Ogunquit Conservation Commission Weighs Container, Tree Ordinances

[0:05] Chair: I ran over to the new building and handed Eileen a stack of pollinator brochures, little brochures. Oh, good. She said, oh, good. Okay, we're live. Okay. Good morning and welcome to the Aguncula Conservation Commission meeting. Today is October 7th and this meeting will come to order. Will we take a roll call vote? Did we decide? Please just say your name and get your hearing. Jeff Massori. [0:52] George Blum: George Blum. [0:53] Audrey Silvery: Audrey Silvery. Wendy Levine. Amy Kelly. Joanna Manikus. [0:58] Chair: We are a full board today. Let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, please. I [1:09] Wendy Levine: pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America [1:13] Chair: and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, and with liberty and justice for all. I'll begin as I always do with our mission statement. Our mission is to protect and safeguard the health of Agunquit's water resources and preserve open spaces that will sustain and enhance wildlife habitats and native vegetation. Vegetation. I think everyone had received the minutes. I sent them around. Did you read them? Does anybody have any additions, corrections in what they read? And I have a motion to [2:09] Audrey Silvery: approve the minutes. You won't vote. I move to approve the minutes of September 7th, 2026. [2:16] Chair: Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great, awesome, Amy is going to give us her piping plover update. It's actually, or Suzanne, [2:32] Wendy Levine: so Suzanne is done on the beach for now. However, programs protecting the migration of the shorebirds is underway and I'm one people in the community who has signed up to become a short bird ambassador. This is the second year that I've done it. I find it very rewarding. I also am using my observations to just see what's going on along the beach, along the estuary, see how the dunes are faring, and so this is what this portion of my reports about. I will just say that I have been walking at least two times a week and look at the amount of visitors we have, watching their behavior with shorebirds, if they're interrupting their feeding and their resting along the muddy flats of our ocean. For the most part, the birds that are visiting here are in the water at the lower tide, and then they go somewhere they rest, and then they move on to, you know, southern shores and immigration. Also, while I'm observing these birds, like I said, I look at the dunes. I've noticed the replenishment that had been completed last year doing great through the summer. However, I don't know if dune grass gets a little bit dormant, but in some areas I over by marker three, not where it was compromised, where we lost the dune, but I noticed a couple of bald spots along the way near a little bit before, a little bit after number three, and I sent in an email to Mandy to see if anybody was able to assess that and perhaps remedy it, and she said that no one can enter the dunes to take a look at that until I believe November 1st. That's when it's able to be entered again, so she's going to have an engineer that's working on another project look at it and see if there's any suggestions that they can make, and if there's any needs, they will apply for a grant to take care of, you know, adding more dune grass if needed in the future. But it is a little bit bald, and the recent high tide, or excuse me, not high tide, the recent storm during the high tide perhaps did a little bit of damage to the grasses itself. But like I said, I don't know how these things work and if they're, it's just a little bit of a dormant days for this time of year, but it's not as green as it was through the summer, but that might be natural. That's something I don't know, so that's what I have for our coastal report, and I to talk about the king tides at the beginning now or should I say at the end, so that's that's what I have to say. I will say going forward Suzanne and I are going to be looking at signage improvements to protect the plovers in regards to perhaps making more educational information available when people, you know, visit the beach, perhaps by the Brook Bridge, hopefully by the main beach and up by North Beach. this actually the lifeguard station has a bulletin board where they have some equipment and they also have some signage about Maine healthy beaches and I'm hoping maybe along the bathhouse we could get a bulletin board so that we could put some educational materials regarding maybe the shorebirds the piping plovers that are there and just make people more aware of protecting the birds and be getting families and children involved in projects in that vein would be helpful as well so that 's one of our goals that's what i have for that chair yes i don't [7:03] Amy Kelly: know how you want to run your meeting but i can address if you want please beautiful [7:14] Chair: That's why we want you here. This is excellent. Not true. Ben. There [7:34] Amy Kelly: we go. Okay, so we are aware that we had some issues with parts of the dunes. We think that some of that is under warranty. Yeah, and we probably don't need a grant, but when we are able to enter the dunes based on the migratory bird issue, we will go in and we'll assess with the installer, and then I believe we'll get some free work done for that one. As far as that last high tide, I went out there. It did reach the dune, but if you see the seaweed line, the seaweed line is just in front, but some did go. This is North Beach. I never go to Main Beach. I go to North Beach. Some seawater went up the path, so I'm thinking that there may have been some water made it to the dunes as well because the seaweed did go down the path. So those are the two things that I can... Can I respond? Yeah, sure. [8:37] Wendy Levine: When I wrote to Mandy, I said, is any of this grass that they recently put in under warranty? So I did ask that question, and she was not aware that it would be, but it makes sense. [8:47] Amy Kelly: Matt and I talked about it, and he's negotiating with the installer, so we'll see. [8:52] Wendy Levine: That's fabulous, and I did also observe the seaweed being pushed further down towards the edge of the bottom of the dune. And because a lot of the migrant plantings that popped up after the dune replenishment down at the bottom, there's a lot of extra green plants down there. They were basically covered with sand and squashed down and took a beating. But they're resilient, and I'm sure that they'll pop up. I mean, they appeared out of nowhere this summer, so hopefully they'll come