Tree Board

Tree Board Regular Meeting Minutes 2 February 2017 5:30-6:30 Thursday City Hall Memorial Room Attending: Tree Board Members: John Akielaszek, Steve Bailey, Heather Calderwood., Abby Colihan, Sarah Hoffmeier, Jeff Schumann, John Snell, Lynn Wild Parks Department: Geoff Beyer, Emily Markstein Volunteers: Ken Libertoff, Meredith Kitfield, Bob Troester • Agenda Lynn added two items to the agenda; Festival of Trees, and Arbor Day Conference Tree Board Participation. The agenda was then approved. • Approval of January Minutes Minutes from the January 2017 meeting were approved with no changes • Public comments Meredith wanted the tree board to know that she has planted 30,000 trees on 60 acres her family owned in Durham, NH. The land is now conserved by Nature Conservancy. The trees were obtained from the local Conservation District. She also volunteered to work with Lynn on the Festival of Trees. Old Business • New Member Update John S reported that so far only one person had stepped forward to be on the Tree Board. She is Cassandra Hemenway. John passed around her resume for members to look at. It was agreed that if no other candidate came forward, John would recommend to the City Council to accept Cassandra and a board member. • Net Zero Sustainable Design Winner John S. announced that the winner of the Net Zero Sustainable Design was Team Bridges. He also mentioned that going forward, all participants will be encouraged to remain involved in future efforts. He also emphasized the green spaces and trees in particular were important features of all the designs. • MOU with NBNC Jeff reported that the MOU as passed by the Tree Board was sent to Chip for their board to approve. We have not heard back from Chip. Jeff will follow up with further nudge emails. Page 1 of 3 • Legislators Welcome Reception John S. reminded everyone that the Legislators Welcome Reception was coming up on 9 Feb. Every board member should have received their invitation. • EAB Information John A. reported that one effort he is/will be working on is contacting the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation to see about getting signage up regarding not bringing in fire wood into the state. Other ways of getting the message were also discussed. • Update on City Planting Locations Emily reported that she is continuing to work on identifying planting sites throughout the city and will continue to update the spreadsheet she has been working on. Emily and Geoff also brought up that all files for the tree inventory have now been cosolidtated and they are working on coming up with useful charts and graphs that could help us identify planting sites. Over 3,000 street trees have been inventoried. • Trees for Spring Planting and Tree Nursery John S. recommended that we order 12 trees for the nursery and another 12 for spring planting. There was a consensus that we can identify at least 10 planting sites in the city for spring planting. It was then agreed that John S could go ahead with the order. • Report on Meeting with DPW about Sidewalk Reconstruction John S. and Geoff will be meeting with Tom McCardle in the coming week to discuss how the Tree Board can use upcoming sidewalk reconstruction projects to plant more city tree. • Prioritizing 2017 Goals John S. reviewed the goals that were discussed at the last meeting. Tree Nursery The continued improvement and use of the nursery will be a priority. We will look into ways to provide some sort of irrigation system, hopefully solar powered. EAB John A will updating the EAB preparedness plan and will continue to work on ways to education the public on the danger of bringing in firewood form out of state. Invasive Removal Developing outreach programs and workshops oriented to private land owners was discussed. We will continue to work with the Parks Department on invasive removal on park land. Replacing invasives with native trees/shrubs will be part of the effort. Sarah also volunteered to talk with The Nature Conservancy to see if there is a way to partner with them or other like organizations. Page 2 of 3  Another St. Paul Street-Like Project Two areas were suggested as possible places for a project; Lower Liberty Street and lower Terrace Street. Lynn will look into finding someone(s) who would be interested in taking on this project. Sarah would be will to take on Terrace Street with help. • Festival of Trees Lynn gave an overview of the program that will take place at the library on Friday, 10 February at 1:30 pm. She showed the presentation board that will be set up as part of the program and the medallions that will be passed out to the students who have participated. She encouraged all Tree Board members to attend. • Arbor Day Conference Tree Board Participation Lynn said that we have a slot available to us at the Vermont Arbor Day Conference. She is working with Elise on what our participation will be. It is planned on doing something outdoors, weather permitting. Any ideas should be sent to Lynn. New Business • Upcoming Tree Workshops o Pruning Street trees John Snell Hunger Mtn Coop, Saturday, April 8, 10-noon o Pruning Fruit trees Dave Wilcox Hunger Mtn Coop, date/time tbd o Planting street trees John Snell Hunger Mtn Coop, Saturday, April 22 (Earth Day), noon- 2:00 • February Work Days TBD Next meeting Thursday, 2 March, 5:30-6:30 at City Hall Page 3 of 3