I hereby announce that this meeting is being held in accordance with chapter 231 of the open public meeting act. Proper notice of meeting dates has been given to the Morris Newsby, the Morris County Daily Record and posted on the Bolton board burrow hall. Roll call,
please. >> Okay. Notice to members of the shaitri commission and burough staff. Any use of electronic devices during this meeting shall be solely used for the purpose of burough business. Roll call please.
>> Mrs. Dy present. Mr. >> President, >> Mr. Lombardi >> present. >> Mr. Mer >> here. >> And Mrs. Decker >> present. Okay. Approval of the minutes from the February 2nd meeting. Are there any
concerns with the with the meeting minutes that are here? >> All good. Motion. >> I'll move that the minutes of February second be approved as circulated. >> Second. >> Second.
>> All in favor? I >> voice. >> I open the comments from the public section of the meeting. Seeing as there are none, I close this part of the meeting. Moving forward to the budget. Uh budget
workshops are starting this week. Our budget we talked about was given to Anna and uh we'll find out once the budget reviews are done where we stand.
Don't have any communications uh for the foresters report. Seeing his Dave is not here. I will read this as I did last month. Uh memo 2604
uh 45 Styles uh Avenue. So, first, thank you Rob for bringing up the first part of this to me. So, um the whole memo reads, "Resident sent the following email to uh Donselo. The huge tree in my front yard fell. Uh missed my house by a
foot. I understand the tree belongs to the township. Um that tree was taken care of by the road department when it was laying across the top. Uh they have asked us to take a look to the two trees to the left. Uh they're asking can these
be removed? I cannot risk this to the house. Um so the two things that I uh for this obviously we need to take care of the stump that's in their front yard. The one tree did take some decent enough
damage from the one that fell, but a good prune will take care of that and will prune the other one uh as well. So we have one stump uh 20 uh 12 to 24 at 535. Two total prunes one 12- 24 at 475
and then a 24- 36 at 600. >> I I just want to ask um I thought at the time it's hard it was hard to tell because of the snow there. I thought at the time this wasn't our tree and I haven't had a chance still because the snow hasn't snowbank hadn't completely
melted. So on styles we're we're at 10 feet, right? So if there's anything that that's the same as the other places in town. >> Well, it depends on the size of the roadway, too. But yes, traditionally it's 10 ft. >> So it's so I guess I'm trying to figure that out because I measured 14 and a
half feet for that. >> Okay. >> But like I said, I you know, I really would like to go back when the snow is clear and measure the stump again. I understand why the DPW might have thought because there was a huge snow bank there. It was really hard to tell where the where the edge of the road is
that particular stretch of styles has a very wide curb strip. I'm not sure if there were trees planted there previously or something and they put the sidewalk around them. I don't know. >> So, could we just hold on this because I just want to >> Yeah, I want to check on the on the >> Yeah, that's fine.
>> All right. But the other trees that you that are being >> Yeah, that's on town. That's those are town trees because those are on the side street. >> That's fine. We could look into the stuff. Does it cost us more if uh some like is DPW going to prune those or
>> No. So, we looked at them. D gave me his thoughts. The one that's really damaged really needs like a very like manicured kind of prune a little bit more than what the road department would be able to handle. Uh and the other one's kind of high up for for them to get to.
>> I'm just wondering if like does it make a difference costwise if if we did only go there once rather than twice. It's all just It's all the same. >> So, can we just put that on the worksheet, Karen, and I'll look at it? >> Measure measure just the stump.
>> We'll revisit the stump. Okay. Uh 2605. Uh this was a revised memo. The resident called in twice. Uh 26 overlook trail stating large branches that are falling
on her property. Wasn't sure if it's a town tree. Uh the tree is to the the left of her house. uh that she called back in a second time to review the tree in front of her home. Uh so the tree that's actually in front of her home is
not a town tree. That's past the 10 foot mark. The tree that is in front of more her neighbors property. That's the one that some of the branches came down in uh that is a 24 to 36 at 600. That is
also above the kind of Power line that's approved. Yeah. >> So the first memo is is the tree and then the second one is not >> correct. Yeah. >> My question is someone going to call and tell her >> Susan already did.
