what i want to present today basically is just a simple overview of how our committee's been managing for multiple uses what our challenges have been and how are addressing those challenges a bit of what i'm going to present here sat will sound a little bit structured and formalized in serious and certainly managing trails is serious business we want to manage for our environment and  provide sustainable uses for trails we want to protect our habitat and allow people to get on the trails to develop a better appreciation for the outdoors but i think i think it's important to remember that this a lot of this is about fun and that as you're listening to what i have to say keep in mind that it's really about enjoying the process enjoying your fellow trail users and doing the best job that you can for your community their sand and gravel and so forth and along the southeast edge of the property here is broke so we have water resources trail resources on the property and the primary at this point is group here this is simon's room that comes off of brown's tree there's a little parking area just about here that holds no more than eight cars so the town has been working for several years now to develop a so we have a mob's farm committee and it was formed in two thousand and seven as i said prior to that time the property was being managed by the jericho conservation commission and  the early two thousand mountain biking became started to become a popular use of mobs and that use was new to a lot of the traditional users of the property and we started to see a series of user conflicts on the property by the mid two thousand the the questions about who had a right to use the property were being elevated and there was a lot of rumors going around that certain uses were going to be prohibited resources balances resource protection with responsible recreation use and considers the public investment in and vision for the property so that's what we are tasked with seven member committee  e actively manage the trail network and we take care of the habitat meadows on the property we brush those meadows we host trail days about two days a year one in the spring and one in the fall and we facebook page is actually probably one of the best tools that we have for getting information out to our community about trail closures about trail days wildlife sightings and other activities that take place on the property so  if you're on facebook you can you can join us here family sold the farm and to a gentleman who quickly sold it to the town of of jericho so it came into town ownership in one nine hundred sixty eight it had always been used for hunting horseback riding there was a kind of a designated picnic area on the property walking and skiing have always been activities that have taken place there for a couple years there were a lot of proposals floated about what the town wanted to use this new piece of for including municipal swimming pool and tennis courts and all kinds of municipal infrastructure we're really glad that didn't happen about the mid ninety's there was a logging operation that took place on the property and the boy scouts took the opportunity to divert to develop network of trails out of that logging operation i think we're all familiar with trails that emerge out of logging jobs they aren't the most trails on the property oftentimes sometimes they can be but we had our first real network of trail that developed in the mid ninety's then in the early two thousand says i mentioned mountain biking became a predominant use the jericho conservation commission gave permission to the fellowship of the wheel many of you are probably familiar with the fellowship county based nonprofit mountain biking out at sea organization and building a network of singletrack on the property currently it is a very popular area not just in jericho but i think for all of shouldn't county we see a lot of dog walkers on the property and certainly a lot of mountain biking and those are two of our wonderful committee members they just installed this fence at the simons road parking area and you can kind of get a sense of how inadequate that parking area is so as i mentioned we were tasked with developing a management plan it and i actually have for those of you for really you know children's couple copies of the management plan here you're welcome to them the plan is also available on our town jericho website you can download a p d f there it's about thirty pages or so so we took the first two years as a committee to develop this management plan as i mentioned there were some real kind of opposing views about the uses that should and could be taking place on mobs farms so it was really important for us to have a public process and we spent about a year on this public process we held a public listening session where we had probably seventy five people turn out to voice their concerns about the uses on mobs farm it was an opportunity for the committee to dispel some rumors about what was happening on the property and we also did a series of surveys at the kiosk to find out what the current uses were on the property the one thing that we did that that i'm particularly proud of is is we took some time to develop a set of guiding principles and it provided an opportunity for us to kind of take a step back and look at what people valued about the property not just about the uses and the trail network but really look at the property as a whole it's the value that people had in it it in the property as a resource for the town and the community and just it's  we took some time to do an inventory of current uses on the property both recreation and whether or not there were habitats on the property that we should be aware of the goals and recommendations obviously were the the meat of the document we addressed a number of recommendations which i will also get into we also looked at funding sources monitoring and updating the plan we identified a process for how that would happen and it was also really important for us to have then the plan be given to the select board and for the slug board to hold yet