Open Space Committee

Open Space Committee minutes for April 13. 2021

Present: Rick Gardner, Cary LeBlanc, Susan Downing, Deb Cary, Karen Rossow, Kelton Burbank

Meeting began at 7:00 p.m.

1. Minutes were approved for the March 9 OSC meeting.
2. Earth Month: Progressing well, with 53% of roads cleaned at this point.
3. Trails Presentation: Rick did a presentation on Princeton Trails on April 7. Will post the recording link on the website. Also, Rick has agreed to do a second presentation on Trails in surrounding towns, on May 12 at 7.
4. Vision and Action Plan: We reviewed the Vision and Action plan and made some assignments for each of the tasks. See attached update to Action Plan.

Next steps:

• Rick will complete and re-circulate the document

1. Open Space and Rec Plan 2020: We reviewed the Task List from our 2020 Plan document and discussed status and assigned some next steps to some of the action items. See the second attachment for a summary of what we decided.
2. Trail Around Princeton (TAP) progress:

Calamint Hill Conservation Area: The only remaining step is the wetland replication work, which involved a few hours of digging. Will schedule for the late spring.

Goodnow park: Next steps are:

• Tour of the trails for the Gals and the Historical Society/Parks and Rec as interested: Cary will send Rick some dates that work for him, and Rick will contact the Historical Commission and the Gal’s to see what will work.
• Begin trail work and work on signage: Organize this as soon as the tour has been completed.

Worcester West Trails:

• Renamed the area to ‘Cobb Brook Trails’.
• Trail day is set for April 24. We have seven leaders identified and will be inviting several others.  Purpose of the event is to set that trail, using leaf blowers, rakes, etc.
• This event will be followed by blazing and signage work.
  
  Red Fox Farm:
• Rick will be reviewing the plan with PLT tomorrow night to seek approval to proceed.
• Will plan to do a ‘Notification of Intent’ (NOI) for the wetland crossings. This will involve some time, to get approval from DEP and DCR. Also, will plan to do a ‘Request for Determination of Applicability (RDA) with the Con Com for new trail on the PLT side. These are easier as wetland crossing is not involved.
• The lead time for these activities is several months so we may be looking at trail work in late 2021 or early 2022.
• Rick will also lead a trail cleanup. Karen, Susan., and Deb are interested and there is one other ‘Earth Month Cleanup’ volunteer interested.

Princeton Hikes:

We will plan to ‘re-start’ Princeton hikes with a stronger focus on Princeton Trails in May, Susan, Karen, and Deb are all hoping to get more involved in this process. We will pick a couple of dates for May and pick some Princeton hikes that will attract new Princeton residents.

Rick has an article in the RR News for April.

Meeting Adjourned: at 8:08

Next Meeting: Tuesday May 11th at 7PM

Respectfully submitted,

Rick