[Denis MacDougall]: Hi, good evening, everyone. My name is Dennis McDougal on the city's environmental agent, and I staff the Conservation Commission, and unfortunately, we had some members who were unable to make it onto the hearing tonight so we're not going to have the full hearing like we had planned but we're to do we have you know the city is the applicant and we've got folks here who are involved in the project and we're just going to ask they're just going to do a presentation sort of talking about why they're here coming before the conservation commission and then if any you all have any questions you're you know we can try to answer anything we can and help you out you know you know but the our next scheduled meeting is going to be on march 15th so the same zoom information that you use to log on Tonight will be the same for that. So like the exact same, you know, zoom information.
[Unidentified]: So, um, I don't know if we want to coming on soon, but the director will be, since the city is the proponent of this, we've got a few city staff members here on the call.
[Heidi Davis]: We have Alex here, Dennis. Yeah, so we've got so we're not still not there. We need one more.
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah.
[Heather]: Have we heard from our others commissioners.
[Denis MacDougall]: I've heard from two today saying they cannot make it I just haven't heard from one so I sent an email earlier didn't hear back so unfortunately, so I'm not sure what's going on. We just need one more. So our Alicia just came on call. She's our director, but Alicia, we're still, we still don't have quorum. So what I suggested was, you know, we've got a lot of these folks on tonight. We can sort of talk about this and talk about what, you know, and then answer some questions and, you know, and, you know, I told them that we'll continue this meeting until March 15th and then we'll actually have,
[Alicia Hunt]: Have you heard from the last?
[Denis MacDougall]: No.
[Alicia Hunt]: You just haven't?
[Denis MacDougall]: I haven't heard, I haven't gotten anything. I've sent an email a while ago and didn't hear back, so I'm not sure what's going on.
[Alicia Hunt]: So my only concern is procedurally, if you don't have quorum and you hear like concerns or interests or whatever, open the hearing next. I mean, granted, anybody can talk about it was be like as if you had a site visit and less than forum attended right members could hear information about the project. When there isn't quorum there, the big concern is about hearing. Having quorum that wasn't properly noticed. Right so.
[Denis MacDougall]: but I think in this instance, I think we can, you know, cause I mean, we've got, I mean, we've got more people on this than we've had around our last five meetings. So I want to make, all these folks are on here tonight and we can, maybe we can't answer everything tonight, but we can always go through and sort of.
[Heather]: Would it make sense for us to at least tape people's concerns And that could be brought up again, or could be played or utilized at the beginning of our next meeting, assuming that we have a quorum.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, and that's true.
[Heather]: I know we're just trying to figure out a way to be as respectful as possible.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I was thinking that you would want to have the consultant present first because you wouldn't want people that if they're concerned about something that's not happening, right? Like you want them to actually be reacting to the current status of the project and what's in the jurisdiction of the conservation commission. And therefore, so you would want the consultant to present this evening, I would assume. And that way everybody be on the same page.
[Heather]: Yeah. And again, commissioners could tune into that, correct?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, this is recorded. It's on TV now. I assume it's gone live on TV. I didn't check. So it'll be available.
[Heather]: OK. Just want to make sure that we're legal and or respectful.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And the legal piece is covered because it's a posted meeting. OK. Yeah, if you're comfortable going forward and having the presentation and hearing from members of the public tonight. That's fine. Like, I don't see a problem with that things may just need to be repeated.
[Unidentified]: I'm ready now. Yep.
[Heidi Davis]: I'm comfortable with that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay. Um, I guess I should. I should have asked the consultants how they feel about this but It's late, I had actually trouble with the link logging in. I'm the applicant. So, yeah, sorry, I don't know if that wasn't clear or not. It's a project from my office. So, Amanda's the project manager on it, but the consultants were hired by the grant that we got. This is our project. City project. Yeah.
[Heather]: Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. City project, but Amanda and I are managing it.
[Heather]: Right. So shall we proceed?
