Hey Mike, how's it going? >> Hey, how you doing? >> Good. >> Hey, >> just you and I so far, so might be a short meeting. >> No worries. Here we go. A few people are joining now.
Hey Josh and Deborah, how you guys doing? >> How's it going? >> Good. >> Hi guys. >> How's it going? >> I just ran from an environmental commission meeting. So much in on township
issues. I know we're expecting a few to be missing, but uh I think I believe Ben will be on We have about half of the crew right now. So, we'll give it a few more minutes. See if at least Ben, I know he was supposed to be on, so hopefully
he'll join in the next few minutes here. There's Steve. Hey everyone, how are you? >> How you doing, Steve? >> Good, good. I should be able to jump on the camera a little bit. >> All good, thank you. >> Get started in a minute. We're just
seeing if anybody else rolls in here. All right, I think we can at least kick off the conversation here. Um, thanks everybody for making time today. Uh, should be a relatively uh brief meeting with only two uh, you know, defined agenda items. Uh, both regarding the ar
arboritum. Um uh we're going to you know just discuss the project submitted for the uh native plant restoration efforts and the outdoor classroom retaining wall repair. Um we do have uh Tedor uh Whitman is on the uh is on the call. So
if we want to get some information from him I can promote him to a speaker. Um, but in the meantime, if anybody wants to uh hopefully everybody had a chance to review these these topics and uh if somebody wants to kick off the conversation, that would be great. >> Matt, I think it would be great if
Teddor could just give us I know he gave us a lot of detail last time, but just get a very brief uh you know, overview of the two projects again along with just costs that are being asked for. >> Sounds good. And just to clarify, his name is uh is
pronounced Tador. This is Priya. Good evening, everyone. >> Thanks, Priya. Teddor. Sorry about that. >> I did know that, but you know, sometimes you're just reading and and not thinking. >> No, no worries. >> Good evening.
Uh do you want me just to get started and start talking or >> Sure. If you want to just give us an overview, I guess, you know, one by one, first the native plant restoration and then go into the uh the retaining wall repair. Um I know you gave us tons of information before, so if you want to just give a brief another brief overview
and then go into some cost uh details. >> Sure. Uh so highlights for the native plant restoration stuff. We had pretty serious deer intrusion inside our protected forest a couple years ago. Deer wrecked our um understory and our
herbaceous layer and we're looking for ways to jump start everything going back uh get the understory growing again. Best the best way to do that is to um start buying plants and putting them in the ground. So, we're asking for $25,000
a year for six years, and that'll uh pay for the cost of the plants themselves, transportation, and then care and maintenance of those plants. Uh the outdoor classroom, the back wall is collapsing and spoken to a um
landscape uh architect and they gave me um the $47,000 cost for putting it back together again. Um if that thing collapses, basically we'll have to reroute one of our major trails.
So that's them in a nutshell. Um, I can certainly cover anything in more detail if anybody needs that. >> Just a quick question on the uh timeline for the planting. Is it something that you as I know it's it I mean I don't
know enough about when it's most advantageous to plant, but I I know that there are like couple windows throughout the year. Is this something that you would plan on doing now or is it you think it would be something you do in September, October or what's the what's the timeline?
>> That's a fine question. There are two good planning seasons. Uh right now is we are coming we have a big window right now uh for things like sedges, other herbaceous plants, stuff like that. And um it's also a time when most of the
nurseries that's what they're providing. Fall is also a good time for planting for things like uh shrubs, bushes, and if we want to get a couple of um sapling trees in the ground, that'd be the best time to do that. So, you actually have
two windows, two different parts of the forest. Springtime is better for the basious stuff, uh and the fall is better for the understory. Okay, >> thank you. Okay. So, all in um we're talking about
a one a onetime ask of 47,000 and an annual ask for six years of 25,000. Right. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um >> question tater. I can't remember if I asked you last time. If that um
outdoor theater, you know, those seats go, is that a danger to students in the in the classroom? I may have asked you this last time. Forgive me if I did. >> Um honestly, I don't remember. It's not
a danger. It's just once it starts collapsing, we'll just have to reroute stuff around it until it is actually shoring up. It's It's not like there's going to be a mini avalanche back there or anything like that. >> Um, but it's unsightly at the moment.
Um, we need to get rid of the railroad ties that have had been holding up since the 1930s. uh they're just rotted away at this point and we need something actually solid like stones to make a permanent um
improvement back there. >> So you'd be replacing the railroad ties with stone? >> Yes. >> So that this doesn't happen again. >> I really hope it won't. >> Okay. But it's not going to rot the way that the railroad ties have rotted over time. Correct.
>> Yes. So um I don't know if anybody else wanted to kick off the conversation. I mean I I I'm inclined to support this and defer to Tor's expertise given the value of
the arboritum to the community and you know certainly the environmental pieces of this that um support the plan. But um is anyone on the panel uh inclined to not support this? Cuz you
know I'm certainly movable on that. I just uh I would lean towards supporting it and you know doing some good. But anybody else >> feel like this is exactly what the fund was designed for, right? These types of
projects. Um, you know, the wall is probably, you know, a little bit of a stretch, but but not really because it's still promoting the outdoor space and open space and and um and certainly um the planting I guess I guess t and I think you mentioned this last time and I
would probably just want to probably a good idea to reiterate that you have taken steps and measures so that the deer issue would not replicate itself, right? that that we've got fencing in place so that we can't expect that, hey, in a couple years you're going to come
back and say, oh, we had another deer problem and we're looking to, you know, do this, this, and this. I I I believe you said it last time. I just want to confirm that that you you kind of had rectified that situation. >> Correct. Um the initial problem happened
during 2020 when uh Hurricane Isaisus dropped a or tropical storm Isaisus dropped a tree on our deer fence which brought down 100 feet and because it happened literally during the middle of the pandemic. We couldn't repair it. So we had put up a temporary fence. But
temporary fencing over 100 feet just isn't good enough. We had seven deer inside the forest for almost a year before we finally got the fence repaired and got them out fully. And during that time they set the forest understory back by about 10 years. So
um fence is repaired. There are no deer in there. But as we plant really sensitive things, we will have temporary fencing around them around the new plants just to make sure that should there be even a weekl long incursion of deer inside the fence because that can happen because we are open to the
public. um we don't want the really sensitive stuff being browsed before we have a chance to get the deer out. So >> um primary perfection is in place and we'll have secondary protection in place for the new plantings.
