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

Conservation Commission
Meeting Minutes of December 14,  2016

Present: Betsy Forsham, Chair; Don Davis; Henry Howell; Jane Williamson; Chuck Bolduc; and Bonnie Hill, secretary. Absent: Ben Dobrowski, Dan Sundquist, Wally Baker and Chris Ashton. Chuck sat in for Dan, and Jane sat in for Ben.

Call to order: Betsy Forsham called the meeting to order at 6:40 p.m.

Previous Meeting’s Minutes: A motion was made by Don and seconded by Betsy to approve the minutes of November 9th, 2016. There were no issues found with the minutes, and they were approved.

Financial Report:
Expenditures included $55 for NHACC conference attendance, $184.68 for lumber for Henry’s KHR project, $29.24 for flagging and $150 for mowing. There is $1219.67 in the town account, which is 37.74% of the budget. As of November 30th, the Conservation Account contained $105,567.42 and the King Hill Reservation account contained $6580.87, for a total of $112,148.29 in the Conservation Fund. Since then, $900 has been spent from the KHR account for mowing services. The town budget committee met while Betsy was away, so Wally stood in for her. The amount requested for next year’s budget was granted. However, the $10,000 requested for the capital reserve fund was reduced to $7,000.

Correspondence:
• Email to Chris and Chuck regarding approval of their appointments to the SCC by the BOS.
• Email to and from Dan Sundquist regarding SCC’s permission to remove items from the old sugar house at Maple Leaf
• Emails with Sam Durfee, Central NH Regional Planning Commission, re nomination of the Warner River into the NH River Management and Protection Program.
• Business card from Ron Murray, former SCC member. Mowing, tractor work, trail work.

Review of Wetland Applications and Issues:
• None

Review of Intents to Cut and Logging Issues:
• N. Byfield, T/L #6-191,244, Village Rd., 20 of 76 acres. Logger is the owner.
• B. Fortier, T/L #2-798,448, Wright’s Hill Rd., 9 of 56 acres. Allan Oxman, forester.
• C. & J. Buckley, T/L#2-868,460, off Foothills Rd., 20 of 22.4 acres. Lemire & Sons, loggers.
• E. Carter. T/L2-872,383, off Foothills Rd., 30 of 37.4 acres. Lemire & Sons, loggers.
Old Business
Update on invasive plant in Smiley Grove stream- Chris Connors will be getting back to us with more ideas about the management plan for the plant. We will be revisiting the management plan in the spring in more detail. The NSIS took down the black plastic fencing, so next spring we will be interested in finding out if the fence needs to be put back up and, if so, who is responsible for doing it.

Replacement sign for Quarry Walk – We will need to discuss this with Dan at the next meeting. Don thinks the sign should have black letters on a natural wood background, with a polyurethane coating.

New Business

Nomination of the Warner River into the NH River Management and Protection Program –Betsy and Don attended the presentation on this. Betsy had a question about the status of old hydros, some which might still be in use or reactivated in the future, and the answer was that they will not be affected by the proposed changes. Sam Durfee asked Betsy for a letter of support, on behalf of the SCC. This will go to Tracie Sales of DES. Betsy read us a sample letter. Don made a motion and Jane seconded to approve Betsy sending a letter of support, and the motion passed. Betsy will write a letter using the sample one as a starting point.

Management plan for Kezar Lake Natural Area, sign, and public meeting- Since Dan was absent, the discussion of when to hold a public information session was postponed again until next month.

Items for inclusion in SCC’s contribution to the 2016 Town Report – Betsy urged the members to be thinking about this. She will write the report but would like contributions of ideas or pictures.
New members and SCC member to be Greenway rep – Betsy officially welcomed Chuck as the new alternate member of SCC. Chris has stepped up from alternate to voting member. Both Chuck and Chris were sworn. Betsy talked to Gerry Gold about whether we need another SRKG representative to replace Jean LaChance, and the answer seems to be no. Jean is going to be continuing to contribute in areas such as planning the annual SRKG dinner. Sutton does have Dave Gardner as its rep to the SRKG, and Don said he would speak to Dave about representing the interests of SCC at the board meetings, if we have any concerns down the road.

SCC Properties and SRK Greenway Reports
Update on Henry’s work with KRHS students –Henry read an article to us from the Argus Champion, which contained a good detailed discussion of his student projects at KRHS. He gave a presentation to the school board on December 1st. The rain garden is now ready to be planted in the spring, and the students are deep in the design phase for it. There are a lot of factors to consider in the design: the types of plants, their blooming times, their relative heights, their moisture and light requirements, to name a few. Chris Kessler, a landscape architect from Pellettieri Associates came and spoke to the students. Chris Connors has also been very helpful. Two people from DES made the decision on the actual location of the rain garden. Henry is looking for other sources of expertise on designing a rain garden and may tap our own Chuck Bolduc. Jane said Roger Wells has a rain garden, and Henry said he might talk to him. Henry wants the students to make a scale working model of the rain garden, complete with running water, a pump and filters. This would be used in presentations to the community, as an educational tool. In the spring, students will start working on the KHR bridge project, in addition to the rain garden.
King Hill Reservation – Trails 1 through 8 (former racing trails) were mowed on November 6th.
Bean Quarry – We will ask Dan next month about putting up some kind of barrier at the old well.
Maple Leaf – Jane said that the new parking lot has brought a lot of litterers. There are lots of beer containers as well as entire bags of garbage which she cleaned up. Seems like we will have to monitor the lot going forward.
Adjournment: There being no further business, a Motion was made by Don and seconded by Jane to adjourn the meeting at 8:08 p.m. The Motion was unanimously approved.

Respectfully submitted,
Bonnie Hill, Secretary