 We are now recording. Julian has his hand raised. He's coming in, I think now. Yeah. Should we start, sir? Yeah. Thank you for coming. We're going to officially start the meeting. I am going to share my screen so everyone can see the agenda. Can everybody see. Yes. Great. So announcements and public comments. I don't have anything for this. If anyone else has any announcements they'd like to make before we delve into the regular meeting, feel free to just speak up. We can also address anything that comes up at a later point in the meeting. Next up we have hearings. So two potentials. We did schedule a site visit for the Amherst college. I see him hearing last month. But that has been postponed. And then there's another one coming up for big Y university drive. As of the sending of this agenda, we didn't have any further news on those. They're just kind of potentials. Okay. Do you have anything you want to add or speak to you for those that may be coming down. Later this year. Definitely. So we do have Amherst college. I spoke with them yesterday. They are interested in proceeding with the. A tree hearing process for the two trees. In front of the Amherst college light. And then we do have another one. On South pleasant street. Where they're renovating building and kind of put an addition on another one. There's a Norrie maple there and Magnolia that they are requesting to remove. And. We'd like to plant four more trees in that location. To replace those trees. So. Do you think they would take ownership or would they remain private? There would be public shade trees. They would be planting them and they would be. Town trees. And then the, the U drive tree hearing. Request hasn't been submitted yet, but they are trying to. Get me a design plan for what they're proposing to do with relandscaping. On university drive to remove. They would like to. Improve the streetscape along there, essentially. And then. The town is redoing sidewalks and the. Contractors. Working on the McClellan street sidewalk has said that the white pine trees that are growing on the grass out there. You know, we're not. We're not. We're not. We're not. We're not going to really survive. The construction. It was a new sidewalk that I wasn't aware of until. Earlier this month that the town was actually doing. And there are forward pine trees. That. Were planted a number of years ago. That are growing in the grass belt. I've seriously lifted the sidewalk in places. And it's been a long time since I've been here. I've been here. I've been here for a long time. I've been here for the town fixed sidewalk. So the town is going to. Have a hearing. To remove those four white pine trees. I'll be posting that. Hearing soon. For May. And the Amherst college like their tree hearing for May as well. Should we schedule that now. For the Amherst college. Yeah, we should schedule both of those. We could even look at the. Yeah. So we should schedule those. Definitely. Okay. April is shaping up to be a pretty busy month. I know we've got Arbor day coming up at the end of the month. We often schedule the site visits. To be close to our next meeting, but with doing it at the beginning of maybe too late, Alan. Okay. So our May meeting is the 10th. So we could do the Monday before Monday night. Yeah. Monday, May 9th at 5pm. Does that work for. Everybody or or many, many people. I can't make that day. Yeah. I don't think I can make that day either. Can we do it before I'm meeting on the 10th. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 30 or something. So we could, we need, again, we'd need to. Make sure. That you have a quorum. And we would, we just need to make sure too. When we post this. Tree hearing in the committee meeting that we coordinate the. Hearing component with the tree hearing. I think it's very clear. When the tree hearing starts, when the committee. Deliberates. And then when the committee, when the hearing starts back up again. For the committee to give the tree warden the recommendation. So it'll take up a good portion of the beginning of the tree. Just to clarify. For my own peace of mind. Would we. Do we have a tree hearing. Which is. Is part of the meeting. We don't have to. We used to do it in the in-person meetings. Because it made sense to get everyone in a room. To hold the hearing. Just before the tree, regular tree committee. Meeting. So we'd open the. Tree hearing process. And then we'd open the tree meeting. The meeting members would then. Deliberate. Regarding the request. And then make a recommendation vote on a recommendation and tree warden and then close that. And I'd open the hearing back up again. So if we were to do that. And also have the site visit on Tuesday. That would be most of our main meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Would everyone be available to meet the Tuesday before for the site visit instead? Could even be a regular time Tuesday at five, third day on May the third. And then just do the tree hearing part of the process and our regular meeting on the 10th. That sounds good. Great. I'm