back. Okay. Yeah, thank you. [9:31] Chair: that's right but to know i would personally really like to thank amy for all of her dedication to these birds and to the beach and to all the work that she does i've been out there with her very occasionally not by any means the number of times that she lives out there walks out there i would never even have spotted a pepping clover if i wasn't walking with her they're this big and you have to know because you have to look for where their little paw so I mean her dedication is amazing we are Very lucky to have her, and anybody who wants to help her just give her a call, because it's really fun. It's fun to walk with her. It's fun to get absorb all the knowledge that she has. I didn't even know, I thought once the plovers were gone we were done, but no, we still have shorebirds, different ones, which I did not know. And she pointed all of them out to me. So it's fun to go. It's fun to go with her. Her knowledge is amazing. And we're lucky and grateful to have her. I just wanted to throw that in. Thank you. Yeah. Any questions, any hands raised? Ben, anybody want to talk to us about anything? [10:53] Wendy Levine: I wondered if Dan could tell us what other shorebirds she sees there. Well, I'm not an expert on identifying all the birds, but there are sandpipers out there. Actually, I brought a list. [11:07] Chair: Turns, aren't there turns? [11:08] Wendy Levine: Turns at times, but right now there are sandpipers. There are yellowlegs. I think one day I saw a, I can't pronounce it, a dowitcher. I believe I thought I saw one, and I sent in a picture of that I took to Suzanne, and she checked, and I believe she said it was a Dalwitcher. Shorebirds at this stage, they're varieties of sandpipers, and they're very difficult to discern. So on the ambassadorship reporting, they just say, how many shorebirds did you see, rather than you've got to know what you're identifying. Identifying, yeah. But I do actually, I have a list of what to visit at Gunquit Shores right here. So if you want, I can print that out and give that to you. It's a lot of fun. It really is. And basically, they call them the little ones peeps. Okay. And for lack of... [12:12] Chair: They're double and triple the size. [12:13] Wendy Levine: Driving you crazy and learning everything. It's just like, how many did you see? And actually when I went to orientation they taught you how to gauge how many birds are in a flock, and so you look at 10 or 20 and then get the idea of the size as they're either on the ground or flying away, and you just kind of guesstimate how big it is and send that into your report. It's it's fun. Yeah, thank you very much. Okay. Yeah, any [12:45] Chair: hands, Ben? No hands? Okay, thank you. So we move on to we started to talk about producing a an ordinance request and sending it to the planning board, hoping that it would be accepted and perhaps put on the June ballot. We have time, but I thought we might as well start the process. And so the first one is using biodegradable containers throughout the town in all of the restaurants, anybody who is serving food, giving food out, etc. Chris Perry at the transfer station is all in on this, very excited about it. He reached out to the main Department of Environmental Protection to Mark King, who is the head of that. They had a long conversation via email. I was able to read through it all. And it turns out that polystyrene, which is, as we know, styrofoam, we know it as styrofoam, actually is already banned in the state of Maine. You aren't allowed to use it. So when we are getting takeout from places, evidently, well,, unless they're not applying the rules, it's likely either biodegradable or compostable. Breaks down to one of those two. It's really styrofoam that is the worst of the worst in terms of danger to the environment and hot food being put in it and seeping those chemicals into the food. So that is banned. end. And so they had a conversation via email. I have it all. Chris is very excited about his new compost idea. He's very excited about it. And he had hoped that we would be able to use compostable containers and put them in the compost. The reality is it would be 99% compostable containers and 5% food. So Mark from the DEP said, no, I don't think that's going to work for you. Chris definitely does not think it's going to work for you. So the ordinance that we would want to put forward is to use biodegradable containers and put them into regular trash. They will biodegrade in the trash, they won't poison the earth, and they won't poison the food that you're eating out of them. So our ordinance, I believe now, with all of that research and all of that back and forth, I think that we need to put together an ordinance that requests that all food supplier, food sources switch now to biodegradable containers. Tyler, I'm happy you're here. So my understanding is we write that. We write what we want. We send it to you. It goes to the planning board. Sorry. [16:32] Joanna Manikus: I would just draft a sample of what you're looking for your basic language. And I can help you. If you come up with kind of a basic idea I can help you kind of see where it fits in the ordinance okay and then you would present it [16:46] Chair: to the planning board okay we do we have to pass it we pass it here first okay I'm up with like a [16:53] Joanna Manikus: basic outline of what you're looking to do then we'll get the verbiage and then vote on it to [16:59] Chair: take it to the planning board and then the plan from there it goes to the select board and then it gets on a ballot is that 's the sequence okay understood hearings at the planning board [17:10] Wendy Levine: And the select board as well. Okay, what's the length of time between after we just sat down and look at the, you know, the requirements and the verbiage and the legalese of everything we've got? [17:21] Joanna Manikus: Some of it once it gets, once you guys decide what you want to do and vote on it, would move to the next step, which is the planning board. That's probably at least one or two meetings because they would have to look at it, decide if they want to tweak the language or where it fits. Then they have to have a public hearing, which we have to notify. Then it has to go to the select board, have to have a public hearing on it. So it's, it's at least a couple months. Okay, so starting on [17:47] Wendy Levine: it now makes sense. Yes, right, yeah, it could have potentially reached the June ballot, the June [17:52] Joanna Manikus: yep. Okay, yeah, very good. That's, that's what they have target for June ordinance amendments is like April, that