Okay, Matt. Um, given that you're the one person from the township on and we're missing both of our, uh, township committee members today as well as, uh, Alex, what action can we take today? I mean, can we take a
vote and >> Yeah, I believe you could you could take a vote. I mean, we have five of the, you know, Alex hasn't voted to break ties, but we have five um, which would make a majority here. Um, so you know, I guess we could take a vote. Um, it's, you
know, it would go towards a vote here would would push it towards the township and then basically approving it in this case because there's no ordinance or anything else associated with it. Um, we would have to talk about a little bit of the details behind the the purchasing
process behind the wall, whether we uh, you know, just transfer the funds over to the arboritum or uh, the township uh, you know, get goes through our purchasing process uh, regarding getting quotes and all that. Um, but other than that, yeah, I think we as long as we have support, maybe each member could
just give a quick uh, you know, give their support or or not. Um, and we can record that on each project and then, you know, we'll go forward. >> Matt, is five a quorum? I couldn't remember what a quorum is for this. Uh, >> it it should it should be a quorum. Um,
it it should be a quorum because Alex and I are members and they want to it should be considered a quorum. I can pull I'll pull up while we uh >> I just want to Yeah, I want to make sure that we're we're following if it's a qu Yeah.
And in this case, I'm not even sure. Let's see. Bria, can you vote on this or are you recused? >> I'm going to abstain. >> Yeah, in that I'm I am recusing myself. And the bylaws do say a quorum will be
when five voting members are present. Does one voting member recusing themselves complicate that or does presence enough allow >> it's when it's when it's present. So five voting members are present. Yep. I just I just pulled up the same thing. So we're good. >> Yeah. I thought I thought Ben was going to be on so I I was I was hopeful we
wouldn't have an issue but um but yeah, we should be good here. >> You still have your hand up. I don't know if you wanted to say something else. Oh, sorry about that. >> Okay. Um, all right. Well, I mean, I'll just
to me this seems entirely uncontroversial. I think the the panel is generally in support of this um proposal. It's not a ton of money. It's a very small percentage of our annual um budget. So, you know, I I would propose
a vote if anyone uh does anyone disagree with voting on this today. >> No, I'll second. >> Okay. So, let's go ahead. I will vote in support of this. >> I will vote in support as well. >> As will I.
>> And I support as well. >> Great. So, just to uh just to confirm that that vote was on both project submissions of the native plant restoration and the uh outdoor retaining wall. Uh so, we record that vote in the affirmative uh supporting both of those
projects. And I I I do agree. I think that's exactly um these requests are exactly what the funds are for. So, um that's uh that's good to get the funds moving here. Um and >> we appreciate it. Thank you very much. >> Yeah. Well, thank you for what you're
doing, Teddor. We really appreciate it. >> Thanks, Teddor. >> Thanks for all the time. >> And Teddor, we'll be in touch. Uh, number one, I know we owe you uh the townia your regular allocation and two, just the logist logistics behind some of this open space funds. >> Understood.
>> Thank you. >> We'll be in touch. Take care. >> Have a great night. >> Thank you. Bye. Thank you. >> All right. So, those were the real two items of business. Um, next is just some open discussion. Are there any other items that you know the committee would
like to to discuss tonight? >> Um I just like to mention one thing and I know Alex isn't here so maybe we should wait until he's here to discuss it in more depth. I'm just I'm wondering if there's um like I find myself before some of these meetings like searching through my email to find all the
documents. Do we have a place where all this stuff is like the every proposal? I know we have a Google sheet. I know we have some other stuff, but I feel like sometimes we get documents in email and I I don't know if it would make sense to just have like a shared drive or a place that you can go if you need to look at
the documentation or something. >> You you you all have township email addresses, correct? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Um I don't think so. Yeah. >> Okay. So, >> I do. I think that I Well, Deborah, you might have one. I know I have one on
another commission. Yeah, we should we should uh the township is moving all these advisory boards and commissions, everybody is moving towards a township email address. That way, you know, township business is done on with township emails. Uh okay. So once we get those set up uh we can we can get that
set up this week and then I think they just share file in one drive in the Microsoft Outlook suite and um you know we can probably set it up by meetings have the agenda in there all the backup support in there uh and then you can revisit that at any time.
>> Okay, >> that's kind of what we do with some internal internal things. But that's a good idea, Steve, because I was doing the same thing before this meeting, going through going through some old documents and trying to find uh trying to find everything through emails. So, that's that's a great suggestion. >> Great. Thank you, Matt.
Okay, I don't have anything else to give back their evenings. >> Great. All right, we'll just open up uh the public comments here. Um, if anybody from the public, we have one attendee, if they would just uh raise their hand
if they're interested in speaking. All right, seeing none, we'll close the public participation portion. And, uh, everybody have a great night. Thanks for the input and thanks for attending today. >> Thanks, Matt. Thanks, D. Thank you. Have a good day. Bye.
>> Bye.