going to. Well, wait. Why don't we schedule the hearing for five o'clock. On Tuesday, the 10th. So do the third. And then we'll meet a half an hour early, get the site. The hearing done before we start our actual meeting. So that sounds good to me. If everybody can make it early on the 10th. Yep. I worked till five, but I'll try and knock out a half hour early so I can get back. Which site is this for? Sorry. So what is it? It would be for. In this college. South pleasant street. You drive. And McClellan street. For all three. Okay. We don't have to do you drive. If it's crunch. They haven't put in an application yet. So I don't think it's going to happen in May. That might be a June one. So if we're really busy. Then we could just skip. The U drive one. I'm not sure if it's just that. So I think the first three hearings will be. South pleasant street. And the clown street. And then we would visit both of those locations on the third. Yeah. That works everyone. Yeah. Okay. Um, So. Tuesday, May third. We can keep it at 5 30 site visit. To perder. I'm going to send that out when I send out with the agenda and meeting notes and everything. So everyone can. Double check. It's on their calendars. Sarah. Ronnie has their hand up. And. Yeah. I'm going to send that out. I'm going to send that out on Tuesday, May 10th. Five o'clock tree hearing about the two locations. And five 30. Regular meeting. And if stuff comes up or whatever. You can just let me know that'll be fine. And I'll send that out when I send out with the agenda and I'll send that out when I send it out. You're new. So maybe you could introduce yourself to the committee. So are you talking to me, Ronnie? Yes. Okay. So, um, I actually wanted to make a public comment and I, the chair called for announcements, but not public comments and things have been so formal. In other committees that I did. I was waiting for the public comment call. So let me say first that I really appreciate you allowing people to show themselves so that one feels represented at a meeting and it's not some distant voice with a clock ticking. So I really appreciate that. I'm here mostly to express my appreciation for the involvement of the shade tree committee in the question of the silver maple on sunset and fearing. I'm so happy that it is in fact going to be saved as you all probably heard. But that the developer literally decided that he wouldn't take it down because of community interest and concern for that tree. So, you know, I think the engagement of all of us is just so important in helping with the trees and I'm very committed to the protection of trees. I came to this committee when I, I think when I first moved to Amherst a few months ago, because I'm very interested in tree protection, really taking good care of our existing trees so they live a long time. And at the time I had the impression that this committee was mostly focused on planting trees, which is important, of course, but my concern is focused on protecting them. I spoke with Mr snow about this earlier this week because of the silver maple in question. And understand that you are possibly working on a tree ordinance or guidance. And I'm here just to say that I'm happy to volunteer time with that, or if you're writing proposals to raise money, usually money is not the problem, but if it is, I really just want to as a resident who believes very strongly in community participation on issues of importance, like this is to me. I just want to say that I would like to be engaged. I didn't know about I didn't wasn't planning to be on today's meeting till I spoke with Alan snow. So I cannot stay to the end. But I appreciate you letting me talk. Thank you so much. And yeah, it's good to have good news. It's good to hear that a tree is going to be safe. Even if it's a dying old tree. Thanks, Ronnie. Great to hear from you. We'd love to have your support for the committee. And if you're interested in joining, I think we, we still have a spot available. So please consider joining the committee officially. And we're certainly more than happy to have you in any sort of informal capacity as well. So if you are interested in taking on some more responsibility and helping out with the tree ordinance, that's definitely something that can be. Arranged we would love your help with that. That was a project that I was working on, but I've been on maternity leave. And I have just not had the capacity for moving that project forward at all. So if you're interested in taking that up. That'd be great. And please get in touch. And if you're interested in doing that, I would love to have your help with that. And if you're interested in doing that, I would love to have your email and we can coordinate further on that. I also, but I do think it was. I don't think everyone knew the result of the. Deliberation about the tree on. On sunset and fearing. So that is a, is news, I think, to, to many of us. Yes. It was an email from Barry Roberts to Dorothy Pam. And to Jennifer. Sarah, can you tell us what it is? I don't think I'm aware of this update. I, I'm not either. Oh, I wasn't on the email. I was going to go into the details on the tree warden report. But. Okay. We can save it for then. And just check off a couple of these housekeeping things before we get there. Okay. One of the things Sarah Victoria Cardin is here. And maybe if you want to speak to the group at all. Victoria. Do you want to. There you are. Hi. If you're able, you can just introduce yourself or if there's anything in particular that you're here at the meeting for. Or, or any. Sorry. It's very loud at my house. We can't hear you. She's not. I don't know why we can't hear. