August 17, 2026 – Historical Commission – Video & Transcript
August 17, 2026 - Historical Commission
Okay, welcome to the Wayland Historical Commission meeting for August 17th, 2026.
This meeting is both in person and by remote access.
This meeting is being recorded and will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting.
Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote access.
In accordance with applicable law, anyone may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found in the agenda.
When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting,
may do so here at the meeting, location, in person, or by remote access.
Public comment should be limited to two minutes per person.
My name is Rick Conard, and I'm the acting chair for this meeting, and I'm calling the meeting to order.
And I understand that Sherry Ann has offered to take minutes.
Thank you, Sherry.
Thank you, Sherry Ann.
Can everyone please introduce themselves?
You want to start with me?
Kay Gardner-Westcott, Sherry Ann Bryant, Sonia Morgan, and Rick Conard.
And on Zoom, Amanda, do you wish to be recognized?
Can you hear us, Amanda?
I can hear you.
Hi, I'm Amanda Chacho.
I don't think, have the selectmen met yet?
No.
You are on the agenda for tonight's select board meeting to be reappointed to the historical commission,
and we're delighted that you're renewing your membership.
But until you are formally voted in and installed and sworn in by the town clerk,
you're not able to vote at this meeting.
Thank you.
But we look forward to your reappointment.
And your opinions.
I think Amanda has wonderful opinions and sees things sometimes differently than some of us do.
And I want to hear her thoughts on it.
And as public, she can comment if you allow her to.
Sure.
Thank you.
And everyone here, okay, if you can't, please raise your hand at any time.
And we'll speak up.
Thank you.
Do we have any public comment?
This looks like Sandy Coy.
Sandy?
I just wondered if you see me.
No, we don't see you.
Okay.
I'm not sure how to make that happen.
But that's okay.
As long as I'm present, as far as you're concerned, that's okay.
What happens if you raise your hand so that we know that you want to speak?
I just.
Yeah.
Okay.
Did you see that?
Where she raises her hand when she wants to speak?
Yes.
Okay.
I think so.
Okay. Sandy, do you want to talk about anything that's already on the agenda?
Only is. I just was wondering what the status was with the localization. Of the local history at the library? Yes. We have that as an agenda item. Right. That's all that I would be. If you would like. I think nothing specific. Comment then. Yeah. Do we have any other public comment?
Okay. The first thing is the review of our past minutes. We had two meetings in June. As. Everyone had a chance to review the minutes. You copy for the minutes.
You have, I know I have extra copies. Yes, that's true.
Yes, it does. Yeah. This is. Stop. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. No comment. My comment is already. Tanged to end Gordon about two other programs coming up. And so that's the only comment I had on it like the. June 3. Meeting. There was an attachment. The receiving. There were. that Ann Gordon sent out with thank you letters for the volunteers at our brush clearing. And the attachment was seven pages long. It has names and addresses. So I'm proposing to shorten that attachment to three pages, keeping the names and cities and towns, but removing the addresses. And so this is a draft
of my suggested attachment in place of the attachment that Ann had in her email. So I'm listing, you know, we sent copies to the district. The town people, Mary Ann Maloney of the transfer station, Joe Doucette, Tom Holder, and Marjorie Baston for use of her tools. And then we had a number of volunteers. So I don't think it's appropriate to include their addresses. So I suggest just including their towns. I think that's a good suggestion. And it's a shorter three page attachment instead of seven pages. You had different thank you notes for depending on whether they were town employees or- Yes, I did. So these are just representative thank you letters. I'm not including all of the thank you letters, just specially Mary Ann at the transfer station
and the volunteers. I only have one question.
Were the addresses, presented in our last meeting? They were included in the attachment to the draft minutes that Ann sent out. Yes.
They can't be included in the minutes unless they were talked about at the meeting. So what I'm asking is at the meeting, did we talk about or give their addresses? No. So therefore they can't, that can be removed. Because it was not said in the meeting. Yeah. At the meeting, I said I had sent out thank you letters. And Ann asked me for copies of the thank you letters, which I sent to her. And that's what she attached to her draft minutes. Then I'm in favor of removing addresses for privacy sake. Okay. I am too. Okay.
So those are my only comments for the June 3rd meeting.
Are there any other comments? Amanda, feel free to chime in. You can hear us. I can hear you. No comment at this time. Thank you, Rick. Oh, I make a motion that we accept the amendment. The amended minutes of June 3rd. I second the motion. Okay. Hey. Yes. Sure, yeah. Yes. Yes. And yes from myself. And Amanda can't vote. Right. So, all right. Now we'll move on to the other set of minutes. For our field meeting to review the location of the signs at Dudley Woods and Castle Gate. What are we doing? The June 10th meeting. Oh, the 10th. Do you have the events of that meeting? No, I don't have that. You have an excerpt. Oh, great. It's just one page, two-sided. Okay. Okay. I see the map on the back. I see the map on the back. So, we walked the Dudley Woods site and discussed among ourselves possible sign locations. And the map on the back indicates the locations that we chose. And the map on the back indicates the locations that we chose. Yeah. I didn't realize number two was chosen I know that at the point where the two paths met that that looked as if we're sure yeah that was the first one that we chose right and then we walked around the trail and we thought of several other possibilities but number two was the ultimate vocation I believe that's near a bench and what was number one and number twos content I think the first bullet on the first side is the sign about Dudley Pond's history should be at this fort and then it says see number one on the map do you have another no it's your test yes I gave you my set and somehow so um they're into the trail um the parking lot so I don't understand they're talking about the floor and the fauna and the the the the the the
the the the the the because well number two is the um historical and natural setting with the pictures of the um birds and the butterfly and the woodchuck that's number two number one is the Dudley pond gravitation park or dynastyDAQ or artist Qian引 a colorful history with the picture of the ice house the lake um dorothy lee would you like to see these no i needed a reminder which one was number one and which one was number two yeah june 10th was a long time ago
any other questions or comments before we entertain a motion do accept the minutes of the june 10th meeting motion to accept second hey hey would you like to vote yes yes yes and yes
okay sandy are you still there hi hello sandy sandy hi hi yeah i'm here okay we we can't see you but we can hear you yeah i'm not sure why because i've got my camera on but anyway it may have something to do with our end too oh okay well sandy is is one of the uh people that's helping us out in the arkansas state archaeology lab so a couple weeks ago i had a conversation with sandy about changes in the wayland free public libraries main floor where the local history records and volumes and files were kept but there had been some recent changes in the location of those records so sandy would you like to speak to that uh yeah i um actually um automatist candy and sherry ann were putting in a display over there and noticed that the cabinet that was in the reference area the uh custom built cabinet that held mariah child's volumes and the um uh reflector from the high school and all of the the what had been called the vertical format but she said vertical files um as well as other uh items in the local history collection pretty much all of it except for things like the uh town records um those were in volumes on shelves in that same area um but not in that particular um piece of furniture but that piece of furniture was gone and they mentioned that in uh to me and um so i was over there a few days later and um as it happened chris um is it leftig what renquist renquist lenquist yeah um was um at the reference desk that day and i asked him about it and um and he told me that um the um they were gonna they were in the process of some kind of reconfiguration of the space and that the um just in summary that things were either in his office or in the cage but pretty much everything was destined for the cage and when i asked about how people could access that he said well you can request items and a librarian will get it for you and um so my question is um in the meantime i was given the opportunity to go down to his office with andrew and um he was going to show me you know whatever i was looking for in the vertical files down there which at the present time seems to be one or two maybe two uh actual vertical file cabinets that are full of vanilla folders and then there's a stacks on the top with some kind of a plastic box so and nothing in the old in the the new cabinet so um i had asked like i said i had asked chris um well how will we know what's in there and he said well at some point we'll have andrew make a list and so um in the meantime i've spoken with andrew ran into him at the farmer's market last week and um and i said is there any way that we could get that lateral file of all of the so-called vertical file papers that people could could actually look through that have genealogical information and and pictures and letters and so forth um that are hard they are listed and could that list be made more accessible to the public and could the actual items of that type be in the reference area still even if the valuable and fragile things books and so forth had to be in the cage so um i've also been in touch with mj and she gave me technical information about where andrew could find the uh list that she made and if there's anything that he may not have been aware of and apparently one thing he wasn't aware of was that a lot of it was on her email account which he wasn't sure if it still existed so he was going to look and i don't know i also had created a list of all the things that mj and i worked on which was quite a bit over the over the last few years and i provided that to him too which i think between what's on the website um but hard to find and um and what um he can find in the files that maybe he'd make accessible and maybe what i've come up with it might be that he wouldn't have to start a start from scratch to create this list but um so i just wonder what is the reason for all of this because it certainly makes it difficult for the public to access and it wasn't clear to me what the purpose was of the change also k noted that um maybe i shouldn't speak for k but um that in the um um what is it the survey that was taken in the um in the um in the um in the um in the um in the um in the right so did anyone had a particular way again that led to the uh strategic plan for the library that there had been a very strong desire more than half of the people were looking for were interested in local history more than half of the people we're looking for were interested in and in fact wanted more of it so um and looking at the goals that the trustees have listed recently significant should be on the did local screenings also at that point the new project chief was asked much questions and the reason was was because they decided that they couldn't come to him um so they could only talk about what they wanted and he Zuk maz we met up but also even did a little bit questioning now, you know, if this is an opportunity to find out from Chris and Aida or anybody who's actually in the planning area of this or getting, they said that they were going to get some, looking into getting a planner, you know, what do you call it, a study for a planner or something. You would certainly have to discuss those goals with that planner. And I just want to make sure that this is part of the goals, part of the plan, and just what they might have in mind.
Well, thank you. After I talked to Sandy, I went over to the library myself on July 20th. On July 29th, and looked around and saw a lot of empty space at the East End on the first floor. And I met Chris Flanklist. He offered to take me down to his office downstairs, along with Andrew Loof, who's the reference librarian, and Joanne Lee. Now, he doesn't have his degree. He's not a librarian. He's staffed. Well, I said that. But I said that. He's not a librarian. The website says he's the reference librarian. Well, he's not. He doesn't have a degree. It's his position, basically. Yeah. I met with them down in Chris's office, and I saw that empty wooden cabinet. And Chris explained to me that someone had come in and said that the library should not be storing historic records. I said, well, if it's a wooden cabinet, I don't know if it's a good job. I don't know if it's a good job. I don't know. I said, well, if it's a wooden cabinet, I don't know if it's a good job. I said, well, if it's in a wooden cabinet, that a steel cabinet would be better for preservation. My question is, did Chris go back to the manufacturer to double check? Because when I asked about that when they first put it in, I was assured that the wood had been sealed so that there would be no off-gassing, which is what that person was referring to when they said it shouldn't be in an open wood. It shouldn't be in an open wood. wood cabinet there's off gassing from wood but i had been assured by sandy who was the purchaser not sandy foyer but sandy raymond um and mj that they had looked into that and that the cabinet was sealed so it wouldn't do any off gassing well it it would appear that um chris lankwurst was not aware of that well he should have looked into it yeah before making a decision based on somebody's say so yeah i did see the the vertical files uh down there uh in his office um and um and um and um andrew said he was going to be creating some finding aids i did poke around on the library website and i did find some lists of materials i did too it took a little bit of poking around that's right to find it but um i i did invite chris to attend our previously scheduled meeting uh he offered to come chris to attend our previously scheduled meeting uh he offered to come chris to attend our previously scheduled meeting uh he offered to come either in person or on zoom either in person or on zoom either in person or on zoom but when we had to cancel that meeting and but when we had to cancel that meeting and but when we had to cancel that meeting and reschedule to today reschedule to today reschedule to today he said he was unavailable to attend he said he was unavailable to attend he said he was unavailable to attend today's meeting today's meeting today's meeting so we are discussing that among ourselves so we are discussing that among ourselves so we are discussing that among ourselves and and and we if if we have questions we if if we have questions we if if we have questions uh that we can't answer maybe we want to uh that we can't answer maybe we want to invite chris to attend another meeting either that or we attend a trustees meeting and make our concerns known my one of my biggest concerns is the library is open to the public more hours than almost any other department except for fire and dpw and police but um so people will tend to go to the library to find their answers before they go to the historical society or even if they think of us here at the commission and the fact that if it's put back up in the cage it is no longer a browsing collection it is a collection that you already have to know what they have is pertinent to you and then you have to inquire of the person at the reference office desk to go up and retrieve those items for you to look at and then return them which causes kind of a delay at the reference desk if there's more than one person waiting at the desk so it isn't really good public service for the public either from the library's point of view but from the historical point of view history is a is a browsing collection you pick up a book and you flip it this the index to see if the name or the location or the building or business or whatever it is you want is listed or you cruise the table of contents and sometimes you were pleasantly surprised that it refers to something that that you're researching but you can't do that if it's locked away up in the cage and certainly the um people sitting at the reference desk don't have that knowledge either they don't know what the in detail what the collection has so you have to ask for a specific thing and that limits your research that you're not able to expand on it and learn from other sources other than the one item that you're asking for and nine times out of ten people don't know what to ask for that's my big concern about putting it back up there
well i did find the town reports that were bound those might have previously been locked away in the cage on the second floor but they're open now uh on metal shelves so what about genealogies or the yearbooks or i didn't and and where did they sit are they sitting near the reference librarian to be sure that nothing is torn out of the book or it's not torn out of the book or is there anything that the library books, or destroyed in some way. If the reference person brings it down and hands it over, where do those people go to sit? They go to sit out of the sight line of the person sitting at the reference desk. So that's another illogical concern. And the page is on the second floor, in the teen's room, so they can't stay in the teen's room. It delays. If you come in and you have two hours to do your research, well I'll tell you, at least a half an hour to 45 minutes is going to be waiting for books to be brought down and taken back up and brought down. Is there a limit to how many books somebody can ask for at a single time? I find it much faster to pick up a book and look at it and set it back down and move on and get more research done than having to sit in the room. How do you sit and wait for a person to go upstairs to the second floor to retrieve items? I went up to look at the cage and it didn't look like it was crammed full of things. There was a desk inside the cage with a laptop computer on it, so I don't know whether people are able to use that desk when they're looking at materials in the cage or not. Well, they're not allowed in the cage. Okay. That's why it's in the cage. What initially, when they moved out of the cage, and the library lost many, many good resources when they moved out because they didn't have the room to put them downstairs, but that was to be the teen librarian's office, which is why it was in the cage so she could lock it when she wasn't there. Now, that was the purpose of it. That may no longer be the purpose for it, which may be why they can't do it. Okay. I don't know why they consider it space they can move things back to, but if I were the teen librarian, I wouldn't be happy that all my shelving and storage area was being taken up by a whole other collection that did have space down on the first floor where it should be. If I could just throw in something here. I can't. Okay. Okay. I think you've really summed up so much extremely well said detail here. A possibility that I'd like to share is, and I like the idea of going to the trustees meeting, because I think that Aida and Chris have been working, according to the minutes, they've been the ones working together on this whole thing. Okay. And Chris defers to the trustees' wishes on things, I've been told. So I think them being part of the awareness of the concern and any suggestions would be vital, really. Be very smart. A possibility that might be thrown out, though, at such a meeting or somehow, is that if there was a part-time person who was knowledgeable about the collection, that particular collection, who would be available at specific times, so that it's not ideal for patrons to have to come at a certain day and time, but it's better than nothing, and MJ would be an ideal person to approach about that. I'm not sure that what I think would be a good approach, although I see that as a good approach, but I don't think a lot of people would, if not the majority of patrons would be, it would be better than nothing. I think she would be amenable to that job. And that would deal with the supervision and the access and also the encouragement to the public that this is an interest of the library in serving them and that they're providing a way to access this in a thorough way. And using the imagination of a person and the knowledge of a person who understands all of this to bring to bear on the beginning questions that a researcher has. As Kay said, you don't necessarily know exactly how to ask or what to ask in trying to get at ultimately what you're going to need to know.
