##VIDEO ID:dNZHO1-sIyU## e e e e e e e e can you make me co-host Gina if you can hear this it'll be we'll be there with you in a second oh there we go hi guess I was muted uh no you're not in the room at all so you use the public link okay Alan the town Zoom link is not working let see who was trying to get in Julian right now but probably other people too who okay yes yeah I heard that um I'll have to send them an invite independently how do I do that I see in maybe invite okay oh kind of loud the invitees coming from SK Farber what's your email address Julian Julian what's your email address yep yeah yep h y NES yeah so one Jr h y n s then what we are we are being recorded don't repeat it okay um once again a nuisance hold on see yes we're being did you get the link Julian Oh Ellen was able to join Brit's now here Ellen's joined twice I did change your name yeah Brit has your name listed oh I didn't Ellen Ellen sent me link link on the Alan can you send the link to um shashana and Bennett I can't third a third Ellen shashana said she couldn't come correct send it to Bennett yeah and Sarah's in but she hasn't turned on her camera hi I'm I'm on my phone um I'm actually in between between two meetings so I'm just lurking in the hallway whose iPhone is that you Julian is iPhone you Julian okay okay yes hello can you hear me yes change your name I'm going to promote you to panelist okay got it okay so I think we now have a quorum it's 5:40 we're a little bit late but sorry for that chaos I don't know what happened my computer needed to update all of a sudden and uh didn't work so Al some people got in with that link so I don't know anyway um hi um I will share the agenda briefly no okay what I wanted to do share can you all see that yes good all right are there any members of the public here doubt doubtful because the link is broken yeah try Brook in also before we go anywhere okay I have to stop sharing to do this all right so um all right welcome Julian approval of the October minutes and by the way I was reading up on this and uh even if you weren't at the meeting you can approve the minutes having read them and believe that they're correctly stating what's happening so um that's according to Robert's Rules of Order so um Julian you can you get back on screen so all in favor of approving the October minutes I good all right so minutes approved um we need a notetaker in fact we need a secretary or someone to be regular notetaker Bennett um is not going to be able to join us very often it was nice he was at the tree work day Saturday but so any of you three or Sarah do you want to take notes I can take it this time I don't want to do it all the time but okay well thank you for that we will need somebody to step up and do that so um good so you'll take notes um okay just make sure the only other person here for the notes is Gina Eid e t h r e d g e did you get that on yep good okay um no public announcements volunteer hours Julian uh probably nine for me okay Brit uh if we're counting the planting from last month and let's say five okay Ellen three uh Sarah I had probably 12 all Sarah please send me your minutes we'll have to find out from oh Bennett was there for the planting s him three okay uh housekeeping done um chair's report let's see where's my list um yeah we need we need a secretary or notaker um it was nice to see that the cumington tree Alliance Alliance um had a gathering and Richard Paretti the um tree warden from Northampton spoke there I would have loved to have gone to it but I couldn't make it uh um it's nice when other cities and towns nearby are doing stuff uh Springfield recently passed a significant tree ordinance so that was nice to see um shash had talked about she had gone to those meetings about redesigning downtown and talked about how we need to change the zoning to deal with setback issues and um that's something we should keep on the back burner and really be thinking about how we can approach that uh the town manager is being evaluated again and um if you want to send comments you can do that uh I can send you the link if you want and then um the Social Media stuff Phyllis Lara her report did not mention us I don't think she heard about it it' be really great when we're having meetings and we're having work days for her to publicize that people read that so it'd be good to get that happening so Julian can you make note of that and maybe talk to shash at one of you make sure it happens every month yeah I'll email Phyllis she'd been doing it for a long time and I guess stopped um so I can I can send her an email um other updates for me are that I had a I guess sort of curiosity point if you will about um about the ability for us to do we had it in the Indie we had the events our event in the Indie and we had our event in the uh in phyllis's thing that goes out in the bulletin and I'll make sure of that again my question is you know how the Gazette publishes their columns that say okay we are are these are the meetings for the week and they publish our meetings in that column but they don't publish our work dayss in that column so I was thinking I might email Scott and be like could we also get our work dayss published in that same column well Scott is no longer working for the Gazette he isn't no so that's unfortunate um I don't know who really handles that but the meetings are taken off of the website the meeting listings and um so the question would be can the town put on the list of town meetings that we're having a workday and the answer is to that Alan do you what was the I was sending the workday photos sorry um what was the question well when we have a meeting that's automatically picked up by The Gazette because we're on the town calendar for Town meetings and we're wondering if the work days can