another public hearing so that the plan could be adopted by the town  board to endorse it and through the course of the two years they were brought on board and they did sign off on the plan so i mentioned these guiding principles and as i mentioned it was just a real interest part of the work that we did as a committee it was the guiding principles were really a touchstone for us  as we got into the nitty gritty of developing these recommendations and trying to figure out how to balance these competing uses on the property we could kind of go back to these guiding principles and say is this what we're achieving through this recommendation and all this through the we value the real character of the property its history as a working farm the diversity of natural areas and wildlife we strive to sustainably balance the recreation uses and quiet enjoyment of the property that was really important to the committee with healthy forests and fields a diversity of habitat for both flora and fauna and we encourage responsible human interaction with the property and to provide visitors a pleasant safe and informed experience so those are all right at the forefront of our our management plan we've got some great wetlands on the property and we are actively trying to manage some of the fields for different song birds and other species edge to edge habitat species and there's also a series of old orchards on the property that we're trying to manage as well as recreational use obvious one of trying to balance the trail the uses of the trail network with dispersed recreation hunting is a traditional use on this property it's something that we wrote into our plan is something we wanted to manage for balancing those uses we made specific recommendations for signage access parking we were clear about prohibited uses on the property no motorized vehicles and of course user courtesy so as a result of our public process and our surveys and just from knowing the property the committee members are all jericho residents of many of them  primary uses were identified dog walking far and away exceeded any other use on the property hiking trail running where we're right along there with just even mountain biking very popular use we have about a dozen families in the area that use the area of the property actively for horseback riding so we knew that was an important use and there were still number people who hunt on the property and you can see this is this is how we attempted to manage the property after the management plan was was completed we we knew that these activities were taking place we closed the areas to mountain biking so that hunting hunting could take place during deer rifle season and we close the trails to mountain biking and horseback riding when things are whether we allowed pedestrian use and this really started to raise questions for us about whether the entire trail network could support all of the uses that we had identified in the management plan and committed to so as we started looking at whether or not we should be managing all the trails for say horseback riding as well as mountain biking we realized we had one significant missing component to our committee the committee formed largely with mountain bikers representing the interest in that continued use frequently i we really needed that voice at the table to help us manage the property better help us identify trails that were appropriate for horseback riding and we learned a lot of things from terry as we sat down to our mapping exercise and started to identify specific areas where the horseback riding would be an appropriate use and where horses should not be allowed and so we went through a fairly exhaust mapping exercise and you can see from our legend there that we managed for foot traffic and foot then bike and foot and horse and bike and it quickly became obvious that we have a lot of work to do in order to sustainably manage trails for horses and that was kind of in hindsight that we may have we may have questioned whether we should be managing as many trails as we are for horses but we made the commitment to do that so we we we move forward with trying to balance the uses in the meantime we had some issues on the property this is actually a little bit of a cheater slide this is time lapse over a period of actually it was a fairly short period one year these bridges were all built about a decade they may start failing at the same time when you're crossing areas that are shaded most of the time in deep hemlock ravines and you're using rough sawn hemlock which was the thing to do about a decade ago like no pressure treated nobody wanted to use pressure treated and and this is what we ended up with these are this is four of the five bridges on the mobs farm valley side and they started collapsing in april of two thousand and eleven but when we were going through our management planning process we had a number of bridge inventories and we knew they were in bad shape unfortunately they all started failing before we could really do anything about them so we had some infrastructure issues to deal with we also had some real trail damage issues to deal with this  eroding the trail network we also have this is very feeble attempts right here everybody uses pallet bridges right you know when you really need to like get in there and address a trail  issue thing to do a sort of pallet this is a little here we threw down this pallet bridge and then somebody later came along they didn't like take their mountain bike over that so they threw a two by twelve and so you get pedestrian happening here and then this you can just not terribly clear but this is where somebody is taking their horse around the pallet bridge they don't want to walk there were so over the pallet so we're dealing with this network of trails that has a lot of demand mountain biking horseback riding are committed uses to the property we're dealing with probably infrastructure and we're dealing with  trail damage in a number of areas either caused by natural roshon or just just simply overuse of the property or inappropriate use of the property so we