Board of Forestry
Minutes
December 7, 2005
The Board of Forestry met on December 7, 2005 at the Department of Forestry Central Office, Charlottesville, Virginia.
Convene Meeting
The formal Board meeting began at 9:03 a.m. on December 7, 2005. Those present were: Mary T. Bates, McChesney Goodall, III, Judy Guse-Noritake, R. Easton Loving, Michael G. McGlothlin, E. Lee Showalter, C. Harrell Turner, Anitra B. Webster and Alpheus L. White, and Carl E. Garrison, III and Donna Hoy with the Department of Forestry.
Call to Order
Chairman Turner called the meeting to order.
Ms. Hoy called roll.
Changes and Adoption of Agenda
Chairman Turner asked if there were any changes that needed to be made to the agenda. As there were no changes, the agenda remained as written.
Recognition of Guests and Visitors
Chairman Turner welcomed Mr. Randy Bush, Virginia Forest Products Association; Mr. Andrew Smith, Virginia Farm Bureau; Mr. Gerald Gray, Virginia Forest Watch; Mr. Paul Howe, Virginia Forestry Association; Mr. Jim Mooney, Virginia Loggers Association; Mr. Grant Cosner, Reforestation of Timberlands Board; Mr. Thomas Jefferson, Reforestation of Timberlands Board; Mr. Earl Pickett, Reforestation of Timberlands Board; Ms. Ann Duff, Smurfit-Stone/Chair, Reforestation of Timberlands Board; Mr. Bud Watson, Forest Policy Group; Ms. Tammi Belinsky, WildWood; John Carroll and Mr. Mike Foreman, Department of Forestry.
Chairman Turner stated comments on SJR367 would be taken as the Board held its discussion on the draft report.
Approval of Minutes
Chairman Turner asked if there were any corrections/deletions to the September 26, 2005 minutes. Mr. Showalter motioned that the minutes be accepted as written. Mr. Loving seconded the motion. All were in favor.
Hearing of Citizens and Delegations
Ms. Ann Duff, Chair, Reforestation of Timberlands Board gave an overview of the Reforestation of Timberlands Board, its membership make-up, budget information, planting figures, etc. Each Board member was given a handout which included the information she discussed.
Information Items
None
State Forester's Report
Mr. Garrison stated he would have his staff give the Board an annual update on programs and accomplishments of the Department of Forestry after the SJR367 discussion. He shared a copy of the State of the Forest Report, which would be distributed to Board members and others when it is received from the printer.
Action Items
SJR 367 Study Report:
Mr. Foreman stated the discussion would focus on the first 14 pages of the SJR367 draft report. The SJR367 sub-committee met on November 22 to discuss the recommendations. The changes to the following recommendations were a result of discussions at that meeting.
Recommendation 1: Examine Land Protection Agreements as a model to conserve forest and other land. The Department of Forestry requests $150,000 to conduct this examination involving model development including economic analysis, legal issues, and related geographic information systems work.
Comments: Mr. Foreman stated the word “institute” was removed from the recommendation.
Mr. Showalter stated the Board had previously discussed a minimum term for the non-perpetual agreement of 20 years and up. The reference to a base time frame had been deleted. He also stated that he was concerned about a very active program that diverts existing funds into short term projects. Ms. Guse-Noritake shared the concerns of Mr. Showalter. Mr. McChesney stated he thought this model would come up with a separate funding system that would not compete with existing funding. His concern was the loss of a tremendous number of people if the Board sticks to the idea of perpetual easements. He believes a term easement will be better to get people to agree to try 10, 15, or 20 years and they may be more willing to sign on for a perpetual easement. Mr. Foreman stated discussions that he had been privy to were 20 years or more. Because there seems to be no agreement or consistency on the time frame, it was left out.
Mr. Bush stated it would be good to state this recommendation can be viewed as a non-perpetual conservation easement, even though this is not necessarily what it is. He feels this is such a descriptive term and it would help to state as such. He likes the concept. He suggests editing “periodic annual payment to the landowner” so it does not portray the wrong idea to legislators.
Mr. Gray stated he did not have a problem with the language. However, he did not think “non-perpetual” should be used. He felt it would be a good idea to study further. Interested parties need to be at the table and be a part of the discussions.
Mr. Smith stated the Farm Bureau thought this recommendation was a good idea and would be worthy to look at.