also get on the town calendar and um that way those would be picked up also by The Gazette yeah we would um we'd have to post I would have to post those meetings I guess on the calendar post the work days yeah the work days well I mean the um second Saturday tree plantings aren't necessarily posted on the calendar it's just the yeah uh so you want to have all all second Saturday tree planting events or work dayss posted on the calendar is what you're saying yeah I would love that okay yeah that that can be done I need to be I need to remember to do that or be reminded to do that um before each event a week before each event yeah Julian can you take that on to remind him great okay that's good um I heard from one guy who was upset about trees being taken down near his property but it turns out they were in private property he said he might join our meeting tonight but either he couldn't get in or he didn't wasn't able to attend and that's about all Brooks might be interested in joining the committee so that' be nice to at some point we'll have an opening but meanwhile it's nice having him involved and okay that's all for me anything else Julian uh no I think that's all I had uh Laura McLoud sent us me Alan an email just a few minutes ago so I gave her like some resources and stuff um about what the town's tree bylaws are in that um I don't know if she's doing a research project or something like that but um I figured to just provide her with sort of the base information on our Committee website great that's great uh she also emailed me and I'm not able to deal with that right now so I told her I would talk to you so I'm glad you did it already good um okay Sarah are you able to give a Treasurer report yes I can just a second okay our current account balance is 11,887 35 this includes uh the deposit um that was the uh the pay in from those trees that were removed that was back in April which was $1,920 there was a $100 deposit in June the 750 in July um that was coming for the town hall planting and there was a $29.94 deduction which was payment to Cole's Building Supply okay that that was for the um the hardware cloth I think right Alan correct okay and the $100 was the the donation for the woman who wanted to plant a tree in honor of her brother on station not Station Road um Stanley Stanley yeah good all right thank you Sarah um there was something about an encumbrance that we were dealing with did that ever get resolved that's a good question I did not ask about that it was still um on the account as of January 2024 a $48 encumbrance um I will follow up on that um unless Alan do you have any updates there was some paperwork that needed to be filed that was um trying to remember what that was for so we the committee voted to to spend money on something it was an invoice that was that the invoice handed in for the copying or maybe it was a rollover so I believe it was quite a while ago yeah I I would need more information to follow up with that I'm happy to do it um I'm just not sure where to start so all right I will follow up and get some details and um and then be in touch okay thanks thank you okay uh next um social media report anything else Julian is Julian still here yes can't hear you nope can you hear me now yes no okay thanks all right um well then shash is not here so we'll move on to presentations and discussions which is second Saturday workdays I thought our um Saturday workday was really nice the weather was great and we got a lot of work done and it's really nice to be in the nursery and to see the trees even though they're not doing that well it's nice to to be there and um this couple came I don't remember their names George and anyway it was nice to have them there and Bennett was there so it was good uh we'll do a work day in in December second Saturday to make the tree guards and we'll do that at my place we have a workshop building on the right hand side when you first pull in the driveway at to Red building and uh meet there at 9:00 and we'll make the cages and then we'll either go out and put them up or if we don't have time we can sort of do that as our at our Leisure to protect the trunks any questions or any other ideas no all right so then there's next year and Julian started that list and I forward it to everyone sorry for the wrong subject but then I fixed that and I added um um kushman common as a place that could use some trees so places what was the end of that email it said like in vro something where you need to include a different location there I didn't hear that uh at the end of your email you had kushman common and oh in the environs in the area around that oh I see got it okay cool yeah so anyone have anything to add while we're talking about it or I um just for next year's plantings the I did talk with um person in charge of the amoris college properties not the rental properties but the um the actual you know Athletic Field area up and down Northampton road so we're going to try to meet in the next couple of weeks to discuss tree plant locations and to try to coordinate with on campus students for um you know tree planting in April well that'd be great yeah good all right so we got plenty of places already but we'll have to figure out how to prioritize them but we have time to do that just want to say on that note I think having trees along Route 9 in that area area that's owned by the college that has no trees would be great um it seems odd to me that the town should be providing resources for such a planting um and so yes I think getting like if the committee can serve as an organizing collaborator I think that's a good strategy but Town should not be paying for this is my you know opinion you know the the college should make some kind of contribution um to the planting of trees on their own