Put it on top of here maybe. Well, then it fall down. Don't touch it though. Yeah, but it doesn't have me in it. You did it on purpose. No, me and you're out. That's it. Broadcast. As long as the board's on there. Okay. Please join
me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 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 daily record and posted on the bulletin board burrow hall roll call please. Mrs.
Dy present Mr. Ditz Mr. Lombardi present Mr. Mier present Mrs. Stecker present and I'd like to state that Mr. Dubie is here and same with the council Mr. Cortez.
Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Approval of minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? No. I think there's a mistake that needs to be corrected. Really? Sure. U copy
is. So I think Karen or whoever wrote this, he swapped around the votes. So it says that I voted against the foresters report and for the tree planting and that's the opposite. It was the opposite. It is. So
So that'll just need to be corrected. So here's so this needs to be all yes. So the names for the first one. Next page right here. Right here. Oh, about the 12 trees and the eight trees are we
talking about? Yeah. So, I voted against the planting, but I didn't vote against the forester and swapped back the for the other way around. Okay. So, it's going to go on here. So, you have Mr. Lombardi. Mr. Lombardi read the motion
to approve Mr. Drew seconded by Mr. voice that you but this one is different 46 I know you did it fine thank you a motion now for the minutes
so moved second thank you any comments from the public seeing there's none I close that section of the communications. I just want to say thank you uh to everyone who was able to make it to Harbor Day. Uh was a fantastic
event. I think it went went very well. Um the students are really interested. The uh trees are delivered to them later on in the day uh as were the ones to the library. So I think everything went really well uh with that there.
And um I called D But maybe possibly we could not pay for these trees because there was quite a few that were dead and the way they were to us and the whole nine yards. And before I said anything,
they said they are trying their best to process it that we do not pay for the trees. So I just let you next year I will have a connection to get the little trees. I'm pretty sure. Perfect. Okay. And if I have this
connection, you will get them. It's one of your uh competition that might be okay. And I have pictures of the trees if anybody who wasn't there would like to see them the state that they
were in. Well, you see the problem was is that they we were actually figured we were getting the little seedlings in the little thing and we hand them out and everything is nice and everybody is happy. But it wasn't like that this year. It was in these bundles. They died
in February, right? And the thing was until we finally got it down because we got a spray bottle. So, we wrap them up, spray them, and stick them in an envelope. And it it went so much faster, right? In the parking lot.
Yeah. Some of the root wads were larger than the tree itself. So, that helps for When did this happen? In the parking lot after I left. You showed up by UPS to the school. No, they showed up here at like 1:00. 1:00.
And I was all excited. I thought they were just going to take the whole box and leave, but it wasn't like that. Two bundles of trees wrapped together like this with just roots and Right. And actually, there's a whole bunch of trees if anybody wants outside the annex. You're welcome to as
many as you like. How tall are they? Ceilings. If you want some, you're welcome. I I'll ask people. Okay. It will work there. So the tree itself's about this and the roots are about this. So is that why I didn't see any publicity for the library
because it was like No, the library hasn't library. Was there a announcement that went out somewhere? They were supposed to announce we never said anything that they weren't getting delivered to the library. You know, 35 35. Maybe I missed the And then what
about for our school? I don't think they got theirs, did they? No, she's we're still working. Wow. If they still have them, I don't know cuz I never saw anything about it. I wouldn't have known as she had those. That's what they look like. Should we talk to the library about telling people
about the roots get dry? You're dead. Well, I think she was cuz I just when they came in, she was telling people said they weren't delivered yet. And then Karen said they coming in. So I called back and said, "You're going to get them today." And Michael dropped them off, right? Yeah. We went and
dropped them off. That's what they look like. That's disappointing. Sorry. Well, thank you guys for It wasn't working. And it was a very hot day. It was a little warm that afternoon. It died because they went all the way to
Chattanooga, right? I just I couldn't understand. Well, well, now we know. Now we know. Now we know. Thank you. Thank you to Ro and Frank, too, for planning Arbor Day. I didn't want you to and appreciate the
and the borrow beaver was good again. So Jones watches us. Thank you Joan for the idea. Appreciate that. We're gonna keep up with that. I think it and I just want to say just to continue to meet with uh John Signner, the head
of DPW, had a couple things done uh by them this this month. Um there's an empty lot at town property across from the ID pool location. They did some uh removal work there where they could. Um there's another tree that's on the
meeting list that they can't get to. Um they finished taking down the dead pines uh along the lake in Watn Park and then they did a pruning on Trobridgeidge Road. That's all I have for
communications. How welcome you're away with that road before you report. We are very very lucky to move into the foresters report. All right. Um we didn't talk about the budget yet, have we? Did we skip that? Did I miss it?
No. Our 25 budget request was approved. All of it? Yes. No. 95700. What you requested? It stayed flat from last year. That's that's fine. That's what That's what happened.
So this says 967, but it's No, it's 967. 967. Same budget as last year. Same budget. So did we have a um on this on the I don't know if this is the time to talk about this, but on the budget uh tally that you give us normally, Karen, I
changed it. So actually that reflected from last Well, it was very easy to be because it was the same budget, so nothing really had to change. You know, the only thing that had to change is the breakdown. Okay.
Like I know you changed like stump removal to 7,000. I think I Why did we get more money? Working on it. We have to I mean, I thought it was a good budget. It was a very good budget. We have a lot of, you know,
things that came up and, you know, we kept the budget neutral. thinking about lowering it. I did whatever I could, put my feet down and uh um you know the what when Michael came and and gave the presentation, it was the first
time that at least I remember the someone coming to our board and really educating us what's involved. Like right now with the trees that are blooming, I'm always looking up. I hope I had a car, but I'm hoping all the trees I want to see little buds and a lot of them still don't have it. I'm like, "Oh no,
wait. Come on bud, please. But um they also want to know about the canopy. I don't want to take a lot of your times like respectfully was where was it now compared to like five years ago or 10 years ago or one year ago and
I'm going to see if I can work with with yourself or or Frank with the county to get maps or someone give us a little stranger that you brought that up so because I have a report I'm going to hand out. I I and I had no idea they requested this. Well, they asked me for it and I just it was last meeting so it
was Thursday. Oh, find out Monday. So, it No, I don't mean you didn't tell me. It was just very coincidental actually. It was very coincidental and and and and there's a lot of questions that um the the council had a little bit of a skepticism and I I think because they just didn't know what's involved with
shade tree and and and and trees. We just go there, cut things down, plant things. No, it's very and and and and Michael was very good at about how uh how you know we do our best to get the max for our for our buck, but I um I I I see a lot of the work being u and I'm
not trying to be in any way offensive more um uh I don't see that much that much preventive. I see more a lot of reactionary stuff here. And the reason why we can't have it is because we'd have to spend a lot of money to be pre
you know proactive instead of reactive. But we're doing the best we can and uh I think we're moving closer and the town is understanding it. But with that report that's going to help a lot. I'm gonna take your time. I hope you brought a cup of coffee because it's going to take 15 minutes for me to go through it.
