Parks & Recreation Committee

Minutes for October 20 at 6:30 in New Borough Hall  

Next Meeting in office December 1

Attending:  Lori Kesilman, Tess LaMontange, Derek MacMillan,  Gwen Preston-Yamamoto

Absent: Gina Vigilante-Soto, Andrea Antell, looking for a new member (any interest parties email Robin, the borough manager)

Guests:  David Holewinski, Mary Pat Holewinski

Committee Organization:

• Derek is chair
• Andrea is the vice-chair
• Lori is secretary
• We meet on first Mondays of the month  

Minutes for tonight’s meeting:

1. Handicapped accessible ramp onto bike and hike trail from
2. Concern about losing the trees.  We want to save the trees.  Chris says we can save trees if we make it smaller blacktop, not the full 10 feet.  Chris will meet with church and give them a written proposal.  If possible we will save the trees.
3. Station to town center - Chris looked into right aways.  Formal sidewalk will be in front of Giant shopping center and the, church and vet.  Chalfont will finish the part after the school to the train tracks.  This may have to be on the back burner, due to funds.  This may be in next year’s budget (2016).
4. Crosswalk at Sand and Butler coming.  
5. Rail-crossing  at Sands - may cost about $100,000.  We are hoping the part up to tracks can be done until there is funding to actually cross the tracks.
6. Discussed the possibility of the bike path going along the nature preserve - possibly down Landis.  
7. Derek spoke with Jeff W.  He is willing to take them down.  We have given him the green light.  

Next meeting we will discuss:

1. Orchard Park and Trees

• Volunteers for tree removal – Jeff is willing to do this with Derek
• Derek suggested we ask council for “tree bank” funds to get new trees.  This would be for next year.

• Robin, can you tell us about the tree bank?  How much is in the fund?  Can we use it? Robin said there is about $6,000 in the tree bank that can be used to replace trees.  We would need to figure out how many trees we want replaced and then get approximate costs.  We could then ask the council for use of the tree bank money.

• We are thinking about having different types of fruit trees
• Lori and Tess have info about the sign
• We have a discussion about possibly adding clover at some point in the future.  Committee was split on this. We are going to ask DelVal to help us come up with a conservation plan.

• Derek will reach out to DelVal and report back

2. Review camp questionnaire feedback  - discuss camp for this year.