Chairman Turner stated there may be some follow-up from this recommendation once the Board receives feedback from Senator Ticer and other General Assembly members. He recommended including a statement that should the General Assembly wish to pursue this further, additional funding may be needed to help the Department of Forestry with a study group.
Recommendation 2: Increase and maintain funding through a dedicated source for the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation (VLCF) at the rate of $50 million per annum and establish separate “farm and forestry” categories within the VLCF funding scheme and ensure independent equitable funding amounts.
The original recommendation did not include acquiring funding from VLCF or a dedicated source of funding. Mr. Loving questioned what percentage of this money is tied to fee-simple acquisition for park land, state forest, wildlife management areas versus PDR’s, conservation easements, TDR’s? Mr. Foreman noted per the Code, the easement portion has to be 90 percent and the acquisition portion has to be 10 percent of the money. PDR’s dominate that funding source. He also stated there wasn’t enough money to get at the essence of the Ticer Study.
Ms. Guse-Noritake stated the Board needs to propose a dedicated funding source. Mr. Loving stated he didn’t feel he could endorse the statement of a dedicated funding source if the report did not specify what the origin of the funds would be. Ms. Guse-Noritake stated for this recommendation it would read incrementally increase and funding for the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation (VLCF) at the rate of $50 million per annum and establish separate “farm and forestry” categories within the VLCF funding scheme and ensure independent equitable funding amounts. Leave dedicated funding source to the next task. The Board felt it would be appropriate to include another paragraph below recommendation 2 that states the Board is supportive of a dedicated funding source.
Mr. Bush suggested the title of the study be changed to “… Preserve Private Forestland”. Private should be interjected into the title. He feels that the charge of the Board is to preserve private forestland and to look at mechanisms to preserve such land. He does not feel that open space and fee simple acquisitions should be listed because they do not have anything to do with preserving private forestland. Mr. Goodall stated he felt the Board was supporting the idea of providing general funding. Ms. Guse-Noritake stated there was a prescribed percentage for each category and this recommendation would be a specific amount for forestry.
Mr. Howe stated the study was to look at incentives for the private landowner to hold and preserve their forestland. It does not say anything about public land. He felt the Board should not include public land since it was not mentioned in the study.
Ms. Guse-Noritake stated the focus of this study was to keep private timberland in private hands and increased funding of $50 million will help to do that. She felt the biggest point the Board was trying to make was to establish a separate category for forestry.
Ms. Webster stated she felt the information included on page 7 was support information and not a plan on how to spend the money.
Chairman Turner recommended a qualifying statement be included that the Board is looking for monies to improve the preservation of private forestlands.
Recommendation 3: Support the continuing strong role of the Virginia Conservation Tax Credit in increasing Virginia conservation efforts.
Mr. Foreman stated this recommendation remained the same. The Board approved this recommendation as written.
Recommendation 4: In collaboration with local government and other stakeholders, amend the Right to Practice Forestry Act (10.1-1126.1) to more effectively contribute to non-industrial private forest landowners’ management. The Department of Forestry, in conjunction with the forest stakeholder community, will lead the collaborative effort to recommend legislative changes to the Act.
Mr. Foreman stated the sub-committee had a lot of discussion on this recommendation. The sub-committee felt a group of stakeholders should be established to further discuss this issue and come up with a recommendation. “Strengthen” was removed and replaced with the word “effectively”.
Mr. McGlothlin stated he felt the results of the inventory indicated a lack of state law governing forestry in Virginia. He doesn’t agree that the way to deal with this issue is to say everything being done is unreasonable and create a law on the right to practice forestry. Without more development of the law at the state level, he doesn’t think this particular recommendation addresses the issue. He feels the state needs to address rules and regulations governing logging practices, particularly in the mountainous areas.
Ms. Webster stated she felt this recommendation is dealing with the changing face of forestry, its practices, locations, urbanization, etc. She feels this recommendation is opening the door to reality that we have multiple facets in practicing forestry. Because it is a door opener, she feels the language recognizes there are issues/problems across the state and should be included in the report.
Ms. Guse-Noritake stated she thought it is good to have a broad array of regulations in place across the state because it gives a spectrum of the problems that are facing very rural counties. The real challenge is how to preserve working forests right at the edge of the plow blade. She stated the Board needed to look into this further because this issue is the nexus between development, sprawl, private forest land and industry.
Mr. Showalter questioned if the Board could recommend a solution to the problem with what the Board knows at this point.