But first I work to get some data and I appreciate and I appreciate your time and I hope everyone understands that it you know they hear 96. No, you got to got to cut a couple of trees. You got to plant a couple of trees. It's not that. It's very a lot more involved with that. And also uh you know they want
independent uh forester thing at least in case we have any questions which you know I I talked to you about it Dave and um that's where I'm at with that and I I think we're moving in the right direction and I think next year we're going to get more money um and also last
year because of the uh let's just say the council wasn't as educated as it was now and and there's a lot more to learn when you guys had asked the money it was a straight because we felt that we just didn't know
what you guys 126 126 on trees and please I'm not anyway uh any of you hard work and I I counled everyone myself appreciate it but I I think education is the route had that
situation come up now or after your report that 26,000 would have been approved but it was only not approved because they just didn't have enough information right I guess I don't want to go out of your time. Thank you. No, thank you. That's really helpful. Actually, that's
why it's helpful to have you so actively involved in uh in the in the meeting because you are an evangelist for what we do and you know that it makes a big difference when we're not there. That's a very nice analogy.
Uh when you know when we're not there to represent ourselves, you you know, uh you're able to do that for us. So, thanks. I do it with all my heart. I see that all you guys uh work very hard and and love marsh planes and and and more importantly the the safety of marsh
planes because especially these these dead trees where children walk or play that's a priority for me. Exactly. That's why these paths making notes and please blossom. Hopefully it'll work. That's why we've
been doing a lot of work um in the parks with DPW. Couldn't agree more. God bless DPW is right what they do. And yeah, John and his team does a great job. Amazing. And also you Thank you. Thank I asked partly
because I was wondering like we had talked at a meeting um about trying to figure out about how we're going to get money or if we're going to have a motion to get money or whatever it is for accreditation. Um he said the gap between what the grants would fill and the other thing
was about $15,000 or $13,000. I don't know if we could spread that out over years or what. So um I just like that to be we don't have to decide that right now especially Frank's not here but uh I think that you know going
forward hopefully you'll be more persuaded after you see the information I put together. I think we really need to do that. Okay. Um, if we can kind of maintain as much as we can for non-emergency things, um, some amount of money. I don't know if we can split it
over two years or not. I'm not sure how the accounting work. That's a question for the finance team, but we could take that to them. Thank you. All right. So, we jump in. Uh, memo 2517, 108 Glen Brook Road. There's two
trees are concerning on the Homer Avenue side um that both of them need to be pruned. One is a 24 to 36 inch and the other is a 36 inch plus and the other one is a 24 to 36 24 to 36 and the other one's 36 plus
the total cost is 1300 correct 18 Watnong um they said it was dead it's not a dead tree but if you come from the um winding way there's a large cavity in it, but I think we can prune it out and keep the tree going. So, it'll be a 36 in plus prune.
2519. I'm sorry. Do we put the cost on there now or Okay, just Okay. I'm sorry. 2519. and it's the uh Court Road Park. There's a large pine tree. Uh it's right
near the corner of 202. Uh happened a few years ago. Some storm damage in it. Um it looks like there's a cavity, but I don't want to jump the gun. Um so what I propose is the next month or so, we'll take a look at it and I'll come back once my guys can get in there and take a better look at it. And just keep keep on
the worksheet. Yeah. For review, please. Did you guys talk about this before, Mike? SL No, that was a memo that came through with Mr. Stark. Does the um the the dash Sorry, there's no cost. Yeah, no question.
That's going on the worksheet. Yeah, there's a giant hole in the tree, so they're going to have to take the bucket truck into the hole and see the dash is zero. In the 2520 DPW uh took down a couple trees, so there's two stumps to grind.
Uh both stumps are 12 to 24 in. 2521 uh 26 Lake View. Um the only dead tree I could find is on his property. It's about good 15 to 20 feet off the road. Um, but other than that, there's nothing either front or the back was property
along Brandis. And I've already left a message with too, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing. And we we did work with uh this house in the past and there's a tree that was planted um probably the year before that's in
the front that's now blooming. So, I'm not sure if that's what he had originally been talking about or not. Okay. uh 53 Silvin. Um that was kind of the area I talked about earlier. DPW is doing some work in, but there's a huge uh ashtree in the back and part of it
broke out, hit their shed. Um so it's dead. It's stone dead. It needs to come out. Um it's 36 plus. Um but there's no stump grinding on that. Can I just ask a question? If it came down the shed, was there damage on the
shed? Did it an insurance claim? Is it insurance as far as like she didn't say I spoke to her. She didn't say she followed the claim. I mean the shed wasn't destroyed. It hit the shed. There's like a little damage to one shingle. But it wouldn't be the
town that she's asked it's just she's going through the homeowners. Going through homeowners because then that's taking care of her policy versus taking care of. Okay. 2523 the Presbyterian Church on
Hillview. Um there's a maple there. It has dead limbs. Actually, I think one or two are actually cracked in the tree that needs to be pruned out. Um so that's a 24 to 36 inch prune. One there's one in there that's loose. I don't know if you saw it or not. It's pretty pretty large over the side. I
sent a picture to everybody. Oh, you did? Okay, great. 2524 611 Road. pear tree. There's some dead limbs in it. Um I have not spoken to it, but I'm almost positive DPW can take care of it. Look at it. Okay.
Um and the last was I guess request from to look at some of the pear trees to fertilize in front of Burough School. Um so those three I would suggest and then there's two on the island by the train station. Yeah. So that's onto the next line underneath. So, it's a three pear trees
that were brought up at the at the prior month's meeting. Those are the ones right in front of the school year so to be fertilized. And then there's two pear trees in front of the rail uh model railroad uh club's building that need it. And then
we're going to start fertilization of the merchant block and moving down speed well. So, starting with uh 12 pear trees. Okay. Are they just going to be the railroad in the merchant block? Yeah, they're going to from the barber shop
from the Yeah, from the merchant block down whenever we could get through for 12 trees. [Music] So, I'll we'll start and work our way down and we'll I'll let you know what how to count. We'll figure out what 12 gets us and then we'll we're going to start with 12 and then as budget allows
we'll continue down. So, you did 12 on top of the other five. Yes. Okay. I just want to make sure Yeah. I know we talked about before some of those it's probably a DPW thing but some of those trees are hitting the buildings so maybe they I'll talk to
John maybe John I can walk you know and see didn't one question the sign and then they moved right he would because it was blinding his sign yeah blocking the sign one Tony the owner of Tony's pizza. He's complaining
that they've been hitting his building and he doesn't like it. Checked it a couple of times. Yeah. They're growing. Maybe you and John if you walk in front just he can take a note of which one. I'll make a note and I'll see what John what he what he can and can't do and then we'll have to work on it from
there. Okay, that will work. Um Oh, that's everything I have. Sorry. So, that's um as far as everything goes. So the two sections with the memo work is 4160 and then the worksheet work and the
additional pair trees that's 2680. So alto together I ask for a motion to approve this work to be done in the amount of $6,840. So move on. We got to do a vote. All in favor? I I Okay, voice spoke. All in
favor. Okay, good. A worksheet. We're taking off the burrow school. Yep. That's But we're going to leave. Well, Brad is that's her tree that stays on there. Yes, the fur [Music] lo I think until she calls again. Okay.
All right. We'll just let that go. I just had a comment about the worksheet here. So, um I ruined my bike with my which was fun um but hard for her. Over to Community Park Sunday morning and I looked at the site over on the hill in
community park and I don't know if this count is only for trees that David did or something but I counted 33 stumps there not four. So that was you only did four. So it's four. So are we keeping a record of how many total trees we've cut down including DPW or only the ones that
Dave did? I only record of the trees that are being taken there. Not asking you necessarily, Karen, because I think you probably have enough to do, but I think we should do that in terms of our because I mean replacement. Yeah. In
terms of our replacement um they cut a lot down for example by community park besides the six that you guys put in the other but then DPW went there with a lot of smaller ones. Yeah. You know, some of them are small, some of them were very small. I mean, we could think about what
we want to count in terms of our count. We don't need to count every sapling, but there were there were a lot of I counted more than four large stumps there unless things had already been cut down there previously. There's a there quite quite a bit of Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty big area. So, they did they did quite a bit before we got in there. So,
Dave took care of was it four or six? Um, and then they probably did about a dozen. Yeah. So there's bad. Why why are we keeping track of what DPW is doing or the DPW manages that stuff?