property even if that is for a public benefit I agree well we're we're working towards that so you'll in your talking with them you'll ask about that yeah I think they can plant on um the college side and we can plant on the the opposite side of the road in front of private property on that side so it's there's lots of space so yeah great yeah that is great good all right look forward to that uh anything else on second Saturday plantings so tree nursery next steps um I guess it'll probably be in the spring we'll get the new trees and then add them in correct so that'll be one of our workdays next year will be adding the new trees to the nursery that's generally going to be that's going to be April sometime early April okay I think maybe we do two work dayss in April or maybe that's the April planting okay uh Environmental Justice neighborhood planting Ellen did you get anywhere with that um I did TD Bank website did not make it easy it was a lot of circular searching but I did finally find what we were looking for um is the TD Green Space grants program which is out of the TD ready commit um program uh they funded 11 cities in the US in 2023 and um none of them were near us um which is good uh it's a minimum requirement of $5,000 and up they didn't have a maximum ask so I don't know what that is um they have deadline at the uh end of this month on November 27th and if we go for that deadline uh the decision we'd hear by the the end of January 2025 um all grants require impact reports and the impact report would be due in October or we could go for the deadline on Friday January 31st we'd hear a decision by the end of March 2025 impact report due in 20 um December 2025 um I will reach out to the grants person there to get some more information um they want you know financial information um what our organization budget is a copy of our five 501c3 I don't know if that's something that the town can provide for us um otherwise we have to give a full Financial audit and completed tax returns which we don't have um we're not a 501c3 right so like the public committee is different correct the town would be the applicant right right yeah okay so it would have to go through their whole we'd have to submit the the last available audit statement for the town of ammer is that correct then right the attend applicant would be applying for the town would apply for the grant um with the committee being the the you know people managing it so does this mean that the grant writer for the town needs to do all this work not not me no not necessarily okay okay no DPW does lots of grant writing um and uh you know that if you want to pull together all the um information who we're supposed to contact and the forms um we've got some ground workor it looks like to do again they're going to want to know that plan which we don't have um again it's kind of that uh interesting cross we're trying to do this on prate property and we just need to having the committee do the leg work to reach out to the private property would be good um well we there's a lot there's a lot of crossover here I mean there's we could get the police department involved we could get the crests involved I mean you know I can you can there's a lot of work the town is doing to reach out to um you know underserved neighborhoods in town so um there's a lot of opportunity here um to to try to make this work Ellen does it does it require any like collaboration across the town or is that something that we could work on like I don't think it um Ellen could probably speak better than this because she's probably read the application but they probably um you know the more people you bring into these projects the better um they want to see different departments and different parts of the community working together so right we could get a letter from um Town manager in support of this Allan can write for the DPW so you know it's already can happen pretty easily that stuff I I might just caution you know I don't I'm not saying anything at all negative about the police department um in any way just to be clear I might caution us on attempting to build a relationship with an environmental justice community um I think Crest might be a more appropriate partner for that to start with I know um I I hear you and um I know the police department you know they they work with a lot of Youth I mean they go they're in the high school every morning before school even starts with with kids working in the gym and there's they do rope courses and stuff so I mean they're in these neighborhoods they always have been um so um obviously you know we could just we could offer the opportunity is all I'm saying to them if they wanted to have that so okay and that's useful background I didn't know that so yeah Ellen there's also the state program which may actually be a little easier to apply for and I sent you that email you did yeah it came from the um the tree commit website the tree committee email okay I don't remember getting that one I'll send it again okay please because yeah and I think there's no rush if we did the January deadline on the TD Bank one then we hear in March and we can plant spring or summer and at some point we have to let the the B yeah I I we definitely need to have a letter of support from the management property management company and I think Henry wasn't Mindy D going to reach out to them or yeah she did so we could get that done all right I I'll go back in touch with her when when we know what we're doing they're they're based in New Jersey I yeah I don't know again I have to reach out to the contact at TD Bank um about the um it it gives us a list of things that we have to supply like board members and jobs and all this stuff but um I don't know how formal this invitation is it it's again not a super