>> So is this the tree just sometimes I don't know >> these weren't very clear. This wasn't very clear. So like I I I get where you're going to come with this. >> What large branches are sometimes is a little bit discretionary. Um I there was a tree there. I saw it did have some
deadwood in it and I I thought maybe we got high winds and things might have fallen out of there. >> Is the tree that's right kind of like right where the hole is? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> It's that one. >> That one. >> It does have some dead wood up in it and it is over the >> especially with the transformer piece in
there. I figured that's probably one we should take care of. >> Uh 266. Uh this is one of the ones we kind of talked about last month. I put the memo through. So this is on Silvin Drive across from the Idol Wild Pool property.
Uh last month we removed the tree that was the urgent uh request that was kind of coming over the fence. Uh these are the two remaining ones that are leaning towards the fence. Uh there is a picture and it's black and white in here. Um so
one tree is a 36 plus which is a 1070 and then the other one is a 12 to24 535. >> Can I just these costs go up this year?
>> Yeah. Did we get the new rates? >> You have a new contract. >> So, it's on >> like I think it's three years. >> Yeah, there's three on the contract. Original contract. >> Thank you. >> You have it, right?
>> I have it somewhere. >> Uh, so 2607 um 29 Selvin Drive. Um, Commissioner Mley brought this up this morning. Large tree with dead wood in it. It is a 36 plus inch tree. Um, I put it on here for
prune. Then I kind of thought about it a little bit throughout the day. Um, and just kind I don't know if it what the condition is on the inside. Probably going to pull this one off and put this on the worksheet just so that he could get in there and make sure there's nothing kind of if it's not hollowed out
or anything. So, we're going to put this onto the worksheet. >> I think that's a good idea. Yeah, it doesn't it looks Can I just ask does anyone know I when I was I saw this when I was going to look at the old ID pool parking lot and it looked like there was also maybe I'm
just missed it before but there was a car accident or something on Silvin where there's two two town trees that are damaged a little bit further down >> the plow. >> Yeah. >> Oh looked like one of them had caught on fire. >> That's the plow rammed into it pretty hard.
>> All black. What did they do? >> I guess when >> they must have slid apart. >> I don't know if it burnt or not. That was when I was waiting to find out about that one, but it looks like when they kind of came around that curve must have been they slid and kind of dingd it
pretty uh >> I'm sure they didn't do it on purpose, but >> So, Michael, the new total like 2205 or am I reading this? >> Uh 3280. >> 3280. >> Yeah. Where am I?
>> Oh, never mind. >> I didn't. >> Yeah. So, we're putting a stump to re-evaluate. So, that comes down to 1075 and then the um >> the 29 Silven we're going to hold off. So, it'll be >> back off to 750, right? >> Yep. >> Okay.
>> 3280. >> So, do we need to do about that tree. I mean, the one the one tree that was hit by the plow is pretty Is there anything I don't think there's anything we can do, right? I mean, I I don't know if it's going to survive. >> Yeah, I he saw it when we were up there
looking at when he looked around at the other ones up there. Um, we're going to kind of keep an eye on that. I'll What I'll do is I'll get the exact address, put a memo in, we'll have it on the worksheet just to kind of keep an eye out on. >> That would be great. Thanks.
the new total 3280 for the work this month. Can I have a motion to approve the forers report? >> Second. >> Okay. All in favor? >> I So that was Mr.
and old business. Is there any old business? >> I'm not sure if it's old business uh or or not. a grant. Would that go under old business or new business? >> It's just an update. >> I guess you could do it under old business since we've chatted about it.
Yeah, go ahead. >> So, I just it's just a really quick update. the green communities grant. Uh I emailed Sal and his committee um his committee about that and I sort of gave him a rationale and a quote uh the cheapest quote I had gotten and uh answered a couple questions that they
had and they're taking a look at it and I've said that you know if they have any other questions or anything like that. So I guess they're considering it. So I don't know when it's going to be on the council agenda. I haven't seen the agenda for this week. I don't I don't think it's on there but hopefully it will be on there soon. S's not here.
Okay, >> that's great. Appreciate the >> A few questions about cost which were good and uh I think I answered those, but you might come back and have some more things surgery or something. >> Okay, great. No, appreciate that update.
