| Cape Cod Times
Who’s on Board is a series highlighting local boards and committees on Cape Cod and the people who serve on them.
EASTHAM – Just 200 feet in from a small parking lot on Sandy Meadow Way is a place where a sandplain vista opens up in one of the town’s open space properties. It’s a mixture of grassland and heathland habitat that is increasingly rare on Cape Cod. Some cedars, pitch pines and scrub oak pop up from the sandy soil, but vegetation is mostly low lying. Shrubs and grasses grow here, as do wildflowers and carpets of lichen and moss.
Kait Logan, her husband, Shaun, and their toddler son, Weston, explored the 47-acre Sandy Meadow property one morning recently, and she explained what drew her to join the town’s Open Space Committee.
The young family recently moved to the Cape from Philadelphia, where Kait had been a national operations manager for Theory, a clothes company. She was traveling three days a week to and from New York City, a two-hour train ride each way. But when she became pregnant with Weston, she knew she had to make some lifestyle changes.
“That was part of the decision to move,” she said, noting that she and her husband wanted Weston to grow up in a healthier environment.
So Shaun left his physical therapy job and she left her corporate communications position to settle in Eastham.
“We’re both passionate about nature,” Kait said. “We moved here for that. We wanted to go down that lane.”
The young family moved just before COVID-19 appeared on the scene. The repercussions of the pandemic, which included business closings and social distancing protocols, scaled back their ability to network and hunt for jobs.
“You find paths you go down that you don’t expect,” Kait said.
Some of those paths jived with what they came to the Cape for. They took a soils course and created their own garden and compost bin.
“We’re finding people in spite of COVID,” she said.
A mentoring relationship with a woman she works with at Kinlin Grover Real Estate led to discussions about civic engagement in their respective towns.
Go to any town website and you’ll find information on how to join a board, commission or committee. Town officials rely on volunteers who respond to the call for service for advice and decisions on everything from recreation to town planning. Some positions require specific experience or knowledge in a certain area or field. Some committees are regulatory in nature, and the decisions members make have repercussions for residents, visitors and business owners.
Some committees, such as school and finance committees, require a significant time investment, but not all. The demands and qualifications for membership vary from panel to panel.
Robert Cook joined the Open Space Committee in 2005. The committee, which oversees 13 parcels covering 390 acres of open space in the town, is charged with identifying land for acquisition, protection and maintenance, and developing plans to use open space parcels.
“In survey after survey, people put open space as one of the most important reasons they were drawn to Eastham,” Cook said.
The committee is currently seeking funding to place interpretative signs at Sandy Meadow and for the development of an app that would let users report on conditions at various open space parcels.
Cook said he is proud of the committee’s many accomplishments, including the protection and management of Sandy Meadows. The committee was instrumental in protecting vernal pools, beach and tidal flats, and terrapin turtle nesting sites. Open space parcels range from the 172-acre town forest to a 1.6-acre parcel off Herring Brook Road.
Kait thought the Open Space Committee was a perfect fit for this stage of her life. So did the search committee, which approved her application, and the Select Board, which appointed her as a member in December. She will fill out the remainder of a term left vacant by a member’s resignation.
Logan likens Sandy Meadow to a museum exhibit. The habitat is rare and vanishing on Cape Cod because of development. The things that grow in the soil attract certain species of birds and insects.
She pointed out the pitch pine stumps left behind after volunteers cut them down. Part of the management plan for the property is the removal of areas of pitch pine trees. The shade from the trees kills off the vegetation that makes a heathland habitat unique. And when vegetation changes, so do the creatures drawn to it for food.
Kait said she wants to focus her energies on getting volunteers to help the committee maintain the open space under its purview. She wants to help educate the community about what the committee does and hopes to encourage students in the Nauset Regional School District to volunteer.
Logan, 34, is one of the younger members on the Open Space Committee, and she hopes others will follow her lead. There are currently 23 vacancies on 11 boards, committees and commissions in Eastham.
“There are a lot of people with talent and skills,” Cook said. “Towns can always use someone with enthusiasm and talent.”
Contact Denise Coffey at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @DeniseCoffeyCCT.
