05.15.25 Conservation Commission Draft Minutes

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Conservation Commission Minutes

May 15, 2025
5:30 pm at Town Office

Linda Hecker called the meeting to order at 5:30 pm.
Present: Linda Hecker, Anne Montgomery, Katie Shea, Steve Soszynski, Susan Bonthron.
Absent: Josh Farr, Alex Lacey, Bill Jewell. There were no Zoom attendees.
There were no adjustments to the agenda, and the April minutes were unanimously approved.
Action steps were reviewed; Josh has not yet added the photo folder to the Google Drive. Noted:
John Marco cannot join the commission because expects to move to W. Brattleboro.
Photo Exhibit: We discussed the possibility of hanging the photo exhibit downstairs at the BBCC (where it can serve the additional function of dampening the room’s echo). Linda will ask Ada about installing picture rails in that room.
Weeks Forest Trail Work Sessions: We reviewed the three 2-hour work session dates for the Weeks Forest Trail chosen at the last meeting. In view of the national protest planned for June 14th, we moved the first work session up to June 7th. We also decided to hold a special meeting during that session in lieu of our regular June meeting. We agreed to hold the other two work sessions as planned on July 19th and August 16th. All three will begin at 9AM to take advantage of cooler temperatures; bring tools, gloves, garbage bags, bug repellant.
Monthly Walks: We agreed that Roaring Brook and Governor’s Mountain would be good possibilities for walks in areas noted in Natural Resource Inventory (since those walks had to be cancelled last year).
Katie will look at the NRI to find other potential walks.
Butterfly Atlas Training in August; Linda H will talk to the Brattleboro Conservation Commission
about partnering with them for a field training late in the summer which would be follow-up to a
general training at Brooks Memorial Library on June 28th.
Update on Guilford Guide: An online version will be out this summer. We will decide on creating a flyer for land owners after we evaluate the information available in the guide.
Natural Resource Inventory Printing: Katie reported on printing costs from local printers and
online vendors. Katie will research the costs and numbers for another round of printing (there has been a lot of interest in this).
Weeks Forest Trail: The New England Forest Foundation plans to do logging in the Weeks Forest later this year. They have been in touch with our Conservation Commission and will update us with dates and areas to be logged.
The Composting Report was tabled due to Alex’s absence.
There was no additional business, and the meeting was adjourned at 6:35 PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan Bonthron (Secretary)

Meeting Video: https://youtu.be/UCLYwLo8kbo