 Hopefully this will fix it. I see Sarah, Henry, Gordon, Bennett, and three, Adrian, Anna, Jennifer, and Tom. You the host? Looks like it. Do you want to make me a co-host? Yes. Because then I'll share my screen. Okay. If you make me a co-host too, I can watch the participants and let people in. We have 10 people waiting to get in, including Ellen. Sure. Is it make host or make co-host? Co-host. Co-host is fine. And Henry. So Henry and Sarah, you're both co-hosts. Great. Thank you. Okay. No, they should be under. Where'd they go? We haven't started yet. Okay. No, I'm not using Mike. We have a lot of guests joining us today. So just bear with us. Well, we get all of the people in the waiting room into the meeting. And we'll be starting shortly. At which point I'll start the recording. It looks like we are recording. It would be great if people could put their first and last names. Thank you for coming. My name is Sarah Lawler. I'm the chair of the Amherst public shade tree committee. We have a lot of guests tonight. I'm assuming everyone is here for the sunset. Public comment for the shade trees. So I just want to have all of the shade tree committee members just take a quick second to introduce themselves. And then as we, as, as people comment, if you could just first introduce yourself, you know, say your name, we do keep a record of everyone who attends our meetings to post in our minutes for the next month. So. Alan snow is our tree warden. And, uh, Alan, you can start off. And then we'll just have all the committee members introduce themselves briefly. I'm Alan snow tree warden with a town of Amherst. I live on Bayer street. My name is Julian Hines. I'm a member of the shade committee. I live on high street. Henry. Yeah, I'm Henry Lappin. I was the chair and recently back on the committee officially. So here I am. Hi, I'm Ellen Kiter. I'm a member of the shade tree committee. Um, and I live in South Amherst. Gordon. I'm Gordon green. I live in North Amherst. I've been on the, on the shade tree committee. That's everyone that I can see. Is there, is Trishauna here? Is there anyone else from the committee I'm missing? Who I can't see on my screen right now. I don't see her. I'll text her though. Okay. And if anyone else. If anyone else. If anyone else wants to introduce themselves briefly. Um, all right. So I'm going to share my screen so that we can all see the agenda. So we've had the call to order. Um, announcements and public comments. We're going to have the public comment for 174 sunset. Av. Um, next up, but as if there's any other, um, announcements that any of the committee members have to bring to attention before we get started with the scheduled. Public comment. And, um, we need someone to take notes. Gordon, are you taking notes or? Yeah, I'll take them. Great. Thank you so much. I saw the sorry state of my notes last time around and decided to get back on that horse. Okay. Um, so then what I believe, uh, all of our guests are here for tonight, uh, the public comment for 174 sunset. Av. Uh, I just want to say a couple brief. Just before we get started with public comment. Um, we had a site visit and a tree hearing last week. The way this process works is the tree warden posts the site visit. Um, and so the committee and, uh, you know, it's, it's posted publicly so anyone else interested can come and we check out the trees. Um, But are proposed for removal. Um, I think it's a fee. So it's $90 per diameter at breast height. Uh, per inch diameter at breast height. Um, To remove a public shade tree so that money gets put into the, uh, the shade tree committee's fund and we use that to plant new trees in Amherst. Uh, the shade tree committee votes on a recommendation, um, that the tree warden takes into consideration the recommendation made by the committee, but the committee doesn't have any power over all your patients. It wasn't posted correctly. So we're going to, uh, have a new deliberation, but the shade tree committee doesn't actually have any, uh, authority over trees that get removed. That decision is made by the tree warden. And the, you know, the tree warden takes into consideration, the recommendation made by the committee, but the committee doesn't have any power. Um, for, you know, the recommendation that the tree committee makes tonight is going to go to the town manager, um, to make the final decision about these trees. So we, because we had all of those events last week where there was public comment. Um, Um, Um, Should the tree warden's. Decision be appealed at the, um, Tree hearing, which it was last week. Uh, then it goes to the town manager. So any, uh, recommendation that the tree committee makes tonight is going to go to. Um, the, um, the, um, the final decision that the tree warden made last week where there was public comment. Um, I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to have their voice heard, but we do have a lot of items on our agenda to get through tonight. So in the interest of everyone's time and because we have so many interested people, I'm just going to ask everyone to try to keep their, um, comments to the point. Um, so we are going to be keeping a schedule. Um, I'm going to abstain from voting on this particular issue because I work for the landscape architecture company place alliance. That is the one who did this landscape plan. So just so that there's no conflict of interest, I'm going to abstain. Um, so we need to have, uh, for other committee members for a quorum, which we do. So someone else is just going to have to be the one to make the motion second it and then vote. Um, so if we're going to move on to the next item, we're going to open it up. Uh, I'm going to give you a quick review of what we're going to do. We're going to open it up for public comment. I do see that Tom, Rady is here representing the client. So, uh, if Tom, if you want to jump in and explain anything before we open it up for questions or if anyone has questions, um, specifically for Tom. Um, you can. Um, um, I'm just going to, um, I'm going to give you a quick review of this plan, um, since I did help, you know, I worked at the company. I'm kind of familiar with the plan set. Um, if anyone has any questions about that. Um, but I do want to make sure that we're just discussing the shade trees. Um, you know, we don't have any say whatsoever over trees internal to the lot. Um, or any of the building or architecture decisions. Um, so. Procedural question. If the hearing was incorrectly advertised and you're redoing the hearing to redo the decision, aren't we back at square one? I don't understand why it would go to the town manager at this point. It seems like you would make a decision and that decision would need to be appealed in order to go to the town manager. So that was what that's the, the hearing wasn't incorrectly posted. All that was incorrectly posted was the shade tree committee comment. So the hearing and the site visit, they were all done by the tree warden and those were posted correctly. And there was public comment at both of those things. So that, that's already been done. When was the decision made? When was the deliberation? So there's not really a deliberation. Like I said, the person who makes the decision about trees that are removed is the tree warden. But the public never saw the shade tree committee's recommendation. I'm wondering when that happened. So that's what's happening now. It's just the shade tree committee's recommendation. So then we're back at square one. We're not because the tree warden doesn't have to. Listen to the recommendation. We're not, we're not back at square one because the tree hearing and the tree warden operates separately from the shade tree committee. If I can say something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Either way, it's going to go to the town manager. So our recommendation will now go to the town manager rather than just first to the tree warden and then to the town manager. That's what I'm not understanding. If you could explain that. I can, I can try to do that. If you'd like. Yeah. Thanks, Alan. Okay. So. The tree hearing was posted. The site visit was posted, which we've all heard now. The recommendation that they make to the tree warden generally happens. At the tree hearing. In a pause between the. Tree hearing and the committee's regular meeting. They. Have a vote. That didn't happen correctly due to a problem posting the minutes which bumped the. Shade tree committee meeting. Off off of the schedule. I received two letters. Questing that the trees not be removed. Which essentially stops the process. The tree wardens. Opinion on the rule of trees at that point is irrelevant. And under chapter 87. The tree hearing closes at that point. And goes to the next level of review. And the next level of review. And the committee saying the. Recommendation they're making tonight. After the public comment will be given to the town manager with all of the records and. Letters that I received. To date. Does that clarify your question? Sort of. Thank you. Okay. So now we can just get into the public comment. And then we can move on to the next slide. I, it's hard for me to see everyone because. There's so many people here tonight. So, so Dorothy, go ahead, but also in the future, if you want to just unmute yourself and then speak, that's, that's fine. You don't have to wait for me to call on you. I'm afraid I won't be able to see everyone with the way the zoom is working with so many people here. Okay. So you said to raise your hand if you had a question. You can do that. I have a question for the committee. I, I have a question for Tom Readie. And it is. Is there a possibility. That you might withdraw the. Plan to have the tree on the corner of fearing and sunset. Removed. I understand there are complications with the other tree and existing sewer