latest. Just to keep in mind, the planning board is pretty loaded right now with ordinance amendments for the state housing stuff. So we'll sooner than better to get it on a meeting with them because we have a lot of stuff coming for June already. So if it doesn't make it on June, you can always do it on the next November. But that's just a heads up. [18:28] Chair: We can kind of keep taking this can down the road. I'd like to get it going. [18:32] Joanna Manikus: I just want to make you aware, we're pretty heavily loaded. [Chair: And short staff.] We only have four members right now, and we've already had three or four workshops, and we have multiple more workshops. We're doing rezoning. We're doing ordinance amendments. We have to change our tables. So there's a lot. Don't have a lot of bandwidth for a lot of extra stuff, but if you do most of the legwork, it'd be an easy thing for them to move forward. [18:57] Chair: Okay, all right, thank you, thanks a lot. Any hands raised, Ben, anybody at looking for, yes sir, I want you here, it's, I really do want you here, I need you here. [19:15] Amy Kelly: Yeah, oh you can sit up front, you have to walk this front, yeah, I'm an Episcopalian, we all sit it in the bag, that's not true, so I'm on the slut board until June, here's, here's what I would recommend that you do, you need to be scientifically buttoned up on this, biodegradable is a big word covers a ton of stuff, this is one that I think we would face some legal ramifications by the business community because you're telling them to completely change their supply chain to something I'm not against this. Don't get me wrong, but I do know how that ordinance changes that affect people's wallets usually have a hard time. The other issue is enforceability. We continually try to get more support for Tyler and it gets shot down. And I don't know, you might know the people who are shooting it down, but it makes it would make sense to me that we would have someone to help enforce this ordinance because this is unenforceable. You can't go out to every restaurant every night. Tyler, do you want to go to every restaurant every night? You know, it becomes, yes, you would have maybe people watching and complaining, but he still has to go and establish the rule of law. You know, you can't just call. You can't just send a I mean, we know what we're dealing with in certain other instances around ordinances that he's trying to enforce that the voters have already approved. And the pushback we're getting on a legal standpoint, significant pushback. So if you're not buttoned up the planning board will question you in depth and if he gets to the select board I'll still be there until June but after that it could be business dominated could be not saying that and the select board does not have to put that warrant on the on the ballot you could then go for a citizen's petition but that's a that's a slog [21:35] Chair: So if anybody is still using styrofoam takeout containers they're already breaking the rules so if we demanded it's not actually a change it's just a matter of which of the two they should choose. I think also we need to make it very clear publicly that if you do get a box of styrofoam from Amazon with whatever they send you as a consumer not only in town can and should put it aside for the next time you have to send something to somebody and then you can have it at what that's not up to us to do. Yeah it's the styro styrofoam yeah but anyway clarification [22:28] Joanna Manikus: verification though styrofoam's not legal but there are other things that aren't styrofoam that they put food in plastic if it's not so there's a lot of other options besides just styrofoam right so I don't see styrofoam around any I mean anywhere yeah a lot of plastic a lot of plastic resealable containers so that's not biodegradable so it is making them change it is what they're doing now so are changing part of this part of like Bob's saying is if you identify sources for them to get these things and it's comparable in price that would help right push and encourage them to do it like everybody wants to get on board to protect [23:14] Wendy Levine: The watershed, and you know this would be, you know, down, you know, down the road and down along the food chain, protecting the watershed, protecting the environment, you know, protecting our natural resources, and that's part of the comp, thank you, comp plan. And but for the conservation commission, we're supposed to be monitoring that. So if we, you know, got everybody, you know, on a bandwagon to make a gunkwood healthy in this regard, that, you know, I don't see much pushback from common sense functions of businesses and things. [23:52] Chair: It's all about money. It's all about money. [23:55] Joanna Manikus: I think most people are using things that would fall under the biodegradable umbrella anyways, but there are still a lot of plastic products. [24:03] Wendy Levine: However, perhaps those things, you know, going forward, I don't know how people run their businesses and nor do I tend to think people should do things a certain way, But, you know, they can phase out one supply and reintegrate their processes with something. [24:22] Amy Kelly: If it's presented in a correct way and not jamming down someone's throat, people will get on board. I will say I think we have a much bigger problem in packaging because we buy so much from China. And if you buy any kind of electronics from China, it's in styrofoam. Anything, I mean furniture, it's that there is no, and again it's unenforceable at the border, yeah, just this is too much. But for your, for what you're trying to do, if you, if you do this in the right way, it should be easy to get done, but it is going to be a lot of work. It is going to be a lot of work. So I'm sure you'll, you're full, you got a lot of people, so go for it, we understand and [25:08] Chair: And thanks for all your feedback. It's great. I think a lot of places already have changed. It's not, for me, it's not only the fact that it doesn't degrade and it doesn't go anywhere. It goes into landfills. For me, it's about, that's what you're eating as well or drinking. So for me, it's a health issue as well. I think a lot of places have changed recently. Recently, I noticed at Hannaford's, if you get something off their hot bar, that used to be styrofoam, and it's now a cardboard-like material. I don't know if it's biodegradable or compostable. I don't know, but it's compostable, but we can't compost it because we would ruin our compost, unfortunately. You could put it in a personal compost, though, if it wasn't the majority of