That's a very good suggestion.
And of course, the trustees would have to approve such a thing because it would involve an additional salary. But Andrew, I spoke to him about that and he loved the idea. He said that he's trying to juggle so many kinds of things and he's really he wants to do this, but he's not up on it. And. So, you know, getting into the learning curve is huge. And MJ is certainly the person that would know would be the ideal person to to do this.
OK, well, does anyone have any suggestions as to our next steps? Should there is a library trustees. Meeting, I believe, on. This Wednesday, and if you think we have a full agenda, they have a extremely full agenda.
Should we. Invite Chris Winkler's to attend our next meeting to continue this discussion? Would that be worthwhile? Well, if you're going to wait a month. I think you need to send some sort of indication to the trustees and to threats that this is a concern of ours and that it's been brought to our attention and that we want to make comments about it before, because in a month's time, they could do a lot of different things with the collection, and I think waiting and we've already waited several weeks to do any to even discuss it. And as a historical commission, I think. That we need to at least give our opinions on it as a town board to another town board who was working on the same topic. Now, it may not be on their agenda this week. So this tomorrow, Wednesday, but perhaps they could hold off further movement or discussion until we've had a chance to express ours. It's either that or we. Write a letter to them immediately. Expressing our concerns.
Well, I can. Communicate with Congress and let him. Listen to our comments. If they're on wake him today's meeting. And. I did see something in the agenda that the line, the library. Trustee. are looking into the feasibility of a individual meeting room on the first floor i don't know if that pertains to the space where the cabinet was and the library of things cabinet is located so if they move ahead with something like that then you've lost a whole month's time to make them aware of our concerns and question whether or not the collection really needs to be moved or maybe it's just a matter of redesigning the room so that the cabinets the the low cabinets do not stick out into the room i know a lot of libraries are purchasing individual cubicles that they can put into their space where they have no private rooms like for ESL talks with students and things like that I'm not saying that that isn't needed but maybe redesigning the layout may be preferable to what I mean they devote glassed in contemporary cabinets to the library of things quite a bit of space more space than they they allow for the historical collection so there's a possibility of that but we need to let them know now immediately our concerns rather than waiting because they're not waiting they're moving ahead with their plans so maybe a letter would be the best suggestion and then ask if we could discuss it with the trustees well it seems to me that we might might let Chris know that we love concerns that's what I'm saying about a letter to Chris to let him know our concerns and ask if we can meet with him and the trustees about this topic to gather right that would be a good idea oh well Kate could you just clarify um do you are you recommending a letter to Chris alone or to him and the trustees or cc'ing somebody or how do you think it should work best I think it should work since he refers you to the trustees it needs to go to to Chris as director and the trustees because he's right he the trustees direct him on what to do yeah so both parties need to understand the importance of the collection I have a feeling that they don't quite get the importance of the collection I wonder from reading their minutes whether the trustees are actually aware of the details of the collection and the importance of the collection and the importance of the collection of where things are well that'd be another reason to discuss it with them so that they become aware okay we have do we have any further comments or suggestions on this topic I will um communicate with you on this topic that's for sure oh thank you well uh I'm uh still with Chris uh probably an email uh referencing our discussion at today's meeting and asking if we can make our concerns them to attend one of our meetings soon it should be a joint meeting i think
well i i would just write a letter of concern to chris as director and the trustees at the same time i don't know that i would do an email i think i would do a formal letter and i would tell them our concerns remind them of the fact that the uh reports that were done back in 20 what was it sandy 2024 25 uh let me think uh it must have been yeah something like that that the goals for uh 26 to 27 was an increase the public's wishes were 55 which is more than half said that they were interested in local history and getting and seeing more local history are you referring to the library strategic plan yes you'll find it in there i have an abbreviated hard copy well i looked at the one online and it said 55
i would just i would just add um if enumerating concerns or suggestions for either in that letter or or a subsequent meeting um it concerns me the amount of money that's been spent and apparently so far apparently wasted on a custom cabinet and then the moving of the custom cabinet to the tune of i can't remember the exact figure but it was between two and three thousand dollars to disassemble and re move and reassemble the cabinet that now stands empty in chris's office with no apparent uh use for it in in the library's um actual um official storage there's that concern and the concern about employing um a um consultant making sure that that money is not wasted by having the whole picture
in the room you're living in is that right a lifetime a lifetime going to be unanswered and the situation is um metropolitan or something like that is that real what is the point you're making in terms of answer room representing the western part For me, the difficulty was that the homepage branches between collection or catalog and website. And I just thought, oh, I'm thinking local history collection, so I went with catalog. But you have to go with website to access that. So I looked at some other libraries, and Concord, for example, has a clear path right at the very beginning, how to access their local history. And then from there, it branches out into considerable detail that you can get right from your home. So just the website design, tweaking that a bit, would be a great help right there. And I don't know how they go about that. They must have a webmaster of some kind. And how difficult that would be, I don't know. But that is definitely something that would facilitate public access.
My only comment, Sandy, is you as John Q. Public probably have a greater concern about how they're spending their money as far as moving the cabinets around or hiring a consultant. But the commission really needs to be focused on the historical collection itself. I don't think that we have any right to talk to them about how they spend their budget. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, I guess I'm thinking of in a kind of like a debate or argument point. When people say that we have limited resources. I think. It's just that I want to make sure that you understand that you as a taxpayer have a right to be concerned about how they spend their money. Yeah. But we as a board really don't have any input. We individually might want to comment on it, but not from the board. I see. Well, thank you. Thank you.
Okay, Sandy. I would suggest that we not, that we invite ourselves to their meeting because then they will have more of their trustee members present. I'm afraid if we invite them to our meeting, we might get two. I don't know how many are on the board, but I'm just, there are fewer of us probably than the number of their board members. And I think there might be a better discussion and they might, it's an easier way for us to make them more aware of the importance of the history. If we talk to all of them in their, in their meeting, rather than having just one or two of them come to our meetings. Just a thought.
Guys. Okay. Rick. Yes. Hi, sorry. I had my hand up. I don't know if you can see that. I support everything that was just said. I had something very similar in mind to what Kay was saying. And I also agree, Sherry Ann, about if we could get some, at least a representative from the commission to go to the library meeting. I think that would be more valuable because our, we can't confuse our roles and, and even though this is a concern, we do need to make sure that we're focused on the, the collection, the historic, the value of the collection. And, and, and not. And, and be careful as a commission, how we tell the library to, um, assign responsibilities to their personnel and that kind of thing. I think too, a point of inviting them here is that we have a specific time and date that we, we would like to meet with them because if we want to say we want to come and talk to you, it may not be put on the agenda for six months from now or two months from now. Yeah, likely. That's the way we kind of control how soon we talk. Maybe. I mean, they have a public comment time, right? They do. You can zoom in if you like or appear at their meeting. Yeah. Just like you can here.
Okay, anything more to be said on this topic? If you want, Rick, I'll help you with some of the points that you want to make in the letter. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, the way then to 50th, are we moving on? Yes. Okay.
The next project is rendezvous with Rachel Revere, which is going to be August 30th. I have helpers for the parking lot already from the 250th group. But what we're. we needed people inside with buses to collect donations and i don't know if we need people to check off the list of people who have made reservations or not but we might uh depending on how full the reservation list is last time i talked to jayland which was quite a while ago we only had a third of a house filled so please please please please ask your friends to go ask represent yourself as a historical mission to come uh we are also asking for donations to create a historical sign to go up at the kitchen to a ball field right now we have about 400 but the person just to do the layout of the signs um and there's only uh she she was twelve hundred dollars just to do one sign for a layout and that's if we already chose the pictures had the high resolution done and have written the text so that basically all she's doing is organizing it on the sign and that's 1200 so we need quite a bit more just to get the design and as for the signs themselves um i have not heard how expensive they are but i have heard how expensive they are and i have not heard how expensive it is but i have heard how expensive they are but i have not heard how expensive they are of course that they are. I would assume that we're using, we could use the same company that are making the rail trail signs and the Dudley Wood signs. And so I need to find out how much an individual sign costs to be printed and then to be put in place. There was some conversation with the rec department that they might be able to help a little bit with it, maybe putting it into the location at Kichichewick Ball Field. The discussion was around the parking lot area that's next to the building that's there, not on Pemberton, not on Bradford, and not on West Plains Street, but where the parking lot is and is often. And so that's something that's been used on weekends by different groups using the playground, there in the ball field and over the playground. But that's still open for discussion. But our immediate need is help in the theater, like I said, for checking off names and encouraging donations to be made, and also encouragement of anyone you know to attend because this play is not inexpensive. We didn't pay for it, 250 and paid for it. But we are sponsoring it. And so we need to get the word out, whether it's emails to all your friends or word of mouth, it would be most appreciated. And they don't have to live in Wayland. They can come from out of town. They live in the West End suburb. very for me and lincoln anything like that especially if they give donations so any other comments so can i sign anybody up to be there on it's sunday afternoon at 2 p.m i've made my reservation already and i'm available to help with parking as needed well parking we have rick it's inside we need help with okay yeah i'll put you down for inside i'll be there too and sherry and sunday and any other volunteers that think of sandy's fun you know or amanda oh i understand it's got very busy weekends so i understand
okay that's it for me
okay nothing else on whalen 250th right no um there's very little that's going on for the 250th we were sort of one of the last programs of the end of the 250th so there are no current plans for the cemetery well the cemetery is the cemetery well the cemetery is the cemetery well the cemetery is the cemetery what that's what i was going to ask what that's what i was going to ask what that's what i was going to ask well i had everything written up um well i had everything written up um well i had everything written up um folks theater said that he thought he folks theater said that he thought he folks theater said that he thought he had players had players had players he has not responded to any emails of he has not responded to any emails of he has not responded to any emails of mine asking mine asking mine asking if the volunteers were available to if the volunteers were available to if the volunteers were available to give out the give out the give out the the talk the speech too the talk the speech too the talk the speech too in the meantime although i had asked in the meantime although i had asked in the meantime although i had asked historical society not to have their historical society not to have their
25th or 23rd which which day it was um they chose to have their house tour which is more or less in competition for um what that would be in competition with us uh 25th and uh October 26th yes but we're not so because of this competition for the historical house tour and the fact that I haven't gotten any information back from uh folks that are I've canceled it and we might be able to hold it some other time but the reason it was canceled in April is because he said he needed more than the three months that I was off asking you know I said I had everything ready and it was within three months and he said three months is not enough time so obviously October is you know it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's not going to be enough time with different dates in October, or even in September. So as far as I know, we're not doing it this year. And since it wasn't costing us anything to put it on, except maybe some printouts, we had a lot of things like games for kids, find the word in was one of them, the crossword was another one. We had the coloring book if we had any leftover from the October 3, to hand out, we had some other ideals that, oh, we had maps of where the houses were that these people lived in. We also had a map showing the different battles that they were in. So we were ready to go. It was just that we didn't get people and then the conflict with the historical society. So we decided not to go ahead with it.
Also, did we bring the coloring books last time? Sherry Anne made this beautiful coloring book. And on each page, it talks about a different aspect in Wayland, whether it was travel, or play, or housework, or farming or to manufacturing, or blacksmithing, or whatever. And the story underneath it went with Wayland, not any other town, it was specifically Wayland. And then the very last sheet was draw your own experience in Wayland and talk about it. And it's beautifully bound. And it's very colorful jacket on it. But we are going to be handing those out on the historical society table. And perhaps if they give us a few on our historical commission table, since Sherry Anne belongs to both groups, and we will be handing them out to youngsters to take home and use, you know, color happiness into it. At the Wayland festival. At the Wayland festival. Which is the next thing on our agenda, right? Thank you for the lead in. I've been in contact with Steve Angeli about the suggestion of him bringing his diorama of the railroad to the festival. He's enthusiastic, looking forward to it. He says he's even in the process of building a some sort of a replica of the Grout Herd House. Which will not be historically accurate, but better than what he had before. Okay. So he's very interested. It's all of course dependent on the weather. I have talked, tried to find out details about the festival. The person that organized it last year for the recreation department is no longer there. But Okay. According to the record, it's probably never going to be there, but we'll see. Okay. So we're hoping to get them back in there. And you are? We're hoping to get them back in there. We're hoping to get them back in there. We're hoping to get them back in there. Wow. And you know, that's it? That's a big, big piece of it. It's a big, big piece of it. to Catherine Branagh, Chris Reynolds, who's a member of the Select Board, is organizing it in conjunction with the COA, and they're supposed to be sending out a link to a website to reserve tables, space, whatever, but that hasn't been sent out yet. Can I make a comment on that? Sure.
By people who have attended the planning for this event, they are no longer offering tables. However, I have talked to Catherine Branagh, and she said they're taking 16 tables, and she would throw in another table for a town board, i.e., the Historical Commission. And was it just one table you had last year, Rick? The Historical Commission, I believe, just had one table. Yeah. So I only asked for one table. Okay. And Sherry Ann has secured a tent for us this time. And my question is, do we have the posters and things that we had last time, or do we have different posters that we want to put up for the archaeology and the house plaques and the railroad information that you had and so forth? I don't know who has the posters. Ann Gordon prepared some handouts. And the handouts, right. I was going to ask Ann to send that to us because Amanda had made a suggestion that under the Historical Commission, it didn't mention anything about educating the public, which was a good point. And I just want to add that to the brochure before we start handing them out, because I think that was the only thing that is. It's different or added on. So that's what I know about the October 3rd. Do we want to also display the archaeology points in the cabinet like we did last year? Well, that's what I'm asking. Are you doing the same thing you did last year, or are you doing something a little bit different to help attract attention to talk to them? Well, points are always a good thing for people to look at. Can they touch them? Pardon me? Can they touch them? I don't know. They're in the glass case. Yeah, the glass case. In a heavy one. Okay. I don't want any to walk away. Right.
