Shade Tree Management Board

Shade Tree Management Board Madison, NJ 07940 Minutes of February 16, 2017 Meeting The Shade Tree Management Board held its regular monthly meeting on February 16, 2017 beginning at 8:00 AM in the Committee Room of the Hartley Dodge Memorial, 50 Kings Road, Madison, NJ. Call to Order: Gene Cracovia called the meeting to order. Present: Gene Cracovia, Alice Wade, Stephen Miller, Alan Andreas, Tom Salaki, Brian Monaghan, Carmela Vitale, Ken O’Brien and Vincent Della Valle. Not Attending: Nancy Bruce, Penny Garman and Vince Licari. Minutes: The January minutes were approved. The Board addressed the following items of business: Public Contacts ● Ken wanted clarification regarding the procedure for dealing with contractors and tree removal requests. Members of the Board explained procedures used in the past. ● 6 Page St. has a sewer line failure and there is a borough tree over the line. Ken determined that the tree must come down due to its placement right over the sewer line. ● Three trees at 260 Main St were marked by a resident for removal due to sidewalk issues. Vince determined that the tree roots should be trimmed and the trees will be left standing. ● Carmela introduced Vincent Della Valle who is working with the police on pedestrian safety. He requested that two trees that have been determined to reduce pedestrian line- of-sight be removed. The Board agreed with the request and the trees will be removed Council Liaison Report ● Carmela reported that she attended the Parks Advisory Meeting. Their main focus was on the handling of the EAB problem. The topic triggered a discussion about how to inform the residents of Madison about the impending problem. In addition to what has already been done, FMST will be asked to include ash tree recognition information in it’s annual electric bill insert material. ● Carmela also reported that different members of the Parks Advisory Committee have been assigned to specific parks and that the proposed dog park is back for discussion. Borough Tree Status ● Spring Tree Order – awaiting additional documentation from Barton before finalizing the 105 tree order. ● Removals/Pruning – 26 trees will be removed in the spring of which 21 will be ash trees. Of the 21 ash trees, 14 are located on Burnett St. ● 118 trees are scheduled to be pruned. TCC ● Alan said that there is one new case for March 7th and will look into it. ● Alice reported that she has added 4 new locations which have potential construction / street tree conflicts. Road reconstruction for Howell and Lathrope are planned for this summer. Vince needs to assess the impact on the trees on these roads. Budget Report ● 2016 final unexpended $10,445.22 ● 2017 projected budget $117,650 ● Encumbered $30,000 (maintenance) ● Transferred $1581.65 from maintenance to Ag. Supplies for tree purchase. FMST ● At the February FMST meeting approved $8000 for the replacement of ash trees this fall and $4000 to plant trees in the Summerhill Park proposed arboretum. OLD BUSINESS ● Core Training – Tom, Alice, and Brian are planning to attend the training at Rutgers on April 8th. ● Tree inventory – Steve reported that ArborPro is planning a Webinar on the new version of their software. Time and date has not been set. The decision as to which inventory software will be chosen has not yet been made. Tom said that he would look into additional software packages. NEW BUSINESS ● Tree Seedling Program – New Jersey will again be offering tree seedlings this spring. Drew University will coordinate the distribution of 1000 seedlings for the Madison area. The seedlings will be planted by residents and 120 will be planted in the FMST Tree Nursery. In 2016, over 700 seedlings were distributed. ● Community Forestry Management Plan – February 17th will be the next meeting to work on the next 5 year Community Forestry Management Plan. Rich Wolowicz was contracted to write the plan.  ● Private Tree Ordinance – Tom will compare the current Madison draft versus with other neighboring town’s ordinances. Parks Advisory Committee ● See Council Liaison report. Board Adjourned 9:02 am Submitted by Brian Monaghan