your compost. Post. All right, we will, we will talk more, all of us. We do have a little time. Maybe we have to have a special meeting even, but thanks for your help, both of you. That's great. That's what we need. What else are we going to talk about today? Oh, this is, this is something we kind of have talked about before, but maybe we should solidify it. So basically, according to our mission statement and who we are and what we do, I still see this as four different categories. So some of us are worried about the air. Some of us are worried about the land. Some of us are worried about the water. Some of us are worried about the wildlife. And I think especially now, because we have a full contingency, we should really identify what our interests are and what each of us would like to participate in. We know what Amy wants to do. Amy's got water. And wildlife. And wildlife. Yeah. They all cross over. They all cross over. I certainly am always most concerned about the land and the trees, which is lower on our next on our agenda, so that's me and you are the well I'm interested in the air, in the air. Actually, there isn't much we can do about the air. Yes, there is. We can keep our trees, okay, because they will, they will absorb all the co2 out of the air, and without saving our trees, we're doomed. Yes, we're just doomed. Yes, so I think that's, that's the next ordinance change that I would like. That's, that's very helpful and the bushes and the bushes, but trees more than anything, they really are the bushes more than anything, is that [28:10] George Blum: that true? Yes, native. Do they? That was shown in Siberia where they took down a large, they have a area where they took down almost all the trees and put in bushes, and they found that the air quality was much better because of the bushes than it was because of the trees. Also, wildlife is much better because of the lower bushes. Okay. So you get a lot of the smaller animals. Right. [28:51] Chair: Now, are you talking about bushes that would be native here? [28:56] George Blum: Native species. Always native species. Only native. [28:59] Chair: And they unfortunately don't usually provide shade, which is another piece of the environment, and what we're losing when we lose trees, we're losing shade, so we're making everything hotter as well, and then we have to use more fuels to stay warm, so there's lots of reasons. But I think that at the moment, I understand because when the three houses on Berwick Road were torn down and rebuilt, I went to Tyler and said, how is this possible? How can you just clear cut a whole forest there on Berwick Road? And the answer was, you can, because those are three individual lots and people can decide what they want to do with their personal lot. There really aren't strong ordinances about what they can or can't do. It's their lot they get to choose. I would like to see that change. And I've looked at tree ordinances in your and in other counties. And there are tree ordinances even on private and public land, so I would like to delve into that. Will be my baby. Anybody who wants to help is more than welcome, but I'm very passionate about trees. I think we are totally messing up the environment by disseminating all of our forests. I have a friend who lives in the West in Harrison, and it's just stunning how much conservation land there is, where it's just all trees. It's just all trees, all parks, all conserved. I understand we can't do that here, but I do think it's just the air smells is different, everything about it is different, so that's my passion personally, and I have done some research, got some, I've got some stuff. Anybody wants to do this with me, awesome, let's do it. Okay, and so again, I understand the process now, that would have to be an ordinance change about what you can and can't do on private land, right? Yeah. [31:40] George Blum: So again, [31:43] Amy Kelly: I'm, I agree with the principle, but again, you're not going to deal with private property. There are lots, as Tyler will attest, have already been approved. And so they'd be grandfathered. I built a home for my family and I kept what, how much, I kept mostly 80 of the trees on that property, so there is a way to do this. I don't know why someone would choose to, except if you have children, you want to have a play area or something like that, but okay, again, it's all about process. I personally am more in favor, and I'm, I'm very the lone wolf on the select board, I'm more in favor of buying land than telling people what to do on their land. I mean, I would, I'd go for, you know, two, three hundred thousand, and this is on the record, so I'm going to get killed as soon as this goes, I'm putting it in, but I believe we should be raising money to buy land, and there's plenty of land to buy, and put that into conservatory receivership, or there's some word, I think that has a greater chance of being of, helping. I do agree with the bush thing, I've heard about this, that the air is affected, but what the bushes don't do is transmigrate water, eighty percent of all water that falls on the earth Doesn't come from the ocean, comes from trees. Everyone thinks all the water comes from the oceans. Only 20% comes from the oceans, 80% from the tree, from these trees, because it's giving off, you know, it's taking water through the roots and it's giving it off through the leaves. So there is a rationale for protecting trees. But the question is, it better to raise money and buy land in coordination with great works or other people like that than to try and get an ordinance which again we got to enforce it becomes very difficult to enforce some of these things and again it pulls the lawyers out so I'm just I'm not telling you what to do I'm just telling you what you got to think about in your process let me let me say something right [34:04] Wendy Levine: There may I jump in before my thought goes out of my head sure once we sat down with Tyler we were talking about the conservation land that we already have and Tyler you mentioned something that there was a tax benefit for people who already own, you know, lots of property, lots of land, where if you have a great percentage of trees on your land, then you, bow, or you,, you, in, it's called tree, growth. Okay. And, so that if that goes into a designation of tree growth that there are some tax benefits to that land owner and how do we promote that so that more people are aware of that and that might enhance along with purchasing land that I think that the town should run [34:58] Joanna Manikus: Into in a gunk with specifically because of the size if you're in if