Bangor Infrastructure Committee reviews forest management plans for city properties

[0:15] Carolyn Fish: GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE. TONIGHT IS JUNE 15, 2026. IT IS 632 P.M. AND THIS IS THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE MEETING. AND PRESENT IS, TO MY LEFT, COUNSELOR HAWES, COUNSELOR MAHLER, COUNSELOR DEAN, COUNSELOR PALOON, COUNSELOR WALKER, COUNSELOR BECK. And also joining us is Director of Engineering Jeff Davis, and first up on our agenda tonight is a selection of forest operations contractor. [0:51] David Szewczyk: before we go to that i know you have one evening but i just have a quick update on the dax bot on robot information it's just 30 seconds i don't want to interrupt council [1:04] Carolyn Fish: Council Leonard has joined us, and also Council Fish, chair of this commission. Sorry for [1:11] David Szewczyk: the interruption. So the, if you all remember the Daxbot program we're going to do for our ADA transition plan, it's a little robots that travel on the sidewalks and block building information. One of our engineers Hannah and our office in the city solicitor Grace Race has met with their marketing team and have come up with a plan. So the first going to hand out a, I'm sorry, they're gonna do a informational social media post including a frequently asked question sheet. The questions kind of range from does the CEO in the robots and the answer that other robots recording me, why use the robots at all, that sort of stuff. And then the next step they're going to do, they're going to have a meet the robots event. Daxbot will coordinate with the library. Daxbot will show up with robots and we'll have a public meeting and everybody can kind of see what they do and ask all the questions they want. In the meantime we're going to, Daxport is going to host a website that provides all information and then the Daxport stuff with QR code when it's moving around the city and folks can scan it and it'll take them to that website with all the information. So that's just kind of the sort of stuff we will be doing before we actually put them out on the streets. So as soon as we have a date for the informational meeting we'll get that sent out through all of our social media posts and all the posts on them too. So the next only two items I have on infrastructure are four feet. So I'm going to hand everything over to Ben and Sophie and then those are good piece. I'm going to get out of the way though. [3:16] Speaker C (unidentified): City of Bangalore, Forestry Manager. So for the past few months and since 2021, the City of Bangalore has worked to formalize forest operations and properties that we own and manage. The two properties that we are focusing on this evening are properties that we know as the Roland Perry City Forest 680 acres on outer still water and then a property owned and managed by Public Works finding pit that property is just under 200 acres in the town of Winterport Roland Perry City Forest is a very popular spot for recreation it is named after a former city forester, Roland Carey. The objectives of this property are to balance recreation along with forest health and locating forest operations as a means to educate the public on what exactly commercial forestry is when they're out recreating. The planting pit property in Winterport is a former gravel pit that has been since put to bed, per se, replanted as trees, and is in a state tax program known as tree growth. So that program requires a commercial interest in forest products in order to be taxed on rather a value associated with trees versus a traditional real estate value, which is the best and highest use of a property, at a reduced tax rate. So we have gone out and talked with three commercial timber harvesting contractors and contracting firms for forestry services. We have chosen, based on our discussions and written estimates for services for these two properties, to go with Prentice and Carlisle. Prentice and Carlisle is a local commercial timber harvesting and consulting firm based right out of Bangalore. The process we used was I took a look at my budget with the public works director we took a look at just using my existing 57 000 a year budget and putting a cap on forestry expenses at no more than 25 000 based on the current economic climate and the cost of diesel fuel, everything that we will be doing for commercial forestry services or these properties will likely come at a cost. There are certainly harvests that we can complete that would potentially bring income, but by no means will these harvests pay for themselves or generate adequate income to cover other services. [6:54] Carolyn Fish: Does anyone have any questions? And I don't think you need any action from us tonight, correct? Thank you very much for that thing. So I think you included the Essex Woods with that report, correct, or is that another [7:24] Speaker C (unidentified): separate matter? Okay, all right, Sophia Cameron, I'm going to do that. [7:29] Speaker D (unidentified): Back next week we'll take over. Good to see you guys again. So as Ben mentioned briefly, those two properties, Twine Pit and the rolling of the Perry City Forest, have existing forest management plans that were written in 2021. We have several other wooded parcels that are owned by Parks and Recreation that have not had forest management plans written for them in a very long time. Typically the period for a forest management plan is 10 years. They determine the course of action across a 10-year period. The last time a forest management plan was written for Essex Woods was in 2003. So to our knowledge, none of those recommendations were ever carried out either. So it is long overdue that we reinstate active management in Essex Woods for several objectives that were identified through talking with members of Parks and Rec. First one is to provide safe recreational opportunities for the citizens of Bangor. For those of you that aren't familiar with Essex Woods, it's 113 acres kind of right in the heart of the city off of 95 near quite a few schools, well connected to the rest of the city. It is, it's also home to the dog parks of Bangor, it is also home to a lot of our mountain biking trails, and it is one of the top 10 birding locations in the county, though some folks will argue the state. So it has a lot of draws to it recreationally. It also has the sliding hill, folks love to go there for things like cross country skiing. So definitely putting recreation on that property at the head of all of that is really important. The thing that becomes complicated with that is that Essex Woods is also home to a capped DEP landfill that was capped in the 60s and was not capped to current day standards. So there are some places that are hazardous to recreators at this time. So in this plan, there's recommendations for remediation. We've talked to members of the DEP on how to sort of make it safer for folks to