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Home My WebLink AboutCB Minutes 2025-12-04 1 Town of Ithaca Conservation Board December 4, 2025 5:30 pm (In Person at town Hall and via Zoom Video Conference) Final Minutes Members Present: Lori Brewer, Frank Cantone (via Zoom), James Hamilton, Eva Hoffmann (via Zoom) Staff Present: Michael Smith (Senior Planner) Guests: Pete Loucks, Richard Martinez (via Zoom), Joe Talbut (via Zoom) 1. Discussion with Joe Talbut, Town of Ithaca Parks Superintendent: Joe explained he has been working with the Town for 7 years now, with five full-time employees to maintain, improve, and develop the Town’s parks, preserves and trails. He can also find help from the town’s water and sewer department’s more than 20 workers when needed. In winter, there is a lot of trail clearing and salting to do. His budget contains about $50,000 for this work, and he finds volunteer help when he can. For example, one volunteer has been great help working on removal of young transplanted trees’ deer protection tubes and invasive removal along the Pew Trail. Student groups’ help is also much appreciated. He explained that the County had recently replaced collapsed culverts in a storm drain under the Pine Tree walkway, which is on Cornell Property. Our CB’s scenic resources committee has been waiting for Cornell approval to post a third view sign near the corner of Pine Tree and Snyder Hill Roads near the recently repaired culvert, but Cornell has been very difficult to work with. Eva complained that the Scenic Resources Committee’s view sign project has been held up for years, waiting for Cornell permission. The Pine Tree walkway is one of several Town trails that gets cleared of snow and ice. Joe noted that the Town has been experimenting with brine for ice clearing, as it sticks to asphalt instead of bouncing off, and could cause less injury to plants along the trails. James asked what Joe thought of Ingrid’s draft poster for town trails, parks, and preserves kiosks. Joe has seen a draft and enthusiastically supported further development. Mike could get a first attempt suited to a particular kiosk printed and laminated for posting once we get a trial version ready. As such posting would be a way of increasing traffic to certain locations, or even of decreasing it elsewhere, members wondered how such traffic could be measured. Mike and Joe noted the Town has been using three trail counters, now set up at South Hill Rec Way, Forest Home Walkway, and the Gateway Trail, giving them a good idea of how much foot traffic moves there. He would like the Town to get more counters, since they’re not expensive, and gives more use to the software that works with them. Richard Martinez thought the Gateway Trail should be tagged on Google’s map, and volunteered to look into doing so. Joe said the Babcock Preserve would soon get contract help building trails. The preserve, once its new work is finished, would be a fine place to promote with a kiosk poster elsewhere, as few people would know it was there. Richard would like his Boynton students to help with whatever park job they might be able to do, and Joe would be very glad to get such help whenever possible. 2. Persons to be heard: none. 3. Member comments/concerns: Frank wondered if Richard had been approved as a CB member. Lori noted we would get to that under Agenda item 8’s Other Business. As Eva had not met Richard before, she explained how she’d been working with the importance of scenic resources to the Town. Richard introduced himself as a Life Sciences teacher at Boynton Middle School, though he’s only been in Ithaca for a year. His background is in aquatic resource studies. 2 4. Environmental Review Committee Update: No new projects have needed review. 5. Chair and Coordinator reports: Lori received an email from Zero Waste Ithaca asking for CB support with legislation that would allow diners to bring their own containers for taking food home from restaurants. She will forward that request, which seemed sensible to members present. Mike noted that the South Hill trail extension southeast past Burns Road was getting cleared by a group of volunteers on its way through Caroline, Danby and Dryden. Consultants will be hired soon to start looking at concept designs for the Burns Road to Banks Road section. The Town’s deer program would be getting permits and approval for eight bait and deer stand bow shooting locations for February and March next year. Members would be getting their annual stipends around December 30th. And members should consider attending a State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) webinar on December 15th via Zoom from 6 to 8 pm. As many town development projects require SEQR attention, this might be a good opportunity for us to learn more about such technicalities. 6. The July 3, 2025 minutes were approved, with James so moving, Lori seconding, all in favor. Eva thanked Abby Homer for taking over these minutes that Eva wasn’t able to finish. The November 6, 2025 minutes have not yet left Frank’s desk. 7. Regular reports and updates: a) Scenic Resources Committee: as noted earlier, we’re still waiting on CU easement/license approval for the view sign near Snyder Hill Rd and Pine Tree Road intersection. b) Communications Committee: James will try to get a final draft of a Park, Trail, Preserve Kiosk poster suitable for posting at some particular trailhead kiosk. Mike could get it printed and laminated for such use. c) Tompkins County’s EMC meeting, held via Zoom, impressed Pete with its connection to the County Legislature, as a legislator attended the meeting. He plans to attend the next EMC meeting, too. d) Six Mile Creek’s volunteer monitors took a synoptic sample at 13 locations on November 12th last month. Flow was not quite as high as median flows for that day of the month, so the desired storm-level creek did not get sampled this year. Preserved Benthic Macroinvertebrate samples from Six Mile have not yet been processed, though volunteers are now working their way through other such summer creek samples stored in Community Science Institute’s lab at Langmuir. Adrianna Hirtler, who won the Fischer Award a couple years ago, is helping volunteers turn the stored samples into creek health data at the lab on Tuesday evenings from 6 to 9 pm. e) Cornell Botanic Gardens Natural Areas volunteers have worked planting young trees on Mann Library slope above Beebe lake. These trees were grown at the Plant Production Facility near Flat Rocks from seed collected from nearby natural areas in previous years. After planting the trees, we collected seed from native goldenrod and asters below the Foundry on Fall Creek’s south bank, and further downhill past Chi Psi fraternity. Volunteers also weeded out invasive privet, honeysuckle, buckthorn, barberry and bittersweet in Upper Cascadilla gorge below Oak Ave. The east end of Park Park, near Varna, needed some trails cleared, invasives removed, and a big box elder branch cleared from a picnic table it had fallen on near Fall Creek’s south bank. 3 8. Other Business: a) The proposed 2026 meeting schedule was approved, with a new earlier meeting time from 4 to 5:30pm and the January meeting schedule for January 15th. If this earlier time doesn’t work out, we can change it as needed next year. b) Lori and Frank agreed to continue in their jobs as Chair and Vice-Chair, getting thanks for the fine job they’ve done this year and unanimous approval by all present. c) Our potential new CB member, Richard Martinez, was likewise unanimously welcomed by all members. Our recommendation for his appointment will get officially approved at the next Town Board meeting in January next year. d) Members also urged Pete Loucks to make his interest in joining us official by filling out a Conservation Board application form. Mike will email him the application link. 9. For January’s Agenda, Lori wants us to focus on developing a Parks Trails and Preserves poster for a kiosk. Eva might also present us with a historic review of the Scenic Resources view sign project. We will also look at the CB accomplishments for 2025 and the proposed 2026 work plan. 10. We adjourned at 6:54 PM. Draft Minutes by James Hamilton (12/04/2025)