Where is the railroad going to be? Wherever they have space. Steve says he doesn't need a table to set it on. It has legs. And they're detachable or folding legs. What I was thinking, Tanya, was if we had a table for the historical commission, and then a little bit further in front of that would be the railroad diorama, so that there'd be enough space people go behind the diorama and could also talk to you at the table. I think that's a gotcha. I think that's kind of thing to have people come over and look at, rather than setting it up beside you. But if we need two spaces, we need to let them know that. Is this going to be in the town center? Same as last year. Yeah, a lot of last year.
The thing about the diorama is that you can walk around it and see it. If we put it side by side, it kind of limits who can get behind it. To look on the other side of it, so to speak. Well, we don't have the Council Hill artifacts, because they're in the Council on Aging. So we just have the Sand Hill ones. Any suggestions, Amanda? If you're talking, we can't hear you. Well, maybe it's something that, when you're in the lab, you could discuss what you want to take and show. I think we need to contact Brad Carver to see if he has the historic facts and information about that. Okay. Well, I'm available to volunteer. I think we had just about everyone. We all spent our time there, right. And we'll need people to watch to make sure nobody reaches into the diorama. Right. Right. I'd be inclined to ask for a space and a half, because if they're just moving, they can just shift the next person down in their planning so that it gives us a little more room. Because you know how crowded it got around in front of tables? Yeah. If you're thinking of another table in front of our table, if that pushes people further out into the walkway, and I foresee a traffic jam of people, so we could have... No. So, we could help you from seeing what's going on at the front table if you're only in the back. Yes. And if there's the big crowds around the front table, they may not even come to look at the back table that has all of our educational stuff. So, if they'll give us... Yeah. If they'll give us at least a space and a half, that just helps us expand downward, down the avenue a little bit more. So, is your friend going to stay with the table? I would assume so. You better be sure. Yeah. We'll check on that. I need his last name, too. Angiolini. Right. He's listed as one of the volunteers that helped out in the brush project. Right. So, if you look at the minutes... He's on the list. He's on the list. A-N-G-E-L-I-N-I. There it is. I see. Thank you. Well, I hope you told Steve that we're very excited about him coming, and I've been talking enough at this point. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And it's where we should work. Next up, schöh Dokkan, the 258th and other places I've talked about this. I sent him a copy of the — the flier that appeared in the Recreation Department newsletter, and he says he's very much looking forward to it. Okay. Shall we move on to house plaques? House plaques. Yeah. Brad is not here. Ready. — Yeah. Yeah. but we have three applications for house plants. And does anyone need copies of the applications? Yeah, I might like to see them.
Where are their locations? The first one is 142 Pelham Island Road.
That's the William T. Dudley House. The who's house? William T. Dudley, D-U-D-L-E-Y. It's on the backside of the application. And there were a total of 11 pages of documentation. Wow. I didn't print them all out, but they're in the email that you received.
We received an email on the house plants? Yes.
From you or from Brad? From Brad. Is this the one he wanted to have a copy of his research, how he did it? Yes. Okay. Yes, she used AI to help research down, so we assume it's correct. You should never assume that AI is correct. It hallucinates all the time. I would not accept AI. He also had copies of pages out of census reports and out of property reports. I scanned through it, that Brad had sent. There was a lot of documentation.
Do we feel we have enough information and that the information is... I did not see the resources. So I guess I can't answer that. But Brad's the one that makes the decision, right? Yeah, Brad recommended that we go forward with this one. Well, that's what Brad wants. Fine with me.
What other road do we have? Okay, the next application is...
12 Shawnee Avenue in Cachituit.
And this is another one that came in to Brad Carver. Yes, I know. I was just going to say, I have a copy of his. Yes. Now, we're not in the car.
So this is the Bent, W.H. Bent House. Yes. And he attached the copy of the Macris report, which was done by Gretchen Schuller in 1984. Thank you, Thor. Thank you, Thor. Thank you, Thor. Thank you, Thor. Thank you, Thor.
Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. W.H. Bent was a prominent resident of Weyland.
He was a senior partner in one of the earliest and most successful shoe factories in the village of Cachituit. the house was moved from 96 main street the structure is an example of the housing which did appear in response to the development of the shoe industry during the last quarter of the 19th century in the village of kichichurri do we need to vote on these individually
i don't think we have in the past okay i mean brad's sort of the sub group that decides whether they accept it or not i think the only time we voted um rick is when there's been questions about it yeah when part of the house had been renovated or questions about the age yeah okay and what's the third one the third one is one that i found in the town mailbox um from martha farrell 67 kichichurri road
which is not far from the um i have another copy here first high school it's the last house as you're driving down kichichurri road south yeah
and although it says in the application
that it's in the historic district according to my checking it's just outside of the historic district
well it's the first of the three houses along kichichurri road before you hit the right across from the end and yeah and this is a macros report too yes
so and whose house was that um priest no history name priest early
thank you
but it's built by small and the applicant enclosed a check table through the wayland historical commission along with the application so we can just make it payable to the town of wayland well it doesn't go to uh so then i thought yeah he had one piece there and he did not go to the county council he had a fee but i think the county house actually went to customs so you can see he did not go to the actual. him to pay directly to the sign maker the selling maker okay so he has a check has to be returned and that's when he gives them the information about how to get the sign and who to write to and so forth so i think you have to give that to brad
thank you very well the macros report
again done by greg gretchen jeweler in 2012.
the report is quite complete
we're back brad has not seen this last one since it was in the mailbox um i scanned it and sent it out to all of us okay including brad by email and he is also in favor of this one okay
okay so we'll i'll inform brad that we've approved all of these
um cemetery project um
well brad met with
kelsey power spirit uh and we were told that kelsey was on vacation two weeks ago and last week when i sent a email to kelsey to follow up the automatic reply said kelsey is no longer working for the town of Whalen. Oh my. She is the assistant, or was the assistant town manager. And I don't know anything more than that, unless anyone else has any other information. I did forward that email to Jalen, and I received an email from Jalen this morning saying that the RFP for the cemetery project is still ongoing. Jalen emailed Brad last week to see if we can set up a meeting to discuss the RFP, and I'm waiting to hear back. So we're still on hold with that one.
Here's another copy. Well, thank you. Moving on to archaeology.
Amanda, are you still there?
Amanda, can you hear us?
Well, I can't hear Amanda. I can't either. Am I fine, Amanda?
We're still meeting in the lab on Wednesdays. I have some questions that I will ask Tom. I have some questions that I will ask Tonya at the latest opportunity. Sandy has been helping out, and Margaret was not there last Wednesday, and I haven't heard whether she'll be there this Wednesday or not. But we're moving forward with re-bagging, and the last I knew...
We were caught up in data entry work, except for maybe the last few shoots. Yeah, because I haven't been able to be there for about the last month. So are we making an appointment to go up to the attic to see which boxes need to be brought down, or...? We need to do that, yeah. I was hoping that we could hear Amanda. Yeah, I was hoping that we could hear Amanda.
Has Amanda been there also, in the lab?
She came a couple of weeks ago. She made an... I thought it was an unexpected visit. She had planned to be out. For this month. Yeah, that's what I thought. But she did come a couple of weeks ago. Well that was nice. And helped out. Did you want to say anything about greenways? About what? Greenways. Okay, a couple of weeks ago, a person at Sudbury Valley Trustees sent me an email and said that they tell the greenways field. And I just assumed it was the one by the site, and I talked to Lynn Connolly, who is really interested in doing some archaeology, and the poor deer, she went over there to that field by the parking lot. She said it's not tilled. I haven't had the strength to walk that far. I've got to get over there and take a look. Well, I need to find out from Ms. Greffen which field it is. And with all the appointments I've had with doctors and PTs lately, I haven't really been able to concentrate on that. So I'm confused. This is a field they sold or a field they bought? No, no, it's one of their fields. Yes. So why did she contact you about it? Because it's been... Oh, till. And they knew that I would want to look for artifacts.
Okay, so did Lynn find anything? I'm sorry, what? Did Lynn find anything? She couldn't find the right field. She called me and said, Tanya, it's not tilled. So I haven't... It's been another week and I haven't called to find out. Maybe I can run over, you know, drive over there. Because they're not far from my house. I'm trying to find out which field it is.
But that's the only thing that's come up to me.
Okay, well, as long as we keep on moving forward, the light's at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, I would like to find something for Lynn to do that she wants to do because she's got lots of energy and we could use that. Are you going to follow up on the...
Are we just losing everything that's from... Is it Castle Hill that's along the Dump Road? Are we just going to drop that totally? The hill that's along the Dump Road? Oh, Sand Hill. Is it Sand Hill? Are we just going to leave it and not pursue it any further? Well, I don't know. Well, I haven't been able to think of that sort of thing. Well, I thought you were going to hand it over to Lynn if she wanted the project. I was going to hand it over, but I don't remember if we had a conversation about that. I'll have to... Okay, let me make a note.
I've been really focused on trying to get myself recovered. Well, that's the better thing. That's the better thing to focus on, that's for sure. Yeah, I have to before I can do anything else. Right. Okay, thank you.
Next on the agenda is an email that we received about a cell tower, cell antenna on at 4 Meadowview Road, which is the Weyland-Vlaad-Adler. Weyland-Vlaad-Adler. Weyland-Vlaad-Adler. Weyland-Vlaad-Adler and Gun Club. How did this come up again? Because I don't know how many years ago this was considered. This is new, Sonia. It's a new tower they're putting in. Do they have an archaeologist?
The person that sent this email,
is asking for our comments according to the Section 106 process. The person that sent the email to us, Jennifer Davis, senior architectural historian for BVI. Weer, I'm sorry. BVI. This was sent by Max . Well, I think it's a very good question. . Бейт . Well, that's all I wanted to say. This was the email that was sent. I asked Margaret if she would check our files to see if we had anything on this before. And this was a project in February 2025 where they notified us of this project. And we haven't been able to find any... I haven't been able to find any comments that we sent any response regarding this before.
I don't remember that we were contacted. It's in the vicinity of Old Stonebridge Road. So this is February 2025. Wayland Rod and Gun Club. Yeah, I know that place. I've been up there with Tom many, many, many years ago. Well, the question is, what do we do? Do they have an archaeology report attached to it?
I didn't print out the entire thing. See, something came to me, it looks like. That was... When was that? This was in February 2025. This year. They did... The email that they sent us, the attachment, had 27 pages. So was there an archaeology report in there? I don't believe so. I think it was mostly plans for the locus map.
Proposed construction of a new... A new telecommunications monopole tower and compound resulting in ground disturbance. We see attachment four of this filing for project design details. But have they mentioned an archaeologist in there? Not that I have seen. Well, I think we need to write back and ask for the archaeology report.
Okay. We just asked... Asked for the archaeology report and they haven't done it. That means they have to do it. They have to do an archaeology report? I believe they do.
So I just asked for the archaeology report.
You said to ask for it.
Not suggest they do it, just ask for the report because if they haven't done it, that gives them an opportunity to do it. Bye. Have a good day. Bye.
Bye. Bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Here's the... A consultant contact information. There's something called... viral business but that doesn't sound like an archaeology you know i've never heard of that
wait wait for him
i should have a copy of this letter it's it's in your town inbox if you can get access to it but that's a problem i can't get into my town
i'm going to go upstairs and see if anybody can help me after this
so we could just make a copy of this that would be great yeah i just copied a few pages out of the 27 pages here so well i still want like a copy of this okay well just forward the email to her her email account that'll be easiest i think today i didn't answer that person from i got an email that rick had sent me i forgot to mention this and uh it came from the national park service because in 19 you i don't remember 1986. you've heard of elizabeth cady stanford yeah i went with the national park service and we expedited in her backyard in her front yard and this woman traced me down to the historical commission but i can't see my email because of the time she has been there for a while and she's been asking me to send a copy of the national park service so i sent her a copy and she said she's been out of commission for a while and so i can't get into it and um i just sent her a copy we read it we read it it was something came through right with that so she's saying she can't get into but so they're just all they had they asked was that want to know more about the findings because they have an incomplete report yes they have some papers that are missing she said she said that message so i told her well the regional archaeologist is the same age as i am and he's retired in california and the other guy who was helping run the project is deceased now i mean it was it's been a long time so i i texted her i hope she gets that because that's easier than sending an email and i let i said let me know if you get my text so i've got to look for that okay but i did that today i worked on that today okay i remember so much about that project but i never had any papers i wasn't one of the chief people right right well she may even know just appreciate your memories but she needs to get the paperwork i guess well i don't know i don't know i don't know i will forward that email to you time okay thank you and i ask if they have an archaeology report on the project you did send me that email yeah she's in uh well i don't know where she is but she was in charge of that elizabeth katie stanton okay next on the agenda is sherman's bridge i added that on the agenda as a placeholder i don't have any news but i did contact al piccoli who's the project manager for the project and spoke with him he says they have all the permits they need mass dlt has ordered the materials and they hope to receive the material at the beginning of october uh they're discussing a show on the agenda and they're going to be talking about the project with mass dlt so there's a start date on the project with mass dlt and mass dlt is providing the contractor the town is involved but it's a mass dlt project when the project starts they expect the bridge to be closed for about 60 to 90 days thank you too i didn't ask him about any of the design details that were so controversial uh he didn't bring them up so um that's all i have what i would suggest for the german bridge project is that you get in contact with either dpw or facilities and find out if um
if we can help on the sign the historical sign that's going at the bridge because we can we have photographs and we have historical data and of course we can recommend carol holtz who has done the rail trail and our signs and again it's a matter of having completed text and photographs at a high resolution for carol to work on and what is the budget on the sign um
but i think that we should be involved with the signage to be sure that everything is accurate
well they may be focused on the project itself and the historical signing might be after the project is completed but i can ask you i can ask to plan ahead and you have to have in case we need approval by the dpw or the whoever's doing the bridge so if we have a design ready to show them for acceptance or for changes that has to be done in advance and if it's going to be done in 60 to 90 days that's just about the amount of time we need to to help get this signed designed written and designed and researched etc so it's not something that we can put off to later it's something that has to start now but before we do anything we need permission to work on it and
or at the very least to approve that the text is correct who's going to fund the sign that's their project they they said that that's the signage was going to be included so i'm assuming that they're they've got the cost for it it's not our sign but because we're the commission and that's what we do we want to be participating
inter-departmental relationships yeah it might be a good idea to talk to them about who pays for the sign if they're going to do a sign well i guess the first question is are you doing a sign if so we want to participate to be sure the facts are correct that we have not only uh facts to offer them but we have photographs to offer etc etc i believe it was abigail that came to our meeting six months ago or a year ago with an ai generated mock-up of the sign do you remember that it was stone's bridge that wasn't there with stone's bridge okay stone's bridge you're right so we're working that's a different topic it's not on here information on that okay you're right okay um moving on railroad and rail trail uh i understand these signs have been made and delivered to the dpw building on river road i have not seen them i was told that kelsey had seen them but i had been unable to confirm that with kelsey i received an email well i talked to mike fea last wednesday who told me then he was going to be on vacation this week and that the walk through with the sign installer would not be until next week at the earliest i just came from this morning this morning yeah i received an email from bonnie gossels telling me that there was going to be a walk through on thursday of this week i replied to bonnie that i'm unable to be there because of a meeting at noon unless the walk through happens very early in the morning i checked facilities uh just before this meeting and mike fea is coming back on thursday morning so that's well i was in facilities too i got the same information that he was out this week but he would be here for thursday but he had not heard from bonnie at that point unless bonnie had answered him directly and not included abigail so um
and i told her that out of the whole year i had scheduled a uh class i hadn't scheduled but i had signed up for a class on thursday and i would not be available so since it included dudley pond and um castle gate i was hoping that we could do that on a different day if you're not available either. So I don't know. I'm actually I'm emailing Mike when I get home today about that fact. Well, Mike wanted to do everything, see the location of all the songs the same day. I understand. I don't know where the contractor is located. I have, I'm just telling him that I am not available that day. Afternoon, after 12, you're not available that day. That falls on Sherry Ann then, who was the other person who was on the walk with us.
