 Hi. Can you promote me? Yeah. It's acting weird. I don't think any of us have the link. It's on the town website. Yeah, so I was just checking it out to make sure it's the right one. I'm going to send an email to everyone. Letting me make you co-hosts. Well, can you make me so we can, I can be seen. And how many people are joining? Can you tell that? I can see there are three. It says. Bennett, you and I. So. What if you click on their names on the list of attendance. Change to panelists. Hey guys, I can hear you now. I was having issues. So Henry, you and Bennett are both panelists now. Okay. Sounds like Bennett may dropped out. And it's there. He's muted though. Okay. And the somebody else. Now you should be able to hear me, right? Yeah. Julian's there. Can you approach? Yeah. See if you can make me co-host now. Okay. There it is. Okay. Great. Also, I'll keep track of participants and. Can add people in. Okay. Hopefully we'll get a quorum. Shashana is going to come to the meeting, but not this. Yeah. Okay. Well, hopefully she'll be. You'll have enough for quorum to vote. Yeah. Just need one more. Does anyone have Brits phone number? She's the only person on the committee whose phone number I don't have. I may have it from the, let me see. I may have it from the. It would be nice if we could just. Thanks. With the. A intimate April celebration. I do. Thank you. You can. Yeah. Can you text her and find out she's coming? She didn't come yesterday and didn't let me know. I'm calling her right now. I found. Oh, you have. Okay. I'll check him, Sarah. So to get your car back, Julian. You're muted. We are being recorded. I just muted the Julian, but don't tell me. Maybe he's talking to Britt. I just left a message for Brett. And she did not pick up. I said, come to the meeting if you can. Okay. Great. And I just texted Sarah. We'll see. The snow has been really wet and heavy today, which had a lot of my bushes and trees and stuff just leaning over. Yeah. Yeah. But it's all melted and fallen off the trees now. Yeah. I went out early this morning and just shook it off a lot of the lower branches. Yeah. So I just got a text back from Brett. Yeah. So I just got a text back from Brett. I just got a text back from Brett. Currently she's not able to make the meeting because she's in Boston with her mom. Okay. I believe her mom is having some health issues. So that's why she's out there. Okay. If we don't get a quorum, do we just reschedule? The question. Yeah. I mean, I can, I can hold a tree hearing. I guess without a recommendation. I don't know. You can make individual recommendations. You can make, you can make individual recommendations. I guess. I don't know how press. How pressing is, is this Alan just in terms of the, the overall project. If we have to push it back a month, then I don't think that's going to impact the project. Okay. It's just to get reposted and everything all over again. Yeah. Was it just the only person from the committee who was, who was there yesterday who isn't here today as Sarah? Is that right? Is there anybody else? Yep. She didn't, you know, people don't tell me what they're doing. It's hard to know if we're going to get a quorum. So. Yeah. I'm Alan. There's no tree hearing about the birch trees in front of the. Town hall. Correct. It's not a public shade. It's not in the public way. We discussed the tree removal at the. One of the meetings. With the shade tree committee brought it up. We didn't discuss it. I'm opposed to the removal of them. So. What I can do about that, but yeah, well, I can, we can, if the committee wants to meet and on the location and look at the tree, I'm more than happy to reach to the committee there and. You know, look at it. I think you can walk around the backside of the tree. And see where the leader that broke out about. Three years ago. You'll see the two remaining leaders are going to fail at the same spot. So. It's a birch tree. It's a clump birch and it's pretty much. Kind of what happens to them when they're, they're grown from a single stem, you know, multiple stems from one. Yeah. One connection point at the base. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We're going to keep coppicing and sending out new stems or. It doesn't suck it out at all from the, from. That one. Yeah. We actually, I was actually talking with. Our. Designer. Yesterday about it and trying to come up with some species. We're planting along there. But I'd be happy to meet the committee there. We can discuss it at the committee meeting. I don't know if it's possible to leave it until it fails. And it's not going to damage the building or anything. We don't like to leave trees to fail and. In high public traffic areas like that. So someone's car can be parked there. It could be a day like today where you have a heavy wet snow and the tree falls and hits the car. I forbid it's a person. So once, once you identify tree that. Has potential fail like that. You know. Yeah. Under relatively normal weather conditions. You need to take action. So. I have left the tree because I felt that you had some time left to it. And again, I still feel like it has some time left to it. But not a lot. Okay. I'll put it on the agenda. We can see if anybody wants to do anything else, but. You kind of answered my questions. Well, should we. Yeah. Do we schedule this meeting? We have four participants and they're all part either the tree warden or part of the committee. We