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So my name is Victoria. I joined the beginning of the year. Not this year. I'm beginning of the semester last year. I've been to a couple of meetings. I've been to a couple of tree plantings and I'm just trying to assemble. Yeah. If there's anything I know you've kind of helped out with a couple of different things and been to plantings and stuff. If anything sparks your interest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a lot going on for our day. So feel free to chime in at any point. Okay. Let's. Move on to minutes. We have March minutes to approve as well as the February minutes. Those were sent out with the agenda. I hope. Everybody got a chance just to look through them. Okay. I make a motion to approve February and March minutes. I second. Great. All right. Which reminds me. Do we have someone taking minutes for this meeting? Gordon, thank you. The February March minutes to the town website. Great. Thank you, Henry. Okay. Are the, are the formats of the minutes I've been taking? Okay. I notice Bennett's were in bullet form, which seemed nice and concise. And if there's a preference for that format, I'll adjust. I think the way you've been taking them is totally fine. I, um, I didn't have time to do any more formatting on the minutes before I sent them out. I read for accuracy. They were a mess when I sent them to him. No, they really weren't, but no problem. But I just didn't have time to do formatting. And I don't honestly have a problem with it. I think to reach his own, as long as we're getting the. Majority, you know, the important information from each meeting so that we can go back to reference as necessary. I certainly need to read the minutes just to make sure I remember everything that we've talked about. Yeah. I don't have to do on my agenda for prioritization. But I don't think there's any right or wrong way to format whatever you're comfortable and happy with. I think is, is great. Next we have volunteer hours. Henry, are you going to. Mark those. Yes. So let's see. Sarah. Seven. Ellen. Thanks. Thank you. Gordon. That's a four. Okay. Bennett. And Shoshana. Six. Julian. Seven. And I'm at about 10 also. And I guess John Root was the only volunteer for the planting. So I'll put. Volunteers down for a couple of hours plus the people that are here today. So. All right. Thanks. Sarah had two people there. I did. I had another hour for rain's contribution. Next up we have the committee reports. For the chair report. I just wanted to say thanks to everybody who came out to our tree planting. First planting of the year, despite the rain. It was great that it cleared up and we had a little bit nicer weather. Towards the end of the event. It was also great. I think that we were in a high visibility location downtown. Definitely a lot of people stopped and kind of asked and talked to us a little bit more than when we're, you know, on the side of a road with, there's more traffic or. Neighborhood where you don't get as much foot traffic. So that was really nice to be able to do a little bit more. So that was really nice to be able to do a little bit more of a little bit more of a public outreach while we were planting. Thought that was great. I also attended the. Tree USA webinar. The power of social media. So this is available. If anybody wants to see like the slides or I think I can access a recording of the webinar also. I'm going to try to get that to you. It was. Had they had a couple of different experts from tree USA. And the Arbor Day foundation. Talking about how to use social media. A lot of it was very basic and geared towards, you know, different groups. Towns that might not have a social media presence already. And we already have an active. Facebook group and Instagram. And we're just some ideas about how to broaden your user base thinking about how many times to post. Different kinds of things to post. Who your target audience is. So there's different social media that you can use to target. If you have a younger audience or an older audience. And a lot of kind of, you know, interesting tidbits. So I don't know if we're really at a point where we're ready to kind of push our social media presence. I think we've got a lot of other projects we're focusing on. A bit more internally right now. But definitely some good ideas for. Increasing our outreach. And expanding it. Through social media. So. If anybody's interested. I'm happy to