lines and town services. But I felt. Perhaps wrongly. At the site visit. that the residents were saying about the importance of that tree, for all of its treeness and what it gives to the climate and to nature, but also its symbolic role as showing the beginning of a residential neighborhood, which for those who live in that neighborhood is very, very important, and there are others who think that it will also be important for students who will see it, and without even thinking just subliminally, subconsciously, no, okay, this is a quiet residential street. So my question is to Mr. Reedy, whether there's a possibility that for the tree on the corner of sunset and fearing, you might withdraw that request and let that tree live its allotted time for whatever that is for a few more years. So if I could, through the chair, for the record, Tom Reedy, attorney with Bacon Wilson and Amherst here on behalf of the applicant. So I think procedurally that horse is already out of the barn, given that there is an objection, and so it goes to the town manager. I think there's a couple of competing thoughts here. One is if this, if it does live for another five years, let's say, and then its town expense to take it down, I don't know that that's in the best interest of the town. We, I think, I've had a conversation with Barry about this, if the design didn't change, like if the sidewalk could still go where it went, I think we would do what we can to protect that tree. I just don't know how wise that is given its age, and what we would propose when we're ultimately, what we had proposed was I think one to two inch caliper red maples. And now after listening to the conversations that were had, I think we'd go up to between three and five inch red maples, which are from what I understand, you know, 20 to 25 feet tall at planting. And again, you know, I think the horse is a little bit out of the barn and we're going to have to wait for the town manager's ultimate decision. But based on the conversations I've had with Barry and thinking of, you know, I'll defer to the tree warden because I think he has much more of a sense of the health of this tree, and what will happen when this construction takes place and whether it is wise to leave that there or if there's some alternative because, you know, Miss Pam, I don't think when I explained to Barry, you know, you step back there and you look and you have the creamery on one side, and you have this tree there on the other, he can appreciate that. And so maybe there's, I don't know if there's something else if it's, you know, the three to five inch red maple, which is going to be taller than I think folks are thinking about, you know, with a little bit bigger in girth at breast height, maybe that's a solution. But I don't think we would withdraw now. I don't think we can withdraw now. It's certainly worth the conversation. But I think there's other, I don't want to say unilaterally for the town. This is what's in the best interest because what I've heard is it probably makes sense to take it down based on a whole host of considerations. And so, you know, not least of which is the age of the trees on Sunset Ave, generally, and how they're all of a certain age, where in species, I think it's oak and silver maple, where they may all come down in a relatively short or similar time period. So again, I've answered a little bit longwindedly in a roundabout way, but I think simply no, I don't think we would look to withdraw. I think I'd like to see the process played out, but just know that we're having those thoughts and conversations about how can we have this same design without taking that tree down, pruning it potentially, or is it really better just to take it down? So that's as transparently as I can say where we're at at this point. Sarah, I could call on people because I can see who has hands raised. Is that good? Yeah, I can also try. They might be rising to the top of my bar here. So if I miss someone, Henry, please do jump in. The next person I see is Barbara Pearson. Thank you, Barbara Pearson from 11 Page Street, and I was at the site visit and did hear the conversation. When I look at this plan and I see all those trees internal to the property, those are imaginary trees, right? They're not there yet. They're proposed trees in the plan. They're proposed trees, right? And it doesn't give us any sense of trees that are going to come down there. I think there was the solution that first of all, we don't really want a sidewalk there, that it doesn't serve the town to have a sidewalk there. It doesn't serve the residents rather to have a sidewalk there. And so that would be one of the major reasons for taking the tree down is to facilitate having a sidewalk there. The other thing is there's not a whole lot of trees on that property, but in terms of tree cover in general, the town has very little currency. We have just a couple of shaped trees on public land. And so seeding, knowing that we're going to lose every tree on that property, the man has already cut 20 trees out of a wetland where there would have been reasons not to have it, not to have them cut. And here there's trees, there's no reason for him not to cut any, all of these trees and not the ones pictured because those aren't there then. So there's no reason to expect that he's not going to cut down every tree around. And that's the one tree we have. So I don't see how we could vote in favor of getting rid of it. That's all. I am going to ask you to call on people. I was just looking through this plant set to see if there wasn't existing conditions that did have show the existing trees. And this is it, but they're very hard to see. I believe it's just a very small icon, right? So this isn't representative of the size of the tree. This just links, you know, it just shows where the center of the tree is. So I don't think that's particularly helpful for the conversation that we're having. We know there's a big tree down from the one that we've all agreed is going to have to go down toward that property line. Yeah, they're all marked down here. They're just really small. Henry, I'm going to have you continue to call on people. I have to take care of my baby for a second. Martha Jamison, you're on next. Hi, Martha Jamison, 30 Fearing Street. Unlike Councillor Pam, I have not given up hope for the second Silver Maple. And my point is when the developer acquired this property, both those trees were already there, and they certainly could be there long after. I don't see any reason why we should accept a plan that assumes that public shade trees should be removed. So I think that's an important point upfront. And for anyone to say, well, you know, we can't keep that tree without, because it's going to be in the way of the sidewalk, and it's already, you know, planted. I think the idea that this plan has to be accepted as is, is also, I just don't see that that's necessary. It seems to me that it is in the best interest of Amherst and the developer to reconsider when reconsideration is required. And there are quite a few people, apparently myself included, who feel that this is that time. So thank you. All right, thank you, Martha. Jennifer Larson. Hi, thank you so much for meeting here tonight and letting me be here to speak. I live at 38 Feering Street. So this is my neighborhood. I was not able to attend the site visit yesterday, so I don't know what was said. And I imagine that this committee has a lot of different things to take into consideration when making a decision like this. But I do not approve removal of the trees. They're old, but they're still healthy, they're established, they're majestic and 25 foot trees are nice, but it's not the same. Cutting down the tree at the corner of Feering and Sunset would be a detriment to our neighborhood. That tree really helps to find the block of Sunset as a residential neighborhood with dorms right there. Already, we have a lot of traffic. The trees set the neighborhood apart from the UMass campus and provide a natural screen for us neighbors from the Southwest dorm. So we don't feel like we're living right under the towers. And installing a new sidewalk will just invite more drunk pedestrian traffic on weekend nights, making noise and littering in our lovely residential neighborhood. We don't need it. Thank you for your time. Jennifer Taub, you have your hand up. Yes, Jennifer Taub 259 Lincoln Avenue. And I'm probably, you know, reiterating what's already been said, but I did, I understood the tree warden to say at the last meeting that the tree might, well, both trees could have another, you know, 10 or more 15 years life that they weren't at the end of their life and that they were healthy. And the concern was more that they would be damaged during the construction, which is why it's, you know, it's difficult for I think the neighborhood to accept that they have to come down since they are healthy and they're not, they could have many years ahead. And I've actually never heard the tree warden say as few as five, but more 10 to 15 or more. So, but the concern is not for the health of the trees now, but that they could be compromised in the construction. And I guess what we're saying is that we understand that the tree to the south, I mean, of course we'd want, we want to do everything to save both trees, but that may be more difficult to do because of I think the drainage that has to happen near that tree. So couldn't we at least compromise and save the tree at the corner of Fearing and Sunset, which again really does help to define the neighborhood and separates it from the university, which is not only in the best interest of the residents of sunset, but also for the students to understand that when they cross the street, they've left campus. And I don't know how I imagine members of the shade tree committee haven't, but