Romer Mountain Park,
Phoenicia, N.Y.

The summer eastern working conference was held at Romer Mountain Park in Phoenicia, N.Y. Harry Jameson who is the Tremper Mountain fire tower restoration committee chairman owns the park.

The conference started at 6pm at the park with dinner that was put on by a local restaurant owner. FFLA members shared the dinner, Tremper fire tower committee members some N.Y. DEC personnel and some residents that were interested in restoring the fire tower.

After dinner new N.Y. FFLA director Marty Podskoch did a slide presentation on the fire towers in the Catskills. He is also in the process of writing a book on the 5 Catskill fire towers and the 14 other towers located in the foothills of the Catskills.

There was a short business meeting after the slide presentation.

The meting was called to order at 21:10

Roll call was read Southern New England, NJ, N.Y., PA, N.H, and VT/DEP-CH EAST, South East/ chairman, and secretary were present for the meeting

The secretary read treasures report and the report is located in the back of the report.

Keith gave a small report on the Southeast membership. Is coming along and he was able to start chapters for GA/ FL, TX/ LA. We do need to refocus on membership growth in the chapters. With funding by FFLA, American Resources, and the Key stone chapter to come up with a flyer for the FFLA.

Fire towers are coming down and we lost a key one in MD. Keith also mentioned that more members we have the stronger we would be with the FFLA.

Keith wanted to give out an award to the state with the most growth. It was also mentioned that director should have 10 paying members to be an active chapter.

Keith mentioned at the meeting that lighthouses are more peeling then fire towers. This info came from Calendar Company that would not even make a calendar with fire towers.

Keith spoke to Ray Kresek and he told Keith that the Forest Service is spending 50,000 on one tower in one year.

STATE REPORTS

The NH report was read by Chris Haartz.

The Eastern Deputy Chair /VT report was read by Mark Haughwout. Mark is going to send in two certificates for towers for the NHLR. A consultant for an advertising firm got a hold of Mark about fire towers He Owens a couple of pulp mills and every year does a flyer on some thing in forestry for his employees and people who buy their wood products. This year it is on fire prevention so he wanted some info on fire towers. BeeBee Hill is at a stand still in N.Y. nothing has been done since last year, but plan in the future to do some work on the tower. There was some vandalism to the ground cabin.

The southern New England report was read by Henry Isenberg at last count 45 towers are manned depending on fire conditions in Ma. It has been above average fire year with 1000-acre fire, and a few fires over 200 acres. The state was called by Florida to send personnel south but turned it down do to the dryness of the state. The state plans to lease Mt Evert, Lenox Mt, and Savoy towers for cell sites. The money raised on leasing fees will go to fixing up the towers then staff the towers. A member of the Appalachian Trail conference who wanted the help of the FFLA in helping to stop the tower sites becoming cell sites contacted Henry. The A.T. conference is not against the towers but against the 200ft or higher towers being used as cell sites. They think those towers will destroy the beauty of the woods along the AT.

RI has 7 standing towers in different conditions, the ones in the south have some vandalism, so only the towers in the north get manned and that is only on high fire danger days. Henry has located former tower sites in Rhode Island.

The last standing fire tower in Connecticut is coming down. The tower is located on state land but Henry is not sure who owns the tower. This tower is also on the NHLR and is located on Mohawk Mt.

New director Marty Podskoch read the New York report. He advised that a fire tower near Cobbleskill is coming down, and the town is looking for people to take the tower down. The New York conservationist newsletter is going to have an article in it about fire tower restoration in the Catskills

The New Jersey report was read by co director Bob Spear he advised that the state still man 21 towers. Some of the towers in north Jersey received new aluminum roofs on them. Bob advised at this time on membership there are 55 paid members that receive newsletters by central mailing. At the time of the conference south Jersey was running with some big fires and north Jersey was very quiet Sterling fire tower has been very busy Bob is working for the Palisades Interstate Park Commission at Sterling Forest Park. His job is working at the tower. On nice weekends he gets between 50-80 hikers coming through past the tower. This spring Sterling tower helped with communications on a 200-acre fire in Harriman State Park.

Steve Cummings read Pennsylvania/Keystone report. He advised that there would be two towers going on the NHLR one in district 4 and the other one in district 17 that one will be Mt Penn. On Oct 30 there is going to be a big party for Mt Penn tower for so many years standing. Steve said that members of the retoration project of Mt Penn are in the progress of raising 2 million dollars to complete the project. The state of Pennsylvania has made contact with Maine and if they do not want Harris Mt Tower Pennsylvania will take the tower for the forestry museum. At the present time Penn has 57 standing towers with 32 of them in use. Bob Spear did some research and came up with 460 tower sites with in the state. Steve advised that Jan 2000 Eastern conference will be held at the new district office and Sunday there will be tower tours. The conference will be Jan 14-16

MD/DE director was not present but had given a small report to Keith. Membership has not been doing well, but has visited few tower sites.

South East - VA none of the towers have been manned. West Virginia Point Mt and Tan Mt towers were manned but it was a light year. Shandoha National Forest had a big fire but they also have a let burn policy. They might have some one interested in being a FFLA director for that state. North and South Carolina have some one interested in taking over as director for those two states. Georgia/ Florida nothing going on at this time. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana nothing to report most of there towers are down and in that area people are more interested in old saw mills.

OLD BUSINESS

The web site has been very busy with people asking about the FFLA some one found out if you type www ask. Com and then type in fire towers or lookouts you will come up with 500 sites. Henry Isenberg and Bill Cobb are putting more links on the web page. They plan to have an active page per state, plus a link with in that state.

At the last conference there was ideas tossed around about fund raising. Steve wanted to know if any thing is going on with fund raising. Bob Wolff co director for New Jersey is selling bandanas with the FFLA logo on them.

NEW BUSINESS

The new NHLR certificates are being printed as the tower is put on the register.
Bull of the woods has been saved, The USFS was told not to touch that tower.

There was a lot of discussions were to hold the next summer conference for the year 2000. And many sites were mentioned. Mark Haughwout made motion and second by Bob Spear to have the conference in Stanford, N.Y. all were in favor and Marty Podskoch is going to host the conference.

The meeting was adjourned at 23:10

Saturdays work on Tremper Mountain Fire Tower consisting of
-Putting the frame for the stairs from the ground level to the first landing up
-Patching some holes in the fence that surrounds the landings and stairs for safety.
-Putting new stair treads on the stairs from the ground level to the third landing.
-Taking off part of the roof that was still on the cab.
-Installing a new floor on the cab.

Saturdays work party at Tremper ran from 10:30 am to 1800 .All the materials were brought up to the summit by DEC rangers using 6 wheel ATV's the week before, On Sat two DEC quads were available to transport any equipment that was needed at the top for the work party

Sundays work party was a little smaller and that group only spent half the day to 1300 to complete the work that was not completed on Saturday.
-Finish ripping off the roof to the cab.
-Finish installing the cab floor and bolting it to the steelwork.
-Install the new trap door with hasp and
-Another set of stair treads was installed from the third landing to the fourth landing.
- When the work was completed on Sunday at 1300 the last thing that was done was cage the bottom stairs in fence to deter people from climbing the tower.

The Eastern summer working conference was a big success for both groups, which saw the start of work on the tower. It was a step in the right direction to getting Tremper Mt tower back to its working status.