you go into western Maine or northern Maine right a lot more land a lot more untouched land. Algonquin has, it does have some larger parcels, but it's limited. So it's really only beneficial to people with large parcels of property. Typically you're not going to get a quarter acre of land saving 10 trees is not going to do anything for you. But we're talking acreage. Right. It's acreage and not, and leaving it alone essentially is what you're talking about. It's tree growth. And the assessor probably would know more about the ins and outs of that, -huh but it's really when you have acreage that you get that benefit so for most people that own property here it's really not an option okay so it's a good angle but I think I think Bob's idea of absolutely and then the conservation used to promote putting money into a fund to purchase property every year and right been turned down it's it's tough you have to get the voters on board you have to get it on the ballot right So the voters need to be in favor of it, and if the voters overwhelmingly come out to meetings and say, hey, we want to do this, right, they'll put [36:15] Amy Kelly: it on a ballot. I mean, that's how it works. I'm happy if you and I sit down. I'm again, I'm turning out and I'm not coming back, so I just can't, I mean, psychologically I'm damaged. That's, I hope that's not on the record then. I would be happy to work to put a $300,000 initiative as my lasting legacy. [36:41] Chair: Historically it was $25,000 a year for many, years. That's how we got the Boston land. I've asked for that and been turned down in the years that I've chaired here. So I was thinking that I would just put through another other request for now 50 or 100,000. But I think that it should be part of the town budget. It should be. Yeah, it's [37:10] Amy Kelly: so multiple people involved. But I have this feeling that based on the top line work. [37:27] Wendy Levine: So I noticed in our budget we have in the in this breakdown down that we got for the work plan that we have a 25 970 budget. I didn't know if that 25 grand aside from the 970 was for acquiring conservation. Oh okay, specifically [37:55] Joanna Manikus: if you're going to get it on a ballot more than 25 000, because 25 000 dollars nowadays it's not going to get you very far. Not at all. It's going to be years before you and land's not getting cheaper, no, or more abundant, so and more and more of it's going [38:11] Wendy Levine: into private hands for development, so we need to work now, right, and now with now with the state [38:18] Joanna Manikus: housing laws that we are working on adopting, yep, lot sizes are shrinking, more development's going to be allowed, so it's going the other way. The state's forcing us to go the other way to develop. They're not saying be more conservative, they're saying be more liberal with your land and let people build more houses on it, so and that's not, they're not asking, they're telling us this is mandated, so that's what we're working on right now is shrinking lot sizes. We'll have, we'll have a conversation maybe houses on single lots are forced, and which is why we need to work on [38:54] Wendy Levine: the tree ordinance because as the lot sizes grow smaller, we, you know, more trees are, you know, and [38:59] Amy Kelly: And houses go on them, right? You're, and this is what I'm trying to say to you, get better to buy the land and put it into conservation. Yeah, you write an ordinance today, it says, okay, you gotta, you can't cut this amount. That's just already telling us you will cut this amount, and you will put multiple homes, the single family home in Maine is gone. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a political football. This is how they get votes. So I'm just giving you my advice as a liaison, that buying land is going to be a lot easier than ordinancing land, because he's going to be told you got to put three mini homes on half an acre, right? Get it, and to do that you're going [39:47] Chair: to need to cut down all the trees yeah i you know didn't didn't you say to me though tyler that if they're owned by, if that's all one owner for those three houses, that 's different, [40:02] Joanna Manikus: that the rules are different. So I think our conversation was, if you have, say a subdivision gets approved, they can have private covenants that don't allow accessory dwellings, things like that. But we can't dictate on private land. Like we, one of the mandates they gave us is in growth zones, which we have to have designated growth zones, 5,000 square foot lots is the maximum lot size you can require, 5,000 square feet. Right now our minimum lot size is 12,500, and you have to allow four units on that 5,000 square foot lot. So that's going to drastically change the makeup of the town. We're right now trying to dictate where that growth zone is going to be, and we're, we're going to limit it as much as we can to probably the Route 1 corridor. But there's also other things. If there's sewer and water, we still have to only require a 5,000-square-foot lot, up to two units on that. And then if there's no sewer and water, you have to allow 20,000-square-foot lots. Right now, it's 30 or 60 in most zones. So it's going to definitely change. So more lots are going to be allowed. More houses are going to be allowed. So I think he's on the right path with buying the land and then you dictate what you want to do on it. You don't have to build on it. But telling a developer that they can't when the state says we have to allow it, 's very limiting. If you are going to look at a tree ordinance, though, look at a percentage of the lot that has to be vegetated. But, again, it's vegetated with what? You have to be very specific because a cutting ordinance is difficult because if someone doesn't have a, if they don't have sewer and water and they have to put a septic in, they're going to be exempt. They're going to be able to cut that, right? You're not going to plant trees on that again. That's going to be long. If they have to bring power in, they're going to cut trees. If they have to dig for the, like, there's other, there's always ways to get around it. So you just have to be careful about what you how you're going to restrict it always comes down to how I'm going to enforce it. So I'd be happy to help you, I know, figure out a way to do that, but it does become difficult because they have to cut trees down to do this or do that, get into the [42:17] Chair: lot, so it, especially they don't necessarily have to replace them somewhere on the lot. It depends how you write it. Well, then there's going to be an arb of writing or