St. Lawrence County Recreational Trails Advisory Board Meeting

St. Lawrence County Soil and Water Conservation District Office

DRAFT Minutes for December 18, 2012

Present: Roger Bennett, Russell Martin, Tom Ortmeyer, Warren Irwin, Danny Collins, Schyler Shea, Erik Backlund, Bill Swafford, Pat Whalen, Spencer Thew, Walt Paul, Art Wilson, Kermit Blanchard, Stanley Hewlett, DavidIrish, Tony Arquiett, Deb Christy, and Alex MacKinnon.

Guests: Ronald Robert, Janet Lutz, and Charles Schloer.

Excused: Dawn Howard, William Dashnaw, Henry Ford, and Scott Sutherland.

1.Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Chairman Roger Bennett.

2.Quorum present.

3. Art Wilson moved, and Warren Irwin seconded, to approve the minutes of the November 20th, 2012 meeting. All were in favor. Art noted that a clarification was suggested by Chastity Miller regarding the wording about support from the Franklin County govt. She said their program is supported by the County, just not directly. The County does not have a budget line for their group, but they do support them with in-kind services.

4.Trail Coordinator – Deb Christy. See written report attached below.

(a)Working on collecting open roads info from towns.

(b)Meeting with various clubs to decide which roads should be opened. Art has written justification statement summarizing reasons for opening individual roads.

(c)Still need “blueprint” for opening trails. Will be working with Bill Dashnaw. Alex MacKinnon mentioned he has plenty of info pulled from other areas and looks forward to getting to work with Deb, Bill Dashnaw, and others.

(d)Deb will be heading down to Syracuse for lobbying day regarding side-by-sides. Package emailed out. Input is welcome. Mrs. Lutz offered support from her dealership, none necessary at this point, but the time will come.

(e)Lewis County article discussed. Local clubs were discussed regarding fees and trail work. Funding used to be split, though all monies arenow in one pot as of 2011. Funds must now be requested by clubs for work. Must come up with a way to fairly disburse money to clubs relating to their activity, not simply their membership numbers.

5.Speaker

(a)There was no speaker this evening.

6.Reports of Committees:

(a)Executive – Roger Bennett

i.Excused individuals were noted and reasons discussed.

ii.Resignation provided by Bill Lutz.

(b)Board of Legislators

i.Tony Arquiett – Deb's report sent out. Lobbying trip on 27th will further side-by-side bill. Tony can't attend. Group will be meeting with Senator Valesky. Reiterated Deb's trips to the towns and their overall positive feel that progress will be made on the bill.

ii.Tony Arquiett - Reappointmentsto the Board should pass with no trouble.

iii.Alex Mackinnon- Reiterated purpose of trip to Albany. Discussed County's lobbyist and their changes to presentation, making it more representative of responsible riding practices. Deb Christy and Judy Wendt worked to put it together. Suggests it's amatter of time before side-by-sides come about.

(c)Oversight

i.Tom Ortmeyer - Will review road lists when they are passed along to Oversight Committee, likely for January meeting.

(d)Finance and Insurance

i.Dawn Howard - Excused

(e)Grant Search

i.Judy – Excused

(f)Enforcement

i.Judy – Excused

ii.Tony Arquiett - Questioned Sheriff’s work with DEC and trail enforcement in general. Encouraged working closely with sheriffs as they will be major players in enforcement down the road. Deb commented on the Sheriff’s ongoing support.

(g)SEQR

i.No discussion.

7.Unfinished Business

(a)Art Wilson– Elections are next month for the St. Lawrence County Recreational Trails Advisory Board. See Art Wilson or Bill Dashnaw with any questions or to nominate anyone.

(b)Danny Collins – Deb mentioned letters were sent out. Walt Paul mentioned Hwy Supt Toby Bogart and others would work with Brookfield to discuss access and work regarding changes to past regulations. Walt further mentioned areas on the County trail that are still not clearly designated included areas near Picketville Rd or Gold Mine Rd, as well as access points for Long Pond Easement.

(c)Goldmine bridge will be pulled in April, as mentioned by Deb Christy. Blanchard suggested a fundraiser, though an organization affiliated with the county would have trouble. $12,000 needed to purchase bridge. Could individual clubs do it on our behalf? Donations may be able to be run through SWCD. Committee suggested. No action taken. Possible donors suggested, but would likely fall short of required funds. Polaris grant discussed. Will likely avoid applying for Polaris grants until the trail is up and running, per Deb Christy.