Right. I know John for replacements. Correct. I think they're talking about the stuff removal. So if DPW removed them, they never remove stuff. No wants to us to keep a tally of that versus getting that information from
DPW, whatever they're working on. Well, I think, you know, um it's our job to manage the forest of the town and um just because Dave doesn't cut the tree down doesn't mean that we're not losing a tree. DPW goes in there and cuts down
whatever I counted 337, whatever it is, that's a large number of trees that are being removed that just disappear. When you see the report that I'm going to give you today, you're going to see why I think it's important that we keep track of what that is. because we are losing trees at a phenomenally high
rate. Well, maybe a report will convince me. I I I just whether it does or not, it's just a fact. I mean, no, I my only point is why I get why you want a total count, but if DPW is already doing it, why do
we need to do it as well? Why wouldn't we just collect the information from them? Do they keep a record of how many trees they've removed? Actually, what they'll do is if they If they remove a tree, they'll call me like they did those two trees. The stump has to be
removed. So, I don't know if they're aware that these stumps have to be removed. No, the stumps in this wooded area that's in discussion don't need to be removed. So, the what what they'll call in for for stump removal if it's in in front of a house or something like that. So, these trees like you may have
seen 33 stumps. I don't know if they're in an area that have to be removed. They don't. Okay. They don't. It's a wooded location and that's the area we discussed last well servo are they going to plant there just okay there good but
you see if they needed to be like they would tell you they would tell you but otherwise you don't know no they would never they would if they feel that there they took a tree down and the stump has to be removed and a lot of times Dave is involved also they would tell me and they'd say Karen you have to do a memo
up for the stumps right so this is my point Mary in terms of our tree losses is a black hole because if it's someplace where there's no stump being being removed, we have no record of it. I'm I'm sure John has a record of it. When when I meet with him like I do every month, I'll I'll have a report for
you next month. If he has a record of all the trees that he's removed, that would be great. And I think we should incorporate that into our own record so that we have a sense. Okay. That that's I know. Yeah. Because like this area in particular you're talking about, some of those trees could have come down 10
years ago and You know, and it's sad if we're soldiers trying to that's why I'm trying to understand like does it does it matter overall that they were taken down 10 years ago. We're just noticing it. We're saying in 2025 we're including that count of 10 trees. I'm just making that
up. Whatever the number is, the 30 trees we talked about. I'm just trying to figure that out. The shade tree condition is now looking at trees that are 50 and 60 years old. Sure. So, and that's why we're having storm damage and crash and everything else. We'll take care I'll take care of it with John
because I'm sure that he just give me a number and I can put the DPW we'll put it into the minutes and report for next month. Absolutely. I just want to say the more information like stuff like that, the more helpful it is for me. Yep. Absolutely.
I guess just the fresh the fresh cuts, even though it's dead. You could see the fresh cuts. And we're not going to keep track at all. They're already splintering and it's already We're not going to be able to keep track of every tree that falls in the forest or whatever, obviously. But if if we're we're saying that they should go in and
be cut down, whether it's DPW or Dave, I think we should have some sort of record of it. Should be kept by That's fine. We'll That'll be in everything for next month. I think it's perfect for replacements. Yeah, those questions backward looking versus
I don't have anything for old business since we kind of talked through some communications. Um, anyone have new business? I have, sorry, I'm that guy tonight. I have old business. Sure. Um, so, uh, two things. I don't know if this is the right place to talk about it or
not. It always confuses me a little bit. But in terms of planting, so the the new trees were planted, they're very small. I think Karen told me that you and Frank had talked to them. Can we talk about that just a little bit? Yeah, sure. Uh we spoke to Servos. Um they're making it right uh with us with
the new round of trees that are coming into town to the ones that we discussed last month. Instead of giving us the two and a half to the two to two and a half that we requested, they're making it right on the smaller trees that they gave us and are giving us three and a
half to 4 in trees. Okay. So, you told them, "Hey, look, these are correct. These are not what we contracted for." Um, I think I'm not positive, but the tree did you look at the tree or has anyone looked at the tree? I don't know whose area it is at 21 Oldwood Road.
Correct. It looks like that tree was not planted in our right of way back. It was not okay. Now, we're aware that they've been instru with the larger caliber of trees. They were informed that it was a
mistake. Okay. I don't know. And and then I think that goes to maybe, you know, that we need to um check these planting locations. I don't know if the resident put a stake up there and that was, you know, not knowing because a lot of people don't know what is the town right of way and what isn't. Maybe the resident thought,
hey, I'd like a tree here. The borrow was offering me a tree and they didn't understand that it had to go on our planning strip or if it was just an accident by servo or what. So, most of the stuff in communicating with servo was a mess on their part. Um, we had conversations because I know one of the
houses that you went to, you guys had marked out where it was supposed to go. It did not go where the state was. Yeah. So, but part of the problem probably was that it was so long between when I visited the houses and when they were actually planted. But the steak was still there, though. Oh, it was
I pounded that steak in. Well, then No, the steak was in the exact spot that the homeowner uh wanted. It just What was going on there? They just weren't different. So, which is why they're going to make it up to us. That's disappointing. Okay. So, yeah, I'm glad
to hear that. Thanks for dealing with that because I I saw the size of the trees and what they look like and I said I had just bought some trees for my own house and I'm saying to myself $450 I'm getting trees that are 7 8 ft high that are, you know, for 250 or
something. What are we doing here? So yeah, they gave us uh inch to inch and a half because that's what they had had available at the time. Um they grabbed the wrong a lotment of trees for us. All right. I'm glad we're making Yeah, that's really good. Thanks for doing that.
Um, and then the other thing, um, that I have to say, even though, uh, it might make people a little bit, uh, I wish we're angry here. Um, you know, when we voted, I voted against the tree planting motion last time, um, in part because of the community park location, but, uh,
that I can sort of let go, but I didn't understand the logic of planting trees in that park on Janeway. And I had emailed you about it, Mike, and said, "Trying, can you go over there and try and look?" And you had said you're going to see if you could figure out
what was going on over there. In my account, there's eight mature trees over there, and there's three newly planted trees over there that have stakes. And the park is the size or half the size of my backyard. And I can't understand with
all of the other gaps we have in town why it is that we're planting trees there. So two, so two things on that. One is to my understanding the people that did the partial donation lived in that general area and was speaking with other
residents in that general area. That park or you know small location of town property at one point was very heavily populated with trees. So our goal for those homeowners in that general area was to repopulate it to what it had.