Uh, anything else for uh old business? >> This is kind of >> this is old business. >> Yeah, I guess you could say this is kind of old business. >> Okay, so I'm going to pass this around. So, in keeping with the the uh grant subcommittee work, um I
mentioned this uh last month, but there's four different categories of grant programs available. This one is about the trees, the trees uh for schools grant. So, what I did was I just put together a one pager. It's on the front and the back
for you guys to read. No action tonight. I figure next month once you get a chance to um to read through it, we can determine if this is something we want to move forward. The biggest um difference is that we cannot submit it under the shade tree. It gets submitted
under with the school and we would work with the superintendent. There's I don't know if we have a sustainability person. I don't know who it is but working with the superintendent. He may or may not appoint someone else and we would work with them to facilitate you know working with Steve on the grant
writing the meetings and all that kind of stuff. There's no um cash You can see at the top of the page I listed, again, this is all publicly available information, so there might be stuff that's missing because I just didn't I didn't know about it on this cursory
glance about who was awarded the grant um last year. >> Right. >> I looked at this two weeks ago. I don't know if the new grant information is available for 2026 yet, but we're in good shape if this is something that this commission deterrence we want to
move forward with. So if you guys after you've got a chance to review it, you know, for next meeting, we can have a chat about it and figure out what we want to do. >> Okay, great. >> I think too, thanks Marian for doing this. I think that this grant uh I looked at it some last year, just one
thing to to note about it that's I think good, but I don't know how else feels about it or schools do. But um it doesn't have to just be on school grounds. It could be if students are walking to school, so maybe some of our paths or like Simon's Park or some other
So, so I think there's there's there's some nice opportunities here to move beyond just put planting trees on the school grounds because that might be more limited. So, I think it's great. So, thanks so much. >> Yeah, there's awards by county. So, you can see the award. I just pulled the Morris County ones, right? Um they're at
the top, but it's a sizable amount of money. So, we might be able to do some pretty good work with with us if it's something you know everybody please >> great thank you for bringing this and um everybody come with any questions or concerns for next meeting and we'll
discuss this in uh further detail okay moving forward to the new business section anybody have new business I just wanted to briefly just ask people's opinions um about espec
especially um Ran Frank do a planting uh doing some kind of planting survey whether that's in person like we go around in our areas or if we wanted to gather that information from residents somehow. I know we talked
about that before um to uh you know send something out whether the newsletter or whatever it is and and my thought about that is just I think it would be good because if we do get this green community grant we're not going to have enough money survey planting locations
because it would cost a lot. That cost as much as surveying trees. So, you know, if we did a full tree survey, we'd have the empty locations as well and maybe recommendations. We won't have that. >> So, I'm just I was just trying to think that this might be something that could help us. Um I think it it could be good
especially if you know we got an idea, okay, who wants a tree, but then also what are our criteria that we're trying to meet. I had said to Mike something like the size of the tree, are there overhead wires? Um, so we could do it different ways. Um, it's just a it's a thought that I had. Um, you know, some
residents have said to me uh over the years that they would like to have the opportunity to get on a list to request a tree. >> Did you take their names? >> Well, I have their names. I'd be happy to give them to you. >> Yeah, the tree planning committee
certainly would like to do that tree. for sure. But but I think that one of the advantages of doing it um this way would be to cast sort of a wider net so that and and then to think about okay how are we going to target our plantings
you know what's our what's our goal is it different species is it there are certain areas of the borrow that don't have the you know that have canopy loss that we might be able to target so sort of thinking about what is our purpose and then I think like when we apply for a grant for example this could help us
to show some evidence that we have you know a process that's ongoing and then tie in tie that application for whatever it is of the grant. Hey, we've been doing this. This grant would help us um to continue this work that we've been doing. So, it would start to gather some sort of data. So, it's just something to
think about in in Marian's spirit. I'll say, you know, I'm happy to talk about it now, but maybe just people could think about it and think about, okay, what are the pros and cons of this >> and maybe we can talk about it some next time. >> Yeah. No, absolutely. So, one of the >> what everybody has a district and I
think people should go drive through their district and do a windshield survey of where they think there might be trees. Write it down and we can start that way. >> And one of the things that I was >> sometimes people will say I need a tree
and it got so many there's no place to >> Well, yeah, that's definitely true. We would have to look. I mean, we would have to verify >> and I think There's people, as I discovered, that could use a tree, don't want a tree.