(d)Economic Development Consolidated Funds grant money was discussed. Hope for grant is mixed as the County Planner was invited to the awards ceremony, as mentioned by AlexMacKinnon, though no one else was invited, per Deb Christy. Regardless, Assemblywoman Ritchie is working to get it included in a line item, if possible.

8.New Business

(a)Wounded warriors discussed. Deb mentioned Sutherland is furthering Wounded Warrior trail rides and it would be good PR for the County and Trails Board. Other clubs have supported this in the past on our trails. Work crews have also been provided.

(b) UTV's are currently exceeding planned weight for discussed law. 2000 lb weight limit is now discussed with three categories possible. Existing bill will likely be left as is in an effort to push it through. It was mentioned higher weights may allow unintended vehicles on the trail including jeeps. Walt Paul mentioned UTV bill is useful, but VT Laws must be worked on as well or bottleneck will not be relaxed.

(c)DEC draft ATV policy is currently bouncing around DEC according to Walt Paul and Pat Whalen. Walt is concerned about eventual bills, laws, and policy all meshing together as progress and changes are made. Alex MacKinnon suggests the Trails Board is in a good position to help ensure everything works out for the better.

9.Announcements

(a)There were no announcements.

10.The next meeting is scheduled for January 15th, 2013.

11. Hearings and Comments

(a)There were no comments.

12.Motion to adjourn by Erik Backlund, seconded by Kermit Blanchard, with all in favor. Meeting adjourned at 7:35pm.

Minutes by Russell Martin

St Lawrence County Trail Coordinator

Deb Christy 315-386-8525

WORK REPORT

November/December 2012

Meet with Persons, groups, and entities that have an interest in the trail and build a coalition in support of the trail development and maintenance.

County ATV Association, Parishville ATV Club, and Sunday Rock ATV Club

I have been meeting with our ATV clubs to discuss what roads they would like open in each town with a justification statement stating why. We felt these lists would be important as we move forward with our trail system. We have finished Parishville and are working on Colton next.

Towns

This month I have been working with each of our towns to get a list of local roads in each town. We are also asking for a list of seasonal roads, abandoned roads and a list of roads that are open to ATV’s. When we get thru we will have a complete inventory of roads to work with. Then we will finalize a list of possible roads we would like to use.

Town of Colton

Met with Town of Colton this month to ask if they will consider donating three bridges they have. Two of the bridges they would rather keep but would loan us for a temporary bridge if needed. The third bridge they asked us to designate a location for the bridge and they would consider donating it to us. We will decide location and get back to the Town Board in January.

Become Knowledgeable in and provide advice on Recreational Trails

This month I have been comparing other states progress and recognition for highly successful trail systems operating and how they are addressing the same issues and finding solutions to benefit all.

Wisconsin has recently gone through this same UTV discussion and has legalized them.
Minneapolis divided their off highway vehicles into classes which include all-terrain vehicle, off-highway motorcycles, and off-road vehicles (which the UTVs fall under with 4 x 4’s.)
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have a combined map of Off-Road Trails of the Northeastern United States offering ATV and dirt bike trails on State and Private Lands. They do not address UTVs at this time.

Grants

Continue a second grant class at SUNYPotsdam,”Writing Effective Grant Proposals” from November 14 thru January 4. Grant classes are Wednesday and Friday. This class will progress with more grant writing skills and also talk about building relationships for sponsorships.
NYS Trails Council is keeping us informed on the new Transportation Bill, Moving Ahead for Progress (MAP -21). I took part in theFHWA webinar to provide an overview of the MAP-21 guidance documents. We hope these funds become available again by fall 2013.
Met with Tom Plastino November 16 to go over guidelines for the St. Lawrence River Valley Redevelopment Agency (RVRDA) Community Development and Environmental Improvement Fund grants. In January we will apply for possible funding for all our gates we need for the trail system.
I continue to look for other recreational grant opportunities to take part in.

UTV Bill

THE CASE FOR EXPANDED DEFINITION AND REGISTRATION

OF ALL-TERRAIN VEHICLES

ATV increase weight bill (A.7743/S.3318)

County Trails Advisory Board Meeting

Future projects to work on:

We are working on a standard format or Blue Print for opening town roads so we do not run into the problems that Lewis County has.
We will address our Land Access Agreement this month to proceed with land permissions. We will have a meeting in January to clarify language and discuss final wording of our Land Access Agreement. We need to clear up all questions so we can proceed. Some of the questions were: Who is going to own the easements or license for the trail system? Who will inspect the land before taking it over as part of our trail system? Once our committee has finalized document we will take it back to the county attorney for final review.
Plans are to start our trail in the spring after mud season.