got to the point where we realized they were only a seven person committee how do we do this we managed you know this vast network of nine miles of trail for all these uses and we did what any smart sophisticated committee would do we hired recommendations that the committee made to september instantly so we need to we need to primarily address this issue of providing safe and stable trails for our equestrian community that was a big a big push  needed to have construction options that were gave us the ability to make decisions that were in keeping with our guiding principles and we needed for civic information we needed materials lists we needed materialists we were very pleased with the job and glad that we we did that some of the benefits of doing this for us were as i mentioned just having the options available to us some of the some of the options were it's easy to feel overwhelmed with all of the things that are happening on your trail network and how do you begin to prioritize so having that process of working with with josh and alex and to come up with  committee got really ambitious and decided to take on one of these projects ourselves or we thought that of all that a bunch of volunteers suddenly had the technical expertise to do these projects we knew what materials would be involved so it was very clearly spelled out for us weren't obligated the town gave us a separate budget to have this assessment done we weren't obligated to hire timber and stone a little we were very smartly did but we had the flexibility to do with that materials estimate what we wanted so we could work with another outfit if we decided to try to do it ourselves so whatever and it provided the basis i think the most important thing was that it provided the basis for funding as we moved forward with our discussions with the town and our partners we could go and say we know what we're talking about this is what it's going to cost and it made the process of finding funding much much easier than not having that assessment and then all best laid plans right i'm hearing because i know a lot of communities dealt with this we're moving along josh gives us our assessment in november of two thousand and ten we start obliterated and the committee was absolutely overwhelmed i mean we had volunteers out there in the middle of december and january with chainsaws trying to take down trees that would have killed them and we were trying to manage that issue the safety issue the fact that many of our trails for completely under pile lincoln logs and we had to re evaluate our priorities but you know it was instructive in that we were so glad that we had an assessment in place we had some kind of prioritized list so that we knew we had to deal with the windstorm we could also keep moving forward with our goals of applying for funding we applied to the rector grant program and were able to continue kind of pushing the ball forward even though we had to deal with this issue so i don't want to oversimplify but having that assessment in place and able to us in the midst of the windstorm to apply for funding and get funding and it was  something the committee finally felt like we were making headway in these years of developing the management plan identifying all of these issues and finally getting to a point where we had we had some funding available to do some of the work on the property one of the biggest benefits in going through this process was the relationship that we developed with  the town the town had to sign on as a providing match for the wreck trails program so it opened up a dialogue with the town the town knew that we were dealing with the wind storm they knew that we were dealing with the bridges and even though our wrecked trails grant was only going to be able to cover a portion of the projects that were identified in the assessment we suddenly had this series of partners that could help us along with other projects on the property so one of the biggest outcomes for us was the partnerships that we forged through this process we start seeing increased town support from the time that the committee was formed the town agreed to put a small line item in the budget just to cover basic operating expenses over the years that budget grew the town saw what the committee was doing in terms of having a management plan and then having the assessment and suddenly you know the doors open to funding from the town that enabled us to address the bridge issues pacific way and we were able to bring  where we had thirty thirty five people come out to one trail day and it was it was a real boost to the committee to see so many people come together during one of the spring trail they got in there to use this bridge building project as staff training in the spring of two thousand and eleven and there's our beautiful new number for leadership crew that did this work and built my favorite bridge i think it's not maybe not my favorite josh but a very nice bridge that was you know just a great project for the poor for us to be involved to have volunteers be involved and to have the town behind us financially and then i love that picture a bridge was just and it sat like that schedule this was a very complicated nearly forty foot span we had a bunch of volunteers there's our committee members they got in there removed the bridge and we were able to replaced the whole time we had the assessment done there was a consultation process that happened with josh as we kind of looked at the siting of the bridge the materials that were going to be used the committee was very involved in those conversations and and we were able to get that bridge and took a week to ten days to complete so great outcome for us we're starting next week who's going to go out there and replace that bridge for us again funded by the town the town as a as a partner in the work that we had been doing on the property knew that we had a plan and trusted in our our group to follow through on that plan just really kind of having some pretty significant impact on that well and we are going to build jobs to build i'm not going to build this nice