something that's useless, right? [42:27] Joanna Manikus: If you dictate, well, you can say it has to be a native species or something like that, but it does become difficult, but and then if the tree dies, you have to let them cut it down because it's not safe. So it's right, or if it's, it's all good in theory, but it becomes difficult to really put in practice sometime. [42:45] Wendy Levine: Okay, I appreciate Bob's comment about buying land. Absolutely. And I, it's important for that. [42:52] Chair: It was always a budget item and I'm not, I'm not clear why it stopped me. Well, because there was no Conservation Commission for four years. See, right, so I understand, but I have asked for it now in the past couple of years, asked to have it put back out on a ballot, and that's gone nowhere. But I didn't know I had to go through Tyler and Ben, this electorate, to put something on the ballot. No, not for that, not for land, not just, all right. You got to do it. It'll be your final thing. Yep. Okay. I trust that will happen. I'm trusting you, Bob. [43:39] Amy Kelly: Yes, I will. I will support you on some number. And I, again, it has two big hurdles. All right. Yeah. You can write all the urns as you want, but I still only got one guy. And he's sitting here right now for an hour. And I know something's happening out there that he should be doing. It's the way it's going to be. [44:11] Chair: Right, okay, that's where we are there. Thank you both. Let me just look and see what I have left and then I'll know. Nope. [44:29] Wendy Levine: We're good. Did you want to talk with us regarding the new format for, you know, reporting issues, the, this thing that we were supposed to do, the [44:39] Chair: Okay, that is, go ahead, got nothing to do with you. [44:47] Amy Kelly: Well, we did it, okay, we can, but one of the things that people don't realize is share the two things, right, the agenda runs the right, the other three, four members have the right to do whatever they want. I'm not going to say which way I lean on all of this, but they have the right to choose this. I would suggest that you be proactive with Chris Novoly, Vice Chair. Meet with him to talk about it, and then we'll schedule a time where you can come to the select board and have your, you know, 30 minutes to talk about the good things that you want to do. Do all the bring on what you want to do. Right. That would be my advice. Right. That's their baby, right? They are, they put, they're the guardrails for the committee. [45:49] Wendy Levine: Because I reviewed it and gave some assessments and it's things that we're already doing. It's just, I feel it's a way to document and to communicate. Yeah. [46:04] George Blum: Sure. Right. Okay. [46:33] Amy Kelly: Front of the selectors realize your thoughts that is the beginning of [46:40] Chair: Thank you for your input, yeah, it's interesting because I'm gonna say just honestly Amy was all for getting this together and answering the, you know, putting together exactly, and I said it's all in our end of the year report, it's all in our mission statement, it's on every agenda, we're doing what they want us to do, why are we doing this, and she just, she did it so they have it, and just saying get in front of, absolutely [47:17] Amy Kelly: Yeah, and people will be thinking about that, maybe we should be buying more of the land that's out there, absolutely, as opposed to letting it go to develop whatever I got deciding to do tomorrow [47:29] Wendy Levine: I mean, some of the property that is being developed right now that it was like, you know, just disrupting the vista from Main Street towards the beach, I mean, that would have been a right near Beach Plumb Farm, that would have been the only place that you can see the ocean driving down Main Street is, yeah, but my, if there's beautiful lands out there that we can get, yeah, no, but there's beautiful land out there that is probably still available that I agree, I think that's a champion idea to do, to buy The land, I do, I look at that's one of my hobbies is to see what's real estate [48:25] Amy Kelly: Yeah, just an acre, there is some land that is in wetlands, right, that's what we should, I think, but you can buy that, you should be able to buy that, rather, right, because it can't be built, right [48:39] Wendy Levine: And then, and then keep it in conservation in perpetuity, yeah, and then that's how you're between a large piece of trees. Absolutely. [48:48] Amy Kelly: You've got to tell some developer that you can't cut down trees. He's just pretty much it. [49:02] Chair: We can all only do our best. Thank you both of you. I really appreciate it. Here, I brought this for you. I found it. Oh, I have it. Oh, okay. Maybe you gave it to me. Maybe I did. [49:19] Wendy Levine: Are we done? Yes. Thank you, Tyler. Thank you, Bob. [49:22] Chair: Thanks guys, thank you for your service to the town. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I had, I had a couple of just announcements. I don't know if those of you who have been here for a while remember that I asked for a hundred dollars to join the Maine Conservation Commission Association. He is, he's a, he's an amazingly good source of information for us. I just, I've never met him, but I already, I already really enjoy working with him. So he sent a notice that they were having a conference on October 24th and they were inviting chair, chairs around chairs and chairs and vice chairs to come to this conference. I sent it immediately to Amy because it sounds awesome. It's you know getting to talking about what we're doing in our towns, what's working, what's not working. There's a nice luncheon, there's breakout groups, so I signed us up immediately. So we'll be going right there and we'll certainly come back with a detailed, we'll let you know what happened because I'm excited about it. So just that was a hundred dollars well spent. It, this, the conference cost nothing, so it was part of our dues. That's well spent right there. And then Amy, we just found out, we just were notified that on October 13th they're doing something, SMM PBC. You know what, my apologies, we're learning [51:13] Wendy Levine: to talk about that because that came, it came this morning, like, or yesterday. Yeah, do you have it printed out or no? But I have it here too. I have it here on my computer. So I did sign up the initial project for the SMPBC. I don't remember when it started, whether it was a year ago or two years ago, but they did have a workshop here at the Dunaway about what was important as residents, what was the impact on the coastal climate and how resilient our community is