even the developer, I mean, to be if he has been there late at night on weekends, but the amount of student traffic that crosses, traverses that corner is hundreds of students, if not more. So for them to now have a shortcut, there's no tree there and they can just shortcut across particularly with there's a sidewalk, it's not, it's, it is not going to be pleasant for the new residents of that development. And, you know, the neighbors already, the residents already living on the street. And again, we have a lot of concern about the number of trees that are going to come down because we, we like not to look like they take down all the trees and then you have stark buildings. So those are my comments. And that's my opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Paige, you're up next. Sorry to interject real quick. Alan, I just thought this might be a time to clarify anything about the age of the trees, the health of the trees or complications that might arise during construction. If you could speak to that a little bit before we get back to you, Paige. Yeah, it's, you know, it's difficult, you know, to tell how long a tree is going to survive and we make, you know, we're forced to make generalizations based on, you know, past experience and watching other trees of suicide and condition, you know, how they, how they go into decline at the end and how long that takes. And then there's no way to figure in, you know, what kind of climate things are going to happen, drought or storms or whatever to, you know, cause a more rapid decline or maybe make them live a little longer. So it's just a generalization. And so looking at those, both those trees and looking at their branch structure and their branch attachment points and the cavities that are in them, the amount of damage in the upper crown, you know, they, they're definitely towards the end of their life expectancy. So they don't have, you know, a long way to go. We can, you know, I was rethinking some of the process and thinking, you know, we could go there and just prune out like we would for, you know, any mature old tree, take out all the dead, dying, diseased wood, cavities, branches that have reached, you know, the threshold of, you know, soundward decay and then see what's left to the crown at that point to keep the tree alive. You know, when you have a tree that's old, you have, you have a lot of mass. There is a lot of living tissue to keep alive. You know, there's a lot of roots underground. All of that, you know, healthy tissue that translocates all the nutrients for the tree all has to be kept alive. And that's kept alive through healthy leaves. And there's a balance between the amount of leaf surface you have on a tree and the ability of the tree to keep itself alive. So that's kind of where sometimes it's confusing and I understand it is confusing when I, when I talk about tree's health and the tree's condition. So, you know, I was trying to explain that, you know, if a tree is growing, so the, you know, the buds are opening up, the tree is flowering, the twigs are elongating and growing, you know, that the tree is alive and growing. So it's, it's, you know, seems to be a healthy tree in that sense. It has much less crown to it than it should for a tree its size. So a tree of that diameter should have a much larger crown. So that's not a good point as far as its ability to keep itself going and sustain growth. So it's in a decline cycle is my assessment and taking out all of the decayed wood to keep it from failing and falling. There isn't going to be much left. And so by the time you do any kind of construction, don't forget the root zone of that tree goes out probably 60 feet from the trunk or more. So, and they're in the top, you know, 12 inches of soil or less is where the active root, you know, feeding roots are. So any kind of gray change in that area is going to be really tough on the tree that's already stressed. There's a generalization, you know, if you impact any more than 20% of a tree's root zone at any one time, you can, you know, cause the tree to go into decline and that's in reference to a healthy tree. So I'm not sure if that helps clarify, you know, healthy tree and the condition of the tree. Yes. Thank you, Alan. Paige. Hi, thank you. I would like to suggest that the project be re-envisioned. Alan's comment that you shouldn't impact 20% of the root zone. The sidewalk shouldn't impact 20% of the root zone. The tree is alive and there seems to be a circular argument. The proposed project, as it stands, we're saying that the trees won't survive this proposed project and so we should kill them because the proposed project will kill them. It's not making any sense to me. And how long the tree has to live is irrelevant to me. I think the tree should be allowed to live. It might give us enough time for the plantings to be established before the tree comes down. The amount of contribution the tree makes to the neighborhood outweighs the construction project. So I still say the tree should not come down. And then I have submitted a written comment. I'm wondering if the committee has had time to read it and if not, I would like to read it into the public record. The committee has read it and it's going to be forwarded to the town warden. And it's been circulated amongst the committee members. So it's already been in the record. Okay, thank you. Next, I see Anna. Did I mute? Can you hear me? Yes, now I can. Okay, thank you so much. Yeah, I just really want to second what many people already just said. I really think the trees should not come down. I mean, we live on 155 Sunset Avenue and are of course directly affected if the trees come down because they block our view to the towers of UMass. And we did move into this house on 155 Sunset Avenue also because of the Sunset Avenue and the trees that line the street. And of course, it changes our situation dramatically. But in general also, I really think a tree that is alive should be allowed to be alive as long as it's alive. And I really think the trees should not come down. Thank you. Thank you. Dorothy, I see your hand raised. I just want to ask before we have repeat questions or comments. If there's anyone who hasn't spoken yet who would like to speak, it is working on my Zoom that if you raise your hand, you come to the top. So I will be able to see if anyone raises their hand. So if there's anyone else who hasn't spoken yet and would like to comment, we are trying to keep to a schedule. So please go ahead and do that if you have anything else to say. And Dorothy, you can go ahead. I just want to emphasis that we're talking about the few trees that are called public shade trees. And we are the public. And these trees mean everything to us. And I hate to think it's just a ritual we go through to be consulted. And then the tree comes down. The trees set the whole tone for our life. I live with big trees, although I lost a very wonderful oak in a freak storm last year. The result was that we don't have to use air conditioning most of the time. Because when you have big trees, mature trees around you, not little baby striplings, but mature trees, your whole, it moderates the climate. The trees make the street look like a place you want to be, a place you want to walk on, which is one reason a lot of people like to walk on Amity because we still do have trees. And it's, they're more trouble to take care of and they get old and sometimes they will fail. But the fact that the town will have to pay money at some point is just I don't think something that should enter into this consideration. Because if that's what it's down to, that the town cannot afford to take down a tree when it's time to come down and would rather have a developer take it down when they're developing to save some money. I think the public will revolt and would say, let us change the financing. Let us get more money for trees. Let us have, go fund me for the trees. We'll do anything you ask or need to do. If that's, if it's down to money, we will raise the money to keep the tree because the tree means everything to us in terms of what it means to live here in Amherst. I mean, it's wonderful. We have a lot of conserved conservation property and younger people go hiking it. I'm not at the hiking age anymore. So when I see nature, it's what's around my house. It's what's on my street. And I hate to see us give up on this nature because it would be convenient and it would save the town money. So I say, please do not cut down the big trees. Thank you. That's a great segue into another agenda item that we have coming up later in our meeting. I don't expect that most of the guests we have tonight are going to stick around for this once we close the comment period. So I just want to raise the point. We are talking about a budget line item in the town budget that would support the planting of trees, which we don't currently have. And so the committee is putting together a formal letter in support of giving the tree warden a budget for tree planting. And if Dorothy was saying that the town have values this, that's what the committee has been looking for. The committee loves trees. And we're out every month during the summer planting more trees for the town. And it's always hard for us to get volunteers. We're always looking for more people to come help. And we really do need the monetary support. So if this is something that this community is really passionate about, I really strongly urge you to support a budget line item for the tree committee and the tree warden to continue to plant trees in Amherst and care for our public shade trees. So that's something that we do need. And I really hope that this level of support and concern for trees that we're seeing about this particular tree in this neighborhood is something that will really rally our community around this issue