I’m still getting to the storm water drama — I feel like I already lost too much of my life to that Powerpoint presentation and hate to relive it. But a good portion of that is already written up, just needs to be finished.

And stop looking at me, Clemente. Between growing up next to land used by hunters (we collected discarded casings and the occasional bullet), dodging hunters in Gardner and the stalker with the (alleged) rifle in his trunk , I think I’ve earned my hunting snark.

Exactly as you said, the Town approved those by-laws that you allude to after a committee put them forth to the public at TM. That is exactly how effective municipal legislation should work in my opinion (and now that I think about it that is exactly what Christ LeMay was saying in his smackdown earlier in the night). This process makes it irrelevant whether it’s a small committee or a large committee, a bad committee or a good committee. The problem here is that nobody – including the Conservation Committee – had any legitimate chance to do the research to determine if hunting was viable (Chris LaPoints’ telephone call was slightly re-assuring with regards to the ½ mill of funding…but was not sufficient for the entirety of a 2+ mil purchase). In hindsight, it seems pretty obvious that the ConCom should have been prepared before hand. Maybe it’s the role of the Moderator to step in and explain that an Amendment like this is circumventing the process? I’m guessing Peterson could have asked the question directly to ConCom prior to TM. That all said, and apparently in contrast to the majority of TM members, the ConCom should have the right to clearly evaluate the merits of hunting by talking to the neighbors, talking to interested hunters, walking the property, and really vetting out the notion of hunting’s impact. If the entire neighborhood starts hollering and the Pell family says they aren’t comfortable with hunting while they harvest the trees for 10 years…well, then the ConCom should have the opportunity to exclude hunting. Especially because this includision could jeopardize the whole purchase. But now, we are effectively locked in because of an Amendment that in reality was a referendum on whether or not hunting was good for humanity.

I do agree with Michael that this could’ve been brought forth at a better time, researched and presented at town meeting. Also, there was a comment that passive recreation includes hunting so did we really need to specify it? Should we have also specified hiking, bird watching etc? Without getting into a hunting debate, I feel that encouraging passive recreation, showing a powerpoint with children skipping along a wooded trail and sunlight filtering through trees does not seem so pleasant when imagined along with a hunter and an implement intended to kill things lurking nearby.

As for the woman in the back row who had no use for a microphone since we ‘could all hear her just fine’…you go, grrrl!

Everytime you walk into the woods you leave a non-passive impact on the ecosystem in some way. Its a question of how significant an impact (many would argue that mountain biking leaves a far greater impact than hunting) and whether you leave a non-sustainable imprint on the land. And when you consider the overall impact of regulated killing/hunting/removal of deer and other animals caused by hunters, the impact is sustainable. Also, hunters traditionally are exceptionally good environmentalists (they don’t trash the place) because its obviously in their self-interst to preserve the integrity of land.