Eric Taylor, director of York County’s Ag Preserve Board, asked the Board of Commissioners to approve an easement purchase for a farm in East Manchester Township, saying the county would use 2024 county easement funds to preserve 110.37 acres and requesting $386,295 for the purchase. Taylor said two homestead exclusions were requested by the landowner and that incidental costs would be reimbursed by the State Department of Agriculture. "We are requesting $386,295 for the easement purchase," Taylor said.

The application, Taylor said, met the board’s minimum criteria, is recorded in East Manchester Township’s ag security area, and ranked 16th out of 50 qualifying applicants in the 2024 cycle; he also said the owner accepted 97% of the easement value. Taylor described the farm’s production profile, saying the operators grow corn and hay and that the easement preserves the working farmland rather than homesteads.

After Taylor’s presentation, Sean Kenny, executive director of Farmer Natural Lands Trust of York County, detailed two Trust projects he asked the board to note. Kenny described a Stambaugh property in Manheim and West Manheim townships that includes a mix of farmland, forest and wetland habitat he said contains Pennsylvania’s most endangered species; he described roughly 4,000 feet of main stream and another 4,200 feet of tributaries that the Trust aims to keep intact. "This is a very important project," Kenny said of the Stambaugh property.

Kenny also reported an addition of 40 acres to a Warrington Township easement in Wellsville that was originally placed under easement in the mid-1990s; he said the area forms a contiguous block of preserved land together with adjacent Ag Preserve and Trust easements. Kenny introduced new Trust staff member Wade Gobrick and recognized Eric Naylor of the Ag Preserve Board for earlier work on the properties.

None of the presentations recorded a formal vote on the individual easement requests in the available transcript; the meeting later approved a consent motion to adopt Motions 1–48 by voice vote. The transcript indicates these items were on the agenda for consideration under the listed motions, but the record in the meeting text does not show a roll-call vote specifically resolving each easement. The presenters noted that State Department of Agriculture reimburses incidental costs for easement purchases and that the Snyder property would be the third farm preserved in East Manchester Township.

If the board formally approves the easement motions as part of the agenda, county staff will proceed with closing steps and recording the easement documents with the township. The Ag Preserve Board and Farmer Natural Lands Trust framed the projects as long-term conservation steps to retain productive farmland and protect streams and wetlands in affected townships.