Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013.07.09 Forest Lands Commission Minutes MINUTES FOR A MEETING OF THE ASHLAND FOREST LANDS COMMISSION Tuesday, July 9th 2013 5:30PM to 7:30PM Siskiyou Room, Community Development Building 51 Winburn Way I. CALL TO ORDER: 5:30 PM John Williams, Jeff McFarland, Marty Main, Dave Brennan, Stephanie Seffinger, Frank Betlejewski, John Karns, Chris Chambers, Albert Pepe IL INTRODUCTIONS III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: June l lth minutes Minutes approved as submitted. IV. PUBLIC FORUM V. ADJUSTMENTS TO THE AGENDA none VI. BUSINESS A. Trails/Recreation Update Trails Master Plan dollars are now available at 5,000 dollars per year. Some needs to go to signage but the rest will be allocated to planning based on needs and direction identified by staff and the FLC. Rob Cain has passed on the trail easements to the property owners along the Alice in Wonderland trail. The trail easement survey is waiting to be completed and costs will be shared between the City, Parks, and AWTA. Some work has already begun on the middle section of the Mike Uhtoff trail using a youth crew and will continue. B. Ashland Forest Plan Revision Seffinger will get a paper copy from Chambers. Frank reviewed the City of Corvallis forest plan. Corvallis' forests are located outside town by 12 miles so the lands aren't so similar to Ashland. They do however have many sections on resources such as wildlife, fish, and botany. For the write-up for each unit, Frank suggested only a short description (200 words). Maymar suggested looking at the Arcata forest plan, if it's listed on the website. The Corvallis plan has a recent update as well. Frank suggested finding out how many public tours have taken place on City lands since the Forest Plan. Records could be hard to come by. Seffinger would like to include pictures in the update. C. City Lands Winburn Thinning Summary Chambers explained the background and then the details of the recent helicopter thinning work. The financial result not counting project administration was a loss of 80,066 dollars, which is reimbursable through The Nature Conservancy grant program. C:\Documents and Settings\fitzgeralda\Desktop\July 9th,2013.docx S effinger suggested adding the firewood donation piece to the report. Chambers agreed and said that nine dump trucks were delivered. Slattery suggested bringing a summary to the City Council and the group agreed that a tour is appropriate as well. Slattery suggested September for both the tour and presentation. S effinger asked about school involvement and Williams explained how watershed education is hit and miss throughout the district. The new superintendent may be more interested in using the forest for learning opportunities. D. AFR Project Update Chambers explained that work is dropping off right now due to fire season. Road maintenance wrapped up last week. The AFR partnership will be reviewing the process and outcomes of the last couple years of work at a meeting next week. That will transition into planning for the upcoming work using funds carried over from the sale of logs and more recent sources. The partners have captured 84,000 dollars of funding through an insect and disease mitigation fund and also an additional amount through USFS project funding dollars as well. Both will be applied to the AFR effort this fall. The partnership is also carrying over 1.3 million dollars in receipts from the log value that will be used for work this year. The Forest Service is in the process of creating a work plan over the next 6-7 years that will request enough funding to complete AFR. One last element of the AFR funding effort is being led by the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is creating a map that will either sell or be offered for free locally with the intent of generating donations to a fund for watershed work. In the current year, the dollars will be matched 1:2 by the National Forest Foundation. They expect it to be out this fall sometime. E. Watershed Outreach Plan Discussion Brochure Items to consider for inclusion were listed by Williams. Karns suggested that the Chamber of Commerce map will have much of the same information that could be used for the FLC brochure and a draft is forthcoming in a month or two. Williams will coordinate with the Chamber. VII. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS Frank suggested the cut-off date for inclusion of data into the plan be June 301h, 2013. The group agreed. Meeting adj ourned at 7:10. VIII. REVIEW AND SET COMMISSION CALENDAR/NEXT MEETING A. Next Regularly Scheduled Meeting, August 13th 2013 IX. ADJOURN: 7:30 PM CADocuments and Settings\fitzgeralda\Desktop\July 9th,2013.docx In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need special assistance to participate in this meeting, please contact the Public Works Office at 488-5587 (TTYphone number 1 800 735 2900). Notification 48 hours prior to the meeting will enable the City to make reasonable arrangements to ensure accessibility to the meeting(28 CFR 35.102-35.104 ADA Title I). C:\Documents and Settings\fitzgeralda\Desktop\July 9th,2013.docx