>> Well, this is another this is another >> But I was I was thinking that um one thing that might be good before we do that survey would be to think about what are the criteria we're looking for. So, do we want no, you know, no overhead wires maybe first so that we can do
larger trees? I I said this before. You've thought about this, Frank. Yeah. No, what we have been doing in this the past year is and there's wires above. We say we're going to put in a dog wood isn't a big tree. Okay. And it's
recommended for under so you wouldn't put an oak tree up there. So that's people like that and I can even see as I go through town trying to do my own little
a lot of that already done, but there's still plenty to do. >> Yeah. So, one of the things, two things that I was thinking about with this is um how would this just be sent like via an email blast that we could like kind of reach out to everyone because I was
thinking it twofold with this one for the next planes talk. I know we've talked about this. >> We did. >> Let's put something out there. So, I think the next planes talk the submission stuff at the end of April. So, I get something drafted prior to next meeting and we can talk through it.
>> I want to see what kind of um kind of answer we get from people before we're really going to like >> because I I like this idea of kind of maybe doing like an email blast out to everyone. I want to see if it if anyone even answers us back with the with the plans talk little ad that we're going to
put in there. >> Oh, what what are you what are you planning on putting in for the ad? >> So, just like kind of something that we've talked about last year, too. I was just thinking we could put something think together what the shade tree is. And this will be good for the fall planting. If you're interested, we'll
give a timeline by like a an end date. Send in a request that you would like a tree and then we could kind of vet that list and see what could possibly go there and as a phase one see if we get a lot of answers, which I really hope we
would, but if we don't, then we could see what our next step is. And if we do get a good then I would say maybe we could even cast that kind of wider net post this like first run of it. >> I think sure. I mean I that I'm very flexible about. I think that sounds
great. I think if we combined your this idea with Frank's idea if we had a survey and then we had and then we knew people who wanted trees. Yes. >> Then this would be this would be great. So I say great. Are you going to write it up and next meeting? I'm going to try to get everything out before next
meeting just so we can discuss it because I know we'll have a busy little agenda next meeting it sounds like already. But yeah, no, we'll get we'll get that taken care of. >> That's great. And Frank, when do you think we should do the Are you up against the deadline? >> No, I think by next meeting you should
get us some stuff because we're going to probably try to get recommendation for April. I would think >> I was I was actually I already got a couple places in the parks. >> Maybe it needs to wait till fall, too. I
mean, if it's too rush, you know, I mean, it's it's a longterm process. >> Yeah. You're not going to get it done, >> right? I don't think but >> yeah, I just want to set expectations >> and and you know, you don't have to get 100,
>> right? We don't have enough money. >> The expectation is there's a budget constraint here as well. So, you know, we should just make sure that there's expectations that because you want a tree >> doesn't mean >> it's going to take a while.
>> It might take a little bit. >> But I'd like this ideally is if this works hopefully like the way that we're hoping that it would work, we would have a nice pipeline >> for the fall and next spring and the following fall instead of us just having
to be like, "Okay, let's go talk to this person who's got a strip there." and then you go to talk to them and it's a no and then you have to find another strip. So hopefully this is just like a good pipeline. Uh but with that being said, I would definitely like to see a couple locations for April. Um so we
could kind of start that process. I kind of want to do something similar like we did last year. We did a spring and then two falls. Um obviously if the the budget allows us to do this because we did 42 trees last year. I'd like to do
between 45 and 50 if possible. >> It'll be interesting to see too after all these storms have said and done what trees might have >> not made it this year need to be repl. You know, >> I will say from a snowstorm perspective,
obviously we talked about one tree here, right? >> There was only one other tree >> the whole winter that's come down and it was a smaller tree uh up Sun Valley Way. So I I think that's telling a pretty good tale about the job that we're doing
that two major snowstorms and a bunch of other snowtorrms and we only lost two trees. >> Well, with the trap, too. >> And with the I have to say our road department, what a job they did. >> They've done fantastic work. >> Anything else for uh new business? Oh,
one one more thing. Um Rob and I were chatting a little bit today. Um I am working on the draft of the policy for prior prioritizing pruning and removal. So that will be out to the commission
before the next meeting. We will uh review it with any suggestions and comments at the meeting, take it back tweaks and then discuss and move forward with anything in the May meeting.
So that would be part of our policy. >> Correct. >> Very nice. >> Anyone have anything else? >> Okay. I uh would uh ask for a motion to adjourn this meeting. >> So moved.
>> Second. >> Second by >> it doesn't matter. >> All right. >> Okay. We need to vote. We need to do a vote to >> We need a voice. We need a voice. I'm
sorry. Voice vote. I Okay. Thank you.