Chairman Turner stated the Board keeps hearing there is an education gap between cities and counties that become urbanized, and what the private landowner sees as their right to manage their forestland.
Mr. Goodall stated this recommendation should be changed to include opening up the dialog to stakeholders and amend the right to practice forestry only after consultation and dialog with all interested parties, not just the forestry community. He feels this recommendation is stating just that.
Mr. McGlothlin stated he had a problem with the explanation.
Mr. Mooney stated he felt strengthening the right to practice forestry is an integral component of this recommendation and should be tied in with sound silvicultural practices. He feels localities are making laws/decisions based on aesthetics and politics rather than on silviculture and forestry. The more hindrances put on the landowner to practice good, sound silvicultural practices, provides a disincentive for landowners to keep their land in timberland. He feels this recommendation is a good step in the right direction.
Mr. Bush felt the wording was appropriate and endorses the recommendation.
Mr. Gray did not agree with this recommendation. He felt Virginia’s current law is not effective. He also stated there is no data to support the information included in the explanation. He feels this is important and should be looked at further. Ms. Belinsky concurred with Mr. Gray. She stated the timeframe was unclear and questioned if the Board planned to leave it open for another year and investigate, is the timeframe between now and the General Assembly, or exactly what is the timeframe for this recommendation?
Mr. Howe, on behalf of the Virginia Forestry Association, concurred with statements made by Mr. Bush and Mr. Mooney and is supportive of this recommendation.
Mr. Watson stated the advantage to this recommendation is it will show how different the issue may be within the developing counties as opposed to rural counties. By stepping in and not looking at it as a problem from the forest industry aspect, but look at it in the Board of Forestry context, will have a more useful approach coming to the end of the study with a solution that will be beneficial for all parties.
Mr. Loving recommends accepting this recommendation as written. As for a timeframe, he feels that should be left up to the State Forester. Ms. Webster and Dr. White supported Mr. Loving’s comments.
Ms. Guse-Noritake recommended striking “amend” and replacing it with “examine”.
Mr. McGlothlin recommended deleting “261 forest-related ordinances” and “118 at the city level” from the explanation. He agrees with the recommendation, but does not agree with all of the explanations included in the report. He recommended changing the language to read, examine the right to practice the forestry act and laws governing forestry practices in Virginia. Dr. White stated the last sentence could be changed to read, …lead the collaborative effort to determine if legislative changes are necessary to the Act.
Mr. Showalter recommended changing “amend” to “examine” in the first sentence. He also recommended the second sentence read as follows …the DOF, in conjunction with the forest stakeholder community, will lead this collaborative effort to examine and recommend any appropriate legislative changes to the Act. Mr. McGlothlin recommended adding forestry laws in Virginia in the second sentence.
Chairman Turner stated the Board needed to make a decision on 1) whether to keep this resolution in the report, and 2) if it is kept in the report, does it need amending. All Board members agreed this recommendation would stay in the report. Mr. Showalter restated his recommended change to the wording. Mr. McGlothlin reiterated his desire to include all state laws governing forestry. Mr. Loving recommended adding, as it pertains to preservation of private forest land.
This recommendation will read: In collaboration with local government and other stakeholders, examine the Right to Practice Forestry Act (10.1-1126.1) to more effectively contribute to non-industrial private forest landowners’ management. The Department of Forestry, in conjunction with the forest stakeholder community, will lead this collaborative effort to examine and recommend any appropriate legislative changes to the Act and other forestry laws as it pertains to the preservation of private forest lands.
Mr. Showalter recommended including a statement in the cover letter to Senator Ticer that “x” dollars would be needed to complete the five recommendations and not specify dollar amounts for each recommendation. Chairman Turner asked Mr. Garrison and Mr. Carroll to draft a letter for Senator Ticer.
Recommendation 5: Examine the efficacy of adopting a statewide Use-Value Taxation Rate for Agriculture, Forestry and Open Space lands. It is recommended that the General Assembly allocate $50,000 for this statewide land use study. Participation in this one year study should include the Secretariats of Agriculture and Forestry and Natural Resources, along with the Virginia Association of Counties and Virginia Municipal League.
Mr. Foreman stated that the sub-committee decided to include other land uses associated with conservation in this recommendation. Additional entities have been included in the list of groups that should participate in this study.