easy thing yeah I appreciate you taking it on sure yeah I hope I'm not forgetting something but did we end up talking to M about Mark in the state budget I didn't hear I didn't hear that question did we end up talking to Mindy Dom about an earmark in the state budget yeah she can get us ear marks I think it's the end of the year we would do that but if we're applying for Grants and we have a good chance of getting it then she you know do the ear marks for us but that is an option okay so um I do I do think that um we fit into uh the mission uh one of the missions there's four branches of the TD Bank Community mission statement and one of them is environmental and um they they're they have a goal of uh planting 1 million trees um by 2030 so I do think um we can I I think we're we're you know we're going in the right direction um again I don't know how detailed they're going to want they do want a project title and a project budget so we would then have to at least have some sense of how many trees we're going to plant you know but I don't know if they're going to require uh you know maps and all that I I just again need to I'll reach out to the to the person but um I can't like get into the grant to apply yet so I I don't know the specific questions got it Ellen Ellen when you get to that point of writing the grant I'm happy to help okay great thank you it did look and maybe it's just because you do have to be in a community with a TD Bank um and I guess they're mostly on the on the East Coast because they funded projects in Connecticut Maine Pennsylvania New York Rhode Island Maryland Florida so well good anything else on this I will reach out to Mindy and to the brook and the boulders and uh see what happens with that but I'm heading out of the country Thursday so I'm not going to do anything pretty much before our next meeting but certainly before January I can do that okay are you coming back Henry yes I'm coming back I'll be back uh the day before our next meeting just in time yeah I come back uh Monday morning we have a meeting on that Tuesday the 10th so yeah I'm back on the ninth all right uh old ongoing items B City in the town hall Garden anything on that um looks like it's all going to be happening next spring yeah on B city um I just got passed to a third counselor um to serve as the sponsor um this counselor seems very enthusiastic and hopefully we can get it done by the end of the year but if not then before the spring um yeah do they um do they require the garden the plantings to take place ahead of time the show that you it's you apply for it and do that to maintain it yeah all right um Mary Maple table anything new on that still in my house um yeah I I guess this is kind of related I'll share that I um I wrote a book manuscript for children about the story of the Mary Maple um nonfiction and um it will be pitched to editors in the new year um so that would be cool if it turned into including like the idea of people picking up wood from the tree and making making things out of it um and then passing the torch onto the mini maple so um yeah that would be fun if it if it ended up as a book I'll you posted awesome do the book have a title uh right now this is the Mary Maple okay all right I assume there's no website update U since bit's not here state level initiatives uh nothing's really happening with that and then significant tree ordinance Sarah anything on that no okay no no updates um the guy who contacted us from he was from Hillcrest Place and you know where the private trees are being taken down he was like asking isn't there anything we can do to stop this so I wish I could say oh we have a significant tree ordinance but yeah uh that's a very long-term project so I understand said you said Springfield just passed their significant tree ordinance you know how long it that took I don't know it was they had one long ago I thought Springfield had one put in place in the 70s because when we at the um I met somebody on the Springfield tree committee at the um Tree City USA award ceremony in 2023 June of 2023 and they were saying that they were one of the first cities to have this it's trees over a certain trunk diameter um I think it's like 36 inches um so they I think they've had it in place for some time well maybe they updated it so they did something I've read about it and I can't remember now but they they did Henry they um they the past ordinance was not very enforcable or well written um and the new ordinance is is better detailed and how it gets enforced and everything so it's a it's a much stronger um um ordinance yeah and is that something that like is adopted by the Town Council through the resolution process or like what what does that look like I would think it would be um yeah or or it would be like an amendment to the bylaws and some I I don't know so okay go through the planning process and put it into um yeah it probably be similar to the ordinance that we did pass you know on um protecting Street trees and the you know we did pass that ordinance and that had to go through a variety of different uh committees and then went to the Town Council where yeah is that through Town Council or town that went through town meeting Town Council started in town meeting and ended up in Town Council yeah yeah and we essentially created the structure for the tree Warden and town manager to make regulations around um tree replacement in public shade trees all right well anything else any other comments no other topics I think I do something ski the tree report sorry okay Alan I don't have much to report so that's good um no I just wanted to say um and officially stated on the zoom meeting that's being recorded that the Sugarloaf nurseries and garden center um donated over $88,000 worth of trees again this year here