Mr. Marron stated that he wanted to let everyone know that there had been a lawsuit filed against the selectmen, based on the premise that the committee, and selectboard, do not have jurisdiction over what should be done with the Events Field, that the conservation commission does. He stated that the lawsuit will be handled by the town’s lawyer(s) in the “normal” process. The direction the committee is going is to hire CLD to help develop a plan for the land that the selectmen believe was described in the warning that was passed at town meeting. Mr. Marron suggested that the committee should work under the assumption that there may indeed be an events field on this site, and that the committee should approach this task by trying to address all of the issues and concerns that members bring up. If there is an events field, this careful planning will ensure that the plan minimizes the impacts on the land, abutters and other interested parties. 

Tom Sommers introduced the CLD Team, and went over the agenda (outlined in the handout). 

Ground rules (from previous handout) shall be applicable at all meetings.

Hopefully most things will come out through the consensus building meetings, if necessary, we will vote by ballot. 

Future meetings will be publicized by the selectboard in the newspaper. 

The additional meeting (to makeup for the missed meeting on September 5) shall be held on November 7, 2000. 

Mission Statement: wording that we used is basically the wording from the article passed last March. Mission is essentially to evaluate the parcel with respect to coming up with the feasibility of an events field. 

Evelyn Frey stated that many people, voters, believed that the article was stating that the relocation of the events field from its current location implies that the new field will be same size as the current events field: 35 acres. 

A set of Goals, as stated in the meeting Agenda handout was discussed.

Q. What will happen to the events that currently occur on the current polo field? 

A. That will not be answered by this committee, except to say that the current polo field will revert to agricultural land.

The current events field are intended to be used by the recreation department for their games and activities.

According to Charlie Burnham the Stewardship Committee suggested 8 events; with the idea being that there wouldn’t be an event every weekend. 

Dick Marron believes that the current selectboard doesn’t want to expand the use of the new events field beyond what was envisioned for the current events field; which includes some kind of time limit. 

Need to look at the Act 250 permit and the Stewardship Committee’s recommendation, but this committee also needs to decide what they feel comfortable in recommending to the town.

Need to be fairly specific about the number of days the fields will be utilized in order for the town to pass the article at Town Meeting.

This committee has been authorized by the selectboard to come back with a recommendation regarding the events field. This consensus building committee is here to build that recommendation.

Reseeding and care of the fields should be viewed as general maintenance in terms of each show, rather than having that be included in the set up and break down days, simply because there will be very few people on the fields when maintenance is taking place. 

It is good to look at all the events on the list because when we get to the site constraints discussion some events may not fit and may not be able to take place on these fields. In which case other events may be able to take their place.

Certain issues, such as cost, may weed events out anyway.

The Stewardship Committee had planned for and wanted two to three weeks between events to allow for the grass to recover. 

Hand votes were taken on the following issues, with the following outcomes:

For now, 8 total events has the largest number of votes.

From the discussion, a goal is to have eight events and limit it to the 40 – 50 day range.