Tree Board

Tree Board Minutes November 13th, 2019 at 4 pm Attendance: Kathrine Killebrew, Wes Powell, Alexandra Wills, Joey Redman, Carter Briggs, Chris Killebrew, Dottie Mann, Claudia Erb, and Ron Erb. 1. Kathrine began her update by reviewing the damage from the Oct 26th storm that hit Clarksville. There were a total of 21 city parks with damage to trees. The worst of which were, Trice Landing, Sevier Station, Ft. Defiance, and Billy Dunlop. The City’s TAEP Grant trees will be planted at Billy Dunlop to help replace some of the ones that were lost. Wes suggested planting the seedlings that we get for distributing trees on 250K tree day at Trice Landing. We could use citizen volunteers for the planting day on March 21st. 2. Kathrine relayed that the large Elm at the Regional Planning Commission fell and had to be removed. 3. Kathrine informed the board that the new trees on Fanklin St. have all been limbed up by the Street Dept. to make it easier to wrap with Christmas lights. Dottie Mann asked if the Street Dept. had asked permission to trim the trees per city code and Kathrine said that they had not. Wrapping the trees with lights was also against the board’s recommendation. Wes asked Kathrine to compile a total cost of the tree planting project so that he can include that in a memo for record that he can send to the Mayor’s office concerning the lights on the trees and our recommendation to remove and loosen the lights annually to prevent girdling. 4. Wes presented the logo options from the APSU design student. The board did not like any of them enough to recommend as an option to the Mayor. Suggestions were to have the logo look more like our urban forest or even possibly just leaves with the lettering. Alexandra suggested that everyone try to come up with a version of the logo that they would like to see and they can be presented at the next board meeting in December. 5. Kathrine said that she will try to find the curriculum for the Citizen Forester Program. Ideally, the board would like the program to begin in March and last about 6 weeks. We would need to start advertising in January and would like to have at least 12 people enroll. 6. Wes asked the board to consider dates for the Christmas Tree chipping service at Heritage Park. The board decided that trees could be dropped off in a designated area from December 26th- January 12th and CDE would chip the trees the following week. 7. Tennessee’s Arbor Day is on March 6th 2020. The Tree Board will be handing out free trees to the community at Trahern Mansion. We will have 1200 trees to give away from 9 am to 2 pm. Each person can take up to 5 trees each. Alexandra and Kathrine suggested that we invite Karla Kean to this event to assist with land owner questions. 8. Wes brought up the need to begin planning for the City’s Arbor Day Celebration in April. He will reach out to the Director of CMCSS to find an elementary school that can host this event for us next year. He also asked the board how we can get more people from the City involved in the celebration. Last year’s event was very lacking in participation from city entities. Kathrine mentioned that planting a tree in honor of someone could possibly get more people at the event. With no further business the meeting was adjourned.