talk a little bit more about that. I'm happy to talk a little bit more about that. I'm happy to talk a little bit more about that. I was just thinking of you guys, because I know you're running our Facebook and our Instagram. So if you want to chat anytime about this, I'm happy to go through the slides or, or give you some more of the takeaways from it. But I think there's a lot of. Yeah, just let me know. I can do it. You know, I'm pretty flexible. So we can just. Top on the zoom or do a phone call or whatever works. And. Yeah. I think we're already at a good point. So there's some ideas for having a broader reach. But I think we're off to a good start already. So that was kind of nice to, to glean from this webinar. Yeah, Sarah, I was on the call also. And I took a few notes that I'll pass on to. Julian and Shoshana. But yeah, what you said, pretty much. Great. Other than that, I'm mostly just been focusing on getting stuff ready for our day. So. We've got a lot coming up. This month. And things to kind of get. Ready before our tabling on. The 30th. So that's, that's pretty much it for my report. Henry, do you have anything else that you wanted to add? Yeah, I have quite a few things. One is that tomorrow at 10 30. The town council or a group of the town council is going to go over the Arbor Day proclamation. And it might be good if one of us was there. We can tell them what, what we're planning. You know, whatever we decide at this meeting. So I can't be there tomorrow at 10 30, but if anyone can. I guess we need to volunteer to do that. And 30 in the morning. Or 10 30. You say 10 30. And 30 in the morning. It's not the whole. Town council. It's a subgroup. I could, let me see. I can find the. That's not it. Hold on. Did you say that was in person or just online? No, this is zoom link. Okay. I can send it to Michelle Miller. District one council has sent this thing. She's just the governance, organization and legislation committee. And they're going to review the proclamation for Arbor Day. So. Okay. Tomorrow at 10 30. Yeah. And anyone do that. I can probably be on then. All right. I'll send you the link. Ellen, you just raised your hand. Are you available then also or. No. No, there was a fly. Sorry. You won the auction. Yeah, on April 21st, there's going to be an eye tree information session. Eye tree is a program that you can use to. Sort of catalog the town's tree canopy and things like that and research. Information about trees. So that's at one o'clock on. The 21st, which is. Next Thursday, if anyone can go to that, I can send you the info about that. So send me an email if you want to do that. I've been hearing from different people in the community. Van Caner lives up on. Flat Hills or Market Hills road. One of those. Was upset. And I think he sent you, Alan. A photo of some damaged trees that. The people that were brush hogging along the edge of the road. Did some damage. And he was quite concerned about that. He couldn't make it today, but he asked me to bring it up to the committee's attention. I did receive. A C click fix. He sent me a picture. Without any information. So I just had to guess where it was. Yeah. It's on. Whatever the road that's going up the hills. That's market. Flat Hills. Flat Hills. Okay. I always get the two mixed up. So if you could respond to him, that would be great. I suggested you C click fix because he said he'd emailed you and Guilford not heard. So. Anyway, I'm sorry, Henry, could you repeat who that was? Van Kainer, K A Y N O R and N O R. Yeah. And for those of you on the committee who don't know about C click fix. It's a good way to get Alan's attention or the town's attention. People request have a complaint about something in town, a pothole on the road, or whatever. I'm sorry, Henry, could you repeat who that was? Van Kainer, K A Y N O R and N O R. I'm sorry, Henry, could you repeat who that was? The pothole on the road or whatever. They can fill out a form. And whichever group in the town that required to review it and. Deal with it. So. It's a D B W. Work request system. Essentially it's kind of like a hybrid social media slash work requests. So other people can agree that your. Request is important and needs to be dealt with. you'll get there. And then I heard from someone who was at the end of Spalding Street where the high voltage power lines are going overhead and, you know, the power companies are just clearing massive amounts of trees everywhere on that. But these were, they weren't exactly street trees, but they took a lot of stuff down. And the people who live in that condor complex at the end of Spalding Street were very upset. So I met with them, suggested other things they could plant and where they could plant. And I didn't have much help for what was already taken down, though. We don't really have a say in that, I guess, Alan. Yeah, I mean, I did, I did meet with the group there. Excuse me. And tried to walk them through the whole legal process of right of ways. And what the utility companies have the right to do and what they permit to do. And