um some very nice large trees um I'll read them off for you uh two River two Heritage River Birch um uh one and these are Clump Birches um and then some smaller a smaller clump of River Birch two dogwoods two cus dogwoods uh two crab apples Prairie Fire and Red Jewel crab apples um Henry's favorite uh lilac tree uh four London plain trees uh four American elm um Valley Forge uh Elms and then uh uh 4 18inch taxes for um some of these plants are going to go over to the new pump station on Southeast Street the rest of them are going over on West street where the new bus pulloff is being they they've um installed two new bus stops and installed a splitter Island in West Street to slow traffic down um over by pot wine Lane so these trees mostly end up along that stretch of road there great what was the first tree you mentioned the first species uh it was a Heritage River Birch oh okay yeah so um it' be nice if the committee would write a nice uh thank you letter to um Sugarloaf Gardens and I'll write one um and if we could the committee could post something again in the paper like you did last time um you know recognizing their their um donation and commitment to uh trees that'd be great okay who has the cards the thank you cards that we have Sarah do you have those no I never had them okay I think we don't know because this has come up several times I think I might have them or I might have give to shashana so I'll reach out to shashana and ask her to send it and Ellen if you can get that into the minutes um then we'll make sure that that uh that gets done all right I think Bennett wrote a letter last time for the paper um that was nicely done to nicely worded too yeah I don't think I have anything else um I want to thank Brit she offered to to sit in in my place I can't make the Aris is hosting the uh month this month's uh tree wardens board meeting in emmer and unfortunately I can't be there and Brit stepped up and offered to go in my place and represent um ammer at the meeting last minute one of my staff uh who's going for his Isa certification um just started going for his uh to take the test expressed interest in going so he's going to go instead tomorrow to the meeting um but I want to thank Britt for that um and uh yeah it's been a good sum it was a good summer of tree planting in work days um it was a really nice summer of getting just enough rain not to have to water as much and then we've moved into this drought period where um we're watering a lot just to keep the soil moist around the newly planted trees so um overall I think we had a good good planting season and Saturday was great um with everybody planting at the nursery and we'll get some more trees in there and we'll probably get some of those planted next next year so so good so the trees that Sugarloaf um donated are they in the nursery right now no I left them at our shop um because they're big um they're big bald and burlap trees you know 300 pound root balls easy um so uh and I'm I'm hoping we going to try uh not this week but next week to get these trees planted so get everything in the ground uh Julian's back in it looks like do you want to say something Julian there's a couple people in the oh there he goes yeah sorry about that Henry um for whatever reason my technology has not been great tonight the only thing that I was going to add was I had um a question about like when will we be able to for a lot of the planting locations I listed the stumps need to be ground first so is that like something that can happen before planting next spring over the winter or where are we with that good question um so I am putting together another a list of stumps to be ground um or the town stump grinder the power unit for that is gone and um probably not going to get replaced so we're not going to really be able to grind stumps uh within house for a while but we do have the money to to pay someone else to do it so we're going to do that um so I don't know if if you want to share those locations I'll see if those stumps are already on that list and I have to get those done you know this fall or throughout the winter if there's no snow cover um get those ground out yeah sure I guess the main two locations I was thinking of was North Whitney Street and uh like lower Main Street um near the East Street common but a little up the road TR think on North Whitney the two trees that we took down this summer up there y y yep nice and lower Main Street um I think there was an maybe an ash in a Norway maple oh yeah we took down some ash on the corner of um Maine and Southeast Street by there yeah those did get ground okay um that intersection is going to get reworked in a couple of years probably because because the school project right GNA need to redo that whole intersection so okay um but yeah definitely you know let me know wherever you have questions about stumps and I'll make sure to can we get the emerald dashboards to eat through the stumps they do they they don't eat through wood remember they feed in the cium so um yeah they they do feed on the stumps though I mean if the stumps are still Sprout you know if you still have Vigor in that sapwood they will after you cut the tree down they'll still go into underneath the bark and those stumps and try to lay eggs yeah that's incredible all right well I think that on that note will end the meeting thank you everyone uh Ellen if you can get me those minutes if you get to me tomorrow I can get them done and out to everyone before I leave so if not then whenever okay I I'm not sure I'll get to them to finish them tonight but I will try just not feeling great all right thanks everyone okay thanks everybody thank you you bye thank you bye Alan I hope everything goes well tomorrow thank you we'll see you soon by bye bye oh no I want to see