[Unidentified]: I'm fine. I'll. Okay. If they wanted me to introduce the project.
[Heidi Davis]: We're losing you a little bit, Alicia. So I didn't hear the last few sentences.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry. It said the internet is unstable. Is that better now?
[Heidi Davis]: Yes, you're stable now. All right.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry. I actually didn't discuss this with Kayla, whether she wanted me to introduce the big picture of the project or if she was planning to do that. I think that's worthwhile for you to do a quick intro. That would be great. And then Jen is actually going to present to the commission. Yeah, she's a better handle on a lot of the technical stuff. Great. Thank you. All right. So then if we wanted to start, pardon me, it's unrehearsed. So I would hope that as residents of Medford, people have heard about the car park project. There was a very large outreach effort that we undertook during the fall of 2021 with a large number of sessions in the park to hear from people. We then took boards and information out to various events around the city. to hear feedback from what would residents want in a complete reimagining. Oops, we lost you.
[Christopher Bader]: You're frozen.
[Alicia Hunt]: A lot of things from the community. It was very clear that we need the baseball fields, but not for baseball fields, which was interesting that they're not all main teams. They're not all well used. And so we worked closely with Major League Base, Major League Baseball. sorry, as to how many fields and what sizes were most appropriate to their needs. And then we heard from the public about a variety of different things that were of interest in the park. Obviously a playground and a tot lot that is not in this phase of it that we have in the next round of funding we have will be done. We heard about wanting basketball courts and covered basketball courts. And we decided to put solar panels on one of the basketball courts. That's also in the next phase of the project. It's also outside of the resource area, but that's also, we have a federal earmark to help pay for that. And some ARPA funds as well. So that'll be in a, the next phase. It's our expectation that that work is going to get done during 2024. The biggest thing that everybody agreed on is that the loop path is well loved and well utilized, that North Medford is very hilly and many people have learned to ride their bikes on that loop path. and people use it for exercise constantly. So widening the path, making it a larger path, and then fixing it because there are a lot of, there's some broken up parts, particularly where some roots, tree roots have really destroyed it, and there's some low parts where it really floods. and then freezes and it's used year round by people. We heard from the pickleball community very loudly that Medford needs permanent pickleball courts in Medford. And so we've programmed pickleball courts and that is in this phase. And the other thing that we've been hearing a lot is places that dogs are allowed to be off leash. And so there's a dog park programmed into this park. We don't have the funding for the construction the dog park at this time, but we did include it in the plans with that are being presented tonight. The hopes of moving everything forward. There are a couple of interesting unique things in the woods, there's a. Also outside of the resource area, but on the side in the woods is a pump track where people could learn to ride mountain bikes. Mountain biking is very popular in the fells. This would be a small one loop where people would learn about riding mountain bikes. There would be one disc golf course. It's where you have a basket on a tree and people could throw the things into it. And that's a nice thing to have in the woods. And then the parking area, you may have noticed, has recently gotten a charging station. We lost you. or appropriate and is not lighting up the entire. Honestly, I can see the lights from car park on some nights from down off of Forest Street in Medford. So having lighting that's more appropriate and doesn't light up all of North Medford and is better controlled and more easily controlled is something that's of a lot of interest for that area. And that is part of this portion as well. This portion of the project that we funding for it is funded with a $1 million federal land and water grant. And then the pickleball courts are, and Amanda can give me the other numbers specifically. The pickleball courts have a, for the land and water grant. I believe it's 1.2 million in ARPA.
[Christopher Bader]: Can you just back up a bit? Cause you kind of froze and I think that's an important part.
[Alicia Hunt]: The funding. Yeah, I mean Amanda do you have the numbers exactly because I'm speaking to them off the top of my head.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so the Pickleball Courts portion, we received CPA funding for 400,000. Then kind of the larger kind of phase one that Alicia was describing, there is a million dollar grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund and a $1.26 million kind of match from ARPA funding. And this is all part of phase one.
