PRELIMINARY until voted on at 8 July 2008 meeting

 

Minutes of the Stratham Heritage Commission
10 June 2008

Hearing Room, Municipal Building

 

 

OPENING BUSINESS
Members present: Becky Mitchell, chair, Nancy Hansen, treasurer; secretary, Sara L. Kellner; alternates, Bev Connolly and Flossy Wiggin; Selectmen’s Rep, David Canada.  Arriving late:  Planning Board Rep, MJ Werner.  Absent:  Voting member, Peter Wiggin.
Meeting:  The meeting was opened at 5:40 and was adjourned at 6:25 pm.

Minutes:  Minutes of the 13 May meeting, written by secretary, Sara L. Kellner, were modified as follows:  (a)  Move the last two sentences in the Mater Plan Goals & Recommendation section to follow the first sentence in the Historical Resources Survey.  (b)  Add to the Historical Survey section that Selectman David Canada volunteered to check to see what availability the HC would have in utilizing the town website for inputting and storing the survey. 

Treasury Report:  The treasurer reported spending in May of $178.33 for supplies leaving $4578.67 in the HC town account; expenses to date since our last meeting (to be paid in June) of $127.78 for brick engraving and associated costs for Memorial Day.  She also reported that we are $19.33 over-expended in the budget sub-account of Training and Conferences.  Balance in the Heritage Fund was reported as $3.381.66 at the end of April and includes approximately $1200 in specified funds (Veterans Garden).

Next meeting:  Tuesday, 8 July 2008, 5:30pm in the Municipal Building; exact location TBA due to construction. 

 

  

OLD BUSINESS

Survey of Historical Resources:  the chair reported a meeting will be held, to discuss survey data issues and questions, on 17 June at 2pm in the Hearing Room.  Included will be interested members of the HC, the database manager, representatives from the DHR and the Exeter HC/Selectmen.  Additionally, David Canada stated that the Town meets once a month with the library to determine the feasibility of combining websites; until those discussions are further along, we have no idea if the HC will be able to piggyback for data input and storage.  He will report after the next meeting with the library.

Master Plan Goals:  Re Archaeology, the chair announced that a woman from the DHR will attend one of our meetings in the fall to discuss the section on archaeology and how we might proceed.  Maggie Steer & Nadine Peterson had questions about our survey, interest in our Master Plan being used as a model for other towns in the North Country.

 

Gateway/Planning Board:  Next Wednesday the Planning and Zoning Boards will meet to discuss the most recent changes in the Market Basket plan, and the ZBA denied a substandard lot size to Colleen Lake to develop a parcel of her land in the town center.  Finally, the chair reports that Alan Menoian, a volunteer, offered to give his expert help to the Gateway portion of the Master Plan to write form-based code for that land area.  This meeting is to take place 19 June. Additionally, the chair queried if the Planning Board plans to hold its annual meeting of various boards and commissions and hopes it will do so.

Veteran's Garden:  Nancy Hansen met with Amy Ross, who donated money for use in the Garden, but Ms Ross is not quite ready to move on the project.  A committee will form in the fall.  Also, that six newly engraved bricks were installed in time for the Memorial Day service. 

NEW BUSINESS
Post Card Project:  The post card project is resurrected and will be led by Bev Connolly, who has done work in this area previously.  She asked members to email her about sites/locations in Stratham they felt warrant a current photo card.  It was decided prior to the meeting not to make historic cards.  After a short discussion, it was concluded that Bev would do more research and return at the next meeting with financial numbers and printing sources, amounts, etc. for potential voting by members.
New Book Available:
  The chair mentioned that the new book by Peter Francese and Lorraine Merrill, entitled “Communities and Consequences,” is available in the library.

   Genl:HCMIN06102008

NEXT MEETING: The next meeting will take place in the Municipal Center on Tuesday,
Tuesday, 8 July 2008, 5:30pm.  Location TBA by chair as the center is under construction.