and the functions of a community, how they should gather around and take their concerns, assess and what can be done about it and they have proceeded in different veins and they're going to have another workshop or a review of what's happened since then and some things have happened down on the riverside they 're talking about invasive plants along the along the river below the parking lot and opposite on the river road along the riverbank they're going to be addressing some of that and it's basically a coastal resiliency project. Because I was a little under the weather yesterday, I can't quite gather my thoughts on it, but there is a workshop and we can send the email around to everybody. Anybody can, anybody can come. They need the night before, they'd like to have everybody signed up so they know what they're dealing with. They'll meet here at the Dunaway and then walk to the beach each area and discuss what the plans are going forward and what the community input has been up until then and how it's, how it's looking going forward. So I don't have my thoughts. Yeah, they're interested, they hang on. SMPDC coastal resilience, let me, let me get my email regarding that. I don't see it. I sent, here we go, I just send it to everyone. Nature-based solutions, hang on, it's called nature-based solutions coastal resilience site visit. It's Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission. And the contact person for that project is Melanie Nash. She's been working on this here in Algonquin from the start. So it's Tuesday, October 13th at 10 o'clock in the morning through 1130. Rain or shine at the Dunaway here. Oh, here we go. It talks about dune restoration,, native plantings, stormwater management. So the invitation states, join Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission and the town of Agunquit for a walking tour exploring nature-based approaches to coastal resilience at Agunquit's main beach. Hear the lessons learned, funding approaches, and practical considerations for communities interested in undertaking nature-based resilience. Projects including what can be accomplished with limited resources. So that's it in a nutshell. Yeah, and it's, it's a really good project. Can we just forward it to you? Yes, we can. So there's that. [55:08] Chair: I think that's the end of my agenda. Oh well, one more thing, hang tight. Okay, I'm sorry. That's okay. [55:17] Wendy Levine: Okay. I was contacted by Len Pierce, who lives up by the Footbridge area, and he offered to help monitor the King Tide events over by Footbridge. So I'm still looking for volunteers to come. The next King Tide is in November, and I actually mapped out the dates and the times. And in December it happens around the three days, the day of Christmas Day is actually a King Tide event. So if anybody's willing to go down to the beach and take a picture at the moment of the high tide and just go back, and that's all they want, that's all they want, photos. And then there's criterias, and so you head to the monitoring site. It's been done by various citizens around here, I've been one of them, my husband's done. Take photos of high water or evidence of high water. Evidence might be seaweed, it might be sand washed over, it might be building damage, take pictures, and then go to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute website and upload your photographs. And they ask a series of subjective questions on what your impressions are of what you see. And it's rewarding to do, and it helps document what's happening in our community. Other communities along the coast have done this. We do this informally, to do it with a steady marker. They come and they plant a marker, which would be a specific site with maybe a measurement. And you photograph that point, that several thousand dollars to join their association, the institute to do. So we've just been doing it informally through the past few years. [57:23] Chair: But they're grateful even for that. [57:25] Wendy Levine: They are grateful for our input on that. So I brought forms for that. If anybody would like to volunteer for that project, we have two King Tides coming, November and December. So I'm thrilled that you are, that's great, Main Beach, oh excellent, I'll see what, see me and I'll hand this off to you, fabulous, I appreciate that, this is really exciting, you [57:48] Chair: have no idea, I mean usually there for years it was two, three, four people, and now we've got at people and people who are excited and want to work, this is awesome, I couldn't be happier. [58:02] Wendy Levine: So welcome, that's wonderful, welcome. Can I ask, yes, when you do something, actually, can I just, the chair should recognize, so, oh, we've got to get better at this, who's talking, we have to say [58:21] Chair: we have to say who's talking, be helpful, yeah, we haven't yet, oh, this whole discussion, it's mostly [58:26] Audrey Silvery: for votes, but because the minutes record, we haven't voted on any, right? But the minutes are recording what was done, not necessarily what was said. Yeah, so it's fine to just have discussion without identifying speakers. Okay, I'm sorry, where were we? I apologize for that. I am not [58:43] Wendy Levine: not good, I'm not good at rules. Go ahead. Yeah, so Jeff, go. So yeah, so in when you're putting together [58:54] Speaker G (unidentified): a proposal, you know, whether it's by a degradable containers or we were talking about, you know, putting together a proposal for purchasing for, you know, open space for the town. Do you have a set, I don't want to call it a format, but, you know, coming, you know, I came from Massachusetts and I would attend planning board and select board meetings and the conservation committee would, you know, I kind of noticed an evolution of this. They would come with some ideas and they were always, I wouldn't say always rejected, but usually rejected because they had asked for an economic impact for things that they were asking for. And I saw that evolve over time. And then that became a, you know, they became very in tune with what they were asking for in terms from economically, you know, I think his name was Bob was talking about, you know, if you go to a business and say, you know, you're asking them to do something, what is the economic impact and things like that? So do we have a set format when we put together a proposal like we've been talking about, you know, it's going to cover A, B, C, D, E, this is how we present it, so these are the items we should work [1:00:16] Wendy Levine: on before we, before we do it. May I just say my observation is how we've been functioning