Right, for Deadly and Castlegate. Right. I've never been on the walk on the rail trail. No, that would be Bonnie and Rick has been with them. But if he's not available, he's not available. And a year ago, we had two people from DCR, a company. Right. But it doesn't seem like a really feasible day for us. So I don't know. And Scarlett jumped in on on this email and wrote back to Bonnie, saying that you and I would have to be involved. And I don't know whether she said she was available or not. I don't remember what the email said. Well, she referred Bonnie to us. Yeah, as far as the location. I think so. Yeah, Dudley Woods and the Castlegate songs. So I don't know why she was involved. Why Bonnie included her particularly because she wasn't there for all the other trail walks. I don't think. So we're kind of combining this with the next agenda item, which is signage Castlegate and Dudley Woods. And as we both agreed, the contractor had wanted to visit all of the locations the same day. Right. So we have the map. For the Castlegate and the Dudley Woods. Well, the Dudley Woods signs.
Anyway, we don't have the map for the Castlegate, but we have an agreement on the corner where we would prefer to see the sign located next to the pillar. I think we were all pretty much in agreement on where we wanted it located.
Sort of where Tom Holder said that he thought it would be located. I think that's what happened. Oh, I think we were all quite similar. You can get all, picture educational programs. Dave, do you want to discuss? Yeah. Since education is part of our mandate for the commission. I've talked to a gentleman from Hosmer. house in sudbury and he has uh said that he could give us a free lecture on getting graveyard markers back home where they belong which is kind of interesting and kind of fun and we could schedule that in october if you wanted maybe or he says he sort of has it all together already so i think that he could do it is that steve green yes and um so that was one thought and then another one is um we can try again to get hold of the native american woman who gave the lecture on the uh deeds that people what do i want to say that the curatids bought from the indians so that sudbury existed in the english mind as a town because they bought the lands from cato and uh and there were two other native americans as well i do not know how much she charges she did not respond to my first efforts try to reach her um but i think we should consider maybe 200 250 dollars for that um and it's specifically sudbury and wayland in our town so it's kind of uh i had put that offer out to h-r-d-e-i-c but they decided that was not a program they wanted not that they had any money that they were going to put into it they have no budget whatsoever what what's this woman's name i missed her name i didn't say oh that's why you missed i would have to look it up again but i have it in my emails and it's she's a woman that i heard speak at um uh sudbury library they did a big project on it a big project on it and she was to report about it and so she's she did and um she had some native american supporters and the audience as well and she apparently is an actress um and so she may be tied up in something or something like that so that's just kind of blowing in the wind i mean i can pursue it if we think we want to but then if we decide we don't want to then i haven't used any commitment to her or anything like that i think that would be an interesting subject i i would hope that it would be interesting enough for people to follow up on but then i thought maybe other people have other ideas of what they want to do right they have for programs we could do the trains again people were loving the rail trail and the trains and the signs are going up well in the budget there was supposed to be money for a celebration when the rail trail signs get installed if they do get installed in whose budget our budget or by the rail trail sign budget yeah
we were going to do the light then too weren't we on the depot it's a signal yes
um anybody else have any other suggestions
three the other day you probably did that i can't think what the what would be the third one oh isn't that awful can't think of the third one right now i was just having a memory of about let's see he's 56. about 54 years ago when the train came through and a lot of us showed up at the depot and the train came through and tim was about two years old old and tom was holding him and he started screaming and crying because it made so much i'll never forget that that was probably the wedding train with the steamboat i think it was the wedding 1973 yes yes he was two years old yeah i was away at college and i missed it you missed it oh well i was there our family was there so i guess i'm asking that people put their thinking caps on so we can think of other possibilities for programming i think if we do two a year we were doing good with our budget what who's the other um nox trail yes so there's another speaker who who does not charge anything and he feels he's a student of the nox trail and has offered to come out and speak now we offered that last spring maybe but i'm we can see if he's still available that's his name he was a he's a professor at one of the colleges um i know you sent me um steve glofsky's article but i already have found three errors in his article so i'm not ready oh no he just spoke well yeah he spoke for the historical society on it so now time has gone by maybe we can get somebody who has a different perspective on it well that professor sounds like a good one just for you for remembering you do you know what his name is oh sure no i have to look him up uh and see everything i don't want to really take time now
okay okay three ideas we continue to talk about this at our next meeting we can and but i'd like to have an a decision at our next meeting because um it takes time to um schedule around other people's uh schedules and and the town schedule and so forth so um i just really would like to do it in advance rather than letting it waiting until the last minute and also one thing we've learned is we have to do uh press releases long before uh the time that it actually happened okay okay thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you next agenda topic is our annual report which is due september 30th yes and jaylen sent out an email to board and committee chairs um preparations for the town's 2026 annual report are now underway uh boards and committees should submit an email to committee chair of board and committee chair of the town council to say they are interested in working with and supporting the town council with our cities and towns. something no later than September 30th for what we did during the preceding fiscal year in the past and Gordon has done a great job of writing up a summary of our activities yeah do we have any volunteers to do I would be happy to work on it I would ask that are there any pictures from this year's activity of the cleaning of the rail trails in May and also any pictures of archaeology whether it's people working in the lab or something like that
you we have a stones bridge stones at it because that was completed next year and a list of things clean up the lab photos so I ask that you look for them now so that I can have them before the beginning of September and take new ones if you want to have a lab of people working in there or something like that we can do that I can take pictures or I'll do it yeah or have a visitor come in and be showing him something what else did you suggest we can probably get Steve Kerr to come into that tonight another play we responded at the books yes Granger never Samson ever Samson so there ought to be a picture or something about different Samson right in new York Transfer Symposia rachele's this year the new but any other pictures that you can think of that could be of interest because we all know that people say the picture that makes them curious and then they read to find out what the picture is about you sangat name of the you know what I came across again the picture from the Wayland Festival last year with our table and so forth, so need to include that. Do you have pictures of that? We have a picture of it. Unfortunately, it only has three. It has Ann and Brad and Rick in it. Yeah. But, you know, it's the festival and that's what counts. Okay. And if there was anything that stands out in your mind for the... Maybe a picture of the cemetery, one of the cemeteries with some of the clean stones versus the... The clean stones. Right. Not clean stones, I mean center. Right. Center is a good one. Is a good one, because from the road you can see the difference in the cleaning. It seems to me that last year Ann had a picture of him cleaning, or working on stones. Did they continue? Did they continue into fiscal 26, 27? I don't know. Maybe last July. I thought they went through the end of the summer. I thought they finished early spring because they didn't even really start. They just sent the guy out to clean stones. I don't know. So cleaning stones, clean stones would be good. Any topic or project or effort that we did, um, that sticks out in your mind, send me an email. So I'm sure that it's included and I don't miss it. Would be good. Well, it sounds like you're volunteering to write up a report that we will have to review at our next meeting. Yeah. Hopefully if you get your stuff to me on time. So that means going home tonight. Going home tonight and thinking about it. Yes. Great. I don't promise it'll be as good as Ann's. But hopefully you'll have all the facts. In the news in the past couple of weeks has been, they talked about this, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has proposed changes to Section 106. Right. There was a report, there have been reports on this online and NPR, PBS. And my understanding is that the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which is a national body, has proposed basically making the Section 106 notifications that we receive, such as for the cell tower antenna, projects that may affect archaeology, Native American sites, to make the notification process basically optional. Oh, sorry. And who did you say made that suggestion? The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. So I don't know if there is a rule making on this currently. This is a Trump suggestion. Yes. And that's what they're trying to roll in. And so I don't know. I think it's a case that we need to write a letter of protest, that it should stay as a, not as an option, but a must do before they can tear anything down or destroy anything. Definitely. Because if, you know, we don't have a demolition delay here in Weyland, but certainly it would affect our archaeology capabilities here in Weyland. Tremendously. So we need to write a letter of concern that, that we have too many valuable sources here to be, that they cannot be ignored. They need to be preserved while we can. And we still have open land. That's town land that needs to be protected. Right. But that means that they could dig anywhere without any oversight whatsoever. Or tear down. Or tear down. That happened many, many years ago. Right. This only affects projects that, that are federally funded or maybe federally permitted as I understand it. Well, I still think we need to write a letter of support in favor of not passing that, because that's what they need to hear is from the public, how many people will follow with the reduction of protection, whether it's federal or state, or municipality. Would you write that letter? I'd have to find out a lot of information first. I was kind of hoping Kay might write the letter. No. I've got too much on my plate this time around. I really, you might discuss it with Scarlett. She should be writing a letter. You might try and get her to write a letter. We might try talking to Scarlett about it. Yes. Okay. Finally on our agenda, we have the issue of membership. We need someone to replace Ann Gordon. We need someone to replace Ann Gordon. We need someone to replace Ann Gordon. We need someone to replace Ann Gordon. Oh, quick question. Polling day is what day in September? The 1st. Oh, the 1st. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Before Labor Day this year. Yeah, I've already been thinking about that. So it's been particularly difficult. I've been thinking about organizing this meeting. And I'm glad we have a quorum. Which. It should be easier with. Amanda getting reappointed and Brad coming back from. Vacation or wherever. So. Well, we did try Rick and I did try. So we asked if this. This is rumor. Rumor. Would be considerate. And she had told me that she would think about it. And then Rick followed up and she declined with Rick. Right. Not at this time. This. But she offered to. Meet with us. If we have. Particular issues about architectural. History or whatever. So it's. Encouraging. Somebody with some kind of interest in. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. Interesting archeology. That's. Something I really about. Well, I worry. Before we close, I think we need to talk about our goals for this coming year. Yeah. I wonder if Lynn would see interest. She's done some basic information. Have. I don't know of anybody else. And I, more information we have amanda who's interested in archaeology yes we also need somebody who's interested in um architects and is willing to do some more research for houses to be added to macros because although there are some houses done in the south end of town there aren't as many in the south end of town as there is in the north end and then there is what jane siapa called the dead man zone which is between route 20 and the top end of the chichuit which is the mid-century modern which is going to fall under our house plaque pretty soon at 75 years like my house is 73 years old and it's a mid-century modern so
we need to start thinking about doing research on some of these houses and we didn't talk about the meeting we had with michael mccall which we should inform the others about but we sort of informed him that one of our basic goals was to get the um interpretive site up and running it's been 20 years now and it really we need to sit down and really get it started which which interpreters uh the um engine house and turntable site railroad just beyond the depot
and there's there's more for us to talk about rick and there's to talk about the freight house being moved by the uh by the town to create more parking spots and is that is that a feasible thing to do and how far do the rails go down that go by the freight house how far down the rail trail they go down nearly to millbrook road and as we told michael mccall although the town owns a narrow strip of land along there the land slopes down where the coal dealer was and it's not feasible to move the freight house too far away it would detract from its historic location affect the integrity of the relationship of the freight house to the passenger station and there already is parking available on the east side of the freight house it's just that because the national grid project that's currently underway and has been underway for several months is taking so long can't use that for parking at the present time right but even if they move it down and gain gretchen pointed out they would gain parking where there's a road around the house it's it's going to cost a hundred to fifty thousand dollars per extra parking spaces they get i don't think they'd get more than three extra parking spaces and for a town that is um thinking about a two and a half override i think that paying that much money for three parking spots is really ridiculous but that's my personal opinion
so we have that we have the interpretive site that we want to start the archaeology dig on and go for money for the cpa for that and the clearing so forth so we have three kind of major things in front of us to work on this year and how does whoever we ask to join the board fit in to what our goals are and maybe you don't want those goals maybe we need to discuss other goals that we want well we always have to factor in archaeology
i didn't hear all of that i said we need to discuss other goals that we want we have to factor in archaeology into the interpretive site yeah yes okay but that means that we have to make a real effort we can't keep sitting on this and referring back to a report that's 20 years old we either get off the chairs and do something or we decide not to pursue it and i know rick feels that we should pursue it i know i feel we should pursue it and i think we should we need to set our goals for the coming year so that we can actively work towards it rather than just meeting and telling reports to each other what we've achieved yeah that makes sense
which brings us back to a member so we need to choose wisely a member who will fall into accepting these as the goals of the historical condition to move forward
we may need talking to your neighbors or your friends you never know who's interested in railroad sites or finding out more about the houses in the south end of whalen
hello
do we want to talk about when we're going to have our next meeting well i don't think you're done with this meeting
we need the first yeah first wednesday that's the second what is it the second september september september second what day of the week is that wednesday
which is really two weeks away
so he could meet the ninth something on the nine
well you can't meet in the morning in the evening because that's jane
well that would still give us three weeks because the october meeting is on september the second well i wrote down september the second well that's two weeks away or we could go three weeks away and go to october 9th
what do you have on your calendar rick i'm available either either day
i have to see if there's any other questions i have to see if there's any other questions i have to see if there's any other questions i have to see what my medical appointments are
what do you think sherry is it depends on when i go south for a birthday party and i don't know yet when that which weekend that's going to be oh is this the wednesday
which weekend you're going with i said i don't know which weekend the party's going to be down in west virginia so i don't know oh yeah and you have to leave yeah got it sorry didn't catch all that
what do you think
whenever we can get a quorum
we don't have amanda all right there like no i think she left us a long time ago
okay september something give us a date rick okay september something give us a date rick okay september something give us a date rick okay september something give us a date rick okay september something give us a date rick maybe i should send out a poll again and maybe i should send out a poll again and maybe i should send out a poll again and see if people can't come see if people can't come see if people can't come yeah i tried the second or the ninth yeah i tried the second or the ninth yeah i tried the second or the ninth see if brad and amanda are available see if brad and amanda are available see if brad and amanda are available what day is that uh wednesday what day is that uh wednesday what day is that uh wednesday either september oh the second second either september oh the second second either september oh the second second of october of october of october september september september we're not we're september september we're not we're not september 2nd okay so that will give you time to look at your calendar tanya what that will give you time to look at your calendar yes it will
what if we um
what if we email rick suggestions for people to ask for the board what if we email rick suggestions for people to ask for the board we'll get to that
we just have to think of them well i was going to say it's either that or sitting here trying to think of something what's that see they're sitting here trying to think of somebody or going home and trying to think i know what you mean so um
think one of the top things on your agenda for next month will be goals because we need to settle that down
and programs and programs and that'll fall into goals too right so if it we're meeting on september 2nd that means you have to send me your photographs and your ideas for the report with the in the next week and next week quite frankly because i need a week to start working on it before the second
because you want to present what yeah what you have what i have for approval because otherwise we're going to have to you know meet again to prove it okay
okay anything else to discuss okay we've had a full meeting
do we have a motion to adjourn
at 3 20.
i move we adjourn the meeting second i move to adjourn the meeting second second meeting second meeting three three three yes yes so thank you
Okay. Sandy, do you want to talk about anything that's already on the agenda?
