Agricultural Commission, December 20, 2016
AGRICULTURAL COMMISSION MEETING
MINUTES
December 20, 2016
Attendance: Steve D’Aquila, Denise Cummings, Jim Dunn, Eileen Charbonneau
Absent: Maleah Gustafson
Others Present: Charles Skillings, Holden Historic Commission; Isabell McCauley Holden DPW
Meeting called to order @7:31 PM
A motion was made (Steve) and seconded (Jim) move the Chapter 61 properties discussion forward in the agenda to accommodate our visitors. The motion was approved unanimously.
Ms. McCauley is the Holden person responsible for updates to Holden’s on-line geographic information system (GIS). At Steve’s request, she added an optional ‘layer’ where the user can select all Chapter 61, 61A, and 61B properties for highlighting. Ms. McCauley demonstrated the GIS modification to the group. It was noted that not all 61A properties were highlighted. The cause was determined to be that only land use codes (from the assessor’s data) in the 7000-range were used for the GIS changes. It turns out that many people have portions of their property in one or more of the Chapter designations and these properties are coded ‘multiple use (1010). Ms. McCauley indicated that adding the multiple use properties would be simple when she got a current listing from the assessor’s office. The Committee thanked Ms. McCauley for her fast, good work on this Ag Comm project.
Steve discussed with Mr. Skillings the idea of adding historic information to our database of Chapter 61 properties. Mr. Skillings has a large and growing personal database of historic information on many Town properties which could be shared and would seem to fit out need very well.
No past meeting minutes were available for review.
Denise has been in touch with the potential poultry raising speaker (Andrea Martin). She is willing to speak, but wants to it on a weekend. Jed’s is possibly willing to host, but already has a seemingly similar program from the Nutrena feed representative. Discussion will need to continue to fill in details. Possible involvement with the red Barn for hosting the event was discussed.
Denise asked Jim to update the Poultry raising in Holden document he wrote a few years ago.
Jim asked for support of the idea of getting the town to adopt new provisions in MGL Chapter 40 which allows Ag Comms to manage certain Town-owned properties. The Committee supported the concept and asked Jim to work with the Manger (and Conservation Commission) to see if it can happen at May Town meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 PM.
Respectfully submitted;
James Dunn
Acting Secretary