Right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think this just sort of goes to something I've been saying for a while, which is um you know, if these trees are planted in donation, I I didn't think we were telling people these are the trees. I thought we had a discussion about that that there were not specific trees that
were donated in people's memories because that created problems. If that's the case, you know, and it's in someone's memory, I don't want to make a huge deal about it. I just think the larger point for me is not the two trees. It's that, you know, I I don't understand the rationale behind some of the things we're doing. And if someone
asks me, well, why, you know, and I vote for it, I have to be able to explain to them why it is that we're planting trees over there. All right? And if we don't give a rationale to people, they're going to fill in the rationale for themselves. And often times, that's not flattering for us. So, I think we need
to be very clear with all the decisions we're making about what it is that we are doing and why. Doesn't mean we have to do it my way. I always say that. That's not what I'm saying. But I feel like it has to be arent for the residents so that they understand even if they don't agree with the decision
why it was made sure so I hope that going forward when we do planning we can think about okay what what are our priorities for planning why are we planning here instead of there and we can have a discussion about that because it seems
very halfhazard to me um we had uh you know at the beginning of the year we talked that we were going to have we're all going to gather five planning locations I don't know if anybody Everybody else did. The only person I saw do that was Frank. And then we voted for not all of his locations, but a
bunch of them. I submitted some. I know you said that you left them off last time. I didn't see any from anybody else. So, you're right. This is, you know, what it looks to me like is there's one person that's making the decisions. No, there's not one person that's making the decision. We're all
voting on this stuff. That's not a fair. my main priority and you put a no on it and I tried to compromise with you when I had said to put 12 trees in community park and I tried to compromise with you and came down to eight. Okay. You wanted to point out the fact that all these stumps were there. My goal because that
area was so impacted by the disease from the ash trees and all the other trees that were in there that were all dead. My goal is to replant that entire hillside and that's still my goal for this year. So there is rationale behind everything and no one calls any shots that's on this committee. This is a
committee and we talk through things. Well, I hope so. Um I do have to say too like I don't disagree with all the things that are on your but you never brought the sheet that you brought to the council. You never brought to us to discuss. That agenda was never brought to us to discuss. We never voted on that agenda. You went unilaterally and did
that. That's not true. It's not where did that I didn't even get a copy as a paper. No, I'm talking I'm talking about the agenda sheet that Mike just said this is my agenda. It should be all of our agenda. I don't have a personal agenda. I It's a agenda based on a
saying we need to it should have been discussed amongst all of us. We're supposed to be a committee the sheet with the planting that Karen gave us last time. You had a bunch of things. I'm not saying I even disagree with them. I thought a lot of them were good ideas. I'm just it it's frustrating when we're not running the committee
properly and things aren't being discussed the way that they should be discussed. Sure. This is unreasonable that I that that things should be discussed before we bring them to the council. I don't think this is an unreasonable I think you have a different opinion than some of the other people on the council
because I certainly don't think that we haven't had discussions about things. I don't remember discussing what our agenda for the year was. Did we discuss that? There really is no agenda for the year. We take things as they come. But
our goals, we do have a set of goals and we talked about them at earlier meetings after I after I spoke to the council. When we reviewed our meeting in February, I went through everything that I spoke about in front of the council. We never voted on that is what I'm saying. I mean, my experience on a
working on a committee is that the committee discusses something amongst themselves. Now, if you were short on time or whatever, that's fine. I'm not trying to, you know, but I need to bring this up because it's there's a pattern here of things not being discussed. If I hadn't said something about the budget,
we would have never talked about the budget. All right. So, we Wow. Do you realize how you're coming across to everybody? I'm not worried about the budget is the budget. It was approved by the council. It was kept flat year over year and it was fine. I didn't have any other
questions about it. I understood from the logic that I got back from our council liaison on the budget and it was fine. There was to me there's nothing to discuss on it but but we're a committee and like you're not telling me that. So you should shouldn't there be a report to the committee. This is what I'm
saying. I don't know if you guys discuss things and when I'm not around and maybe so maybe you don't understand. I don't discuss I don't discuss shade tree with with with anyone on this committee. feel like there's I give a report to our council liaison after every meeting so that he could take it to the council.
That's the only other person that I have a discussion with. I'm not I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is I think that we need to be more open about the way things are done. Sure, we can work on that then. And I think we need to follow the proper process for discussing
things whatever they are planting whatever our goals are for the year. That's the way that the committee is wrong. In my understanding, Michael went to the council because they thought we the shaker commission were
just spending money just spending money agreeing with David. Oh, cut that down. Sure. Plan. So, he went to defend us to give him the reason why we exist. He didn't go to the council on his own agenda. He went for us. And then
I believe January we talked about goals and objectives. I mean and we we also determined and decided that based on how trees are with the drought and all of the environmental
conditions that it is near impossible to do a full year calendar because we don't know. You can't tell me now that we're going to need 20 trees planted in, you know, October or 40 trees need to come down. So, we have a more short-term
proactive approach to things versus a longer term plan. Now, I I guess in your presentation when you're talking about canopies and stuff that is a higher level forwardlooking plan that maybe some of that can be implemented, but I personally don't think I think it would
be not a good use of our time to try to out a year's worth of things, but if there is a canopy component to the plan, then maybe we can work something like that in. So, I personally don't don't think that there's anything different that we should be doing. I mean, the
only time there's conversations here is because the what we're able to do is in committee. You can't do a lot, you know, side conversations. We could meet, right? We could put committees together and meet like we could have two people working together and then they could
come up and they could discuss. I mean I think this is the way that a lot of committees work together that people work on the task whether it's Row and Frank working on Arbor Day or whatever else. We could do this. That wasn't the proposal. That wasn't anything of what you just said. I'm responding to what you said.
We can't discuss outside of the meeting. I'm saying but that's not true. We can discuss outside. Right. in your comments where you seem to be very unhappy with the way the the committee is working and working with our team that maybe that is something that could we could consider but you hadn't brought that up. Okay.
Well, it's exactly in line with what I'm saying which is that we discuss things and think about them carefully before we do which is what I feel like has not been happening. And I understand that I'm the one who disagrees but so be it. That's okay with me. I feel like I have to say this because if I'm going to be
on here I want things the right way. I've been on here for two and a half years. I have never said that things have to be done my way in terms of what things get done or or been upset. But I do think that there's a process that needs to be followed. And the basic process of a governmental committee is
that things are discussed before they're presented that we have that we have a of a shade tree commission is that we have a plan about what we're doing. So, I'll leave it there. But, I mean, it if it's upsetting to you guys, I apologize. But,
it was upsetting to me last meeting to feel like I had said many, many meetings in a row, we need to have a plan. We should walk around. And I tried to soft pedal it. I decided I wasn't soft pedaling anymore. So, that's talked to a person's individual to help this. I sent
two emails since the last meeting and they were not replied to. But you you can't send emails to the entire committee. You can't respond to them. Yes, I I I understand that I can't because of the open meetings law, right? But there's no reason that someone couldn't write back. Thanks. That's not
a discussion. Is it? Is that illegal? That's what that's what that's what the If I'm mistaken, then it's fine. But I'm just saying. No, I mean, of course. I'm sure writes back things when Karen sends
something. I didn't think it was illegal to do that. No, I have no idea. Take it as a learning. If you want to your presentation. So, are we going to reconsider the trees in J Park? The answer is no. just
because there are I mean we can make a motion but that we're uh we're going to say that they're done for the residents and so we'll leave that alone with the understanding that from now on I hope that we'll discuss more carefully what it is that we're doing. Sure. How many
ash trees did we take down close to a dozen ashes that came down that it looked nice. It was a nice to that neighbor. So you don't want to keep that up. That's not it. I mean the thing is
we have a lot of other places. So it's just again like if that's the decision we make, it's the decision we make. But it doesn't feel like it's being discussed. That's what I'm always trying to say. It's not about the location. It's about like are we making thoughtful decisions? That's what I'm frustrated about.