[Alicia Hunt]: Great, thank you. And I'm going to tell you, I completely missed what Amanda said, because I switched off of Wi-Fi and onto a wired connection. So I'm hoping that that'll be better. Let me know if it's not. So then the So that's the funding for the park. And so the other piece that we have in this first phase is infrastructure for the entire park. The electricity for all the lighting throughout and any wiring underground utilities that are needed. water, there's some irrigation, and the water and drainage is all in this portion of the project when we're tearing up the fields. The other group that uses this park a lot is a youth football league and they use the outfields of the baseball. So the way the fields are designed, and our consultants will go into this, but into the environmental aspects of it, but they're designed so that you have your baseball fields, but that the outfields in this broader area is available for the youth football to use that as a practice area. And we also heard from residents who use that area for a variety of like open space things that they do out there. And a big portion of this is that there's a beautiful tree and that tree is protected as part of this process. So part of the moving of the path that you'll see is about protecting the root zone of the tree that's out there. And as she presents, you'll see what I'm talking about. Amanda and Kayla and Jen, are there any other big picture things that I missed on this?
[Unidentified]: I don't think so.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm not sure if I didn't quite catch it, but the pump track is not included in this phase either. Just to be clear. Right, so we have funding is the baseball fields, the utilities, the exterior track, the cleanup in the woods, the path, the stores have path, and now the pickleball courts, cause that was funded through CPA. The other phases, some of which are funded, the basketball courts, the teen area with team swings and some of those things. and the playground that's funded with the federal earmark, the second round of ARPA money. And actually we have applied for a second land and water grant to make up the difference of what we need to do all of that together next year as one big phase. So our goal is to do phase one this year, to do a large phase two next year, and then to spend some time trying to identify funding for a couple of the other chunks that hopefully we could wrap into phase two for next year. And so that's the big picture of all of this. And now I'm going to turn it over to these guys to talk about the details of what we're in front of Conservation Commission tonight for.
[Unidentified]: All right, thanks. Yeah, can everybody hear me?
[MCM00001329_SPEAKER_05]: All right. Yeah, so I I'm Jen Reardon with GM2 Associates. I helped with the filing for the RDA. So I was going to just give an overview of the wetland resources that are out there and the impacts and the buffer zone. Would it help if I shared a plan of the area? Could you do that?
[Unidentified]: Yes. All right, can everybody see that?
[Christopher Bader]: Not yet. There we go.
[MCM00001329_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. All right. So here's a layout plan of the park. And just to kind of point out some of the improvements that were discussed, there's the two fields, pickleball court, the pump track is over to the side here. And these two green areas are the wetlands that were delineated. Um, I, the delineation was done in September, 2021, and they're two small isolated wetlands. So they have a 25 foot buffer zone. Uh, we felt they met the definition of isolated, vegetated wetland. No connections to other resource areas were found during the delineation and the survey. Um, we didn't see any culverts that kind of had other connections. So. It appears that they really are just isolated low areas that collect water. They were both identified as potential vernal pools during the delineation that was done in the fall. The one on the right here is mapped as a potential vernal pool in mass GIS. So we went back out last spring. We did site visits in March and April of 2022. And both wetlands had about two to three feet of water at that time, but we didn't find any indicator species. I walked through most of the pool and checked them both, you know, almost the whole area of it and didn't find anything. So our conclusion was that they, you know, they don't support vernal pool species and therefore they meet, they are just isolated, vegetated wetlands. with the 25 foot buffer zone. And there are no other resource areas on or adjacent to the property. So as far as impacts, there's no direct impact to the isolated vegetative wetlands themselves. The only impact within the buffer zone is this area of proposed debris removal. And this is shown on this hatched area here between the fields and the edge of the woods. The plan for that area is to pull out some of the concrete debris and other construction debris that's there and put loam down and a native seed mix and some plantings. So it's about 500 square feet within the buffer zone. Everything else is beyond the 25 foot buffer. And it should hopefully improve the area next to the wetlands. Several different native seed mixes are proposed, and those were included in the RDA package. We're proposing a shade-tolerant mix in the wooded area. There's a lot of Norway, maple, and a lot of shade. So the hope is that that shade mix will take and hopefully outcompete some of the invasive plants that are in the area currently. And then further from the middle of the woods, there's a woodland edge mix proposed. And beyond the woods, there's a meadow mix in this area. The other thing I wanted to mention was some of the stormwater improvements. And Steve Sawyer from GM2 did that design. So I'll do my best to explain it. He couldn't make it tonight. But there is a small impervious surface increase. It's going from about 10.58% to 13.83% cover. So what's proposed is an infiltration tank to collect runoff from the pickleball courts, and also a bioretention area next to the proposed dog park. You can see that in the light green on the plan. And the proposed catch basins will have deep sumps to help with water quality as well. So that's my overview of the resource area and the impacts.