because this is something the tree committee has been working towards. So please, you know, continue to lend us your support in this way. We are getting close to having to wrap up this portion of our meeting. So Jennifer, I see your hand raised. If anyone else has anything to say, please do raise your hand so we can make sure you get a chance to speak because we're going to be wrapping this up shortly. Jennifer, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to quickly, I mean, I certainly applaud everything that the tree shade tree committee does to plant trees and give us more trees in Amherst. But I hope that, you know, we could do that in conjunction, you know, without with, we should equally prioritize preserving the trees that we have. I know I have a big tree on the side of my house. And over 10 years ago, I was advised to take it down and it's doing great. So I hope as wonderful as it is, and I would, you know, love to work with the public tree shade committee and helping to raise money and to plant more trees in Amherst, I, you know, equally value the trees that we already have. And I hope that we keep what we have as we plant new trees. Thank you. Thank you. You certainly won't hear any arguments from anyone on the committee about that. You know, that's one of the things that we also continue to work towards. And like I said at the beginning, the shade tree committee really doesn't have any authority over trees that come down. But we certainly support maintaining our mature tree canopy and adding to it as much as we can. Okay. I see Henry has a hand raised. And if no other guests tonight raised their hand, I'm going to, we're going to start wrapping this up and let the committee deliberate and discuss as necessary so that we can hold a vote and move on through our agenda. Henry? Sarah, I'd like to, after you answer the next two hands, I'd like to just make a closing comment if I could. Great. Thank you, Alan. And I would extend that to Tom Rady as well. I know you've been kind of called upon a couple of times tonight. If there's any closing statement that you'd like to make when we wrap this up, feel free to jump in with that. All right. Henry, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to say that the tree committee, all of us really do try to save large trees. And there are times we'll go to bat for a tree, even though Alan's suggesting we take it down. And this particular case, it just felt like, you know, I didn't understand quite how much concern there was from the neighborhood, but it seemed like it was the, it made sense to let these trees go. I'm sort of moved away from that a little bit and thinking maybe we should try to save at least the one on the corner. But I appreciate what everyone's saying. And we do really do try to save mature trees. We really get that that's the most important thing. Thanks for that, Henry. I feel that sentiment myself. And I think, you know, all the members on the committee I've talked to about this have felt the same way. So thank you for saying that, Paige. Hi. I just would like to say, given all the public comment and input that the tree warden reconsider his recommendation and recommend that the trees not be taken down. All right. I think we're kind of past that at this point in the process. But thank you, Paige. All right. I don't see any other hands. So Alan, I'm going to turn it over to you for your final comment. Thank you, Sarah. So I just, I do want to just say, I realize that people are getting the impression that, you know, the tree warden and the Shadry committee, believe it or not, don't try to save trees. And, you know, there is a lot of work that takes place before a tree hearing even comes to, you know, the surface. And the Shadry committee and myself and other departments in town, you know, stop most of these trees from ever getting to the point of needing to be removed because they work with the developer to try to, or the homeowner who is having some kind of issue with the public shade tree in front of their house, you know, to find options to preserve trees. And so more often than not, you know, a tree saved before anybody even knows that it was proposed to be removed. Second point I'd like to make is, you know, I've been in this, you know, field of work for 30 some odd years. I have seen tree preservation programs on numerous projects. I see lots of money spent to save trees and projects. Some successful, most not. And I just, you know, the passion to preserve, I totally understand it. And it's difficult to say that, you know, we can't save this one. And the value we're going to gain by letting it go, wishing it well into the carbon cycle and thanking it for all that it's done for us. You know, you reach that stage sometimes. And it's, yes, because of the way Amherst is funded, we would probably wait until that tree almost falls apart before we got around to taking it down just because we can't get to it. So, or somebody called and said, this is, this tree is going to kill somebody if you come take it down, or don't do something drastic to try to stop it from falling apart. That's just a reality of, you know, how we fund, you know, tree maintenance in town in most communities, frankly. So, so I, you know, don't see even if you try to do stop the sidewalk and do everything else, you know, it's really difficult to save those trees. And to, you know, watch these trees project after project, we say we're saving them, even for a short period of time. You just watch them go into decline. They just die a slow agonizing death, you know, branch by branch, you know, year by year, they just fall apart. And to me, that's just as sad as trying to take it down all at once. But I understand what it means to the neighborhood. And, you know, my recommendation to the town manager would be very open and give him options. And the town manager will make a decision at that point. So thank you, sir. Okay. I'm going to offer a couple of closing statements as the chair of the committee. Just reiterating what Alan and Henry have both said, the Shade Tree Committee really works to try to preserve as many trees as possible. We hate to see trees come down. We're a committee of volunteers because we all love trees. And that that's just true in everything that we try to do. And and that being said, I don't think anyone takes it particularly lightly when we make a recommendation, whether the tree is to be coming down. But it is a reality that everything has a lifespan. And these trees are not wild trees. They're in a heavily managed landscape. And we have to consider safety of the public. And, you know, all of these other factors as well. So it's really a tough spot that that people are in, because we really love trees and hate to see them taken down. And, and I have a huge tree in front of my house that's threatening to fall, you know, lose branches every day. And we just really personally love our trees. So it's definitely a hard decision. But the Shade Tree Committee itself is not really in the hot seat here. We don't have that authority. So I am really glad to see everyone out today, supporting neighborhood trees. It gives me so much joy to see this many people gathered around trees and coming out to support the canopy that we have here in Amherst. And I would really encourage everyone is here tonight to stay in touch with the Shade Tree Committee. Please get on our monthly email. Please come to our meetings. We do plantings every year during the growing season from, you know, we start in roughly April and we go through September, October, even November, if the weather is appropriate. And it would just be really great to see this much turnout to support trees in Amherst during the rest of the year. So I really think everyone for coming. And the committee now can make a recommendation. So I don't know if committee members want to discuss anything further, if they have any further questions, or if someone's ready to make a motion, I am going to abstain from a vote or recommendation for this particular project. So anyone who has any ideas, please feel free to speak up. Hi, this is Ellen. Sarah, I noticed on the map you had up previously before the agenda, there looks like there are two or three trees proposed for that corner spot. Is that correct? Yes. Yep. So the public shade trees are these five that are along this is in the public way here. So you can see where the property line is. And so these five shade trees along Sunset Ave are the shade trees that would be proposed as part of this plan. There are larger shade trees that would be on private property. But that's outside of our jurisdiction. So the one on the corner that its canopy is going into Fearing Street over the crosswalk, that's a private tree? It would be a private tree because Fearing Street is a private street. Oh, okay. Thank you. So that's outside of what this tree hearing would be. That's something that the developer would be taking up with Amherst, UMass, sorry. And these other trees that you're seeing kind of outside of the property line, those are, they're trees that are along the street, shade trees, but they're owned by UMass because Fearing Street is not a public street. So there's no public way on that street. Do you mean the section that is owned by UMass? Because Fearing Street is in public. Sir, I would just clarify that Fearing at the intersection of Sunset heading down the hill turns into UMass property. So at the intersection towards North Pleasant Street is all a town road, but from Sunset down the hill, it is owned by UMass. Thank you. Which is a public institution. So it is owned by the public. But correct, but it's not considered a public shade tree in the master and law chapters. Correct. Dorothy, do you have something short to say? We're trying to get... Very short. After my big oak tree fell down and it was several hundred years old, I spent over three or four hundred dollars planting a red oak and it stands 25 feet tall and it's what you're talking about. Let me tell you, it looks like a stick stuck in my yard. It's going to be so many years before it looks like anything except a really tall stick just sitting there with a little mound around it. It will not be replacing my tree. If there was anything that I could do to have kept my tree alive longer, it was killed by one of those bizarre storms that, you know, little mini tornadoes that we get sometimes. I would do it. It'll be 20, 30 years before there's any beauty piece or solace offered by that tree if it survives. Okay. So it's really nothing like the picture here. It will not look like that. It will look like a stripped bare place and it really needs to keep the trees that are in the public way. It needs to keep them to not just look so sad and pathetic. 