.  This information will be important to include in the Sutton conservation plan, especially since the Q2C partnership has a grant program for land conservation to which the town may apply if a project area falls within a core focus area or connectivity corridor.  In turn, a project located in a Q2C interest area will be important to other conservation grant-makers such as LCHIP and the DES ARM program.

Discussion of further action to be taken, if any, about the invasive plant in Smiley’s Grove – The issue of invasive plants in the Smiley Grove (water celery) came up for discussion.  Dan had contacted Chris Connors of Warner who discovered the plants and initiated clean-up with DES.  She has no immediate plans to organize work at Smiley Grove, but suggested we contact Amy Smagula at DES to learn more.  Some SCC members might be interested in volunteering to help weed out the plants.

SCC Properties

Ribbon Cutting Celebration for Gene’s Walk Vernal Pool bridge – This will be held at the Gene’s Walk Trail at the King’s Hill Reservation, at 12:30 PM on Thursday, May 31st. (The rain date is June 4th  at 12:30 PM.) This beautiful woven arch-trussed bridge spanning 20 feet over a vernal pool, was built by the Kearsarge High School Home Improvement Class of 2017, sponsored by SCC, with materials donated by the Lumber Barn of Bradford and Belletetes Building Supply of Andover.

 

Spring trail clean-up for the King Hill & Webb/Crowell areas – Henry planned to talk about this, as the winter storms brought many trees down. In light of his absence from the meeting, this item was passed over until the June meeting.

 

Miscellaneous

DES Wetlands Bureau – Barbara stated that she has been asked to provide consulting services for six months to the DES Wetlands Bureau, and wondered about conflict of interest.  After discussion, Dan stated that Barb would need to step down on any wetlands applications that come to the CC for review during that period.

Adjournment: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:45 PM.

The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 13th, 2018, at 6:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Bonnie Hill, Secretary