Only is. I just was wondering what the status was with the localization. Of the local history at the library? Yes. We have that as an agenda item. Right. That's all that I would be. If you would like. I think nothing specific. Comment then. Yeah. Do we have any other public comment?
Okay. The first thing is the review of our past minutes. We had two meetings in June. As. Everyone had a chance to review the minutes. You copy for the minutes.
You have, I know I have extra copies. Yes, that's true.
Yes, it does. Yeah. This is. Stop. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. No comment. My comment is already. Tanged to end Gordon about two other programs coming up. And so that's the only comment I had on it like the. June 3. Meeting. There was an attachment. The receiving. There were. that Ann Gordon sent out with thank you letters for the volunteers at our brush clearing. And the attachment was seven pages long. It has names and addresses. So I'm proposing to shorten that attachment to three pages, keeping the names and cities and towns, but removing the addresses. And so this is a draft
of my suggested attachment in place of the attachment that Ann had in her email. So I'm listing, you know, we sent copies to the district. The town people, Mary Ann Maloney of the transfer station, Joe Doucette, Tom Holder, and Marjorie Baston for use of her tools. And then we had a number of volunteers. So I don't think it's appropriate to include their addresses. So I suggest just including their towns. I think that's a good suggestion. And it's a shorter three page attachment instead of seven pages. You had different thank you notes for depending on whether they were town employees or- Yes, I did. So these are just representative thank you letters. I'm not including all of the thank you letters, just specially Mary Ann at the transfer station
and the volunteers. I only have one question.
Were the addresses, presented in our last meeting? They were included in the attachment to the draft minutes that Ann sent out. Yes.
They can't be included in the minutes unless they were talked about at the meeting. So what I'm asking is at the meeting, did we talk about or give their addresses? No. So therefore they can't, that can be removed. Because it was not said in the meeting. Yeah. At the meeting, I said I had sent out thank you letters. And Ann asked me for copies of the thank you letters, which I sent to her. And that's what she attached to her draft minutes. Then I'm in favor of removing addresses for privacy sake. Okay. I am too. Okay.
So those are my only comments for the June 3rd meeting.
Are there any other comments? Amanda, feel free to chime in. You can hear us. I can hear you. No comment at this time. Thank you, Rick. Oh, I make a motion that we accept the amendment. The amended minutes of June 3rd. I second the motion. Okay. Hey. Yes. Sure, yeah. Yes. Yes. And yes from myself. And Amanda can't vote. Right. So, all right. Now we'll move on to the other set of minutes. For our field meeting to review the location of the signs at Dudley Woods and Castle Gate. What are we doing? The June 10th meeting. Oh, the 10th. Do you have the events of that meeting? No, I don't have that. You have an excerpt. Oh, great. It's just one page, two-sided. Okay. Okay. I see the map on the back. I see the map on the back. So, we walked the Dudley Woods site and discussed among ourselves possible sign locations. And the map on the back indicates the locations that we chose. And the map on the back indicates the locations that we chose. Yeah. I didn't realize number two was chosen I know that at the point where the two paths met that that looked as if we're sure yeah that was the first one that we chose right and then we walked around the trail and we thought of several other possibilities but number two was the ultimate vocation I believe that's near a bench and what was number one and number twos content I think the first bullet on the first side is the sign about Dudley Pond's history should be at this fort and then it says see number one on the map do you have another no it's your test yes I gave you my set and somehow so um they're into the trail um the parking lot so I don't understand they're talking about the floor and the fauna and the the the the the the
the the the the the because well number two is the um historical and natural setting with the pictures of the um birds and the butterfly and the woodchuck that's number two number one is the Dudley pond gravitation park or dynastyDAQ or artist Qian引 a colorful history with the picture of the ice house the lake um dorothy lee would you like to see these no i needed a reminder which one was number one and which one was number two yeah june 10th was a long time ago
any other questions or comments before we entertain a motion do accept the minutes of the june 10th meeting motion to accept second hey hey would you like to vote yes yes yes and yes
okay sandy are you still there hi hello sandy sandy hi hi yeah i'm here okay we we can't see you but we can hear you yeah i'm not sure why because i've got my camera on but anyway it may have something to do with our end too oh okay well sandy is is one of the uh people that's helping us out in the arkansas state archaeology lab so a couple weeks ago i had a conversation with sandy about changes in the wayland free public libraries main floor where the local history records and volumes and files were kept but there had been some recent changes in the location of those records so sandy would you like to speak to that uh yeah i um actually um automatist candy and sherry ann were putting in a display over there and noticed that the cabinet that was in the reference area the uh custom built cabinet that held mariah child's volumes and the um uh reflector from the high school and all of the the what had been called the vertical format but she said vertical files um as well as other uh items in the local history collection pretty much all of it except for things like the uh town records um those were in volumes on shelves in that same area um but not in that particular um piece of furniture but that piece of furniture was gone and they mentioned that in uh to me and um so i was over there a few days later and um as it happened chris um is it leftig what renquist renquist lenquist yeah um was um at the reference desk that day and i asked him about it and um and he told me that um the um they were gonna they were in the process of some kind of reconfiguration of the space and that the um just in summary that things were either in his office or in the cage but pretty much everything was destined for the cage and when i asked about how people could access that he said well you can request items and a librarian will get it for you and um so my question is um in the meantime i was given the opportunity to go down to his office with andrew and um he was going to show me you know whatever i was looking for in the vertical files down there which at the present time seems to be one or two maybe two uh actual vertical file cabinets that are full of vanilla folders and then there's a stacks on the top with some kind of a plastic box so and nothing in the old in the the new cabinet so um i had asked like i said i had asked chris um well how will we know what's in there and he said well at some point we'll have andrew make a list and so um in the meantime i've spoken with andrew ran into him at the farmer's market last week and um and i said is there any way that we could get that lateral file of all of the so-called vertical file papers that people could could actually look through that have genealogical information and and pictures and letters and so forth um that are hard they are listed and could that list be made more accessible to the public and could the actual items of that type be in the reference area still even if the valuable and fragile things books and so forth had to be in the cage so um i've also been in touch with mj and she gave me technical information about where andrew could find the uh list that she made and if there's anything that he may not have been aware of and apparently one thing he wasn't aware of was that a lot of it was on her email account which he wasn't sure if it still existed so he was going to look and i don't know i also had created a list of all the things that mj and i worked on which was quite a bit over the over the last few years and i provided that to him too which i think between what's on the website um but hard to find and um and what um he can find in the files that maybe he'd make accessible and maybe what i've come up with it might be that he wouldn't have to start a start from scratch to create this list but um so i just wonder what is the reason for all of this because it certainly makes it difficult for the public to access and it wasn't clear to me what the purpose was of the change also k noted that um maybe i shouldn't speak for k but um that in the um um what is it the survey that was taken in the um in the um in the um in the um in the um in the um in the right so did anyone had a particular way again that led to the uh strategic plan for the library that there had been a very strong desire more than half of the people were looking for were interested in local history more than half of the people we're looking for were interested in and in fact wanted more of it so um and looking at the goals that the trustees have listed recently significant should be on the did local screenings also at that point the new project chief was asked much questions and the reason was was because they decided that they couldn't come to him um so they could only talk about what they wanted and he Zuk maz we met up but also even did a little bit questioning now, you know, if this is an opportunity to find out from Chris and Aida or anybody who's actually in the planning area of this or getting, they said that they were going to get some, looking into getting a planner, you know, what do you call it, a study for a planner or something. You would certainly have to discuss those goals with that planner. And I just want to make sure that this is part of the goals, part of the plan, and just what they might have in mind.
Well, thank you. After I talked to Sandy, I went over to the library myself on July 20th. On July 29th, and looked around and saw a lot of empty space at the East End on the first floor. And I met Chris Flanklist. He offered to take me down to his office downstairs, along with Andrew Loof, who's the reference librarian, and Joanne Lee. Now, he doesn't have his degree. He's not a librarian. He's staffed. Well, I said that. But I said that. He's not a librarian. The website says he's the reference librarian. Well, he's not. He doesn't have a degree. It's his position, basically. Yeah. I met with them down in Chris's office, and I saw that empty wooden cabinet. And Chris explained to me that someone had come in and said that the library should not be storing historic records. I said, well, if it's a wooden cabinet, I don't know if it's a good job. I don't know if it's a good job. I don't know. I said, well, if it's a wooden cabinet, I don't know if it's a good job. I said, well, if it's in a wooden cabinet, that a steel cabinet would be better for preservation. My question is, did Chris go back to the manufacturer to double check? Because when I asked about that when they first put it in, I was assured that the wood had been sealed so that there would be no off-gassing, which is what that person was referring to when they said it shouldn't be in an open wood. It shouldn't be in an open wood. wood cabinet there's off gassing from wood but i had been assured by sandy who was the purchaser not sandy foyer but sandy raymond um and mj that they had looked into that and that the cabinet was sealed so it wouldn't do any off gassing well it it would appear that um chris lankwurst was not aware of that well he should have looked into it yeah before making a decision based on somebody's say so yeah i did see the the vertical files uh down there uh in his office um and um and um and um andrew said he was going to be creating some finding aids i did poke around on the library website and i did find some lists of materials i did too it took a little bit of poking around that's right to find it but um i i did invite chris to attend our previously scheduled meeting uh he offered to come chris to attend our previously scheduled meeting uh he offered to come chris to attend our previously scheduled meeting uh he offered to come either in person or on zoom either in person or on zoom either in person or on zoom but when we had to cancel that meeting and but when we had to cancel that meeting and but when we had to cancel that meeting and reschedule to today reschedule to today reschedule to today he said he was unavailable to attend he said he was unavailable to attend he said he was unavailable to attend today's meeting today's meeting today's meeting so we are discussing that among ourselves so we are discussing that among ourselves so we are discussing that among ourselves and and and we if if we have questions we if if we have questions we if if we have questions uh that we can't answer maybe we want to uh that we can't answer maybe we want to invite chris to attend another meeting either that or we attend a trustees meeting and make our concerns known my one of my biggest concerns is the library is open to the public more hours than almost any other department except for fire and dpw and police but um so people will tend to go to the library to find their answers before they go to the historical society or even if they think of us here at the commission and the fact that if it's put back up in the cage it is no longer a browsing collection it is a collection that you already have to know what they have is pertinent to you and then you have to inquire of the person at the reference office desk to go up and retrieve those items for you to look at and then return them which causes kind of a delay at the reference desk if there's more than one person waiting at the desk so it isn't really good public service for the public either from the library's point of view but from the historical point of view history is a is a browsing collection you pick up a book and you flip it this the index to see if the name or the location or the building or business or whatever it is you want is listed or you cruise the table of contents and sometimes you were pleasantly surprised that it refers to something that that you're researching but you can't do that if it's locked away up in the cage and certainly the um people sitting at the reference desk don't have that knowledge either they don't know what the in detail what the collection has so you have to ask for a specific thing and that limits your research that you're not able to expand on it and learn from other sources other than the one item that you're asking for and nine times out of ten people don't know what to ask for that's my big concern about putting it back up there
well i did find the town reports that were bound those might have previously been locked away in the cage on the second floor but they're open now uh on metal shelves so what about genealogies or the yearbooks or i didn't and and where did they sit are they sitting near the reference librarian to be sure that nothing is torn out of the book or it's not torn out of the book or is there anything that the library books, or destroyed in some way. If the reference person brings it down and hands it over, where do those people go to sit? They go to sit out of the sight line of the person sitting at the reference desk. So that's another illogical concern. And the page is on the second floor, in the teen's room, so they can't stay in the teen's room. It delays. If you come in and you have two hours to do your research, well I'll tell you, at least a half an hour to 45 minutes is going to be waiting for books to be brought down and taken back up and brought down. Is there a limit to how many books somebody can ask for at a single time? I find it much faster to pick up a book and look at it and set it back down and move on and get more research done than having to sit in the room. How do you sit and wait for a person to go upstairs to the second floor to retrieve items? I went up to look at the cage and it didn't look like it was crammed full of things. There was a desk inside the cage with a laptop computer on it, so I don't know whether people are able to use that desk when they're looking at materials in the cage or not. Well, they're not allowed in the cage. Okay. That's why it's in the cage. What initially, when they moved out of the cage, and the library lost many, many good resources when they moved out because they didn't have the room to put them downstairs, but that was to be the teen librarian's office, which is why it was in the cage so she could lock it when she wasn't there. Now, that was the purpose of it. That may no longer be the purpose for it, which may be why they can't do it. Okay. I don't know why they consider it space they can move things back to, but if I were the teen librarian, I wouldn't be happy that all my shelving and storage area was being taken up by a whole other collection that did have space down on the first floor where it should be. If I could just throw in something here. I can't. Okay. Okay. I think you've really summed up so much extremely well said detail here. A possibility that I'd like to share is, and I like the idea of going to the trustees meeting, because I think that Aida and Chris have been working, according to the minutes, they've been the ones working together on this whole thing. Okay. And Chris defers to the trustees' wishes on things, I've been told. So I think them being part of the awareness of the concern and any suggestions would be vital, really. Be very smart. A possibility that might be thrown out, though, at such a meeting or somehow, is that if there was a part-time person who was knowledgeable about the collection, that particular collection, who would be available at specific times, so that it's not ideal for patrons to have to come at a certain day and time, but it's better than nothing, and MJ would be an ideal person to approach about that. I'm not sure that what I think would be a good approach, although I see that as a good approach, but I don't think a lot of people would, if not the majority of patrons would be, it would be better than nothing. I think she would be amenable to that job. And that would deal with the supervision and the access and also the encouragement to the public that this is an interest of the library in serving them and that they're providing a way to access this in a thorough way. And using the imagination of a person and the knowledge of a person who understands all of this to bring to bear on the beginning questions that a researcher has. As Kay said, you don't necessarily know exactly how to ask or what to ask in trying to get at ultimately what you're going to need to know.