Where were others? There are other locations. I thought Mike had good ideas in his agenda uh about putting stuff in the in the in the parks near playground equipment like that. That would be a possibility. Maybe there's some other places we could look at too. I mean, if they're coming tomorrow, we'll put them
where we're putting them. But, you know, I just uh I couldn't understand that. And to go to your point, Marian, when I did say something, it was never responded to, right? I said, "Hey, can we investigate this?" "Yes, I'm going to." And then it was just voted through. Not that we answered it, but we all did.
I mean, we all read the email. No, not that one. I'm talking about when I emailed Mike, you know. So, I just I I just want a rationale so the resident asks me, I can explain to them why we're doing what we're doing. That's what I'm asking for. Okay. I don't think that's No, it's not. We'll we'll take that
moving forward. Someone will let me know when the trees planted and I will write the Are they being planted tomorrow at 9:30? Well, let me know when they're done and I will write the I have the information. Who's going to be there? You going to be there too, Frank? Mike will be there. You want to
be there, Rob? I cannot be there tomorrow. Thank you for inviting me. Okay. And I think Frank is going to be there. And poor Frank was there waiting on Thursday and he's called here. They're not here.
Um, and if someone wants to take a picture, I can put a picture with the Thank you. I'm going to handrate it and I'll I'll print it out for that tomorrow. I'll send it with the Thank you. We'll let her know. Okay. I don't have any new business. So,
proceed with your study. So, I just had a a couple other things. So, um, for the agenda, I would like it if we could to make the agenda more specific for Gold Cross and the public. This is sort of part of my comment I just made. It's very difficult for me to be able to
review things or to know what we're going to be talking about if it's not on the agenda. Obviously, I understand things come up at the last minute. I don't think Karen should be responsible for that. So, maybe one of us should solicit things for the agenda. Um, usually our agenda is basically just a
template, right? So, um, I think In in my experience with an agenda, it has, you know, more what we're going to actually talk about on under those things. All right. Well, just so you know, first the report, you know what that is, but then they have to specifically think me,
correct? Yes. The budget, you know, comments from the public. So technically, the only thing is is if there is old business or new business, right? I think we should be soliciting that for people. Correct. But this time nobody said like a lot of times new business arbor day old business would be
arbor day if you want to discuss it you know. All right but other than that I I don't know what else you want to put on there unless you want to tell me what to put on there. Well um first of all I didn't I know you have a lot to do so I I wasn't trying to make sure for you
guys. But if I I could give you this and you could just tell me and then you I could email it to to Mike and both of you discuss it. But technically, if there is something in old business, someone will tell me. If there's something for new business, but everything else is basically answered,
right? Or unless you want it more specific. I just thought if you know, if there's things like, for example, if I have things I want to talk about, then it would give these points I'm gonna like like the agenda, then that would be something that we could everyone can think about before we come to the meeting. And that's sort of the way if to go back to Marian's point, if I'm
incorrect and we're not, you know, we can't communicate at all. I think if we only have four people we can communicate, but if we have five, we can't. Was it three? Three. Okay. Okay. Well, that that's what I'm saying, Rob. If you have new business like here, if you told me you're going to discuss this, I would put it on here, right? You
call parent and I want to just put Rob is going to present a report. Yeah. If you want Okay. Well, well, yeah. Well, it just and I mean I know what I'm going to do but it would be helpful for me to then I can actually you know if someone says hey I want to look at that then I can go and
look at it before the meeting and then I you know otherwise I'm making decision or I'm reading something yeah but nobody told me anything I'm not blaming you Karen I think it's on us I think it's on us as okay but okay then anybody that has old business or new business that
sometimes new things will come up of course okay that that would be wonderful space it out a little bit better. What is so different this year than the last two and a half years? Like this agenda had never changed, but this year you want you're having problems with it. I
when you know Steve Rosen Jim Davidson, I don't I don't know where you're coming from. Do you think we're not being forthcoming with information? Um I think that uh you know, my first couple years on here,
I was learning uh how the committee worked and um relatively new in town and um you all know each other and do things outside of it and I'm the new person and
I was reticent to speak up when I saw things that I didn't agree with and I decided that this year I was going to speak up. Okay. Okay. Sure. In the Revolutionary War, people died. The first amendment, you could speak up.
So, I appreciate it. Thank you for your general support. When you don't speak up, that we have a problem. Anyone, anyone, any It's not easy to sit here when everyone disagrees with me and speak up. No one disagrees with you.
Just I'm trying to do what I think is the right thing to do by pointing this stuff out. Um, so we talked about the removal of the stakes. I wanted to check in with Dave. Dave, what is the timeline on removal of stakes? Is it two growing seasons? Is that what we should be looking for? It's two growing seasons.
Yeah, we just generally a year. Okay. So, so after a year, we should take the stakes off as long as the tree is seems to be not wobbly or whatever. And if there is and there's probably some kind of other issue, if it's still wobbly after two growing species, um, I mean,
and then it may be big, like you said, You can leave them on for another year. It's not going to hurt the growth or long-term effect of the tree. It's when they're, you know, get three, four, five years, you leave them on, tree starts going around them and callousing over them, then we have issues. Okay. Okay. Now, what about putting the stakes in
all the new trees? Do you want me to tell you that to DPW? And also, is there going to be stakes for the trees at Central Park? As far as ser as far as servos pointing servo stakes, I do they really are the trees now? They should be the on that that were just planted. They
should be st and then he'll st the community. Whichever tree he plants should be. They take care of that. Okay. And then are we do we have confirmation that they're putting those door knockers
on for trees that are planted on people's property? Remember we had a couple of comments that people but they don't have them. We found out doesn't happen. So we're just going to do a a tree watering. my next item. I wouldn't rely on servo for putting the
door knockers on it. I have enough trouble locating the trees. That's let them plant the trees and you know. So, we're doing you're we're doing that. So, I just want to say thanks to Karen. She took time to write a letter uh and did research for it about watering new
trees. So, thank you Karen. But that was too intense. My water. Well, yes. And this but this actually goes to part of the new business that I wanted to discuss just very briefly. um because we um when I also looked it seemed like the um the watering guidelines are more than
might be reasonable to ask a resident to do. So I think we should consider using gators on daily planet trees from now on, but then we need to figure out who fills them. Are we going to ask the residents to fill them or is DPW able to fill them? Are we going to ask them? Um
the guidelines I said saw that they need to be watered at least once a day. Um obviously it depends on the soil and the moisture and things like this. But, uh, to me, maybe I'm incorrect, but it seemed like from my experience with my own trees in my yard, doing it doing
that much watering is, you know, burdensome. So, I I'm just worried that if people know they have to do that much maintenance, they might not want the tree or they might not take care of it. But, we can discuss it. But I just But it is true. Once a day.