don't have any public. Right. Comment at the moment. I'm happy to continue. We, you know, until five 30. I mean, I can open the hearing. And we can discuss it. I guess that's what we should do. The hearings posted. So we should just continue. So we'll start and if someone comes in. And joins us then. All the better. So in accordance with master in a law chapter 87. Section three under shade trees. If your warden is holding a public hearing. On today, Tuesday, March 14th, we'll be at five PM. And a virtual meeting. To review the proposed rule of a. Nor a 22 inch. DbH. Norrie maple. In front of 1162. North. Pleasant street. For the town to make sidewalk and bus stop improvements. And then we'll have a meeting. The meeting is being recorded. And we'll be available. On. After Friday for review. So since. Everybody was there. That's on the meeting right now. The town is. Is proposing to redo. In front of the Black Walnuts. In. Along North Pleasant street. Down to roughly. House number. Just past 1146. North Pleasant streets where the project will terminate for the time being. So the goal is to remove most of the existing four foot wide sidewalk that runs. Parallel. To the property line. Of the town in the houses along North Pleasant street there. And move it out closer to the road. Make it eight feet wide. So it would be considered a multi-use path. For bicyclists and pedestrians. And then also to move the bus stop further. South on North Pleasant street on the same side. Currently. It is. In front of 1162, which is where the. Nori Maple is that we're proposing to remove. It would be moved down to in front of 1156. North Pleasant street. Or the new bus stop. The reason why the tree needs to be moved is because the grade changes that need to take place in the area to make the sidewalk is pretty significant. It happens right up to the trunk of the tree. So. Over half of the roots of the tree would be smothered in. In. New fill. And sidewalk. The tree has been pruned. Pretty aggressively due to the power lines that are there. So it's a little lopsided. But it does have some fine tip die back throughout the tree. Normal dead wood other than that. But mostly it's the fine tip die back right now that looks. More recent. Than the standard sort of one or two. Three inch diameter where that's been dead for a while. In the tree. So. Other trees will be impacted by this project, but the root zone impact is going to be minimal. Any of the newer planted trees that we planted a number of years ago. Will be moved. And we planted on pretty much in the same location. For the project. Think that covers. Why the trees being moved. Not after yesterday. I think there were some questions that were asked during the site visit that I couldn't answer at the time. There seem to be a lot of questions about the actual project. Yeah. Versus the tree. How is the trees health overall? Yeah, it's, it's like a lot of our maples right now. It is struggling the job has been tough on. Most of our maples, even Norway maples. I think the, you know, the excessive pruning. Because it was planted close to the power lines, you know, it hasn't, hasn't really been able to grow over top of the power lines yet. So essentially, as you saw, half of the tree has been pruned to keep it away from the power lines. So. It's also created by the bigger trees. Shaded by the trees and has pretty serious soil compaction from the top of the tree. So, you know, the top is there and people stand on the roots. So. This is 521. So. I have comments. I don't have questions. And I have no problem with this tree being removed. I think you've done a good job of designing it to avoid tree loss. However, it's hard to. You know, Without knowing what's going to happen with the rest of the bike path. So if they're going to continue that bike path all the way down. How many trees are we going to lose in the whole project? You know, then. You know, It seems silly to do just this little piece of it. Right. In by itself. And then they don't do anymore. But. Yeah, that's, that's my only concern. I'd rather see whole projects designed. We see what the losses are. And then we can say, Yeah. I agree. I haven't even, you know, I haven't seen the whole layup of the project yet. I mean, I know. I've known about the project. They've been discussing it for a number of years. Yeah. The, you know, if they want to make it eight feet wide all the way down. There will be some tree impact. It actually may not be as bad. But I think there are a couple of trees there that are significant. But I think they're going to, I think one of the plans called for them to go down North Pleasant Street and then jump to the other side of the street again. At some point. To, but I'm not sure if that's still in the plan. I haven't seen the whole. I don't even know if they have a whole design, but they might. I mean it's needed. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if they're going to deny that. Getting people getting bikes and people off of the sidewalk out of the road there. It's a good thing. It's a heavily traveled road. And making it more. Making people feel safe by cycling on. Multi-use path is, is a good thing. Sarah, I think is going to join in a couple of minutes. So. Yeah. You lost track of time. It's an easy thing to do on a snow day with kids. Yeah. Did you lose power today? Did not. We have. We've never lost. I've lived in this house for. We've never had a significant power loss in 14 years. Wow. That's good. Crazy. Yeah. Get a lot of town loose power. I know my grandparents. I don't know if they lost power or not. We had some flickering lights. That was it. You guys get a lot of. Tree issues around town or mostly snow. No, really. It was some. I don't know if there was a tree involved. I didn't see a tree involved, but a pole was. Knocked over. So I don't know if. They lost power or not. We had some flickering lights. That was it. I don't know if there were any issues around town or mostly snow. No, really. It was. We did have an ashtray split out. It was a co-dominant stem ash on. Rambling road. It fell parallel to the road split in half. So we just had to chip up the brush and stuff. Get out of the road. Yeah. And then branches. Kind of scattered around. Nothing major. Yeah. Well, it's nothing major in the way of snow. The ground is hardly white. Yeah. It was heavy wet snow. It was. Yeah, but it's not sticking. It keeps nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Most of the calls came in. Between. Like six 30 and. Like a third. This morning. They stopped coming in. Well, I don't want to wait. Oh, she's here. Hold on. There we go. So I will. Okay. She'll be in a second. Hey. Hello. Hi, sir. Sorry, I was late. I lost track of time. So we've pretty much done the discussion, everything, unless you have more to say. We were just about to end the meeting when you joined. So now we have a quorum. Do you need to hear any more of the. The details. I don't think so. I feel pretty comfortable with what we saw at the site. Yesterday. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to stop that you're hearing at the moment for the moment and allow the committee to open up. Their meeting to vote. And then you can close that and. Present your motion. Okay. So at. Five 26, I will temporarily close the hearing so that the policy can have their meeting. To vote on the tree. Correct. We need a motion. Somebody want to present one. I don't know how these things go. Go for it, Julian. It's you. I was about to make up something. I. Move that we approve the. Removal of the one. Norway Maple at this location. In an effort to create a multi-use bike path. And request that the town. Leave and improve planting spaces in the vicinity. I would just add that. All best practices be used to protect the trees to remain the existing roots of the trees to remain during construction. That was a, I think that was the selling point for me was that doing this multi-use path is going to actually be better for the rest of the city. So it's going to retain the sidewalk and its existing configuration. So just that little caveat of the best practices for protecting the, the trees that are staying. I'm good with that. Can we put that in as like a friendly amendment or whatever they call it? Yeah. Alan, are you writing it down or you want us to take notes on this? No, if you, if, if you could write that up and. You'll need to be just submitted. No, kind of at the end. Yeah. I thought about it halfway through Julian. Talking. So then didn't do a thing about it. So. I can reword it again. I have, I have notes open. Go for it. Okay. I move to. Recommend that the town of Amherst remove. The one Norway Maple at the specified location and effort to create a multi-use. In that effort also create. In retain planting area as well as. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. You're doing good. I'm fast. I'm not that fast. So. I stopped at creating a multi-use path. Well, well. Well, preserving areas for planting new trees and protecting. Other existing trees. In the area, including their root zone. Using best practices. Is that meet with your, is that include enough language for you about best practices and root zones? Yeah, I think so. Just a note about protecting the root zones of the existing trees in the area. I think that's, that's all that I was. Wanted to add. All right. All in favor. To unanimous. We can go back to Alan. Why don't you send that out to the committee and to Alan too, please. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. So I will reopen the tree hearing at 530. Having just listened to the. I don't think you need to read it for me. So then I will recommend that the tree be removed. That we will. Follow best management practices for preserving root zone and protecting the trees during construction. And that we will. Improve the number of planting locations we have. At that. Project site. So. We can actually end up with more trees. Then we currently have. Can I actually add one little bit? Can you hold off on removing the tree until. The project actually is starting to go. Yeah. Yes. I will wait until I have a firm start date. For the project. Thank you. I'm adding that to her statement. Sure. Okay. It is 531. I will close the tree hearing. If there are no, if there are no further questions from anybody. So that. I can. Leave and close the zoom meeting. And then we can reopen. The public shade tree hearing. With your. Your link. Yeah. We have the. We have the link, but you have to get it started. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to close the meeting and zoom. Good to see you on the other. Thanks everybody. The other meeting in 25 minutes. I mean more. Thanks, Alan. You want to start 25 minutes. You already started earlier. No, six o'clock. Yeah. We posted in those. Yeah. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.