[Unidentified]: I don't know if there are any questions or open up for discussion at this point. I have one question. I have one question. Yep. Frozen. Heather, we heard you say that you had a question and then froze.
[Heather]: That was you, right? That was me. I'm sorry. Everything just froze. I just had a quick question. I was just curious about the concrete debris, et cetera. Does that appear just to have been casual dumping that was done in that area or done in the areas you were talking about doing debris removal? Is it just garbage that's been tossed?
[Alicia Hunt]: It appears to have been from a construction project. So there are slabs of asphalt and concrete sidewalk slabs.
[Heather]: Okay, yeah, this is a problem we see frequently. I was just curious to see if we were dealing with it, continuing to deal with it in this area. Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, it's less garbagey garbage and more of that construction debris, like a few bottles and plastic and so on, but a lot of that. Excellent.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, thank you. I've got a few questions. Could you put the map back up on the screen? The first thing I'm really kind of... Can you go over again how you are sure that the right isolated vegetated wetland is not a rental pool? I mean, I'm not too clear on that.
[Unidentified]: Jen, you're muted. Yeah, I realized that.
[MCM00001329_SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, so we did two site visits last spring in March and April and walked through the pools looking for any wood frog or spotted salamander eggs or other, you know, fairy shrimp, any of the indicator species that might be present. And we didn't find any evidence of that.
[Christopher Bader]: Of any species?
[MCM00001329_SPEAKER_05]: The only thing we found were mosquito larvae in the April visit. That was it, really. So when I did the site visit, the March visit, it was still pretty cold at that point. So I'm not sure if that visit was too early. So I did a second one in April. And I would think between the two visits that if there had been activity, then I would have seen something. So I'm not sure why. I don't know if there's not enough upland habitat nearby for the frogs and the salamanders. But that was the basis of the determination, was the spring visits last year. OK.
[Denis MacDougall]: And Jen, Dennis attended those visits with you, correct?
[Alicia Hunt]: Or one of them?
[Denis MacDougall]: I'm going to jump in. I was there for both those walkthroughs. And yeah, I mean, I basically stood on the sidelines while they were traipsing through the wetlands. They had hip waders and whatnot. But yeah, there was no evidence.
[Christopher Bader]: I kind of remember hearing frogs. That's why I'm really surprised. I didn't go through it, but this was years past. So maybe they're just not there anymore. I don't know.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So that's directly behind my house, those pools. And the one thing that I can tell you about those pools is I have a sump in my house, a drain hole inside the basement, it goes down, there's a sump pump in there. If there's water in that sump pump, there is water in those pools. So what I'm saying is those only have water in them in the spring. Like after, like once the summer comes, they're dried up. So maybe what it is is the wet cycle is not long enough to support that kind of life. I mean, I realized that those, you know, the frogs and things like that, they live in pools that dry up, but perhaps they're just not wet long enough for that kind of activity.