That's a very good suggestion.
And of course, the trustees would have to approve such a thing because it would involve an additional salary. But Andrew, I spoke to him about that and he loved the idea. He said that he's trying to juggle so many kinds of things and he's really he wants to do this, but he's not up on it. And. So, you know, getting into the learning curve is huge. And MJ is certainly the person that would know would be the ideal person to to do this.
OK, well, does anyone have any suggestions as to our next steps? Should there is a library trustees. Meeting, I believe, on. This Wednesday, and if you think we have a full agenda, they have a extremely full agenda.
Should we. Invite Chris Winkler's to attend our next meeting to continue this discussion? Would that be worthwhile? Well, if you're going to wait a month. I think you need to send some sort of indication to the trustees and to threats that this is a concern of ours and that it's been brought to our attention and that we want to make comments about it before, because in a month's time, they could do a lot of different things with the collection, and I think waiting and we've already waited several weeks to do any to even discuss it. And as a historical commission, I think. That we need to at least give our opinions on it as a town board to another town board who was working on the same topic. Now, it may not be on their agenda this week. So this tomorrow, Wednesday, but perhaps they could hold off further movement or discussion until we've had a chance to express ours. It's either that or we. Write a letter to them immediately. Expressing our concerns.
Well, I can. Communicate with Congress and let him. Listen to our comments. If they're on wake him today's meeting. And. I did see something in the agenda that the line, the library. Trustee. are looking into the feasibility of a individual meeting room on the first floor i don't know if that pertains to the space where the cabinet was and the library of things cabinet is located so if they move ahead with something like that then you've lost a whole month's time to make them aware of our concerns and question whether or not the collection really needs to be moved or maybe it's just a matter of redesigning the room so that the cabinets the the low cabinets do not stick out into the room i know a lot of libraries are purchasing individual cubicles that they can put into their space where they have no private rooms like for ESL talks with students and things like that I'm not saying that that isn't needed but maybe redesigning the layout may be preferable to what I mean they devote glassed in contemporary cabinets to the library of things quite a bit of space more space than they they allow for the historical collection so there's a possibility of that but we need to let them know now immediately our concerns rather than waiting because they're not waiting they're moving ahead with their plans so maybe a letter would be the best suggestion and then ask if we could discuss it with the trustees well it seems to me that we might might let Chris know that we love concerns that's what I'm saying about a letter to Chris to let him know our concerns and ask if we can meet with him and the trustees about this topic to gather right that would be a good idea oh well Kate could you just clarify um do you are you recommending a letter to Chris alone or to him and the trustees or cc'ing somebody or how do you think it should work best I think it should work since he refers you to the trustees it needs to go to to Chris as director and the trustees because he's right he the trustees direct him on what to do yeah so both parties need to understand the importance of the collection I have a feeling that they don't quite get the importance of the collection I wonder from reading their minutes whether the trustees are actually aware of the details of the collection and the importance of the collection and the importance of the collection of where things are well that'd be another reason to discuss it with them so that they become aware okay we have do we have any further comments or suggestions on this topic I will um communicate with you on this topic that's for sure oh thank you well uh I'm uh still with Chris uh probably an email uh referencing our discussion at today's meeting and asking if we can make our concerns them to attend one of our meetings soon it should be a joint meeting i think
well i i would just write a letter of concern to chris as director and the trustees at the same time i don't know that i would do an email i think i would do a formal letter and i would tell them our concerns remind them of the fact that the uh reports that were done back in 20 what was it sandy 2024 25 uh let me think uh it must have been yeah something like that that the goals for uh 26 to 27 was an increase the public's wishes were 55 which is more than half said that they were interested in local history and getting and seeing more local history are you referring to the library strategic plan yes you'll find it in there i have an abbreviated hard copy well i looked at the one online and it said 55
i would just i would just add um if enumerating concerns or suggestions for either in that letter or or a subsequent meeting um it concerns me the amount of money that's been spent and apparently so far apparently wasted on a custom cabinet and then the moving of the custom cabinet to the tune of i can't remember the exact figure but it was between two and three thousand dollars to disassemble and re move and reassemble the cabinet that now stands empty in chris's office with no apparent uh use for it in in the library's um actual um official storage there's that concern and the concern about employing um a um consultant making sure that that money is not wasted by having the whole picture
in the room you're living in is that right a lifetime a lifetime going to be unanswered and the situation is um metropolitan or something like that is that real what is the point you're making in terms of answer room representing the western part For me, the difficulty was that the homepage branches between collection or catalog and website. And I just thought, oh, I'm thinking local history collection, so I went with catalog. But you have to go with website to access that. So I looked at some other libraries, and Concord, for example, has a clear path right at the very beginning, how to access their local history. And then from there, it branches out into considerable detail that you can get right from your home. So just the website design, tweaking that a bit, would be a great help right there. And I don't know how they go about that. They must have a webmaster of some kind. And how difficult that would be, I don't know. But that is definitely something that would facilitate public access.
My only comment, Sandy, is you as John Q. Public probably have a greater concern about how they're spending their money as far as moving the cabinets around or hiring a consultant. But the commission really needs to be focused on the historical collection itself. I don't think that we have any right to talk to them about how they spend their budget. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, I guess I'm thinking of in a kind of like a debate or argument point. When people say that we have limited resources. I think. It's just that I want to make sure that you understand that you as a taxpayer have a right to be concerned about how they spend their money. Yeah. But we as a board really don't have any input. We individually might want to comment on it, but not from the board. I see. Well, thank you. Thank you.
Okay, Sandy. I would suggest that we not, that we invite ourselves to their meeting because then they will have more of their trustee members present. I'm afraid if we invite them to our meeting, we might get two. I don't know how many are on the board, but I'm just, there are fewer of us probably than the number of their board members. And I think there might be a better discussion and they might, it's an easier way for us to make them more aware of the importance of the history. If we talk to all of them in their, in their meeting, rather than having just one or two of them come to our meetings. Just a thought.
Guys. Okay. Rick. Yes. Hi, sorry. I had my hand up. I don't know if you can see that. I support everything that was just said. I had something very similar in mind to what Kay was saying. And I also agree, Sherry Ann, about if we could get some, at least a representative from the commission to go to the library meeting. I think that would be more valuable because our, we can't confuse our roles and, and even though this is a concern, we do need to make sure that we're focused on the, the collection, the historic, the value of the collection. And, and, and not. And, and be careful as a commission, how we tell the library to, um, assign responsibilities to their personnel and that kind of thing. I think too, a point of inviting them here is that we have a specific time and date that we, we would like to meet with them because if we want to say we want to come and talk to you, it may not be put on the agenda for six months from now or two months from now. Yeah, likely. That's the way we kind of control how soon we talk. Maybe. I mean, they have a public comment time, right? They do. You can zoom in if you like or appear at their meeting. Yeah. Just like you can here.
Okay, anything more to be said on this topic? If you want, Rick, I'll help you with some of the points that you want to make in the letter. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, the way then to 50th, are we moving on? Yes. Okay.
The next project is rendezvous with Rachel Revere, which is going to be August 30th. I have helpers for the parking lot already from the 250th group. But what we're. we needed people inside with buses to collect donations and i don't know if we need people to check off the list of people who have made reservations or not but we might uh depending on how full the reservation list is last time i talked to jayland which was quite a while ago we only had a third of a house filled so please please please please ask your friends to go ask represent yourself as a historical mission to come uh we are also asking for donations to create a historical sign to go up at the kitchen to a ball field right now we have about 400 but the person just to do the layout of the signs um and there's only uh she she was twelve hundred dollars just to do one sign for a layout and that's if we already chose the pictures had the high resolution done and have written the text so that basically all she's doing is organizing it on the sign and that's 1200 so we need quite a bit more just to get the design and as for the signs themselves um i have not heard how expensive they are but i have heard how expensive they are and i have not heard how expensive it is but i have heard how expensive they are but i have not heard how expensive they are of course that they are. I would assume that we're using, we could use the same company that are making the rail trail signs and the Dudley Wood signs. And so I need to find out how much an individual sign costs to be printed and then to be put in place. There was some conversation with the rec department that they might be able to help a little bit with it, maybe putting it into the location at Kichichewick Ball Field. The discussion was around the parking lot area that's next to the building that's there, not on Pemberton, not on Bradford, and not on West Plains Street, but where the parking lot is and is often. And so that's something that's been used on weekends by different groups using the playground, there in the ball field and over the playground. But that's still open for discussion. But our immediate need is help in the theater, like I said, for checking off names and encouraging donations to be made, and also encouragement of anyone you know to attend because this play is not inexpensive. We didn't pay for it, 250 and paid for it. But we are sponsoring it. And so we need to get the word out, whether it's emails to all your friends or word of mouth, it would be most appreciated. And they don't have to live in Wayland. They can come from out of town. They live in the West End suburb. very for me and lincoln anything like that especially if they give donations so any other comments so can i sign anybody up to be there on it's sunday afternoon at 2 p.m i've made my reservation already and i'm available to help with parking as needed well parking we have rick it's inside we need help with okay yeah i'll put you down for inside i'll be there too and sherry and sunday and any other volunteers that think of sandy's fun you know or amanda oh i understand it's got very busy weekends so i understand
okay that's it for me
okay nothing else on whalen 250th right no um there's very little that's going on for the 250th we were sort of one of the last programs of the end of the 250th so there are no current plans for the cemetery well the cemetery is the cemetery well the cemetery is the cemetery well the cemetery is the cemetery what that's what i was going to ask what that's what i was going to ask what that's what i was going to ask well i had everything written up um well i had everything written up um well i had everything written up um folks theater said that he thought he folks theater said that he thought he folks theater said that he thought he had players had players had players he has not responded to any emails of he has not responded to any emails of he has not responded to any emails of mine asking mine asking mine asking if the volunteers were available to if the volunteers were available to if the volunteers were available to give out the give out the give out the the talk the speech too the talk the speech too the talk the speech too in the meantime although i had asked in the meantime although i had asked in the meantime although i had asked historical society not to have their historical society not to have their
25th or 23rd which which day it was um they chose to have their house tour which is more or less in competition for um what that would be in competition with us uh 25th and uh October 26th yes but we're not so because of this competition for the historical house tour and the fact that I haven't gotten any information back from uh folks that are I've canceled it and we might be able to hold it some other time but the reason it was canceled in April is because he said he needed more than the three months that I was off asking you know I said I had everything ready and it was within three months and he said three months is not enough time so obviously October is you know it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's not going to be enough time with different dates in October, or even in September. So as far as I know, we're not doing it this year. And since it wasn't costing us anything to put it on, except maybe some printouts, we had a lot of things like games for kids, find the word in was one of them, the crossword was another one. We had the coloring book if we had any leftover from the October 3, to hand out, we had some other ideals that, oh, we had maps of where the houses were that these people lived in. We also had a map showing the different battles that they were in. So we were ready to go. It was just that we didn't get people and then the conflict with the historical society. So we decided not to go ahead with it.
Also, did we bring the coloring books last time? Sherry Anne made this beautiful coloring book. And on each page, it talks about a different aspect in Wayland, whether it was travel, or play, or housework, or farming or to manufacturing, or blacksmithing, or whatever. And the story underneath it went with Wayland, not any other town, it was specifically Wayland. And then the very last sheet was draw your own experience in Wayland and talk about it. And it's beautifully bound. And it's very colorful jacket on it. But we are going to be handing those out on the historical society table. And perhaps if they give us a few on our historical commission table, since Sherry Anne belongs to both groups, and we will be handing them out to youngsters to take home and use, you know, color happiness into it. At the Wayland festival. At the Wayland festival. Which is the next thing on our agenda, right? Thank you for the lead in. I've been in contact with Steve Angeli about the suggestion of him bringing his diorama of the railroad to the festival. He's enthusiastic, looking forward to it. He says he's even in the process of building a some sort of a replica of the Grout Herd House. Which will not be historically accurate, but better than what he had before. Okay. So he's very interested. It's all of course dependent on the weather. I have talked, tried to find out details about the festival. The person that organized it last year for the recreation department is no longer there. But Okay. According to the record, it's probably never going to be there, but we'll see. Okay. So we're hoping to get them back in there. And you are? We're hoping to get them back in there. We're hoping to get them back in there. We're hoping to get them back in there. Wow. And you know, that's it? That's a big, big piece of it. It's a big, big piece of it. to Catherine Branagh, Chris Reynolds, who's a member of the Select Board, is organizing it in conjunction with the COA, and they're supposed to be sending out a link to a website to reserve tables, space, whatever, but that hasn't been sent out yet. Can I make a comment on that? Sure.
By people who have attended the planning for this event, they are no longer offering tables. However, I have talked to Catherine Branagh, and she said they're taking 16 tables, and she would throw in another table for a town board, i.e., the Historical Commission. And was it just one table you had last year, Rick? The Historical Commission, I believe, just had one table. Yeah. So I only asked for one table. Okay. And Sherry Ann has secured a tent for us this time. And my question is, do we have the posters and things that we had last time, or do we have different posters that we want to put up for the archaeology and the house plaques and the railroad information that you had and so forth? I don't know who has the posters. Ann Gordon prepared some handouts. And the handouts, right. I was going to ask Ann to send that to us because Amanda had made a suggestion that under the Historical Commission, it didn't mention anything about educating the public, which was a good point. And I just want to add that to the brochure before we start handing them out, because I think that was the only thing that is. It's different or added on. So that's what I know about the October 3rd. Do we want to also display the archaeology points in the cabinet like we did last year? Well, that's what I'm asking. Are you doing the same thing you did last year, or are you doing something a little bit different to help attract attention to talk to them? Well, points are always a good thing for people to look at. Can they touch them? Pardon me? Can they touch them? I don't know. They're in the glass case. Yeah, the glass case. In a heavy one. Okay. I don't want any to walk away. Right.
Where is the railroad going to be? Wherever they have space. Steve says he doesn't need a table to set it on. It has legs. And they're detachable or folding legs. What I was thinking, Tanya, was if we had a table for the historical commission, and then a little bit further in front of that would be the railroad diorama, so that there'd be enough space people go behind the diorama and could also talk to you at the table. I think that's a gotcha. I think that's kind of thing to have people come over and look at, rather than setting it up beside you. But if we need two spaces, we need to let them know that. Is this going to be in the town center? Same as last year. Yeah, a lot of last year.
