 First of all I want to thank the mayor, his honor, and members of the council for allowing me to come and talk to you a little bit about the restoration of our tree shabuigan project and perhaps related to some of the things we are trying to do with the city and throughout the county here. I'll give you a presentation for perhaps 10 or 12 minutes and then I'll open it to questions if any of the members of the council or others have questions we'll try to address them. I am not an arborist but fortunately Tim Bull, your city forester, is here and can deal with the technical questions I would assume. And before I get started I also want to introduce Scott Litke who is the president of the Shabuigan Rotary Club and along with a number of other Rotarians has been instrumental in helping me put this project together and getting it off the ground. Essentially this project that I'm speaking to tonight and the benefits for the city started about two years ago when the Shabuigan Rotary Club and a second Rotary Club in Shabuigan, the so-called Early Birds Rotary Club came together to work with Joe Curlin, your superintendent of parks, with regard to trying to do some planting with the city and I got put in a committee and was introduced to the scope of an environmental problem that I knew existed but I don't think I appreciate it fully and that is the infestation of the amral ash borer which I'm sure this body is generally quite familiar with at this point. I worked with Joe and the public work staff and the park staff over a period of time the two Rotary Clubs raised resources that weren't available of the city to plant a total of about 140 trees and that was in celebration of the city's 40th anniversary of being the tree city USA and the oldest city and in the state that had that remarkable honor bestowed upon it so we were able to raise $14,500 to assist the city in planting 140 trees and parks and on the streets here in the city of Shabuigan but during that period of time Joe Curlin and the city staff really educated me to the scope of the amral ash borer problem and the devastation that was presenting to the city of Shabuigan and obviously well beyond the city itself throughout the county and at one or two points during our meeting I asked Joe whether the city was alone in this effort obviously there's some county involvement and state involvement and I asked whether the private sector was in all it all engaged in this effort to try to deal with this environmental threat and the answer quite frankly is the city was pretty much by itself and along with some county and state help but that the private sector wasn't stepping up to the plate at that point and it seemed to me as a Rotarian that Rotary can play a role here in helping not only the city of Shabuigan but communities throughout the area and trying to bring forward private resources that weren't then being presented I'm old enough probably older than most of you in this room to remember the Dutch Elm disease in the 1950s and 1960s that devastated what had been the city of Elms the city of Shabuigan was known as a city of Elms by of course a destruction of many of the beautiful elm trees that we had but the response to that was not just a city or a county response at that time it was a response involving a private sector as well and it seemed to me that it was time for someone to stand up and to be supportive of what the municipality here in Shabuigan and those municipalities elsewhere in the county were doing so I was able to prevail on the Rotary Club in Shabuigan to allow me to go forward and put together a project that eventually came to be known as restoration of our tree Shabuigan roots you have to have an acronym for what you're doing and we began the process of working with an environmental organization network if you would in eastern part of Wisconsin that is known as the Lakeshore natural resource partnership which is already working with the city on a number of other projects but we came together informed an MOU and partnership with LNRP to try to put together a strategy that we thought might make a difference in helping not only this municipality but others throughout the county so over the period of the late part of 2018 and early 2019 we put an MOU together with LNRP and there were three legs to it and I'm going to principally look at one of those with you one part of our strategy this evening which impacts on the city but there were three aspects of it first of all we wanted to get out and do some public education the city certainly and the county were doing some things but this really isn't your role it seems to me in terms of public education and public outreach so we got together and worked with the Maywood Environmental Center and some other educational institutions in the area to try to begin to educate the public overall as to this environmental threat we've done that in some workshops we've run through Maywood we hope to do some more with the public education system here throughout the county frankly we're being slowed in the effort right now because of the COVID-19 and the inability to get people together but we're trying to do more virtually on that but that was one part of our strategy the second part was we realized that there was an absence of resources to do forest management and forest re-planning now we're well along because of Tim and Joe and the others here in the city with that process in the city of Sheboygan and the larger municipalities in the county are well along as well because there's some resources there and expertise where we're not doing very well is in the townships and so the Department of Natural Resources in the end of 2018 awarded us a modest grant to begin to work actively with the townships throughout the county and we are now well along in that process we're using volunteers we're using technical expertise from LNRP and also from the DNR in order to work with the townships to begin to build a database and to begin to collect data on the resources principally ash resources that are out there and that will be lost to this devastation I didn't mention it earlier but just to give you a scope of what we're up against here probably on the order of over one-third of the street and park trees in Sheboygan are ash and they'll all be lost to this eab infestation before we're done in the next five or ten years you'll lose it all so as you all go home tonight take a look at the tree canopy and realize that about one out of every three of those trees you see is an ash and it's about to be lost that's why something needs to be done about this if we're going to preserve the canopy and overall in the county over 17 million trees are ash trees some townships like the town of Sheboygan for example the percentage of ash is much higher it's as high as 70 percent ash in the town of Sheboygan and if you drive into that area think about what that's going to look like in five or ten years so the second leg in this effort then was to bring some resources into this for actual planning and as I said that process is underway again COVID-19 has made it somewhat complicated to train our volunteers and get them out there I talked to the DNR within the last couple of hours and their understanding of the challenges that COVID is representing to us but they've been