[Christopher Bader]: But you live right there, so you haven't heard the frogs in recent years?
[Adam Hurtubise]: You hear frogs everywhere around here, coming from Elm Street and things like that. I haven't heard a lot of frogs recently, let's put it that way. I would have to say that I don't think I've heard frogs in five years. So out of the life, so the life that I see coming out of there, obviously there's coyotes that come out of there. I've seen deer come out of there and I don't know how they get in there. I don't know, I don't think it's like, I think they're a transient deer population, but I've seen basically every other spring I'll have deer in my backyard. And it's early in the morning, like five or six in the morning. So yeah, I don't know where they come from. And they're small. I mean, they're not as high as my fence. So they're like, I don't know what you call them, fawns. I don't know what they are, but they're small, small little deer, baby deer that still have white spots. Yeah, they're fawns, okay.
[Heather]: Can I ask a question? From what I could determine, there really isn't going to be any significant change to those areas, either in depth or amount of water, what is going to improve in that area is in no way assist any critters of any sort. So what I understand, you want to get it marked properly. I get it, Alex, but it doesn't sound like we have a clear answer to that question for you.
[Christopher Bader]: Well, what I'm concerned about also is the dog park and when they built a dog park by the Mystic River, it has basically a sort of a flushing system where they're sort of flushing out everything, like every morning it just sort of flushes out and it basically makes its way So to the Mystic River. So here you've got this retention basin pretty close to that pond. What's the plan for the dog park? Is it going to have a flushing system the same or is it you have some kind of, well, what are the plans for how this dog park is going to be built and how we're going to keep it clean?
[Alicia Hunt]: Sure, I can speak to that. So to speak to the grading a little bit, everything from this, the outside, outer edge of the pathway drains towards the street. So we're not draining towards the wetland at all. We're capturing all that runoff and treating it and then having that overflow to this storm drain.
[Christopher Bader]: Is that on the map with the storm drain coming from the dog park, the proposed storm drain? I don't see it.
[Alicia Hunt]: Am I not looking at it? I'm saying the area overall on the dog park, we would be grading it towards that detention basin and the detention basin overflow and get to that area drain that is, if it overflows and fills up, it would get to the drain that's in that field area.
[Heidi Davis]: Is the dog part of this phase or is it the second phase?
[Alicia Hunt]: It is not part of this phase and there's not been any funding identified at this time.
[Christopher Bader]: I'm not sure if that came through. Yeah, it's not in this phase and there's no funding as of yet. Correct. But if we're looking at this project, don't we have to look at the project as a whole, or are we looking at this project as phase one approved, and then you're gonna come back and look for approval for phase two?
[Heidi Davis]: I do not believe that the RDA is requesting, well, the RDA is requesting either a positive or a negative, so it's not an approval per se. It's whether it should go through a filing or not.
[Christopher Bader]: Well, okay. I'm concerned about this.
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah. But I mean, that that can be when we actually have the hearing, that might be the time for that, you know, sort of, but I mean, good to express your concerns right now, but just something, a piece of information that I would like to see fleshed out for the hearing is
[Heidi Davis]: just north of the IVW, the Western IVW, isolated vegetative wetland, excuse me, is a drain manhole with an invert of 161.43. And so I'd like to know where that outlet is.
[Unidentified]: Obviously, this is
[Alicia Hunt]: Jen, is that on some of the plans we've received from the city? Sorry, Heidi. It's okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So again, that's my backyard. There's two manholes. One manhole is street drain, and the other manhole is septic sewer from the houses.
[Heidi Davis]: Great, thanks. So is this an outlet or an inlet here? Is water going in or coming out?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think the water comes down from Belle Ave and then continues to Winslow.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, the water, that's exactly what it does, the water. And the reason I know that is because it's, so the way our septic system is set up in our house, if there's any problem in that line at all, we're the first to know about it. There's two houses that basically the sewer line and the street drain both drain between the two properties, between my property and my neighbor. And as the sewer line, passes by our houses, that's where our houses drain into that line. So we're the downhill side of all that. So if there's anything that happens, and basically what can happen that's happened before is animals will get in there somehow, and then they blow it up and they clog the line, and then it doesn't come through. So the city comes with this 500-foot long snake, and it does go out all the way down through the park is where it goes. I guess it goes under the park and comes out somewhere over in Winslow.