You mean it's true. It's done once a day. Yeah. And you see, you always have to remember there's the drought. They don't want to worry. So, you're just going to have to get back with me with that one. Okay. I mean, I think you should send the letter, but yeah, I
think so. I think so for now, but maybe just It's usually a bucket a day for at least. You're sending a letter to the homeowner for tell them to water it. Do all the trees that community park. you're better off doing a deeper watering less frequently because what
you're doing you're encouraging shallow rooting. Um so ideally you want to put a hose let it trickle 10 15 minutes you want to let it trickle and soak that hold if you do that two three times a week. Okay. So like what about like you buff your water two or three times a
week. That's not a trickle. No it's hard it's such a difficult topic. Not difficult, but difficult to explain to use your judgment. If you tell somebody a bucket a day, some people might get a garbage can, consider that a bucket, other people might consider a te teapot
bucket. Um, and if the if the ground's like rock hard, like a drought, you dump that water on, where's it going to go? It's just running right off. It's not soaking. So, that's why I'm saying it's it's easier said than done. I said I'm saying it's harder to explain for people to use your common sense to soak the
tree. Um, so gator bags is a good idea. fill this bag up three times a week or something to that effect because a gator bag takes about 6 eight hours generally will drain. Um and the purpose is for it to drain and soak that root ball instead of running off on on our pan. Okay. All
right. So maybe it's only for trees that we planted. So why don't we purchase gator beds and then we could just tell them to fill it up when they're empty. Right. Well, like I said, it drains about 6 to 8 hours. It takes generally for it to
drain. So I would tell them fill it up like Monday, Wednesday, Friday or something to that effect. So three times a week. Three times a week. Okay. And do didn't we talk about the the length of time a gator bag stays on the tree? Did we talk about that? Does it have to come out after a certain I think the same
time with with the stakes. I would say within within a year. Yeah. Generally they won't last a year. They'll with the weather they'll rip or blow off unfortunately. But as long as we get them the initial what six months out of them or something. Yeah. So Karen, I don't I don't know if you heard that. I
don't know if it's worth it putting in there say by the way you know if after six months the gator bag is getting tattered and stuff it's okay to take it off. I don't know. Well I don't think it would last the winter. Am I correct? They would have generally it probably
won't. No they would have to take it off in the winter anyway. Right. But I think have to spell it out for people otherwise I think people will be calling be like oh the bag is ripped I need a new bag over time the bag will deteriorate this is not a concern. So, so okay. So within the letter we could
say the gator bag for three months at least a seven months I would say bag should last throughout this I mean for the bags to last yeah decomposes after that it's fine something like that
just so they know okay I'm not I have to work Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Friday got stuff so I don't know you'll help me All right. And and you're going to find that surf tomorrow. Should I call him
and tell him to bring gator bags? I don't know if that's going to be a hassle for him. It seems like I apologize. I think it might be more of a hassle for him. Maybe I'm wrong. I'll I'll speak with him tomorrow when I see him and see what they I think at short notice. It might rain. So it's been good
for Yeah. Thanks for thanks for handling all that. Appreciate that. But maybe moving forward with servo. If we want the gator bags, we could talk to them and say, "Look, can you include them with each planting? Let us know what it's going to be." Yeah. So when we call servo, it includes staking, includes planting. I mean gator bags, includes a
2-year warranty. So we're all on the same page. We know what we're getting, what we're paying for, and we don't have to go out ourselves and buy gator bags or, oh, we forgot to put a gator bag on this tree, etc. We all know it should be done through server. We talked about the deer yard too, right? So I don't know if
people are still wanting to do that, but maybe that should not on these four, but are we getting that in the trees that are kind of tomorrow? Not sure again.
All right. So, uh, thanks for indulging me on those things. I'm sorry. um give you more stuff. So, I took some time here and uh made this report and I wanted to just kind of show you what I have. I think I have enough copies.
I think so. There's one for you, bro. I can share with Dave if you're you're low. Come on over here. Never mind. Thank you, sir. So, it's a little bit hard to see um on
this report because it's black and white in the maps. I I apologize for that. I don't have a color printer. So, all right. Do you have this in color? I do. Then you can email it to me. Absolutely. Then I you know if you want to discuss it now or next month because I was you all in color. Well I gave such a big wind up here. I'll better do it now. I
think we can I can email it to people or I can give it to you to email to people whatever meets the open meeting. Well I'll make a hard copy of it. All right. Yeah I definitely think the All right. A nice hard copy. Okay. That would be
great. You have to email it to me. Okay. Yeah absolutely. So uh what this is If you remember, we had talked back in I think it was February. Um I had started to do some analysis of the canopy in town after
stumbling across um some data that said that we were losing um a substantial portion of our canopy. And uh the way that this works is you basically um there's a US Forest Service program that will generate
random points and you look at a current satellite image of the town. Um and you determine whether on that what what the cover is. You could do more than one type. For this to keep it simple, I just did whether there's a tree or no tree in
each spot. And then after you do those points, you go back and you a point earlier in time and you compare whether or not there was a tree or no tree coverage at that time. So what this report is is um I took a thousand points
um along the streets south of Granis Avenue. So I picked that because I did an analysis of the whole borrow and the um the neighborhoods south of Granis were the ones that they said were having the most were the most at risk. So, um,
which kind of makes sense to me. They're they're they are an older neighborhood and the the houses are tight together, right? So, um, so if you look um, you can see, oh, I guess the I say on here that the after
doing this and comparing them the Oh, this is just for uh, next to the actual streets. Okay. So, the original canopy that I did was the canopy for the whole town. So that included um both private land and our shade tree land. And so
what I really wanted to find out was okay, we can't do that much to control um the what goes on on um private land because that's not our charge, but in terms of the land that we're managing, how are we doing for our canopy? Um
and I did the best I could to um take the right away along each street. It's difficult on a satellite image to get exactly the measurement of 10 feet, of course, but okay. So, if you look at this first map, it's a little bit hard to see because the there's red. Um, you
might notice there's a couple stars. Um, if you look at the end of Birch Drive, there's one there. Um, I can't see. Are you talking about this one? Yes, the first one. That's a canopy lost in a game below granite. So the the square is a place where we
lost canopy between um 2010 and and 2025 and the stars are places where we gained canopy. In other words, there is no tree there and we have planted a new tree where someone has planted a new tree. So I only found eight of those places that we gained. Um I think there were 192
places where we lost. All right. Um, so when was I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, I'm just looking at my street only because I know I planted three trees. 2023 is the most recent image they had
because the 2025 images are not are not updated are not well updated yet because I know like I'm just looking on my street because I can tell obviously who planted trees and did all stuff like I know on mine I planted three trees that weren't there and so it's not reflected on this. Right. So, it's not but that's
but just to be clear um that's that's a great question. This is not actually about the trees. I might if I misspoke I apologize. It's about the canopy because it's an overhead view, right? So, it's not like trees that were removed or trees that were planted. It's about the canopy. So, a small new tree isn't going
to have as much coverage obviously as like a mature tree will in terms of the canopy coverage. My trees there's three trees in the but Oh, so the satellite is not from 2025. It's 2023 satellite view. That was the most recent that they had in the
Forest Service data. Um I put 2025 on here. Um but uh yeah, the pictures are 2023. I should probably change that. It's an overhead view, but he's saying because it was 2023, which the trees came in. I planted the
trees in 2023, but it was probably all these circles were tant. They are what they are is it's what happens is the program like basically you have an area and the program generates random points within the area and then you assess at each of those points is there canopy here or not canopy here. So it's not
about the tree because you can't see the trunk of the tree when you're you know when you're looking from the overhead view you can only see the canopy and whether there's leaves. So um so these are all as you can see these are all points where there's loss. So what I did is I in an Excel spreadsheet I compared
the um the 2010 with the 2023 data and um found the ones that had changed and these are the ones that had changed. So the majority of them that have changed as you can see are um a negative change rather than positive. Um on the next page you can see there is a
uh a chart and a graph here. I always mess those up um of uh the land cover. You can just ignore the t. That was me just trying to build in an extra category in case because once you set up the categories, you can't change them. And I just wanted to make sure it had an
out the analysis. So you can see that in 2010 the um the coverage of trees was uh 61 and a half% was our tree cover. And then if you go down and you look at is that the in total burn or just the area?