30, 40 years from now make it look great. Okay, that'll be wonderful. But we're talking about now, the people who live here now, we want to keep that tree or both of those trees. Thank you. Thank you. Gordon. I just have a quick question. If the town were to reject the plan and the developer were to just ignore the health of the tree and just take the private property that takes up some large percentage of the root zone and do what they want with it. Since it's their property, they don't have to consider the health of the tree and their development, right? Like if the tree were there and the developer just went ahead with the utility box and everything as planned and just on their private property killed the tree by virtue of constructing in the root zone. I mean, is there anything to prevent that? I guess there's a question for Alan. Yeah, Alan can jump in here, but it's my understanding that if the plan is approved by the town, which has nothing to do with the shade tree committee, right, that's going to go through planning or zoning, then the developer can develop according to the plan. And that may or may not consider the trees. If the plan is approved, then it will be constructed according to the plans. Does that answer your question? I suppose. So yeah, like, you know, if the plans make a tree well or relocate things outside of the root zone, then that would give the tree more consideration. I think, you know, and depending on how the plans are laid out and the developer's, you know, factors that they're considering and all those things, then the plans are just going to be constructed to the plan specifications. And if those include the tree roots, then they do. And if they don't, then, and then the tree dies, I don't think there's any recourse for that. I can just add that the recourse would be under our ordinance that would allow us to, you know, assess a fine, you know, tree replacement fine, because we would, you know, if that was, if that would happen, then I would say that, you know, you're, this project's going to kill this tree and you need to do something to try to mitigate the damage, which they won't be able to do, you know, because it's not really feasible for that particular tree. So, you know, the tree would solely go into decline and die and then need to be removed. So that's the time. Would that be the same fee structure, Alan, as the $90 per DBH that we have for removing trees? I think there's an extra $300 fine on top of that. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Henry, I'm going to turn this over to you. I think we need to have the committee come to a conclusion and make a vote, or I suppose it could be determined we're not ready to make a recommendation at this time, but I'm going to turn it over to you to mediate that. Thank you. Okay. Well, not having heard from anyone else, I'm going to make a motion that the committee vote to save the tree on the corner, but allow the other one to be removed. Do we have a second for that? Yes. Seconded. Okay. And now we should vote on unless there's any more discussion. Okay. All in favor of my motion to try to save the tree on the corner. Recommend the tree on the corner be saved. Raise your hand. Opposed? That's four to two. All right. That's our recommendation to the tree warden. Can I ask a question? Sure. Can you, that's just for the tree on the corner. What about the other tree? Well, my motion, that was my question too. My motion was to remove the other tree to allow the other tree. Is that how you, I didn't, I didn't get that, but that's okay. That's what you said. Did people have voted for it? Understand what I said? Can you reread the motion? Gordon, did you get notes on it? No, can you say it again? Okay. I'll try it again. My motion is that we agree to try to save the tree on the corner that has the best chance of being saved, but we agree to the removal of the other tree, which is the one that's affected by the drainage stuff. Okay. Sewer line. Sewer line. So, if everyone understand that now, let's vote one more time all in favor of my motion. Raise your hand. Four and all opposed? So four to two. Okay. I'm missing the vote. Can you say who voted which way? Bennett and Shashana voted against my motion. We don't know why. Ellen, Gordon, me, and Julian voted in favor of the motion to save that tree. Thank you. Sarah has recused herself from this. Ellen. Okay. Thank you for the vote. Okay. And at this point, we'll move on to the rest of the agenda. I'm not sure if Sarah is coming back for that. Yeah. I will do my best. Okay. I'll keep running the meeting for a few minutes until you're ready. We need to get volunteer hours, so I'll call on people and just give me your hours, Gordon. Well, I think it's just two, three, maybe three. Okay. Julian? Yeah. How many hours this month? You're muted. There you go. Sorry, I missed something. How many hours volunteer hours this month? Oh, my apologies. I'd say probably five or six. Give me a number, please. Six, okay. Ellen? Three. You put a lot of time into the tree tour. You're including that? Yeah. Well, that was pretty much the month before I put more time into it than this month. Okay. Shashana? Four. Okay. Bennett? Six. And me, I'm probably at 10. And Sarah, if you can give me your hours now or later. 10. Okay. And the next thing is the approving the minutes from last month. Did those get out to everyone? I don't think they did. I saw that, I saw like in an email chain that Bennett had included it on March 6th, but I never actually got a, I never saw a copy of it. So I'm afraid I can't vote on that. Let's table that. I don't think I've seen it either. I was looking in my trash and everything, I just didn't see it, but I know he did send it at some point. It's probably my fault, not his. Okay. Next is the tree wardens report. Yeah. Henry, before we, before we move too far off, we do have a tree hearing, a potential April tree hearing to schedule for the Lyceum Amherst college. Allen, is that going to get scheduled for April? Not sure yet. I have not been able to discuss their intention with that project. We could try, we could schedule it and always just, you can let me know if there's a date that works for everybody. And hopefully I'll hear from them soon. And we could schedule that for the, maybe last week of March or first week of April. We could just pick a date. I'll be gone the last week in March. So I would recommend first week in April. Do it the Tuesday before our meeting on the 12th. So that would be Tuesday, April 5th. Yes. And do we want to keep it at five or five 30? Yeah, three five 30, yeah. Okay. So five 30, April 5th, a Tuesday, a week before our April meeting is tentatively a tree hearing for the Amherst College Lyceum. And Allen, you'll just confirm that if that's going to happen or not? Yes. Okay. All right. That's the site visit, right? Yes, that's the site visit. When would the tree hearing be? It would be before the next April's statutory committee meeting. Okay. It would be on the 12th. All right. Thank you for that clarification. The site visit on the 5th and then tree hearing on the 12th. Does that work for everyone? That happens. That works for me. Yeah. I see some head shaking. I don't see any nodding. No. So all right, let's do it then. Good. Sarah, do you want to give your report next or should we go to Allen? I can do mine. I don't have a lot this month. Most of the things that I've been working on have been things that we're going to touch on in our presentations and discussions section. I do want to make sure that we're all set for Arbor Day. So I think it's time to pedal to the metal for that. And the budget money stuff. So one thing that I want to make sure we do a lot of good outreach on is that budget line item, especially seeing how invested the sunset neighborhood was in their public trees. I think reaching out to the community and getting support for that is going to be really important. Other than that, I've been really working on the sunset tree hearing, which shake out from last week and then this week. So that's been taking up most of my volunteer hours in coordination. So that's pretty much it for me. I'm going to pass it, Henry, if you have anything to add or we can go to the tree warden. And I'll jump in. Jump back in in a minute. I'll add a couple things. Trent, I forget his last name from the reminder, which is a new paper that comes out weekly. He's been contacting me. He did an article on us before. He wanted Julian's information. Did you talk to him, Julian? Yes, I did. I spoke with him for about an hour on Wednesday. Oh, great. So we should look in the reminder or online. Probably, I don't know if they're still printing, but the online... They do still print them. Okay. There'll be something on the high school planting thing that we put in the newsletter. He saw it in the newsletter that Bennett put out and then he contacted me and then I sent him on to Julian. Yeah, thank