The Open Space Committee was created in 2020 as a two-year, ad hoc committee to help the town “develop a stronger open space and recreation management program.” With the two-year period nearing its end, OSC Chair Peter Dorward asked the Select Board to make the OSC a standing committee, and on Tuesday the board voted unanimously to do so. The nine members of the OSC will serve staggered, three-year terms.
The OSC’s mission includes protection of open space such as farmland and conservation land and also recreational land such as athletic fields. Many town residents likely received a recent email about the committee’s most immediate project—an online survey in May about open space and recreational land use in Harvard. The survey will be available on the town website and will guide the committee in updating the 2016 Open Space and Recreation Plan.
Dorward’s final request to the Select Board was to ask, “How do we fund what we want to do?” Suggestions included using the Stabilization Fund, setting up “gift accounts” for donations, seeking money from the Harvard Athletic Association, applying for grants, and creating a “friends” organization for fundraising.
But no specific, new source of money for OSC projects was identified. “I haven’t heard a good way to set up a piggy bank for this,” Select Board Chair Stu Sklar said. “Am I wrong?”
Later, in the public comment period of the meeting, Dan Daly called most of those funding ideas inadequate. Daly, who represents the Parks and Recreation Commission on the OSC, said the town has allocated nothing for active recreation in recent years. “This is not an HAA thing. It is not about gift accounts. This is a town-of-Harvard problem,” he said.