That's just this area below gran. Um and then if you look at the tree coverage um bel below granus uh for the 2023 map it's down to 43%. So sorry again
why who recommended that you that you look what was that? It's the um the tools name is the um it's not the land use they have like a suite of the forest service has like a suite of tools that you can use okay to analyze canopy
coverage and so what I did is I looked at uh the um the map you know and it's basically done by like census or voting district and then it shows which ones you know are more at at risk what that formula is or whatever I think you can
change so this South of Granis, I think you said, is the area that's most at risk. That's what I thought from looking at it. I mean, I'm happy to debate all of this. I'm just, you know, this No, no, no. I'm just This is my like thing. This is the
methodology kind of person. Yeah, absolutely. I'm just trying to figure out how do they define how do they define? I think it's canopy canopy can probably canopy loss, I think, is what I looked at. Um, there are loss. Yeah. Yeah. Because what they do is they have
like a like a general satellite picture, I think, but they're not going to be down to the granular level of this. Got it. But I'd be happy to talk to you about it. We could No one else speaks out on this stuff like I'm glad you're interested. I'm happy. No, please ask as many questions as you
want. Um, and I'm not an expert on this. This is not my training. I'm just trying to do the best job I can to come up with some data. So, you know, definitely made some mistakes. And it's also very hard when you're trying to compare satellite images because the way that they take the pictures, the angles are not always
the same and the the light is at a different time during different times of day. So, you know, when you're trying to some and the older the images get, of course, the blurrier they are, which is why I went to 2010 because that was the clearest image I could find. And also 15 seemed like a good
number. Okay. So, that was an I I think of my mouse right that's an 18% drop in our canopy coverage. And so then I just um gave some some map comparisons here of um two different areas below gran just so you can kind of one more
question. No, please. Sorry. One more question then I'll stop. You don't need to. I'm happy. What is the what is an acceptable percentage of canopy loss by year? So like how do we know 18% drop is
a good number or a bad number? So, um, that's a good question and I do need to do more research. My preliminary research says that Morris County, um, from 2001 until I think it was 2023 lost 1.2% of their canopy, but that was before all those high density houses.
That's the whole county. I mean, it includes communities that are a lot more, you know, rural or less, you know, than we are. So, um, but I would say that it's like one out of every six spots, you know, we we lost. And then there's also another question which I was thinking to go to your your point
Marian which is you know maybe some of these trees were overgrown or something and would you know the loss was necessary for you know maintenance or something like that. But I do think that uh if you just look at the these images in 2010 and 20 uh 23 here, you can
see, you know, um and this will bring up our conversation about the overhead wires, but if you look at Birch and Mountain Way, you can just see the loss just visually, right? Um the colors are different just because the satellite images are different, but you can see as
you go around where those are that there were trees there um in the former in the in the picture. So So the squares on the 2010 picture was lost from before 201. They're the same spots. So I left them
on there as the same spots. So you're looking at the same spots. So you can you can see okay there's um there's a house here and if I go to here I can see it's the same the same spot. Yeah. Okay. If I had more time sorry my if I had more time I would have liked to have gone through this image and actually
done it manually but I just didn't have the time to do the surgery took me way too long. So I I wasn't in the burrow during a lot of this chunk of time. Um, is there anything from the forestry service to discuss what kind of impact
uh, Superstorm Sandy had? Because my understanding is Norris Plains was impacted substantially. Yep. By that. Yeah, absolutely. And and just to be clear, because I didn't say this from the outset, I'm not um saying that this is all because of us cutting trees down. I'm just I'm just more saying that it's
concerning the level of loss is concerning regardless of what the cause of it is. Okay. Um, but I agree with you. There's that. There's the, you know, the various diseases and pests and things. And, you know, I know it's just me. I don't have
my context in, but to me, and I'm looking at this comparison, and I know the colors are different, so the darker one, they show up a lot more to me at least, which is why I think the color images will really help.
It doesn't I mean, I can see on this north side here where there's some trees, but all it looks to me fairly similar. So I would definitely love to absolutely sure yeah I think if you match the the dots where the canopy loss is you'll see that there were trees
there. So like if you go on that south side of birch for example in the birch picture you can see that all of those houses there. Now there's wires there. So um that's something that we need to discuss. But you can see that there were trees on both sides of the street going all the way down to Merchant Place. And
now um many fewer and the same thing um if you look at the top bend um the top I guess it's the top westerly bend you can see that those you know um and the wires I think cross over there so
and then the same thing for Washington and uh Idle Wild. So if you look at this map, you can see um if you look uh down the western side of Washington, you can see all that we lost all of these trees.
If you look at the um the beginning where Wild meets Mountain Way, you can see that there's tree loss here as well. So I gave you these because they seem to be the ones that visually you could tell the difference the most. And I think
that when happens on this time scale, it's difficult to like really see it, right? And then I remembered when I was doing this, I was like, "Oh, I remember during the pandemic when I was walking around with my daughter that those people cut down a bunch of trees right next to the road or you know, and I started to remember, oh yeah, these
things did happen, but you just sort of you just sort of forget." So, um, yeah, but it's interesting to your point because a lot of these canopies are on people's private property and they were the one a lot of them are making besides the asht tree thing that we had going on, right? A lot of homeowners are
making decisions about cutting down trees on their properties for it could be for good reasons or could be, you know, they just they didn't want them anymore and they cut them down. So, it's interesting when we take a look at this more detail like how much you can really control for and how much is, you know,
the uncontrolled part of it where we have no no authority or um ability to impact. Yeah, these ones I think you know this Mar, but just to be clear like the what here what I did here um which wasn't an exact science is I I I created boxes that ran parallel to each street
roughly at the 10 foot mark. Some of them, you know, were a little bit outside, but once you set that map, you can't change it or you have to start the whole thing over again. So, you know, there were fewer and what I did was if it was it was clearly outside, I just sort of said there was no change even if there was a change because I felt like
it shouldn't be reported in here. But the canopy losses, canopies overall versus canopies in right away, right? So, I was I did this specific report because I wanted to talk about what we maybe can control rather than other things like new developments and stuff
like this, you know. So what is it that we have jurisdiction over or or can have an effect on? So then and this is just me brainstorming. I put on the last page here. So possible causes. So I said, you know, disease and natural decay and that's where I put in, you know, but
only 1.3% of Morris County and that's the stat I could find. I need to do more research here. I ran out of time. Um unapproved removal. I, you know, I've only been on this committee for two and a half years, but it it seemed hard to believe to me um when I would see some of the trees and I would actually go and
look at the Google Street images that that we approved removing these trees. Um I'm not, you know, I don't know that um that's happening and I think one of the things is that it's difficult for us to be everywhere at once or impossible.