you, Henry. So it's nice to get that publicity and see the high school doing good stuff with tree planting. The only other thing I have is Anna Carter, who lives off of Stanley Street, that neighborhood where we did community planting some years ago. She's interested in more trees around that and she was going to come to the meeting, but she couldn't stay when the tree herring lasted that long. So she will come to our April meeting and we'll discuss that then. I think that's all I have. Yeah, Alan, go ahead. So I don't have a lot. I'll just be very brief so you can continue with the agenda. I don't really have much to add as far as current projects or anything like that. We're just in our general, you know, trying to get caught up on removals and pruning and all that fun stuff and stump grinding. I did want to say that it's part of my role with the mastery wardens and forestry association. I put together with another group of board members, the western mass chapter dinner meeting at the Blue Bonnet diner. And we have some speakers on March 24th. It starts at five. It's at the Blue Bonnet diner. You get a great meal and you listen to some interesting topics. So we have two topics that go into, you know, citing, selecting and citing locations for new tree plantings in the urban environment. And then we have a presentation on some research that was being done at UMass on how to properly prepare tree planting root balls for planting. So they did a research project and they're going to go over that project. It was a two-year project. And how to make it, how to prepare your trees for planting so that they grow into maturity. So good, good topics. I think the committee, some members might find interesting. You can go to the mastery wardens website to find registration information. I can't make it this month. I'll be gone. But I've been to a couple of those before and they're usually quite interesting. You get to meet people from other tree committees and other tree wardens and you learn a lot. So I recommend it. And if you can't afford the fee, the committee could probably pay for it. I'll attend that and I think you can afford the fee. Thank you, Henry. And I included this link in an email I sent out and I have it up on my screen now if anyone wants to copy it. But I sent it out to the committee in an email previously and I'll make sure it's here. All right, we can move on to the treasurer, Julian. Yeah, thank you. So I am the treasurer and currently our current account balance in the public change committee account is $26,587.25. Do we have any questions for that? Sounds good. Thank you, Julian. A little preview for budget stuff. And I were talking earlier and tree plantings for a season for us is going to be between $10,000 and $12,000. So the $26,000 roughly represents about two years' worth of plantings at the rate and size of plantings and reflecting the increase in prices for the trees that we plant. So that's just something to kind of think about when we're thinking about our budget and our funds. Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. A question about that. In light of the comments, is that line item specifically for plantings or does it cover other tree expenses? I guess it's a question for Alan. It covers, it's intended to cover the tree planting, tree planting activities. So it's the purchase of trees and associated maintenance and care. But really it's just used for buying trees. Maintenance and care is something that we either do staff or the Shadr community does on your workdays. So it's by necessity an existing separate budget item? Yeah, so it has its own account. It's not part of my budget, the DBW budget. It's a place where people can make donations and it's a place that we agreed to put the money from the replacement fees into. So the goal was to take the replacement fees, put it in a place that the money couldn't be used for anything but planting trees really. So that's why the money goes into there. Thanks. Great. So that brings us to our presentations and discussions section. And in the interest of time, I'm going to suggest that we talk about money stuff first just to make sure that we get to it. And I think it's a good segue from the conversation we just having. Money stuff has four things here that I want to bring up. One is getting that budget line item in the town budget like we were just talking about to support planting of trees and tree work and tree related stuff. We would be asking for 10 to 12,000 which would cover the budget of our planting for a season. And then we would have the fees for tree removal that would go into that account. And that would be extraneous expenses like if a tree planting was a particularly large one, something like that. So we need to write a support letter. And I'm really hoping that we can get a lot of community support, especially seeing how activated the sunset community was about trees and raising money to protect town trees. I'm hoping that we can kind of roll that enthusiasm and support into this initiative to get a town line item. So we need to draft a support letter. I'm happy to take a stab at it. If anyone is interested in kind of helping me out just to keep me accountable, my schedule is highly variable at this time. So having anyone else who can just kind of keep me on task would be a big help. But I'm happy to kind of set that up. Sarah, how does this letter differ from the one Bennett drafted? Oh, so I was just thinking of some great question, Ellen. I was trying to find a way that we could get public support. So I was hoping we had something that we could send out to community members that they could add signatures to something like that sort of thing. So we could very well use Bennett's letter, like modify it in some way to make it kind of community accessible. But yeah, thank you for clarifying that what I was trying to do is use the community initiative to get community signatures instead of having to ask every individual to write a letter of support if there was a way that they could add their name to a list or an existing document to kind of streamline that process and hopefully garner a little bit more action. I know it's hard to encourage everyone to reach out individually. But that's a great point. Maybe we could just use what we already have to edit it to that effect. Can I add something to that, Sarah? Yeah. So I would just say, you know, I never really did get a chance to talk with folks about the letter that Bennett wrote. Nice letter, Bennett. Nice job. I just wanted to say that it's important. I believe that, you know, Shade Committee, you know, is looking for support to plant trees that the town have a line item, preferably in my budget for tree planting in DPW budget somewhere for tree planting, which we don't currently have. But we also need to make sure we're not confusing tree planting with tree maintenance. So we're looking for funds to purchase trees. And the issue be worded in a way that doesn't confuse it with maintenance because that might confuse people who feel that, you know, we already have plenty of people to do maintenance and we don't want to give you any more money. You're not going to use it for planting. You're just going to use it for maintenance. So if we just make sure that it's clearly that Shade Committee is encouraging support for the purchase of trees to plant on Amherst streets and properties. That's all. I just want to say I'm going to have to leave in four minutes. I have to go to a memorial service. Unfortunately, I won't be here. Then before Henry goes, next for money things is the prove the monthly planting allowance. This is something we discussed at our last meeting because we don't have money currently as a budget for planting trees. We were going to approve a monthly budget so that Alan can take money out of that account. And instead of having to approve every month, the idea would be we would approve a blanket amount that is the general cost of buying trees for each month's planting. And that way Alan is authorized to use the tree fund money to buy trees for our planting for each month for the kind planting season without having to make a request every time. So that amount was going to be 2000, right Alan? A month? Yes. Yes. Okay. So I'll make a motion that we approve a $2,000 budget deducted from the Shade Tree Committee fund to buy trees for each monthly planting for the 2022 season. That would just be for the part of the year for like eight months or something. Five months I believe. Five months. Right because we take July and August off from planting. That's about half of our bank account. Okay. Alan, does that cover it? Are you going to need more money or do you have money to add into that? I don't have any money to add into that. I'll just, we'll do enough planting. We'll keep it within budget. So we won't do any really large plantings in one place and I'll try to make sure that we spread it out over the entire planting season. And there always is the option if we want to do a larger planting to just have a special request for that particular planting and then as a committee vote on a larger expenditure. Well I'd suggest we change it to $3,000 per month with the understanding that we'll try not to use it every month but months we need it, we have it already approved. I second that $3,000 a month as a cap and using less is great and if we use more then we would have a special vote on that particular budget. So I second Henry's motion of $3,000 budget to buy trees per month. Alan, favor? That looks unanimous. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Alan. And then the next last thing for money stuff is adjusting the replacement fee. This is something that kind of came to my attention when we had the site visit for Sunset Ave. Alan mentioned that the replacement fee of $90 per dBH hasn't changed in 10 years or more. So reflecting current value of trees and the cost of replacement and buying new trees, $100 would be a better fee. So that's something that we're going to have to look into having the bylaw adjusted to reflect that increase in price. Alan, what's the protocol for that? Is it something that we could add into our like a letter of support or is this something where we could just go directly to the town manager and offer support for that particular adjustment? I think a letter of support for committee would be helpful. And then I can bring that request to the town manager. And I can't remember if I think the town council ultimately votes on it to do that. So what I can do is I can go out and put out a request for some pricing on different sized material and come up from different vendors and see what we have currently for costs out there because they are changing very rapidly. Okay. That would be great. And then we can draft a letter of support based on what numbers we kind of see from what you're pricing stock at. Okay. Great. Anything else? Anyone want to have any issues or questions about any of those funding issues? Great. I'm sorry, Sarah. I'm glad we approved the 3000 a month for the plantings. But I'm just wondering, you know, that'll bring down our pot of money considerably. How, you know, I'm thinking for next year or the following year, how will we replace that money? So that's why we really need a line item in the town budget and why I wanted to not only have a letter of support that Bennett drafted coming from the committee but also have something that we can put out into the community and try to get a lot of community support as well. So previously we had been using a grant that was awarded to Amherst to buy trees for planting and that grant has run out. So now we're reliant entirely upon the Shaitree committee budget and it's, as we can see, it's going to cover about two years. So we really need to focus on getting that line item in the town budget or we're going to be just reliant, you know, year to year on donations and anything that goes in from tree removal. Are we allowed and we may very well not even want to think about this but are we allowed to invest the money to try to grow it? That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. Alan, do you? I have to say I don't know the answer to that but I believe based on what I know but other town accounts I don't think you can but I'm not sure. It's a great question. It would be it's worth asking if there's some way of doing that. It is town money technically, correct? Yes. So yeah, maybe if we speak to the finance manager or somebody, I mean I'm sure the town has investments. Yeah, we haven't discussed that on other committees I've been on but it just occurred to me as a possibility but I guess we should, I agree we should pursue the line item first but something to explore. Some of the things we could try to do with the line item, the tree fund that we have now is go after matching grants and things like that where we can double our money. Again, that takes a plan. It takes a plan a year in advance for that. Okay. Any other questions about money and budget related issues? Okay. We are really getting close to time so if there's anything on our presentation and discussion agenda that is time sensitive for someone who has to go, please feel free to just jump in at any point. All right. So next up we've got the North Common Mary Maple which is scheduled for a June hearing so we have a little bit of time to work on that kind of community outreach that we were discussing last month. I don't think it's been officially scheduled for June. Alan, correct me if I'm wrong. I think that's kind of just the general time frame that we're thinking at this point. Correct. That's just a general based on the thought at the time as far as how the project was going to move forward and I haven't heard anything on the status of the project and I don't know if it's where it is in the decision-making process. Okay. All right. So thank you. So that puts us in a decent position for being able to do our outreach around Arbor Day. Alan, let's just tell me a good time next week that we can get together. I need the points and we haven't scheduled that and that's on me but if there's a particular day that generally is good for you just let me know. Okay. I think with that we're going to see a lot of passionate people as well as we just experienced and it might be great to have the form or letter up where people can add their names for a line item. I don't know if we're allowed to host that on the town's website, probably not, but there may be other sites where we can have things where people can just electronically add their signatures. That's a great point, Alan. I don't know if anyone has any experience with that sort of thing. Yeah, change.org is the one I've seen but I'm sure there are other ones and I don't know how they sort of root out bots and people but I can try to look into it. It would just be good to have that up and going. I guess my other question with the line item is and I can never remember the town fiscal year if it ends June 30th or if it does, they're probably deep into planning next year's budget already? Correct. June 30th is the end of the budget. We're already deep into that. Yeah, so we would want to do this immediately. We can't wait till June and the Mary Maple discussion so otherwise we'll have to wait a whole another year. I guess my question is do we want to set a deadline for getting this letter to the town manager and town council for consideration or I don't know how fast we can get signatures on this. Maybe it's just from this committee with our signatures on it. Yeah, sorry, go ahead, Sarah. No, go ahead, Bennett. We might be saying the same thing. Given that, it does seem like it would take just in light of the timing. It seems like it might make the most sense to send a letter from the committee to the councilors to have conversations with councilors if Dorothy's listening and to just go ahead and do that. If we could add, if we could get more people signed in signatures after the fact, great, but it sounds like the timing is such that we need to make the move now. That's what it feels like to me. Dorothy, thank you for parking up. I knew you were there. I was just saying we're trying to figure out how to approach the council for a funding line item. I think that people aren't aware of your budget situation. You have to make them aware of it. I was thinking after you, if you get your line item, which hopefully you will, there should be some major public fundraiser in the nice weather, I don't know, a fund run or something that results in big public donations to the tree fund, but first get the line item. It's a gift that you're here because you're involved in this stuff, but now is the time for us to get a letter into the council. We don't have another month, it's now. Does that sound right? Yes, that's correct. Thank you. Make sure you get the finance committee. Thank you. Thank you. How do we want to do committee signatures? I think we're ready to send Bennett's letter. I'm not sure. I'm not to over complicate this. My letter was never intended for that. It may work. I need to look at it again, but it feels like more of a it was not written as a formal request for anything. It was more of a public advocacy and the editorial page type thing. My guess is that while the parts of it may be reconstituted in the service of a letter to the council, it probably doesn't work as is. I can take a look at that. I don't think it needs to be, not having done this before, my guess is it doesn't need to be very long. It needs to make the basic case and the powers that it comes from us and that we've all signed it and probably no more than a page, not including signatures. I think that's great. I'm happy to help with editing or proofreading if you want. I'm happy to help too. And my understanding is we are asking for 10,000 a year per tree planting. Is that correct? I think we should probably say 12, given that we just approved 3,000 over 2,000, I think just expecting the number to go up. We could always accept if the approval for a fund was lower, but we should probably make the ask for what we think is going to be the uppermost budget of our tree planting. And if Allen is able to get those numbers from suppliers so that we have some data to back up our request, that can be included with our letter and can help us narrow in a price. The way that I got to 10 before was just multiplying it out, but if we're doing three grand planting months and we're doing five months of planting, maybe six, usually five, November is usually a work month, then it would be 15,000. So I think I would start now and say 15,000 based on the fact that the committee just unanimously approved a $3,000 budget per month with five months of planting. And then if we get other numbers that we can dial it in more clearly, then we can go with that. I agree. So I'm happy to help draft the letter also, and then we can just email out to the committee and get everyone to read it and then get approval for signatures. We could do something like a Google doc where people can type their in their own signature. Or if you have your signature saved, you can add your little JPEG. And we'll try to get that done before our next meeting. So if committee members could just be kind of on the lookout for that letter coming to your inbox to proofread and then sign. I'm going to work with you, Sarah and you, Allen, to get it to the right place before sharing it the rest because you're the chair and Ellen, I assume you have a lot of fundraising experience. So I have, I do have some, but I also, I mean, I do a lot of copy editing for my job and writing. So I'm happy to help. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you too, Bennett. All right. Next up, we have Kellogg-Av. Allen, do you have updates on that project? Other than the, it's going out to, there's a big opening, I believe, coming soon. So the project is moving forward. We don't have a start date yet for that project, but so it's moving forward. We'll be meeting with whoever gets the project to go over free protection and things like that once they're worth the contracts. Okay. It should be the spring. All right. And then if we did discuss last month about having a site visit, just an opportunity for committee members to come and kind of see what some of those tree protection looks like and when the roots are exposed and that sort of thing. So we'll just be staying tuned for when that project gets started and then working on a date, trying to coincide with where the project is and everyone's schedule so we can have a little bit of a field trip to kind of see some of those things in action. All right. Next up, Arbor Day Prep. So this is April. I have 29.30 written here because the 29th is actually Arbor Day, but we're planning to do something at the farmers market on the 30th. So we did agree that we were going to table at the farmers market. Has someone gotten in touch with them? Was Henry going to reach out? I know he had to go. I sent an email to the farmers market. You did. Thank you, Shoshana. Did you hear back from them? No. Okay. But I don't expect there to be a problem. Okay. Keep us in the loop if they get back to you. And if we don't hear from them in a reasonable amount of time, we can just send a follow-up or reach out again. Okay. Yeah. And they're going to be starting like actually being open soon. So I could go down there and talk to someone in person too once it opens up. That would be great. For our next meeting, I want to put together a sign-up sheet for times for tabling, like we have done previously just so that we have different slots covered. People can sign up for different things. I believe there were a number of members who were going to be away that weekend. Who's around on the 30th and would be able to do tabling. Bennett, Julian, Gordon, Shoshana, you're available, right? Or you've got... Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm here. Okay. So I'll put together just a sign-up sheet and we can sign up for different slots. And then other things we wanted to have kind of ready for Arbor Day was our social media update. So we can also use this opportunity to just check in Shoshana and with the Facebook and then Julian with Instagram how that's going with the last month and then any ideas you have or updates you want to do for Arbor Day outreach or awareness. Yeah, I've purchased some stuff for our meeting and such. Like once we firm up what our Arbor Day plans are, I'll make some sort of little graphic-y thing to put on there. And I am very sad to miss Arbor Day this year. I really enjoyed it last year. But I will create some signage so that we have a big presence. So Shoshana, if you could... I don't think I have access to the Google group. If you could invite me so I can get the logo that would be or just email me a high res or we transfer a high res of the logo. That'd be awesome. Okay, yeah, yeah. Thank you. I was supposed to do that before, right? And I just... Not necessarily. It's okay. Okay. All right. But yeah, if I could... Something like very logical. If I could just get that logo, I'll start with that. Thank you. And then I still have the copy to write for the website by the end of this month which got willing will happen. I have a plan. And then for tabling display and handouts, Shoshana, you have the updated trifolds and you were looking into getting a stand or a display stand made up? Yeah, I'm working on making a stand myself. Updated trifold. There's those ones that we had last time that me and Nani made a couple years ago. I could have some more of those printed out which would cost. I think that's a great idea. I know that we also have some other handouts and things about how to plant a tree correctly, how to mulch correctly, and then various invasives. I think Henry still has that paperwork so we can check in with him. I'm going to suggest we vote next month at our April meeting about approving those budgets for printing. If that gives us enough time, we'll have two weeks to then get those things printed. So, if everyone thinks that that's enough time to prep for that, just because this meeting has already kind of run over so I don't want to take too much time right now. I was just going to say I'd like to advocate for some type of fun guessing game or a way to get signatures. I know last year Alan brought the recently cut that slice of tree and talking about rings and the age was really fun with visitors. If there's different types of tree wood like different woods or cuttings or anything, but it seems like it'd be a good way to also have people give their names to something or get on an email list or hand out our social media hashtag, whatever. Alan, if you have anything lying around the shop, you're right Alan, those tree rings, people would sit there and count. They would count the tree rings. Yeah, we can definitely get another big tree ring. Yeah, that was fun. I like the idea of the guessing game, have a bunch of different kinds of wood and people will try to guess what kind of wood it is and then maybe they look on the other side and you could have a little sticker on it that says walnut or pine or whatever. I like that. We also talked about seedlings. Alan, is that something we need to approve funds from the budget for as well? They are trees so I could use the blanket approval we gave me. It's usually a couple hundred dollars to purchase 100 seedlings so I can use that for those funds. Okay, that's great. In the interest of time, I'm going to suggest that we table the rest of our line items. I had wanted to do second Saturday planting brainstorm but that we don't have enough time for that at this meeting without going way way over so I'm going to suggest we table that for April but we also in April want to make sure that we're kind of getting all of our ideas worked out and improving the budgets and printing and everything for Arbor Day. So those are going to be the two big pushes for next month. Does anyone have any final thoughts, ideas or things to bring up before we wrap up for today? Henry and I were working on the tree tour. I think he originally wanted to do it that weekend which is fine. I don't have to be there for it. I want to talk with him offline to make sure he would be ready for it but I also am thinking if it's a beautiful day like it was last year it'd be a great way to publicize an upcoming tree tour so we might want to think about pushing it into May even June but again we'll wait till Henry's back. And we could have multiple tree tours so. Very true. I would love to go on the tour with you and Henry who've worked on to develop it but then I'd be happy to be the representative of the committee and host a subsequent walk you know at different times throughout the summer and just try to get more people aware and interested in town trees. So I yeah and if anyone else is interested I think it's this is you know now that you and Henry have done the legwork this is something we can kind of try to get more people kind of active in as hosts basically to kind of host these different walks. Hopefully many times I hope it's well loved and used. I'll check with Henry because we might be at a point where we can share our proposed trees and notes with the committee. So I'll check with him. Great and we do have the template made up for significant trees which we have done in previous years and I'd be happy to use that template to put in the trees on the tree tour so we could get signs on all of those and make it you know visually noticeable so that it's easier to lead that way too. Oh great I haven't seen that so I'd love to see that the significant tree yeah. Yeah if you want to connect with me before then like when you're ready to kind of send your notes out to the committee I'm happy to show you what I have and if you have any ideas about modifications or something for the tree tour I'd be happy to do that. Great all right if there's not anything else we're gonna wrap up and table all of the rest of the line items from our agenda for next month. I know I asked everyone to do a little bit of homework and come with a planting location. I'm sad that we don't get to do that exercise zooming around Amherst streets but hopefully we're gonna prioritize that for next month so you have another month to come up with fantastic planting ideas and I also encourage everyone to come up with great ideas for Arbor Day. I love the idea of the matching game Chisholm I thought that sounded really fun so if you have any other ideas for that are two big items for next month are going to be the Arbor Day tabling event and then the planting locations as well as following up with our budget items so kind of a lot of homework or no we're kind of ramping up for our planting season but hopefully this kind of intensive planting stage leads into smooth planting for the rest of the year so thank you so much I know we went way over time and I really appreciate everyone sticking through it and it definitely was a lot so it was great to see the community turnout but it you know it's hard to kind of to manage when we have that many people on a zoom it's great to see so much enthusiasm I feel like usually there's our meetings are so small so I really hope that we're able to keep interest from the community and use that passion to just get more awareness and more trees planted I couldn't agree more all right well thank you so much everyone I really appreciate it and thank you for bearing with me with my baby breaks and all of that so I really appreciate it thanks everybody thank you