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Town of Bolton Agricultural Commission
Meeting Minutes
Date: 15 January 2008
AGRICULTURAL COMMISSION
663 Main Street
978 779-2297 or 779-3308
A meeting of the Bolton Agricultural Commission was held on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at Town Hall. It was
called to order at 7:40 pm. In attendance were: Ashe, Held, Kovacs, Nicewicz, and Storbeck.
1. Minutes from prior meeting were adjusted and then approved by those who had attended that meeting.
2. Planning Board update: The recent meeting with the Planning Board which was attended by several Ag
Comm members was discussed:
• The Toth property is coming up for discussion at the Planning Board soon where they’ll consider
different development options. We discussed being a conduit for funneling options to them.
• The Planning Board is rewriting their bylaw on earth removal and will seek our guidance re
agricultural impact.
• Action item:
i. Ken will attend the Planning Board meeting when the Toth land is discussed and express the
Ag Comm interest in helping the town preserve it if we can.
ii. Rob will make sure someone from the Conservation Trust can also attend to express Town
interest in preserving trails on the land. He will also make the Historical Commission aware
of this.
3. Town Board liaison: The following Ag Comm members will be liaisons to the other town Boards. Each
person will advise that board of the following assignment and review the minutes of the board to which they
are assigned:
• Ken – Planning Board
• Sue – Board of Health
• Joe – Board of Selectmen
• Rob – Conservation Trust
• Martha – Conservation
4. Handbook: Joe is assembling for our reference an Ag Comm Handbook from the available materials (laws,
guidelines, etc) from state Agricultural departments, the Farm Bureau, etc.
5. Town Annual Report: Joe will draft a document for submission to the Town Annual Report & send to all for
review. Deadline to the town is Friday, 18 January.
6. Ag Comm website: We expressed a concern that the information on the site is stale with continued
references to our previous Ag Steering Committee which is now defunct, lack of current meeting minutes, etc.
We’d like our minutes and documents added to the site and URL links updated.
• Action item:
o Martha will contact Jodi Ross about the update process (who does it, how often can it be
done, etc)
7. Mission Statement:
• Joe prepared a preliminary statement for review and possible inclusion in the annual report. After
much discussion about rewording it, we agreed that it was incomplete and needed more work but was
not necessary for the Annual Report. Additional input was considered from Nancy Caisse, the only
other person who provided input.
• Action item:
o Joe will revise the Mission Statement from input received during our meeting and send to all
for final review.
8. CY’08 Goals: We discussed the preliminary list of goals that had been revised from the prior meetings as all
had not been present for those discussions.
a) Conduct inventory of parcels of land in agriculture and key attributes of such activity. Merge data with
town’s annual livestock inventory.
o All agreed with beginning with this goal so we know what the Bolton agriculture is that we
represent.
o Action item: Ken will research this and begin with information available from the Assessor’s
office.
b) Marketing campaign to promote agriculture businesses in town such as local farmers and farm
stands (i.e. brochures)
c) Establish a program to educate both farmers and residents in Bolton on farming activities as it relates
to best practices and co-existence through such medium as brochures, lectures, BATCO, website,
and newsprint
o We discussed b) and c) together as they are related items.
o We discussed creating a “Welcome to Bolton” brochure which would give prospective
residents information about the town and that we can influence the culture of Bolton up front if
we provide information to new owners just moving into town.
o Nancy Caisse, resident and former Ag Steering Committee member, provided feedback that
especially the education aspect is a very important goal.
o Action item: Rob will rewrite this goal for review at our next meeting
d) Create procedure document for the protocol for working with town boards on conflict resolution
e) Work with the Board of Health to finalize stable regulations as town needs dictate
o We discussed rewriting both d) and e) more broadly in our goals as “Begin liaison activities
with town boards pertaining to agriculture” with the following two ’08 activities considered:
• Develop high-level protocol for working with town boards on conflict resolution (note:
this is back-up to our overall mission to provide this service when it is necessary)
• Support town boards in proposal of stable/manure guidelines, as necessary (note:
BOH has indicated that this will probably not be addressed until town population
exceeds 5,000)
f) Investigate opportunities for municipality-related funding for agriculture such as grants, Mass Ag in
the Classroom, and Mass Farm to School Project
o All agreed with this goal, no changes necessary
g) Meet quarterly with abutting towns on agricultural issues jointly affecting the towns
o All agreed with this goal, no changes necessary
9. Rob expressed his interest in adding “farmer’s markets” to our 2008 goals.
The meeting ended at approximately 9:30 pm.
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