The thing about the diorama is that you can walk around it and see it. If we put it side by side, it kind of limits who can get behind it. To look on the other side of it, so to speak. Well, we don't have the Council Hill artifacts, because they're in the Council on Aging. So we just have the Sand Hill ones. Any suggestions, Amanda? If you're talking, we can't hear you. Well, maybe it's something that, when you're in the lab, you could discuss what you want to take and show. I think we need to contact Brad Carver to see if he has the historic facts and information about that. Okay. Well, I'm available to volunteer. I think we had just about everyone. We all spent our time there, right. And we'll need people to watch to make sure nobody reaches into the diorama. Right. Right. I'd be inclined to ask for a space and a half, because if they're just moving, they can just shift the next person down in their planning so that it gives us a little more room. Because you know how crowded it got around in front of tables? Yeah. If you're thinking of another table in front of our table, if that pushes people further out into the walkway, and I foresee a traffic jam of people, so we could have... No. So, we could help you from seeing what's going on at the front table if you're only in the back. Yes. And if there's the big crowds around the front table, they may not even come to look at the back table that has all of our educational stuff. So, if they'll give us... Yeah. If they'll give us at least a space and a half, that just helps us expand downward, down the avenue a little bit more. So, is your friend going to stay with the table? I would assume so. You better be sure. Yeah. We'll check on that. I need his last name, too. Angiolini. Right. He's listed as one of the volunteers that helped out in the brush project. Right. So, if you look at the minutes... He's on the list. He's on the list. A-N-G-E-L-I-N-I. There it is. I see. Thank you. Well, I hope you told Steve that we're very excited about him coming, and I've been talking enough at this point. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And it's where we should work. Next up, schöh Dokkan, the 258th and other places I've talked about this. I sent him a copy of the — the flier that appeared in the Recreation Department newsletter, and he says he's very much looking forward to it. Okay. Shall we move on to house plaques? House plaques. Yeah. Brad is not here. Ready. — Yeah. Yeah. but we have three applications for house plants. And does anyone need copies of the applications? Yeah, I might like to see them.
Where are their locations? The first one is 142 Pelham Island Road.
That's the William T. Dudley House. The who's house? William T. Dudley, D-U-D-L-E-Y. It's on the backside of the application. And there were a total of 11 pages of documentation. Wow. I didn't print them all out, but they're in the email that you received.
We received an email on the house plants? Yes.
From you or from Brad? From Brad. Is this the one he wanted to have a copy of his research, how he did it? Yes. Okay. Yes, she used AI to help research down, so we assume it's correct. You should never assume that AI is correct. It hallucinates all the time. I would not accept AI. He also had copies of pages out of census reports and out of property reports. I scanned through it, that Brad had sent. There was a lot of documentation.
Do we feel we have enough information and that the information is... I did not see the resources. So I guess I can't answer that. But Brad's the one that makes the decision, right? Yeah, Brad recommended that we go forward with this one. Well, that's what Brad wants. Fine with me.
What other road do we have? Okay, the next application is...
12 Shawnee Avenue in Cachituit.
And this is another one that came in to Brad Carver. Yes, I know. I was just going to say, I have a copy of his. Yes. Now, we're not in the car.
So this is the Bent, W.H. Bent House. Yes. And he attached the copy of the Macris report, which was done by Gretchen Schuller in 1984. Thank you, Thor. Thank you, Thor. Thank you, Thor. Thank you, Thor. Thank you, Thor.
Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. W.H. Bent was a prominent resident of Weyland.
He was a senior partner in one of the earliest and most successful shoe factories in the village of Cachituit. the house was moved from 96 main street the structure is an example of the housing which did appear in response to the development of the shoe industry during the last quarter of the 19th century in the village of kichichurri do we need to vote on these individually
i don't think we have in the past okay i mean brad's sort of the sub group that decides whether they accept it or not i think the only time we voted um rick is when there's been questions about it yeah when part of the house had been renovated or questions about the age yeah okay and what's the third one the third one is one that i found in the town mailbox um from martha farrell 67 kichichurri road
which is not far from the um i have another copy here first high school it's the last house as you're driving down kichichurri road south yeah
and although it says in the application
that it's in the historic district according to my checking it's just outside of the historic district
well it's the first of the three houses along kichichurri road before you hit the right across from the end and yeah and this is a macros report too yes
so and whose house was that um priest no history name priest early
thank you
but it's built by small and the applicant enclosed a check table through the wayland historical commission along with the application so we can just make it payable to the town of wayland well it doesn't go to uh so then i thought yeah he had one piece there and he did not go to the county council he had a fee but i think the county house actually went to customs so you can see he did not go to the actual. him to pay directly to the sign maker the selling maker okay so he has a check has to be returned and that's when he gives them the information about how to get the sign and who to write to and so forth so i think you have to give that to brad
thank you very well the macros report
again done by greg gretchen jeweler in 2012.
the report is quite complete
we're back brad has not seen this last one since it was in the mailbox um i scanned it and sent it out to all of us okay including brad by email and he is also in favor of this one okay
okay so we'll i'll inform brad that we've approved all of these
um cemetery project um
well brad met with
kelsey power spirit uh and we were told that kelsey was on vacation two weeks ago and last week when i sent a email to kelsey to follow up the automatic reply said kelsey is no longer working for the town of Whalen. Oh my. She is the assistant, or was the assistant town manager. And I don't know anything more than that, unless anyone else has any other information. I did forward that email to Jalen, and I received an email from Jalen this morning saying that the RFP for the cemetery project is still ongoing. Jalen emailed Brad last week to see if we can set up a meeting to discuss the RFP, and I'm waiting to hear back. So we're still on hold with that one.
Here's another copy. Well, thank you. Moving on to archaeology.
Amanda, are you still there?
Amanda, can you hear us?
Well, I can't hear Amanda. I can't either. Am I fine, Amanda?
We're still meeting in the lab on Wednesdays. I have some questions that I will ask Tom. I have some questions that I will ask Tonya at the latest opportunity. Sandy has been helping out, and Margaret was not there last Wednesday, and I haven't heard whether she'll be there this Wednesday or not. But we're moving forward with re-bagging, and the last I knew...
We were caught up in data entry work, except for maybe the last few shoots. Yeah, because I haven't been able to be there for about the last month. So are we making an appointment to go up to the attic to see which boxes need to be brought down, or...? We need to do that, yeah. I was hoping that we could hear Amanda. Yeah, I was hoping that we could hear Amanda.
Has Amanda been there also, in the lab?
She came a couple of weeks ago. She made an... I thought it was an unexpected visit. She had planned to be out. For this month. Yeah, that's what I thought. But she did come a couple of weeks ago. Well that was nice. And helped out. Did you want to say anything about greenways? About what? Greenways. Okay, a couple of weeks ago, a person at Sudbury Valley Trustees sent me an email and said that they tell the greenways field. And I just assumed it was the one by the site, and I talked to Lynn Connolly, who is really interested in doing some archaeology, and the poor deer, she went over there to that field by the parking lot. She said it's not tilled. I haven't had the strength to walk that far. I've got to get over there and take a look. Well, I need to find out from Ms. Greffen which field it is. And with all the appointments I've had with doctors and PTs lately, I haven't really been able to concentrate on that. So I'm confused. This is a field they sold or a field they bought? No, no, it's one of their fields. Yes. So why did she contact you about it? Because it's been... Oh, till. And they knew that I would want to look for artifacts.
Okay, so did Lynn find anything? I'm sorry, what? Did Lynn find anything? She couldn't find the right field. She called me and said, Tanya, it's not tilled. So I haven't... It's been another week and I haven't called to find out. Maybe I can run over, you know, drive over there. Because they're not far from my house. I'm trying to find out which field it is.
But that's the only thing that's come up to me.
Okay, well, as long as we keep on moving forward, the light's at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, I would like to find something for Lynn to do that she wants to do because she's got lots of energy and we could use that. Are you going to follow up on the...
Are we just losing everything that's from... Is it Castle Hill that's along the Dump Road? Are we just going to drop that totally? The hill that's along the Dump Road? Oh, Sand Hill. Is it Sand Hill? Are we just going to leave it and not pursue it any further? Well, I don't know. Well, I haven't been able to think of that sort of thing. Well, I thought you were going to hand it over to Lynn if she wanted the project. I was going to hand it over, but I don't remember if we had a conversation about that. I'll have to... Okay, let me make a note.
I've been really focused on trying to get myself recovered. Well, that's the better thing. That's the better thing to focus on, that's for sure. Yeah, I have to before I can do anything else. Right. Okay, thank you.
Next on the agenda is an email that we received about a cell tower, cell antenna on at 4 Meadowview Road, which is the Weyland-Vlaad-Adler. Weyland-Vlaad-Adler. Weyland-Vlaad-Adler. Weyland-Vlaad-Adler and Gun Club. How did this come up again? Because I don't know how many years ago this was considered. This is new, Sonia. It's a new tower they're putting in. Do they have an archaeologist?
The person that sent this email,
is asking for our comments according to the Section 106 process. The person that sent the email to us, Jennifer Davis, senior architectural historian for BVI. Weer, I'm sorry. BVI. This was sent by Max . Well, I think it's a very good question. . Бейт . Well, that's all I wanted to say. This was the email that was sent. I asked Margaret if she would check our files to see if we had anything on this before. And this was a project in February 2025 where they notified us of this project. And we haven't been able to find any... I haven't been able to find any comments that we sent any response regarding this before.
I don't remember that we were contacted. It's in the vicinity of Old Stonebridge Road. So this is February 2025. Wayland Rod and Gun Club. Yeah, I know that place. I've been up there with Tom many, many, many years ago. Well, the question is, what do we do? Do they have an archaeology report attached to it?
I didn't print out the entire thing. See, something came to me, it looks like. That was... When was that? This was in February 2025. This year. They did... The email that they sent us, the attachment, had 27 pages. So was there an archaeology report in there? I don't believe so. I think it was mostly plans for the locus map.
Proposed construction of a new... A new telecommunications monopole tower and compound resulting in ground disturbance. We see attachment four of this filing for project design details. But have they mentioned an archaeologist in there? Not that I have seen. Well, I think we need to write back and ask for the archaeology report.
Okay. We just asked... Asked for the archaeology report and they haven't done it. That means they have to do it. They have to do an archaeology report? I believe they do.
So I just asked for the archaeology report.
You said to ask for it.
Not suggest they do it, just ask for the report because if they haven't done it, that gives them an opportunity to do it. Bye. Have a good day. Bye.
Bye. Bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Here's the... A consultant contact information. There's something called... viral business but that doesn't sound like an archaeology you know i've never heard of that
wait wait for him
i should have a copy of this letter it's it's in your town inbox if you can get access to it but that's a problem i can't get into my town
i'm going to go upstairs and see if anybody can help me after this
so we could just make a copy of this that would be great yeah i just copied a few pages out of the 27 pages here so well i still want like a copy of this okay well just forward the email to her her email account that'll be easiest i think today i didn't answer that person from i got an email that rick had sent me i forgot to mention this and uh it came from the national park service because in 19 you i don't remember 1986. you've heard of elizabeth cady stanford yeah i went with the national park service and we expedited in her backyard in her front yard and this woman traced me down to the historical commission but i can't see my email because of the time she has been there for a while and she's been asking me to send a copy of the national park service so i sent her a copy and she said she's been out of commission for a while and so i can't get into it and um i just sent her a copy we read it we read it it was something came through right with that so she's saying she can't get into but so they're just all they had they asked was that want to know more about the findings because they have an incomplete report yes they have some papers that are missing she said she said that message so i told her well the regional archaeologist is the same age as i am and he's retired in california and the other guy who was helping run the project is deceased now i mean it was it's been a long time so i i texted her i hope she gets that because that's easier than sending an email and i let i said let me know if you get my text so i've got to look for that okay but i did that today i worked on that today okay i remember so much about that project but i never had any papers i wasn't one of the chief people right right well she may even know just appreciate your memories but she needs to get the paperwork i guess well i don't know i don't know i don't know i will forward that email to you time okay thank you and i ask if they have an archaeology report on the project you did send me that email yeah she's in uh well i don't know where she is but she was in charge of that elizabeth katie stanton okay next on the agenda is sherman's bridge i added that on the agenda as a placeholder i don't have any news but i did contact al piccoli who's the project manager for the project and spoke with him he says they have all the permits they need mass dlt has ordered the materials and they hope to receive the material at the beginning of october uh they're discussing a show on the agenda and they're going to be talking about the project with mass dlt so there's a start date on the project with mass dlt and mass dlt is providing the contractor the town is involved but it's a mass dlt project when the project starts they expect the bridge to be closed for about 60 to 90 days thank you too i didn't ask him about any of the design details that were so controversial uh he didn't bring them up so um that's all i have what i would suggest for the german bridge project is that you get in contact with either dpw or facilities and find out if um
if we can help on the sign the historical sign that's going at the bridge because we can we have photographs and we have historical data and of course we can recommend carol holtz who has done the rail trail and our signs and again it's a matter of having completed text and photographs at a high resolution for carol to work on and what is the budget on the sign um
but i think that we should be involved with the signage to be sure that everything is accurate
well they may be focused on the project itself and the historical signing might be after the project is completed but i can ask you i can ask to plan ahead and you have to have in case we need approval by the dpw or the whoever's doing the bridge so if we have a design ready to show them for acceptance or for changes that has to be done in advance and if it's going to be done in 60 to 90 days that's just about the amount of time we need to to help get this signed designed written and designed and researched etc so it's not something that we can put off to later it's something that has to start now but before we do anything we need permission to work on it and
or at the very least to approve that the text is correct who's going to fund the sign that's their project they they said that that's the signage was going to be included so i'm assuming that they're they've got the cost for it it's not our sign but because we're the commission and that's what we do we want to be participating
inter-departmental relationships yeah it might be a good idea to talk to them about who pays for the sign if they're going to do a sign well i guess the first question is are you doing a sign if so we want to participate to be sure the facts are correct that we have not only uh facts to offer them but we have photographs to offer etc etc i believe it was abigail that came to our meeting six months ago or a year ago with an ai generated mock-up of the sign do you remember that it was stone's bridge that wasn't there with stone's bridge okay stone's bridge you're right so we're working that's a different topic it's not on here information on that okay you're right okay um moving on railroad and rail trail uh i understand these signs have been made and delivered to the dpw building on river road i have not seen them i was told that kelsey had seen them but i had been unable to confirm that with kelsey i received an email well i talked to mike fea last wednesday who told me then he was going to be on vacation this week and that the walk through with the sign installer would not be until next week at the earliest i just came from this morning this morning yeah i received an email from bonnie gossels telling me that there was going to be a walk through on thursday of this week i replied to bonnie that i'm unable to be there because of a meeting at noon unless the walk through happens very early in the morning i checked facilities uh just before this meeting and mike fea is coming back on thursday morning so that's well i was in facilities too i got the same information that he was out this week but he would be here for thursday but he had not heard from bonnie at that point unless bonnie had answered him directly and not included abigail so um
and i told her that out of the whole year i had scheduled a uh class i hadn't scheduled but i had signed up for a class on thursday and i would not be available so since it included dudley pond and um castle gate i was hoping that we could do that on a different day if you're not available either. So I don't know. I'm actually I'm emailing Mike when I get home today about that fact. Well, Mike wanted to do everything, see the location of all the songs the same day. I understand. I don't know where the contractor is located. I have, I'm just telling him that I am not available that day. Afternoon, after 12, you're not available that day. That falls on Sherry Ann then, who was the other person who was on the walk with us.
