Urban Forestry Tree Board (Meets as needed/quarterly)

URBAN FORESTRY TREE BOARD PROCEEDINGS April 15, 2021 ZOOM Virtual Meeting Members Present: Ruth Ludwig, Robert-Jan Quene, Jane Anklam, Richard Kaufman, Nick Nelson Members absent: Meghan Gil-de-Lamadrid Also present: Linda Cadotte, Russ Behlings Chair Ludwig called the meeting to order at 4:36 p.m. 1. Approval of the March 18, 2021 meeting minutes MOTION by Anklam, second by Quene and carried to approve the minutes from the March 18, 2021 meeting. 2. 2021 Arbor Day Outreach Ideas Director Cadotte shared that Gil-de-Lamadrid has some ideas she is working on for this celebration. There will be a planting for the Fallen Workers Memorial. Waiting to hear details on what that planting will look like. Some of our plantings that are part of the Sustain Our Great Lakes project or the Fallen Worker’s Memorial planting could be recorded and shared on the City’s main Facebook page and website as part of the celebration. The DNR has been suggesting that events be virtual due to the continued COVID pandemic status. Director Cadotte mentioned doing a short video of the process of pulling the trees from the gravel bed to planting them as part of the Tribute Tree program. With the combination of these smaller events, such as the CN Communities in Bloom Celebration, we should be well covered for the Arbor Day celebrations. Board members can submit ideas of people that might be interested in doing the videography, otherwise we will handle it in-house. 3. CN Communities in Bloom Celebration The ceremony will be 30-45 minutes. There will be a couple of speakers, possibly the Mayor and a couple of others that spoke during the online judging sessions. We have to have it on the project location. It needs to be by Barker’s Island Beach, Wisconsin Point, or the Osaugie Trail. The CN rep would speak for a few minutes as well as the America in Bloom Rep. We do have a little bit of money left in the grant to be spent. We talked about using that to replant any shrubs and trees that aren’t coming back and freshening up mulch. Would arrange a volunteer day a week or two before to freshen that area up. Invitations will be sent out with details. 1 Urban Forestry Tree Board April 15, 2021 4. Superior Municipal Forest Master Planning – Approve Scope and Next Steps Before taking the board’s recommendations back to Rettler, Director Cadotte would like to make sure everyone’s feedback is incorporated. Councilor Ludwig would like to put out and RFP to see what type of response we get to ensure we get the best partner. MOTION by Ludwig, second by Quene to create and send out a Request for Proposals on the scope and next steps for the Superior Municipal Forest Master Planning. Director Cadotte asked if the board would like to have a sub-committee or keep this as an item in the Tree Board meetings. The Board decided that they will keep this as a board item and not create a sub-committee. 5. Tribute Tree Program Councilor Ludwig requested that we review the Tribute Tree Program as a refresher for the Board members of what that program is. The program started in 2002. There are a lot of different reasons or occasions for why someone would want to plant a tree. The program allows people to purchase not only a tree, but also a plaque, if desired, to commemorate the reason for the tree. There are sometimes ceremonies, dependent on who has purchased the tree and what they desire. This year there will be 11 trees planted, which seems to be a fairly good year. Councilor Ludwig would like to have this committee think about ways that we could promote this program more. That discussion will be put on the next committee agenda for discussion. If people want trees other than what is on the list that can typically be accommodated if given enough notice for ordering. Current ways to promote the program: Currently, if the Parks Department receives a call from someone wanting to do a memorial type thing, they will be directed to the Tribute Tree Program. It is also located on the City’s website and promoted on the City’s Facebook page at least once a year. 6. Parks, Recreation and Forestry Director’s Report a. Trees will be arriving soon so the Parks Crew is prepping for that. b. Brush pickup will be happening in May, so the Parks Crew is also preparing for that. c. The new Tree Software is in the final stages of setup and the hope is that it will be ready before we begin tree planting. The iPads are setup and ready to go. d. The last round of stump removals is being completed by Rick’s Tree Service and then we will take that back in-house for the summer. e. The Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve is working on a project in the Superior Municipal Forest. They will install four water table monitoring wells with the black ash under planting plots. They would be there about five years and they would also like to expand their Centennial Vegetation monitoring, which would install some rebar to mark the corners of the plot so they can measure how that changes. We have asked them to paint them/camouflage them 2 Urban Forestry Tree Board April 15, 2021  to make them less noticeable. They have also been asked to provide the City with the data. Those will be installed this spring/summer. f. Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department is looking for guidance and will add this topic to a future agenda. The Center City Park has a wonderful park designed around the holiday tree. However, the tree has a split top. The Parks Crew would like to look at a replacement tree. A few ideas could be trees donated by someone or a larger tree replanted in this area. The tree is healthy, however the split top is a concern for wind. Lighting the tree has become difficult due to the numerous dead or open spaces. In the past, we have taken boughs from other trees and attached them with wire to fill in the voids in order to light the tree up. We have attempted to prune it back in hopes it would fluff out and fill back it but that has not happened. Some options of trees would be native spruce, balsam fir or other similar trees. The Board mentioned they would like to engage the community in this decision. 7. Next meeting July 15, 2021 at 4:30 pm. Councilor Ludwig announced the meeting adjourned at 5:22 p.m. Minutes submitted to the Council Meeting of May 4, 2021. 3 Urban Forestry Tree Board April 15, 2021