Derry board OKs new Planning Commission member

By Bruce Frauman
©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC

The Londonderry Select Board met for a mere 23 minutes Monday night with the primary business of appointing a new member to the Planning Commission.

Planning Commission chair Sharon Crossman introduced Mary “Mimi” Adams Lines to the Select Board and recommended her appointment. Lines said she knows “a little bit about a lot of things” and summarized a 30-year career as a landscape designer and historic architectural preservationist.

Lines also said that, nine years ago, she co-founded bedford2020.org, which she called the “go-to” site in New York State for environmental initiatives. Speaking on behalf of the Planning Commission, Crossman said that Lines’ “interests, experience and education really should be a great benefit to the Planning Commission in our current projects.” The Select Board, with Bob Forbes absent, unanimously approved Lines’ appointment to the Planning Commission.

Interim board chair Jim Ameden, who is also Road Commissioner, said Road Foreman Matthew Rawson believes the use of salt and sand is “on par for past years,” so should not adversely affect the budget.

Ameden also announced that South Londonderry Fire Chief Jeff Duda had suffered a heart attack incident, has undergone a couple of procedures and should be home later this week.

Small scale water, sewage plants

Crossman, Board member George Mora and Town Administrator Robert Nied also discussed the probable inclusion of Londonderry in two wastewater study initiatives.

Mora said the Agency of Commerce and Community Development  is “serious about finding alternatives” to well and septic systems in “small communities where it is just not reasonable to consider” large waste water systems.

She said the state is interested in developing smaller waste water systems that can help villages to thrive.

Nied said a “smaller” initiative being developed by Emily Davis, a planner for the Windham Regional Commission and the Rich Earth Institute. that would turn urine into fertilizer. Crossman said an informational meeting is being planned with the Planning Commission for either March 12 or 19 with the WRC and the Rich Earth Institute.