boardwalk that is going to support the equestrian actually been out there talking to the riders in our area about what their horses would be comfortable going over and since we only have about a half a dozen users it's almost going to be specifically built for  those again and this is the second phase and i think it's worth noting that we did this over the course of two years erect trails grant was we spent a portion of it last year and we're spending a portion of it here so it will be nice to have those prayers change even when you have a windstorm and you can kind of stay on track the process translates well to other groups we learned a lot working with with josh and alex and we are now working with the fellowship of the wheels trying to  maintain and build that relationship that partnership they've been a great partner in providing volunteers to us and they are now getting into the business of providing constitutive services for building and maintaining mountain bike trails so we are able to apply that information to our our process of working with the fellowship this process provides an avenue for community engagement of course it's great to be able to get on your facebook page and share your plans and your budgets and and it also gives you enough time to really engage those volunteers in a meaningful way because you know what projects you're you have on the ground and let them really the take home is having that kind of assessment provides you and your partners with the confidence that you know what you're doing you know what you're talking about and town budgets are based on long term plans you've got to get in the mix you've got to go to your town and tell them that you have a plan in place and you're ready to move forward and you deserve the funding for these trials because they're important to the community we'd thought about getting a list of how do we do it who's going to manage it and i think our are at at the time it was when facebook was really starting to take off and we just found that to be the easiest way for all of us to get on and administer the page whenever we had our free time truth be told we only have one hundred one hundred forty nine but after today we're going to have a lot more right fans are users of their facebook page and we do have an e mail address that we will respond to with if people you know what we find whatever works for your community traditional use of the property there was for a long time there was a vast trail running across the property it had been abandoned by the local plod it wasn't being used by bass anymore there are a few neighbors you go always going to have these one guy rides his bike he has to ride a dirt bike i think across the field once a year to make a point and truth be told it's there's no ordinance that says that motorized vehicles are prohibitive to tool that we use was the management plan to prohibit motorized vehicles and that came out in discussion at the public hearing and i think for the most part there was a there was consensus around that the slug board signed the plan and you get to the  of who is enforcing it well i can tell you that my husband has chased people across the field a couple of times when they're on their dirt bike but you know really there's a lot of not not a lot that we can do in terms of a horseman except post no no motorized vehicles science which we ha had torn down and it's an issue that we struggle with i think we did send a letter around to all of the a butter's just letting them know that the management plan specifically prohibits motorized vehicles the select board indorsed that plan please respect the plan and we're asking that no motorized vehicles be used on the property so that's that's at issue at least we're fortunate in that issue as far as the second question about funding bridges a little bit of a back story there i mentioned there was a logging job that took place on mobs farm in the mid ninety's and there was a very profitable timber harbor separation and that went into a fund that was specifically set aside for future management of mobs farm so little the yes the town got behind us and supported us because we had our plans in place but there was funding available so when the bridges started to collapse one after another i could actually go pretty quickly to our town administrator and say you know we need it and we need a thousand dollars so we could buy materials to replace this bridge and we did we have a little bit of that money left over and our dialogue now with a select board is really to hold a line item in the our our mobs farm budget for capital improvements and they seem to be receptive to that and the reason why is because it was a very complicated site yeah i mean it was around ten thousand i can i don't remember the exact number but it was it was a very complicated say we also you know we use decade because we're hoping that that will preserve that it will make the bridge last longer i would say you know it's one of the great things about the wreck trails funding sources that when you put together those avenues for engaging the public is really important and making sure that you're doing some kind of survey it doesn't have to be scientific but some kind of survey of your current users to try to really advantages of having a group like fellowship with a wheel to help get the word out to the mound but community that we want to close the trails to mountain biking specifically that we felt that that you specifically did not work well with hunting and we could argue about this all day but our group made the decision that that's how we wanted to manage it and using the fellowship to get the word out we do post it on our electronic media and we put science at the kiosk and we encourage pedestrians to wear blaze and i think most people in our community have been respectful that it's a traditional use of the property and you know just like anywhere you go where hunting is allowed on state land being smart about when you're using the property knowing that hunters are there in primarily in the morning or the evening and and just creating awareness around