Ms. Guse-Noritake questioned if the Board needed to include “scenic” in one of these categories since there is major concern in some localities about aesthetics and scenic issues, or is it covered already. Mr. Loving stated he felt it was inherent in the discussion and did not need to be explicitly stated.
Mr. Goodall questioned whether a statement should be included to adopt a statewide use value taxation rate or alternative systems or programs that will retain that lower rate such as ag-forestall districts. Mr. Foreman stated he always considers ag-forestall districts as part of land-use. Mr. Loving stated this was a locality by locality decision. Chairman Turner stated this wouldn’t affect the county or locality in imposing the tax, it would establish a statewide tax system for those counties who didn’t have land-use that should have. Mr. Showalter clarified that the Board is not recommending a uniform tax rate. Mr. Smith added there are a variety of different land values throughout the state and it would be worth opening up to interested parties for discussion, knowing that localities are not the same. He stated the Farm Bureau is concerned about the potential of including scenic and broaden the definition of open space because it will add another anchor to it and will discourage localities from adopting.
Ms. Belinsky pointed out that this recommendation is worded to indicate the state would adopt a statewide use-value taxation rate, which is not the same as adopting land-use uniformly. Chairman Turner agreed the word “rate” should be changed to “program”.
The Board agreed that the Department of Taxation needed to be included in the discussions and should be listed.
Chairman Turner thanked the interested parties that attended the sub-committee meeting on November 22 to provide comments/feedback for inclusion in this study.
Mr. McGlothlin recommended adding another recommendation: In collaboration with the development community, the Virginia Association of Counties, the urban planning departments at state public universities and the Department of Taxation, examine the uses of incentives to alter development in order to protect forest and agriculture land. An example would be not having property taxes on parking decks and elevators.
Mr. Garrison stated the issue of development involves external factors facing forestry and the Department does not have the expertise or resources in-house to fulfill this recommendation. He suggested the forestry community encourage the building associations, planners, etc. to bring this up as one of their issues. Mr. McGlothlin stated he felt this recommendation was the heart of the issue of why Virginia is loosing forested land.
Ms. Webster recommended writing two letters. One to Secretary Bloxom and one as the cover page of this report to Senator Ticer with a copy to the transition team stating additional issues the Board feels needs to be addressed, i.e. urban sprawl, developing a dedicated funding source, etc., as well as the need for future studies, the Governor developing a Blue Ribbon Panel, etc. The Department of Forestry will draft the letters and forward to Ms. Guse-Noritake, Mr. McGlothlin, and Chairman Turner for review. Chairman Turner stated a recommendation for future legislation will be added to the next meeting agenda for discussion.
Committee Liaison Report
Chairman Turner reported that he had attended the Virginia Loggers Association meeting.
Other Business
No other business.
Scheduling of Next Meeting
The next meeting of the Board will follow the legislative breakfast on January 13, 2006, at 10:00 a.m. Chairman Turner will check with Virginia Forestry Association to see if the Board can meet in their office in Richmond. It was suggested that Senator Ticer be invited to the January meeting and be listed on the agenda to comment on SJR367 report.
The following meeting will be the afternoon of April 18 in conjunction with the Environment Virginia Conference in Lexington on April 18-20.
Adjournment
There being no further business, Chairman Turner made a motion that the meeting be adjourned. The meeting was officially adjourned at 12:17 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Donna Hoy
Recording Secretary
c: Board Members
Dr. J. Michael Kelly, Dean, College of Natural Resources, Virginia Tech
Mr. J. R. Bush, Virginia Forest Products Association
Mr. Paul Howe, Virginia Forestry Association
Mr. David E. Anderton, Jr., Association of Consulting Foresters
Ms. Maxine Kenny, WMMT News
Mr. Steve Brooks, Virginia Forest Watch
Ms. Ann Duff, Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation
Mr. Jim Mooney, Virginia Loggers Association
Mr. Gerald Gray, Virginia Forest Watch
Ms. Donna Pugh-Johnson, Virginia Agribusiness Council
Ms. Martha Moore, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation
Mr. Roger Sherman, MeadWestvaco Corporation
Ms. Staci Henshaw, Auditor of Public Accounts
Mr. Charles F. Finley, Jr., Forest Landowners Association
Mr. Andrew Smith, Virginia Farm Bureau
NOTE: Tapes of Board meetings are on file in the Office of the State Forester.
Last modified: Monday, 19-Oct-2009 15:01:42 EDT
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