[Heidi Davis]: Thanks for that background. That's so great.
[Christopher Bader]: So there's no connection. Nothing drains into these two wetlands. No storm drains.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, nothing drains into the wetlands. No, no, no.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, it's a manhole cover. And it was buried, I think, when the survey was done.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's not buried. They're above ground. Yeah, they're above ground because they're about 2 and 1⁄2 feet high. And I think it has to do with just the way things grade around here. And that's part of the problem, is what will happen is if people put, and it's always the same problem. And it always happens on a holiday. It's really funny. It always happens on Thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas. What happens is people dump cooking grease down their drains. And because it's so close, it's only about a foot. The actual sewer line is only maybe a foot or two feet. I think it's actually only a foot under the ground. So what ends up happening is, as it passes there, it chills. And the grease coagulates. And that's what clogs the thing, either that or an animal. Two things happen there. And that's because the way it's graded, it's not that low. So yeah, Dennis has probably seen it. You've been out there, Dennis, right? You notice how they're above ground?
[Denis MacDougall]: Sorry, I'm muted. Yeah, it's been that side. But yeah, that rings a bell. I mean, I've been going out there since I was a wee lad. where my park, T-Ball. So very, very long time going to that park. So, but yeah, that does.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Heidi Davis]: Another question I have. Sheets C-101 and L-2 show planting of trees. However, the RDA only refers to a seed mix. Did the trees drop out?
[Unidentified]: No, I believe they're included in the scope.
[MCM00001329_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, the trees are included. That was just omitted from the narrative, but the trees are included along with the seed mix.
[Denis MacDougall]: Oh, are the trees within the buffer zone? I don't know if they are, so maybe that's why they weren't included. Some are, aren't they? I'm just trying to look. It looks like they kind of all, none of them are.
[Alicia Hunt]: They're not in the buffer zone.
[Heidi Davis]: Yeah, they're all in the buffer zone. Nothing's in the buffer zones. Yeah, well, true.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. You were saying something about the, like, the mixes. So you can have like a upland mix and a, oh, I wrote it down and I can't read my writing. But so what are the mixes again that are going to be, there are no mixes planned for being planted around the isolated vegetated wetlands, right? And the mixes that we're hearing about were going to be planted sort of south of the trees. Am I right?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. Yes. So the diagonal hatch that's planted closest to the pickleball courts in this plan, that would be a native grass and forbs mix, kind of a meadow mix. The next sort of layer as we move into, because there are existing trees here, so thinking a little bit more about creating a bit more of an understory, we wanted to have a seed mix that does include shrub seeds in an edge semi-shaded condition. And then further in the woods, since there is going to be some disturbance with the debris removal, we wanted to address that with loam and trying to get something established that would prevent erosion and also try to prevent those invasive species from taking over. And those invasive species presently are mostly garlic mustard and some buckthorn. And further back in the wetland, there is a lot of Japanese knotweed, but it's not within the scope of this phase to address the extent of Japanese knotweed that's within the wetlands and kind of beyond back to the property line.
[Christopher Bader]: Just another sort of question here. So, In other parks, we've had like butterfly mixes and meadow mixes put in and what happens is they just get mowed and it turns into lawn. And I can kind of gather from here that where you're gonna put the meadow mix is not a place where you're gonna put shrubs, is that right?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, there would not be shrubs. And we actually have had a request from the planning department to kind of have signs that indicate where the edge of that meadow mix is so that it specifically does not get mowed. The meadows usually get mowed once a year so that you do manage larger shrubs, but that way, with some sort of smaller signs, we'll kind of prevent that from happening, ideally.