thus far as more organically. We come up with something and then we try to, you know, plug, we bring it to Tyler, yeah, and we might talk to our liaison and it's then we kind of plug our ideas in and work from there. We haven't had an ordinance coming from us for quite some time, so we're really trying now that our, you know, deck is full here with great people to organize and make some progress in these regards, so It's a learning process for us. We're all volunteers. I'm kind of on the ground and running with different things. That's been how I've been doing it. Wendy is has been keeping her eyes on, you know, or how to work with ordinances. And so this is, this tree ordinance was presented once before, but we didn't know the proper process in which to hand it to someone to make it happen. So it was during a, it was previously under somebody else's auspices, and so it went, and it's sad. So now we, now we know the procedures, and this is actually going to be exciting to reveal the correct steps and stages as we were just informed. This is, this is good, and getting ordinances on the ballot ultimately [1:01:58] Chair: is the select board's decision. So a lot of it depends on who's sitting there now. Bob is the current chair. Is he's done, he said in June. He's very environmentally conscious, extremely environmentally conscious. In fact, he owns a bunch of land, and I think that at least one of the two most recent people who came onto the select board are pretty strict conservationists. So that could be good for us. We may be more successful. We may, I think they are, because ultimately they have to decide. There's nothing we can do if they don't. Yeah, actually that's not true. We can do a citizen's petition to get something on a ballot, but it's, it's hard to do. It's 250 signatures or however many you need, and it's not easy, and you would want the select board behind you. So again, having this select board right now may be great. It may be, they're very, they're very oriented [1:03:13] Wendy Levine: on reporting, which we did. I was, she did regarding the reporting. I just was happy to put everything that we've done in black and white and have it like as like a paper portrayal, so to speak. So yeah, so that was just, you know, ongoing, and things are being done, and people, you know, I feel that people see or hear a lot of things, but it goes nowhere. And I thought, well, this is now written down, and there's a comp plan to it would be situated next to too, like ongoing assessment and plan going forward. And I think that's to be held accountable to not just us, but to the select board to know that we're, you know, what's going on, what we're doing, what actions do they need to pay attention to that we've done. So I found that to be a healthy outlet in which to, you know, take our work parameters going forward. So that's how I see it. But we do have the year-end report, but that's at the end of the year, and say, okay, that's wonderful, we did everything last year. Yeah, that actually, that's our year-end report is a year, a year behind. So it's the assessment of like, you're, did you sit on other towns' select board or? [1:04:38] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah, I was thinking about and then we ended up moving, so yeah. But you've seen a lot of, lot of issues going on in our town, so it was actually pretty popular. It sounds strange to go to the meetings and kind of watch them, and we had a pretty, I'd say business friendly select board, which is why they wanted the economic impact and thing. But when presented with economic benefits, which you can come up with a lot of them for things like open space design, so you can talk about the cost, but you also want to talk about the benefits, and there are economic benefits. So if you present them with information not just on the conservation side, but a lot of conservation things have economic benefits, even if you have pro-business people on select boards, you know, there's the opportunity to get some flexibility even from those people if you can, if you can talk about some of those, benefits, and they're all, they're all there. [1:05:52] Wendy Levine: It's exciting to see you sort of attune to it. So that's helpful. [1:05:55] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah, I'm happy to help in that aspect. I like research. [1:06:01] Wendy Levine: Well, I think we did. [1:06:08] Chair: That's all I have. We didn't really talk very much about getting the conservation land onto the ballot in June. But we can. [1:06:22] Wendy Levine: But we will. We have time. In case people aren't aware, if the planning board has site plans or issues that they need feedback on, that's part of our duty. So we would have a second meeting if they needed the, an issue. So did I explain that to you when I, yeah, so there's nothing that we're aware of right now, so we don't have to. We always meet on the first Wednesday of the [1:06:51] Chair: month, we, there's a space kept for us for the third Wednesday if the planning board gets an application, and there's a site visit, then whoever is available goes. And then we have that meeting so that we can talk about our concerns. If we have concerns, we always write up a report of what we thought, of what we're thinking. And that's serious business. And then we take that to the planning board, typically at least Amy and I go to that planning board meeting, yeah, because we are directly involved in anything that's being built or changed, [1:07:40] Wendy Levine: so we look at environmental concerns, wetlands, rental pools, you know, how it, how it might [1:07:47] Chair: Affect anything. I think a great example is the theater, for instance. We did, I, you know, half a dozen safe visits there and wrote up our concerns and worked with, that was, that was obviously a big one, but even smaller or we actually have, which it's a legal memo that we sent. I don't have anything more to talk about unless someone else [1:08:26] Wendy Levine: does. Do you guys have a group email where everything gets in? Yeah, we'll need your email, you'll get a dot gov email, then we'll take care of, okay, yeah, and we need your tell, I think Wendy has the telephone. All right. So is there any public comments or hand raise? [1:08:56] Chair: Ben, do we have anybody looking for us? No hands. Okay. Ben, if we have nothing more to do, somebody want to make a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn. Second, Audrey seconds. Do we have to one by one or just, no, you just say, Joanna makes motion, Joanna made a motion to adjourn, it was sec, the meeting is adjourned, was seconded by Audrey