On Tuesday, December 8th, from 7:00 pm to 7:30 pm at its regularly scheduled Zoom meeting, the Cornwall Conservation Commission will hold an open forum to gather input and ideas on how to fund Cornwall's existing Conservation Fund. This Fund was authorized by the Select Board in 2016, but no method for generating monies was put in place.
At the March 2020 Town Meeting, voters approved the creation of a Conservation Fund Planning Group to study how other towns in Vermont fund their conservation activities.
We have just completed our survey of other Vermont towns, and now we want to share this information with residents and hear ideas about how it might happen in Cornwall.
Here are some things we learned. More than 55 towns in Vermont have established Conservation Funds, with the oldest fund having been established in Norwich more than 45 years ago. The average amount allocated for conservation activities in other Vermont towns is about $7.00 annually per resident. The purposes of these funds are many and they allow towns to leverage additional conservation monies from other sources that help them protect agricultural, wooded, and open land, and reflect townspeople's commitment to conservation. For example, in Bristol, the Town has invested $15,849 from its Conservation Reserve Fund to support land acquisition, stream bank stabilization, buffer planting and invasive species management projects that cost more than $173,600. In other words, for every dollar spent from the Conservation Reserve Fund, the town of Bristol was able to obtain $11 in grant monies from other agencies as well as private and corporate donations.
If you can't attend the meeting but you'd like to discuss your ideas about this, please contact Katherine Branch, Cornwall Conservation Commission member at plashless@yahoo.com
To attend the Zoom meeting:
Topic: Cornwall Conservation Commission meeting
Time: Dec 8, 2020 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://middlebury.zoom.us/j/93076745399?pwd=VVYwbFJ0WjBjayswZ3BkdzU5L1ZqZz09
Password: 934965
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Meeting ID: 930 7674 5399
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