Um and so this goes One of my solutions is I think we need to do a better job of educating people about the right of way and that those are borrowed trees because a lot of people I speak to do not know that. Um and so they think it's their property, it's their house, they pay a lot of money for it, they want it
this way or whatever. Um you know, maybe they're cutting the tree down. Um also when new lots are developed was another thing I noticed as I was going through. There's a lot of them in that area, too. People tend to go through and just clearcut things. Um and you know, uh we
controller. What happens in the back of lot, but the sides of the lot where we're where, you know, that are borrowed, maybe we need to think about talking to whatever it is, board of adjustment or a lot of times because I'm on they they can't touch trees. They can
touch trees on their property. So, if they came to the board and they're building a new house, they know they can't touch those trees. They're told they can't. Yeah. No, but what we can do is if they're building it, if they're clearing their lot, they're like the town will allow, but we need trees put
back to maintain our canopy. Oh, you mean on I'm saying so we should look at moving forward with something from the homeowners that they're developing going to clear cut a lot for their house. Yeah, they're not touching townree, but yet they took an acre canopy. So, how are we going to get that back? Okay. Well, then the ordinance has to be
changed. Well, that's what I'm saying. We need to change the ordinance because within the ordinance you're allowed to cut every tree down on your property. So I mean that's I'm just saying that's you know food proof for thought that tree
ordinance is still I forget what happened to Oh started working on it. Started working on it again and then Kathy was there and then it just stopped. We got to pick that back up. Yeah, because I know there's something in there that tree ordinance includes
lots that are smaller because that tree ordinance was a generic tree ordinance for the like the state of New Jersey and the tree the housing lot sizes were much bigger than the housing lots in Mor. So it wouldn't have applied to anything. So they were talking about doing the
revisions to it which included lot size so that there would be more control over a homeowner coming in and just leveling a lot. But it's still under review. So the shade tree ordinance has never been adopted or that one. Which shade? The
one that one? Yeah. South the one that that Kathy was working on the storm. No, it's been it's been working on the but we have to adopt something. Okay. We give them permission to remove all the trees on their property. And I I'll just
give you an example. Somebody called I think it was Friday and they said they want to remove all their trees and I I said you have to talk to the zoning officer. Only reason was for drainage and all of this stuff.
I don't know where they lived and for you to ask me all your trees. I can't I'm not going to be the one saying that. So they weren't putting in a pool or an addition? Well, I have No, they weren't. They just wanted to remove all the
trees. So where they lived? I all the trees you have to speak to. Good answer. I I didn't know what to say because the drainage I think that uh to my mind, you
know, um I think this if it's accurate, happy to have it reviewed. I would love for it not to be accurate because that would mean we're not losing this many trees. Um, I think that, you know, there's this is sort of partly behind my frustration,
too, because I've kind of seen this coming and, uh, I feel like, you know, I probably put the carrot in the stick the wrong way by making those other comments first. But really, why I wanted to do this wasn't because I feel
like sometimes maybe it's not clear why it is that I'm saying the things that I'm saying. And that this that I've been seeing that I've been noticing as I walk around is behind some of my things like we need to think more carefully about where we're planning. We need to solve some of these issues because I think you
know it's it's not just um being finicky. I think there's like a real meaningfully meaningful change in the character of where we live. And um you know it's we're the only ones who can really do something about that or we're the ones at least tasked with doing
something about that. And I know that the removals are important and safety is important and I agree with that. I also think that you know the longterm canopy and shade of the burrow
is important for you know all of us for value of the neighborhoods for our electricity bills for I mean all kinds of things we could list. Um so I put some possible solutions here. Again like always these are just ideas. we can talk
about them and think about them. I This is why I think that we need to have a management plan because I think part of the reason that we're here is because we haven't had a plan um in order to keep track of things to have sort of a clear
agenda to be aware of things. I think if we're more organized and we had a plan, we could be aware and keep up with some of these. I do think getting accredited would be a good idea. continuing ed classes. I'm going to commit to try and take at least one other continuing ed
class. Um, you know, I feel like there's a lot to learn. I learned that through my core training. And the other thing is grant funding. So, by not being accredited, we're leaving money on the table. When I got Morristown, now granted, they're bigger than us obviously. Um, when I got their Arbor
Day notice, it said that they uh have gotten I think in the last 10 years, I think it was $150,000 in grant money for planting trees. Yeah. But they're in a different category. They get urban they get money for those urban um urban
grants that we are not we are not eligible for. Right. So, uh, sure. I mean, I'm totally uh with you on that, but we How much have we gotten? We've tried. You you you tried and I appreciate that. I mean, we'll keep
trying. We'll go look for that the you know, the same grant again and we'll see if we can get it. But yeah, it's a helpful battle. For for example, there was the uh talk that Karen gave us the link to um was for a grant for school, but but I looked at the grant and it was also for, you know, where kids are
walking to school or parks that to use after school. I think it was up to was it 20 or $30,000 for planting new trees. So, by not doing that, you know, we can't do everything, but we're leaving money on the table that could help to address some of this, I guess, is what
I'm saying. And it's if we're going to write the grant, having a current plan and being accredited, of course, goes toward, as we all know, us showing like, hey, we're going to do the right thing with the money. And, you know, if we don't have any of those things, it's like, you know, the perception may be people don't have their act together. So
I hope we could do that. The other part is um the public outreach uh I think I talked about and then I think we need to talk at some point about this right tree, right place and overhead wires. One of the interesting things I discovered was that when I was um
actually trying to uh help you Karen, I I found that the New Jersey Shade Tree Federation has a list of um shade tree commission documents like templates and one of them interesting to me was I
guess a lot of uh towns are trying to ask homeowners if they can get an additional 5T just to plant a tree of a right away. Not saying we need to do that. Maybe there's legal problems with it. I don't know. But I just thought it was interesting because one of the most common things people say to me is there's trees under the overhead wires.
I hate these trees over the underhead wires. They look terrible, you know, and and we've been having a problem. And when you look at this uh image, you'll see that, you know, a lot of them are under overhead wires. So, I don't know something we could explore. Can we get another five feet just for um there was a form. I don't know how it works, but
it'd be something to research. So, I think there's ways that we might do a little bit more in order to try and do this. And you know, if I spoke uh before in a way that was um not appropriate, I apologize. I was frustrated and um it
wasn't easy for me to say those things. So, I apologize for that and I hope that we can work together because really what I care about is trying to get this work done. That's what I care about. So, thank you for listening. No, listen, I I appreciate you taking the time to do this. I really do. Um I want to continue to work together. So there's board we're
fine. We're good discussing things in a meeting as a committee as we should. So we're good. We'll move forward and continue to work and continue to do the good work that we're doing. You know, Rob, I just wish all the people that speak to you come. Why can't they come to our media? Why can't they write to us
or or say, "Hey, you know, I spoke to Rob and we want to know why." You know, you mean about the overhead wires about anything? You know, people are concerned about what we're doing. like they should come to the meeting and talk with us. I agree.
I'm all for more people coming to meetings. What they think they look like out there, you know, like Bob and just agree the tree and take it down. I I completely agree with you, bro. I think that that that more participation is always better. And I think we should we
talked about plic and let them know what we're doing and how we're doing. I think that would be a great idea. Well, we can talk about we can do that. I think it would be a great idea. I don't know what the deadline is for
that. The plans talk. I don't know. There's just comes up again. It already passed, but we had the discussion about what that is going to be about. Whether it's going to be an article about updating people about what we're doing or, you know, we talked
about the call to action about you want a tree, write us. We decided that would be taken till the fall, but the article was something that we were talked about. I think that's where we I'm always willing to bend if you're like if we're going in the same general direction. If
you want to write an article about make people aware, I think that's great. I can be the other thing if there's an objection to it. I don't mind. I just want to see us moving in the right direction. That's what I feel like we're we're doing that, but more slowly than I would like. Thank you for listening. I appreciate
it. Well, thank you for that work. Great. Appreciate that. So, in uh keeping with the the time that we're at, and I know a couple other folks have a meeting coming up next, uh I move a motion to close the meeting. Second. Okay.
Thank you. Roll call. Karen. Oh, you want a roll call? Closing the meeting, right? It's all right. Don't Don't worry about it. I All in favor? Good job, guys. The luck has been
leading to me. Double a double header.