Open Space Committee
Open Space Committee meeting minutes for Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Present: Rick Gardner, Susan Downing, Annie Charrette (alternate), Deb Cary, Laura Reynolds and Karen Rossow. Guest: Geof Yaglou.
Meeting began at 7:03.
Minutes of the April meeting unanimously approved.
Nature walks: A healthy number of registrations, most of which happened the opening day of registration, which runs through April 22nd. Susan and Karen managing the project. We will not publicize the walk series further. We will take cancellations and keep a waitlist. Susan and Karen will notify participants and walk leaders about registrations.
Red Fox Farm trail system: This is what the area will be called, although there is a Walcott trail within the system. Both of the donated bridges have been installed by volunteers. We still have to erect the kiosk, which was inadvertently printed larger than we intended (which is okay). The trail signs are ready for installation.
Goodnow Park’s kiosk sign is in progress, and we made suggestions to Rick tonight. We decided this kiosk should be 2x3 feet, smaller than our other ones. We’ll ask Joe and Phil for a bench as well as the wooden construction of this kiosk. Susan suggests that we name the trails after different Goodnow family members and Deb will introduce Susan to Betsy Beth via email communication to help with that.
Earth Month Clean Up is progressing very well now that the snow is gone. We do not have a dumpster at this time.
Kids’ Hikes flyer that Annie designed will go into every Thomas Prince School students’ backpacks! The inaugural hike will be at 10:00 a.m. on Earth Day, April 22nd at the Four Corners kiosk. Annie and Karen will lead this.
Other trail news: Rick is in discussions with two landowners about allowing some rough, currently existing trails on their properties to be enhanced and made more formal, as has been done with Cobb Brook and Red Fox Farm. They run from Cobb Lane to Brooks Station Road which will make a great connection for the Trails Around Princeton. Lots of people are helping to clear our trails in town!
Land Parcel analysis project: Rick and Deb have generously contributed hours of effort to determine important land parcels in town and rating them by previously detailed criteria. Rick would like the group to further consider which parcels have significant conservation value and report back at our next meeting our top 10 – 30 parcels. A helpful tool is the Massachusetts Interactive Property Map.
Next meeting will be on the FIRST Tuesday in May as the next one is the Annual Town Meeting. So that’s May 2nd, 2023 in the large room of the Annex at 7:00 p.m.
Meeting adjourned at 8:25 p.m.
Tasks: Susan and Karen will manage the nature walks registrations after April 22nd.
Deb will email Betsy Beth to help Susan with the Goodnow family history. All will work on the parcel analysis with the data stored in our shared drive. Rick will continue to engage trail stewards and land owners of two particular parcels regarding hiking on their land.
Respectfully submitted,
Karen Rossow