TM Article 9 - Buying the Cotton Farm

Oops, I think this is a cotton farm in Uzbekistan, not the Cotton Farm off Marrett Road near the Museum of Our National Heritage. The Uzbek one looks like a pretty active and happy place, albeit a bit dry, unlike the one the Community Preservation Committee wants to buy for Conservation Commission land. The Cotton Farm is a 4 acre plot that will add to the Upper Vine Brook Conservation Area. The price is some $4 million dollars and change, although the sale is by no means certain. If this seems like a lot to you for the lanai to a swamp (i.e. the Upper Vine Brook Conservation Area), don't worry - you've already paid for it via the Community Preservation surcharge on your taxes. At present, you can walk your dog unleashed in the Upper Vine Brook Area, but of the 48 acres of mostly wetland there, all the walkable land is about a quarter of a mile long. More about our adventures there later. Anyway, this is Article 9 in the current spring Town Meeting, although it looks like it won't be taken up until April.

ALERT! : Controlled Fires in Willard's! 3/19, 3/22, 3/24

Sharon pointed out in an email:



In today's Minuteman (3/18) there's an article stating that starting Fri. at 8:30am, the Conservation Dept. will be creating brush fires at WW to eradicate invasive plants. They will have fires Fri. 3/19, Mon. 3/22, and Wed. 3/24. I think it's probably best to stay away from WW on those days. The last thing we want is for a dog to get hurt or in some way mess up what the conservation and fire departments are doing.



Take this day off from Willards and go visit one of the other Conservation areas. Many of them are pretty marshy just now, so watch out.

Patriots' Day Dog Parade Brainstorm

Some illustrated ideas on a dog parade to kickoff the Unleash movement at the annual Patriots' Day parade.

We don't want anything really angry at this point. These guys have a beef with Franco, but there aren't any dog issues we can identify with here. Franco is still dead, and calling somebody a Fascist, even if they were, dampens any dialogue. Ironically, I am not sure if political-themed parade groups are permitted on Patriots' day. These folks are dressed up rather nattily though, something sadly not often seen in today's protests.

Bicycles are great in parades but bicycles and dogs don't mix too well. In a recent Globe article, somebody accused a dog of PeePee-ing on a bicycle at Willard's. This guy seems to be doing ok, but it would be hard to train enough dogs fast enough to have a parade of dogs on bikes even if we could control their expressive urges. His paws don't actually reach the pedals either.

Switching to elephants on bikes might not get our message across. Plus, elephant guano is a much bigger problem than dog guano on parade routes.

Dogs can carry things on hikes. Having this dog in the parade carrying some gear would help us make our case to the Boy Scouts, who seem to have a problem using Willard's with dogs around.

Now we turn our attention to Barkus, a New Orleans Krewe with dog-themed parades. This dog is dressed up as Indiana Jones, in a sense très grand.

Lots of music, of course, plus dog masks on the musicians. This year the theme was BatMutt: The Bark Knight.

I suspect that dogs in parades might be a bit unruly, so many Barkus dogs travel on floats or carts.

Current State of Affairs

Apparently someone walked w/ commissioner Wyman and advocate for our side but not anyone amongst our group. Does anyone know who it was that walked w/ him? Commissioner Wyman, Bitsko and Chairwoman Miller are part of the sub-committee that will make a recommendation to the conservation commission. What are the possible compromises? Limited hours a la the Green dog program adopted by several surrounding communities? As of now ta compromise is conjecture, does anyone know any inside info? if so e-mail me, aynka@hotmail.com, and i'll post it.

Margaret

margaret said...

Hi all-today at about 2:30, another woman and I saw a man come to the campfire area, where the benches are, and with gloves, plastic bag, begin picking up the 50 or more beer cans scattered about. He said he had been looking at them for 2 days and wanted to do something about it. I think incidents like these should be documented and made known to the CC and the public. Also, broken glass is often found in that area-i found a broken beer bottle top today. I do not have a picture taking phone or i would have done so.

From Bob

Just wanted to throw out a few thoughts after the 2/23/10 CC meeting. The meeting was quite educational and distressing.
1. Are facts relevant to any of these discussions or is anecdote enough?

2. I think whatever expertise the commission members bring, they have no clue how to deal with a problem which contains such quality of life issues to so many people.

3. It's unfortuate that a commission member would publicly say that he would only pick up after his dog under threat of a sizable fine. Can we try bigger and clearer signage and peer pressure before trying to impose
fines?.

4. I thnk the commission members are way over their heads with regard to all this, and the arrogance of them all to blame everything from "degradation of the woods" to " disappearance of wildlife" on dogs" shows a total bias on their part.

5. I suggest we offer the goodwill of the dog walkers to help the member who wants to research what other communities have done. I'm sure we could find people to help do this research.

6. I suggest the commission create a committee made up of members from both sides, the commission and a neutral arbiter which comes up with suggestions that the conservation commission must choose from to resolve this issue. This will allow them to take cover under the new committee's bi-partisan make up and allow all voices to be heard.