Present
Eva Thaddeus, Susan Krim, Alfred Souza, Miri Navasky, Rachel Dretzin.
Pond
At the request of the board, Bruno spoke with Brad Bowers at Serenity Solutions and Zach Davis at Pond and Lake Connection and recommended a revised contract with the former, which he submitted and Eva has executed on behalf of the board. Brad will treat the pond with a proactive application of Metafloc, a nutrient binder, and again later in the season. The hope is that this will restrain algae growth for this season and possibly future seasons as well, allowing us to implement other long-term natural solutions, but we have a second contract on hold for a peroxide-based algicide, which we can use this summer if needed.
Studio
Bruno has also been going through old meeting minutes and found the records of the meeting where the board approved Duff’s proposed policy clarifying rules for secondary structures on sites, which Miri attached to the chat. According to the policy, secondary dwellings must be smaller than 1000 square feet in size and not have a kitchen. Eva and Miri reported that Annie was unsure of the current square footage of the studio but is considering an addition that would bring the studio to more than 1000 square feet. The board continued to discuss the purposes of second dwellings and related questions around rental use, and decided to create a Google Doc to track discussions.
Woods
Eva reported that we have qualified for payments from the Family Forest Carbon Fund, a foundation recommended by the forester Annabel, with whom the community had contracted for a woods walk-through. The Family Forest Carbon Fund works with owners to buy carbon credits. They evaluated our forest, read our bylaws/ declaration of restrictions, and have identified 65 acres that are eligible to participate in their program. Individual lots are not part of this, nor the area immediately around the stream. The fund would pay us $650 per to participate in their program by allowing our forest to continue to grow. In return, we would make a 20-year commitment not to harvest timber (other than under special circumstances, such as culling diseased trees, etc.) . They’re planning on sending Eva a contract to review. Annabel also suggested other sources of funding to preserve the forest: federal grants, a state program which is complicated and requires an administrator. Susan expressed a concern that the carbon contract could conflict with other potential funding for forest removal. Eva noted that there are more restrictive ways to participate that pay us more, but don’t allow us to participate in other programs, and recommended the less restrictive option.
Financial Report
Susan reports that we have $21,475 in the Maintenance Fund, with two outstanding invoices for snow removal totalling $10,227, and $19,657 in the Capital Fund. Total snow ploughing invoices for this winter were $13,510
Annual Meeting
The date of the annual meeting was set for Sunday, July 12, at 10:00 am.
The meeting was held remotely by Zoom. Minutes submitted by Rachel Dretzin.