be in those areas. We also want to protect local waters, cultural artifacts and wildlife habitats. There is a large open wetland at the bottom of that hill that is home to several species of birds that are of special concern or endangered or etc. So making sure to keep those waters clean as we approach doing this work. We also want to improve tree quality and forest health. health. There are several red pine plantations on that property that were planted back in the 90s. So keeping an eye on those as red pine scale moves across the state and also trying to improve overall forest health through the removal of invasive plants is a big issue. I don't know if anyone's ever been out there and seen the massive Japanese knotweed problem that we have. So trying to address that. We also want to demonstrate good forest management. So that means following means best management practices for erosion control and water quality protection during all phases of forest management and harvest, and then also provide educational opportunities, largely, just because there's a lot about that property. That's very interesting that folks don't know. So we're looking at doing things like signage and all of that. these plans are typically approved by a forester so in this case that's ben however i authored the plan just to have another set of eyes on it so the recommendations that i made and that were approved by ben as well as tracy are to survey all of essex woods to determine both external and internal boundary lines of the property it's made up of nine different parcels and so in the past they've just done the external boundary lines but anytime time you do work on a specific parcel you do have to know which one you're on so as to be able to file the appropriate permits, etc., specifically because we're working with the DEP site. So getting those boundary lines re-established will be really helpful for management going forward, and then continuing to monitor and maintain those on a five-year schedule. As we have seen encroachment from neighboring property owners into Essex Woods, which has included some cutting of trees, dumping of trash, things like that, there will be no commercial timber harvesting recommended over the next 10 years except to be used as a tool to promote forest health or improve public safety. We want to get on a three to five year pruning cycle to maintain clearance along trails for recreators as well as for vehicle access for land managers. Obviously, the invasive plant control aspect of this is really important because that's the biggest issue that we're facing there right now. Additionally, we may in the future replant those areas that have invasives now that are lowering the native plant biodiversity with native shrubs and trees to kind of bounce the health of the forest back up. We also want to take special consideration to maintain and improve those various bird habitats for the recreators that are there. Continue to monitor for and respond to infestations of red pine scale, emerald ash borer, hemlock woolly adelgid, beach bark and leaf disease, the things that we are struggling with every day on all of our properties. And then also, like I said, post-educational signage to teach recreators about various habitat types and bird species in Essex woods, as well as other natural resources. We've had really fun conversations with inland fisheries and wildlife songbird biologists, as well as partners with Ag Allies, as well as Maine Audubon, and everyone is super interested in kind of enhancing that aspect of Essex Woods for Recreators so that we can kind of put this property on the map as like a birding place. And then additionally, they want to update and repair the Powell Building at some point so that it can be repurposed for either use by the city or for use by a nature recreation based nonprofit for the benefit of citizens of Bangor, improve and expand mountain biking trail networks following the recommendations made by the outdoor sports institute they are currently working on their own trail improvement plan for mountain biking on that property which has not yet been published and then we also Are up against because of that landfill situation quite a lot of erosion across the property again it was never capped to current day standards so we have issues to specifically on the mountain bike trails themselves because they haven't been improved in a very long while. And then additionally, we've had some folks that are not aware that it is a landfill and have tried to do some trail building of their own, which has disturbed the cap in some places. So we need to address those issues. And then we also need to control erosion. I don't know if anyone's ever been out there in the summer. The Bangor Water District has a tank at the top of the property, and there's an outflow that they turn on and off depending on what they need to do with the water level in that tank. And because of the instability of that slope, as well as the fact that a lot of this ledge, there's been quite a bit of erosion, and it's affecting some of the mountain biking trails, it's affecting some of the main trails. And a lot of that is just because proper culvert sizing wasn't installed when they started opening that up. So we need to address those issues as well. You guys got my hundred and whatever plus document, so there are a lot more details in there about that. A lot of it is very technical, so don't feel the need to review all of it, but essentially we're seeking council approval to approve this forest management plan as the governing document for Essex Woods from June 15th, 2026 to June 15th, 2036. [15:30] Carolyn Fish: Do we have any questions? I have a question. I've spent a lot of time out there and I don't recall seeing vents. I see that in the reporter. I remember reading that fence needed to be added or improved, and but on the landfill area [15:49] Speaker D (unidentified): I found a letter from 1971 from the old Parks and Rec director that just essentially asked the main National Guard to bring in like 15,000 yards of fill just to put down. So I don't think there was ever, and again, it was the 70s, so you got away with a lot of things back then. We have also discussed with Matt Young of the DEP how to approach this, and at this point we are, because it's so old and because things have grown up on it, technically they were supposed to keep it clear for however many years but that didn't happen either. We're kind of being grandfathered in on a lot of things. So this is a very special circumstance where we're working directly with them on how to remediate the issues we currently have. [16:43] Carolyn Fish: So you need a motion from us to accept your forest management plan? [Speaker C (unidentified): So moved. Okay.] Correct. Good. And anything else to add to us? And anyone else have any comments? Or thank you so much. Thank you very much. That concludes our infrastructure meeting at 6:49.