very accommodating allowance to go forward they've renewed the and extended that grant this past year and we're now up to a grant of about $50,000 that is being used for urban forestry planning but the real element to the strategy that I wanted to address with you this evening is what we call our community investment fund which is a fund that seeks private capital from industry from business and from large foundations that have the means to do so that go into the Sheboygan County Rotary Foundation a 501c3 organization that then we're going to make available and are making available to municipalities here in Sheboygan on a matching basis in order to accelerate the level of replanting of trees and the removal of ash trees that of course are a part of the problem here we're well along in that process we've raised resources both from the public sector the US Forest Service a year ago granted us $200,000 for Sheboygan County that is essentially focused on mitigation of emerald ash borne we're the only county in all of Wisconsin right now that has had the benefit of that large grant coming to us so it's a unique thing it's happened because of what Roots is doing and some of that $200,000 those $200,000 resources will be made available to the city of Sheboygan and to municipalities we've already dedicated some of those resources to mitigation in the Esslingon Park that you're familiar with just west of the city Gerber Lake out in the neighborhood of Lakeland University and the Sheboygan Marsh which is almost exclusively ash so the mitigation there will be underway and by mitigation I mean the removal of ash trees and the planting of non-ash replacement trees again COVID-19 has slowed up our ability to bring in some of the contractors that we want to but we're at least in the in the stage where we will dedicate those resources specifically this evening and there's a resolution you'll be voting on later the other aspect of our third level of strategy or third leg here is the private money that we have raised in the Sheboygan area it's still a modest amount but it's enough for us to go forward with five demonstrator projects two of those projects involve the city of Sheboygan and we're hoping that you will allow us to move forward with the adoption of a resolution a little bit later this evening each of the Sheboygan based rotary clubs is offering resources to the city of Sheboygan the roots fund itself which offers additional rotary resources will be available for two sets of projects and then we have the assistance of the Alliant Energy Company that is making a corporate donation of about five thousand dollars to to further support this effort so what we're bringing to the city and with a lot of help from Tim and from Joe Curlin who helped put the plan together are two separate mitigation plans involving a total of six city parks it will accelerate mitigation in Lakeview Park you're familiar with that on the south side of Sheboygan the rotary park right down along the water area itself and area five of the Evergreen Park which of course gets tremendous use on the part of many in the community for recreational purposes public meetings that work will be done with the support of the Sheboygan Rotary Club and the Alliant Energy Company and also with a district grant from the rotary organization and three additional parks then will be supported in a mitigation effort by the Early Bird Rotary Club that'll be Roosevelt Park Cleveland Park and Veterans Park and they're also going to be part of the effort on area five of Evergreen Park so all told we're stepping up to the plate to work with the city of Sheboygan to accelerate mitigation in those six parks I want to tell all of you that you've got a tremendous staff here if you don't already know it you probably do with Joe Curlin and Tim Bull who've been instrumental in putting these projects together they've been highly responsive and I can't say enough for the city staff and the cooperation we've had I won't go into the details the other three projects but just I'll cover them very quickly and say that we've got one project going with the city of Sheboygan Falls to mitigate in the so-called river park area if you're familiar with that and a access point to River Park will be doing that project and the county stewardship fund has come forward to help the Rotary Organization assist in funding the city of Sheboygan Falls in that project we also have approval now to go forward with a project for four parks and mitigation of four parks in Plymouth that again is being done with the assistance of the Plymouth Utilities Organization and again with Rotary District money and with Rotary money we brought to this to this effort for roots so that project will go forward later this summer and finally we're out and working with the village of Elkhart Lake and a modest program out there involving two parks and a number of street areas so all told we have a lot going on with these demonstrator projects I would simply before I open myself to questions I would ask for the council members that are here present tonight and those that are of course virtually with us if we could look for your support first of all for the resolution tonight and secondly as roots goes forward we're going to be continuing to knock on private sector doors corporate Sheboygan corporate Sheboygan county and also large foundations with means so that we can if you would if I may use an old Navy term I'm a naval officer of 23 years retired to use an old Navy term we are really trying to get all hands on deck here for a whole of community effort to combat this problem we believe the council knows it's a problem and I know you've dedicated additional resources to the public work staff and the park staff we would ask you to continue supplementing that support which is going to be necessary in the next several years when the devastation becomes ever more apparent and while you do that roots and the private sector will step up to the plate but anything you can do to help us raise money in the private sector would be would be greatly welcomed as we go forward we hope to have a project that really winds itself up in another two to three years we want to make an impact to use an old military term of mind I'm calling this a surge effort you've heard about the surge in Afghanistan Rockwell this is a surge for Sheboygan county but it's in an environmental war that we're engaged in we want to put resources on this problem quickly we want to do this for future generations I don't have to tell you that it makes a difference in terms of not so much those of us who are present tonight but our children and our grandchildren who will enjoy this tree canopy if we can maintain it the advantages are tremendous aesthetically it's an advantage offers of course the city of Sheboygan benefits in terms of its tax base quite frankly because it's a demonstrated fact that tree canopies help with property values public and private and the other thing I guess I would point out is that it obviously helps with the effort of global warming removes CO2 from the air and obviously pollutants as well so there are many benefits to maintaining a healthy tree canopy economic ecological and otherwise with that Mr Mayor and members of the council thank you for your time and attention and