[Christopher Bader]: Right, yeah. Just as long as the contractors somehow have a way to see it, because like I said, that has been a problem with other parks.
[Alicia Hunt]: And we wanted to create a very kind of clean edge of where's that mowed lawn and where do those seed mixes start and end.
[MCM00001329_SPEAKER_05]: So will there be any damage to the existing trees during this whole scope of the project in the cleanup all surrounding that whole area?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, so the idea with removing the debris is to minimize damage to the trees. There may be some that will need to come out just because of extensive root disturbance. There are some that are growing in between piles of that debris. And I think to clarify on the intent of the debris, we're trying to keep it as much of a surface treatment as we can to not disturb those trees as much as possible. It's kind of a balance between digging out a really large part of that area and really causing a lot of clearing and disturbance, which we don't wanna do and addressing sort of the bigger moves on what that debris removal looks like.
[Heather]: Is that the kind of thing where prior to getting started, it would be pretty obvious and trees could be marked if there were any question?
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't know that, I think some of it will have to be decided in the field because, you know, you may start removing slabs and then see that there's more than you expected or less.
[Heather]: It's just, we came across this in our last meeting and we have a similar problem and a similar project. We kind of walked our way through that with a combination of site visiting and marking some of the trees, but with the full understanding that there may have to be some obviously decision in the field. I mean, it makes sense to me.
[Denis MacDougall]: I'm thinking maybe if we jump off the screen share and we go back to everyone else, just to get some questions from some other folks here. If you do have a question, you can either just do the little reaction thing like that or something along those lines, or just send us something in the chat. And if anyone is watching, on Medford Public Media. My email address is dmacdougall.medford-ma.gov and I'm going to type it here in the chat so that everyone out here can get it. And if you have any questions,
[Unidentified]: soon as possible. We answer them as soon as I can or as I get someone else to answer the question.
[Heidi Davis]: Just if others have comments that they raise their hands and identify themselves.
[Unidentified]: Question here, are trees going to be removed for the dog park?
[Denis MacDougall]: Doesn't appear so. I'm just looking at the map. The area where the dog park is proposed, there are no trees there currently.
[Heather]: It's already open.
[Denis MacDougall]: Just doing a demonstration. Do you have a question?
[Amanda Centrella]: No, I have a comment that was sent to our office that I wanted to read. Oh, got it.
[Denis MacDougall]: Just checking, because you had both up, and I thought maybe you were just doing a demonstration for everyone watching.
[Amanda Centrella]: Well, now hopefully everyone gets the gist. So our office had received a comment about this that I wanted to just read into the record. So this was from Jane Beckwith at 9 Walkland Court, apartment F. And she had just wanted to note that she was concerned about and very interested in protecting old tree growth generally in this project. And she made note of, in particular, a very large, beautiful cottonwood tree, which I have confirmed with the consultant team is slotted to be protected. And yeah, just wanted to share that she felt that these were important and integral for, you know, conserving shade and supporting local habitat. And that's all.
[Denis MacDougall]: Anyone else has any questions, please feel free. As I said, you can email our office, and we'll be glad to answer any other future questions you have. And apologies again for not being able to have the full hearing. And we're going to do this again in two weeks, March 15, using the exact same Zoom information. Log on to the meeting, and we'll be here. And Conservation Commission has a very specific function in terms of what we can and cannot do. So what we are do have oversight on what we don't have oversight on. So it's basically protecting of the resource areas and what they were talking about those those two wetlands to the north. So that's pretty much our our concern. So that and the area surrounding them in the area that's in the resource area surrounding that. So that's what we will be focusing on in the next meeting. well for coming. This is, I mean, genuinely more people than we've had at one of our meetings in a very long time. So we really do appreciate your interest and your concerns. Thank you, Dennis.
[Heidi Davis]: We'll see you in two weeks. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Thank you, everybody.