Right, for Deadly and Castlegate. Right. I've never been on the walk on the rail trail. No, that would be Bonnie and Rick has been with them. But if he's not available, he's not available. And a year ago, we had two people from DCR, a company. Right. But it doesn't seem like a really feasible day for us. So I don't know. And Scarlett jumped in on on this email and wrote back to Bonnie, saying that you and I would have to be involved. And I don't know whether she said she was available or not. I don't remember what the email said. Well, she referred Bonnie to us. Yeah, as far as the location. I think so. Yeah, Dudley Woods and the Castlegate songs. So I don't know why she was involved. Why Bonnie included her particularly because she wasn't there for all the other trail walks. I don't think. So we're kind of combining this with the next agenda item, which is signage Castlegate and Dudley Woods. And as we both agreed, the contractor had wanted to visit all of the locations the same day. Right. So we have the map. For the Castlegate and the Dudley Woods. Well, the Dudley Woods signs.
Anyway, we don't have the map for the Castlegate, but we have an agreement on the corner where we would prefer to see the sign located next to the pillar. I think we were all pretty much in agreement on where we wanted it located.
Sort of where Tom Holder said that he thought it would be located. I think that's what happened. Oh, I think we were all quite similar. You can get all, picture educational programs. Dave, do you want to discuss? Yeah. Since education is part of our mandate for the commission. I've talked to a gentleman from Hosmer. house in sudbury and he has uh said that he could give us a free lecture on getting graveyard markers back home where they belong which is kind of interesting and kind of fun and we could schedule that in october if you wanted maybe or he says he sort of has it all together already so i think that he could do it is that steve green yes and um so that was one thought and then another one is um we can try again to get hold of the native american woman who gave the lecture on the uh deeds that people what do i want to say that the curatids bought from the indians so that sudbury existed in the english mind as a town because they bought the lands from cato and uh and there were two other native americans as well i do not know how much she charges she did not respond to my first efforts try to reach her um but i think we should consider maybe 200 250 dollars for that um and it's specifically sudbury and wayland in our town so it's kind of uh i had put that offer out to h-r-d-e-i-c but they decided that was not a program they wanted not that they had any money that they were going to put into it they have no budget whatsoever what what's this woman's name i missed her name i didn't say oh that's why you missed i would have to look it up again but i have it in my emails and it's she's a woman that i heard speak at um uh sudbury library they did a big project on it a big project on it and she was to report about it and so she's she did and um she had some native american supporters and the audience as well and she apparently is an actress um and so she may be tied up in something or something like that so that's just kind of blowing in the wind i mean i can pursue it if we think we want to but then if we decide we don't want to then i haven't used any commitment to her or anything like that i think that would be an interesting subject i i would hope that it would be interesting enough for people to follow up on but then i thought maybe other people have other ideas of what they want to do right they have for programs we could do the trains again people were loving the rail trail and the trains and the signs are going up well in the budget there was supposed to be money for a celebration when the rail trail signs get installed if they do get installed in whose budget our budget or by the rail trail sign budget yeah
we were going to do the light then too weren't we on the depot it's a signal yes
um anybody else have any other suggestions
three the other day you probably did that i can't think what the what would be the third one oh isn't that awful can't think of the third one right now i was just having a memory of about let's see he's 56. about 54 years ago when the train came through and a lot of us showed up at the depot and the train came through and tim was about two years old old and tom was holding him and he started screaming and crying because it made so much i'll never forget that that was probably the wedding train with the steamboat i think it was the wedding 1973 yes yes he was two years old yeah i was away at college and i missed it you missed it oh well i was there our family was there so i guess i'm asking that people put their thinking caps on so we can think of other possibilities for programming i think if we do two a year we were doing good with our budget what who's the other um nox trail yes so there's another speaker who who does not charge anything and he feels he's a student of the nox trail and has offered to come out and speak now we offered that last spring maybe but i'm we can see if he's still available that's his name he was a he's a professor at one of the colleges um i know you sent me um steve glofsky's article but i already have found three errors in his article so i'm not ready oh no he just spoke well yeah he spoke for the historical society on it so now time has gone by maybe we can get somebody who has a different perspective on it well that professor sounds like a good one just for you for remembering you do you know what his name is oh sure no i have to look him up uh and see everything i don't want to really take time now
okay okay three ideas we continue to talk about this at our next meeting we can and but i'd like to have an a decision at our next meeting because um it takes time to um schedule around other people's uh schedules and and the town schedule and so forth so um i just really would like to do it in advance rather than letting it waiting until the last minute and also one thing we've learned is we have to do uh press releases long before uh the time that it actually happened okay okay thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you next agenda topic is our annual report which is due september 30th yes and jaylen sent out an email to board and committee chairs um preparations for the town's 2026 annual report are now underway uh boards and committees should submit an email to committee chair of board and committee chair of the town council to say they are interested in working with and supporting the town council with our cities and towns. something no later than September 30th for what we did during the preceding fiscal year in the past and Gordon has done a great job of writing up a summary of our activities yeah do we have any volunteers to do I would be happy to work on it I would ask that are there any pictures from this year's activity of the cleaning of the rail trails in May and also any pictures of archaeology whether it's people working in the lab or something like that
you we have a stones bridge stones at it because that was completed next year and a list of things clean up the lab photos so I ask that you look for them now so that I can have them before the beginning of September and take new ones if you want to have a lab of people working in there or something like that we can do that I can take pictures or I'll do it yeah or have a visitor come in and be showing him something what else did you suggest we can probably get Steve Kerr to come into that tonight another play we responded at the books yes Granger never Samson ever Samson so there ought to be a picture or something about different Samson right in new York Transfer Symposia rachele's this year the new but any other pictures that you can think of that could be of interest because we all know that people say the picture that makes them curious and then they read to find out what the picture is about you sangat name of the you know what I came across again the picture from the Wayland Festival last year with our table and so forth, so need to include that. Do you have pictures of that? We have a picture of it. Unfortunately, it only has three. It has Ann and Brad and Rick in it. Yeah. But, you know, it's the festival and that's what counts. Okay. And if there was anything that stands out in your mind for the... Maybe a picture of the cemetery, one of the cemeteries with some of the clean stones versus the... The clean stones. Right. Not clean stones, I mean center. Right. Center is a good one. Is a good one, because from the road you can see the difference in the cleaning. It seems to me that last year Ann had a picture of him cleaning, or working on stones. Did they continue? Did they continue into fiscal 26, 27? I don't know. Maybe last July. I thought they went through the end of the summer. I thought they finished early spring because they didn't even really start. They just sent the guy out to clean stones. I don't know. So cleaning stones, clean stones would be good. Any topic or project or effort that we did, um, that sticks out in your mind, send me an email. So I'm sure that it's included and I don't miss it. Would be good. Well, it sounds like you're volunteering to write up a report that we will have to review at our next meeting. Yeah. Hopefully if you get your stuff to me on time. So that means going home tonight. Going home tonight and thinking about it. Yes. Great. I don't promise it'll be as good as Ann's. But hopefully you'll have all the facts. In the news in the past couple of weeks has been, they talked about this, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has proposed changes to Section 106. Right. There was a report, there have been reports on this online and NPR, PBS. And my understanding is that the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which is a national body, has proposed basically making the Section 106 notifications that we receive, such as for the cell tower antenna, projects that may affect archaeology, Native American sites, to make the notification process basically optional. Oh, sorry. And who did you say made that suggestion? The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. So I don't know if there is a rule making on this currently. This is a Trump suggestion. Yes. And that's what they're trying to roll in. And so I don't know. I think it's a case that we need to write a letter of protest, that it should stay as a, not as an option, but a must do before they can tear anything down or destroy anything. Definitely. Because if, you know, we don't have a demolition delay here in Weyland, but certainly it would affect our archaeology capabilities here in Weyland. Tremendously. So we need to write a letter of concern that, that we have too many valuable sources here to be, that they cannot be ignored. They need to be preserved while we can. And we still have open land. That's town land that needs to be protected. Right. But that means that they could dig anywhere without any oversight whatsoever. Or tear down. Or tear down. That happened many, many years ago. Right. This only affects projects that, that are federally funded or maybe federally permitted as I understand it. Well, I still think we need to write a letter of support in favor of not passing that, because that's what they need to hear is from the public, how many people will follow with the reduction of protection, whether it's federal or state, or municipality. Would you write that letter? I'd have to find out a lot of information first. I was kind of hoping Kay might write the letter. No. I've got too much on my plate this time around. I really, you might discuss it with Scarlett. She should be writing a letter. You might try and get her to write a letter. We might try talking to Scarlett about it. Yes. Okay. Finally on our agenda, we have the issue of membership. We need someone to replace Ann Gordon. We need someone to replace Ann Gordon. We need someone to replace Ann Gordon. We need someone to replace Ann Gordon. Oh, quick question. Polling day is what day in September? The 1st. Oh, the 1st. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Before Labor Day this year. Yeah, I've already been thinking about that. So it's been particularly difficult. I've been thinking about organizing this meeting. And I'm glad we have a quorum. Which. It should be easier with. Amanda getting reappointed and Brad coming back from. Vacation or wherever. So. Well, we did try Rick and I did try. So we asked if this. This is rumor. Rumor. Would be considerate. And she had told me that she would think about it. And then Rick followed up and she declined with Rick. Right. Not at this time. This. But she offered to. Meet with us. If we have. Particular issues about architectural. History or whatever. So it's. Encouraging. Somebody with some kind of interest in. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. Interesting archeology. That's. Something I really about. Well, I worry. Before we close, I think we need to talk about our goals for this coming year. Yeah. I wonder if Lynn would see interest. She's done some basic information. Have. I don't know of anybody else. And I, more information we have amanda who's interested in archaeology yes we also need somebody who's interested in um architects and is willing to do some more research for houses to be added to macros because although there are some houses done in the south end of town there aren't as many in the south end of town as there is in the north end and then there is what jane siapa called the dead man zone which is between route 20 and the top end of the chichuit which is the mid-century modern which is going to fall under our house plaque pretty soon at 75 years like my house is 73 years old and it's a mid-century modern so
we need to start thinking about doing research on some of these houses and we didn't talk about the meeting we had with michael mccall which we should inform the others about but we sort of informed him that one of our basic goals was to get the um interpretive site up and running it's been 20 years now and it really we need to sit down and really get it started which which interpreters uh the um engine house and turntable site railroad just beyond the depot
and there's there's more for us to talk about rick and there's to talk about the freight house being moved by the uh by the town to create more parking spots and is that is that a feasible thing to do and how far do the rails go down that go by the freight house how far down the rail trail they go down nearly to millbrook road and as we told michael mccall although the town owns a narrow strip of land along there the land slopes down where the coal dealer was and it's not feasible to move the freight house too far away it would detract from its historic location affect the integrity of the relationship of the freight house to the passenger station and there already is parking available on the east side of the freight house it's just that because the national grid project that's currently underway and has been underway for several months is taking so long can't use that for parking at the present time right but even if they move it down and gain gretchen pointed out they would gain parking where there's a road around the house it's it's going to cost a hundred to fifty thousand dollars per extra parking spaces they get i don't think they'd get more than three extra parking spaces and for a town that is um thinking about a two and a half override i think that paying that much money for three parking spots is really ridiculous but that's my personal opinion
so we have that we have the interpretive site that we want to start the archaeology dig on and go for money for the cpa for that and the clearing so forth so we have three kind of major things in front of us to work on this year and how does whoever we ask to join the board fit in to what our goals are and maybe you don't want those goals maybe we need to discuss other goals that we want well we always have to factor in archaeology
i didn't hear all of that i said we need to discuss other goals that we want we have to factor in archaeology into the interpretive site yeah yes okay but that means that we have to make a real effort we can't keep sitting on this and referring back to a report that's 20 years old we either get off the chairs and do something or we decide not to pursue it and i know rick feels that we should pursue it i know i feel we should pursue it and i think we should we need to set our goals for the coming year so that we can actively work towards it rather than just meeting and telling reports to each other what we've achieved yeah that makes sense
which brings us back to a member so we need to choose wisely a member who will fall into accepting these as the goals of the historical condition to move forward
we may need talking to your neighbors or your friends you never know who's interested in railroad sites or finding out more about the houses in the south end of whalen
hello
do we want to talk about when we're going to have our next meeting well i don't think you're done with this meeting
we need the first yeah first wednesday that's the second what is it the second september september september second what day of the week is that wednesday
which is really two weeks away
so he could meet the ninth something on the nine
well you can't meet in the morning in the evening because that's jane
well that would still give us three weeks because the october meeting is on september the second well i wrote down september the second well that's two weeks away or we could go three weeks away and go to october 9th
what do you have on your calendar rick i'm available either either day
i have to see if there's any other questions i have to see if there's any other questions i have to see if there's any other questions i have to see what my medical appointments are
what do you think sherry is it depends on when i go south for a birthday party and i don't know yet when that which weekend that's going to be oh is this the wednesday
which weekend you're going with i said i don't know which weekend the party's going to be down in west virginia so i don't know oh yeah and you have to leave yeah got it sorry didn't catch all that
what do you think
whenever we can get a quorum
we don't have amanda all right there like no i think she left us a long time ago
okay september something give us a date rick okay september something give us a date rick okay september something give us a date rick okay september something give us a date rick okay september something give us a date rick maybe i should send out a poll again and maybe i should send out a poll again and maybe i should send out a poll again and see if people can't come see if people can't come see if people can't come yeah i tried the second or the ninth yeah i tried the second or the ninth yeah i tried the second or the ninth see if brad and amanda are available see if brad and amanda are available see if brad and amanda are available what day is that uh wednesday what day is that uh wednesday what day is that uh wednesday either september oh the second second either september oh the second second either september oh the second second of october of october of october september september september we're not we're september september we're not we're not september 2nd okay so that will give you time to look at your calendar tanya what that will give you time to look at your calendar yes it will
what if we um
what if we email rick suggestions for people to ask for the board what if we email rick suggestions for people to ask for the board we'll get to that
we just have to think of them well i was going to say it's either that or sitting here trying to think of something what's that see they're sitting here trying to think of somebody or going home and trying to think i know what you mean so um
think one of the top things on your agenda for next month will be goals because we need to settle that down
and programs and programs and that'll fall into goals too right so if it we're meeting on september 2nd that means you have to send me your photographs and your ideas for the report with the in the next week and next week quite frankly because i need a week to start working on it before the second
because you want to present what yeah what you have what i have for approval because otherwise we're going to have to you know meet again to prove it okay
okay anything else to discuss okay we've had a full meeting
do we have a motion to adjourn
at 3 20.
i move we adjourn the meeting second i move to adjourn the meeting second second meeting second meeting three three three yes yes so thank you