some ways to work with the utility company to kind of revegetate the area so that the property adjacent property owners can meet their kind of privacy, shading, screening goals and the utility company can meet their goals. So it was constructive. Yeah. Other than that, I did hear from someone who wanted to try to protect the Mary Maple. I talked to them about why it might have to go. But I think Bennett's letter, that was a great letter. I think you did a good job on that. Oh, Joe Comerford is going to do an Arbor Day thing also. So I will send her the information from today's meeting so she can get that out to people also. And that's all I have. Thank you, Henry. Next, we have the Tree Warden report. All right. Again, thanks everybody for coming out Saturday and helping plan. I apologize. The nursery didn't have our trailer ready on Friday. So we picked it up Saturday morning and we're running around trying to get the trees placed and get everything else ready for the planting. And it was a challenging day just because it was so spread out. So it was, you know, we keep running into this kind of leapfrogging approach where a group gets ahead and you can't get water there and mulch there and trying to clean up after so that the tools and things aren't left behind. Turns out we did leave a shovel and a wire basket and burlap in front of Judy's restaurant and it managed to stay there until Sunday morning when my crew picked it up. So people were trustworthy. But it was, it was a great planting. It's great to be able to get those trees in and have people see you out there planting trees. So it's nice and it's an amazing help for the town. So I truly appreciate it. So I'll update you on the sunset tree hearing process. I did, I talked to the town manager and Tamrange and I and the two members of the town council who were also opposing the removal met in the Zoom meeting to go over the whole, you know, what their concerns were, what my concerns were. Town manager is working on his reply on the tree hearing. And then I also met with the applicant wanted to meet again. Town manager also asked me to come up with some options, you know, for preserving the trees. I met with the DPW director and town engineer. We discussed, you know, what could be done around the sewer line near the other tree. There isn't much we can do at all with that. If it's an old clay line, tile line, it feeds, you know, part of the west side of Sunset Ave. And there's the construction project in itself just a vibration from the construction would probably cause that that line to fail and need to be dug up. So based on its age and condition, it needs to be fixed. So that's a tree, unfortunately, really needs to go. The other tree, when I spoke with the applicant regarding the tree on the corner of the north corner faring in the sunset. And we discussed, you know, how much work they'd be willing to do to try to preserve the tree, modifying their plans, doing some extra root zone protection around the tree. The need to prune the tree to mitigate the risk of the new sort of paradigm over there with lots, lots more activity, pedestrian traffic and things like that and instructions. So after the meeting, the the applicant sent data, the email regarding, you know, wanting to work around preserving the tree instead of cutting it down. So, you know, it's great that trees is being preserved. And it's amazing that the applicant wants to take that those kind of steps to preserve, it's not going to be cheap. It's not going to be easy. He's going to modify his program. Unfortunately, my opinion, we're not, you know, saving the tree, we're just not cutting it down. And it's just a harsh reality of, you know, trying to preserve a tree in that kind of environment. But, you know, maybe I'm wrong, I can hope I'm wrong. And the tree, you know, survives and grows another 20, 30 years in that location, that would be amazing. So that that is ultimately what I hope will happen here. The, let's see. Yeah, so everything else I had really is just, you know, working around every day and second Saturday tree plantings for the rest of the month, the rest of the season. So I can wait until later to do that on the committee meeting. See, Ronnie has a hand up. You can go ahead, Ronnie. Yeah, I guess what's troubling me is this thing that, you know, it's the construction that's making the trees vulnerable. And I know the trees were there before the sidewalks and before the roads and whatnot. And I myself earlier have complained about the horrible sidewalks because I've fallen twice on the sidewalks right in front of my house. But I'm wondering, do we really need so much sidewalk? Like, you know, either a sidewalk makes it easy for people who cannot maneuver the terrain because they're in a wheelchair or something, or in which case, this kind of sidewalk, a sidewalk next to an old tree doesn't help because it's going to get bigger and grow into the sidewalk. But it seems like it's the construction you're saying this clay thing will break because of the construction, right? So why not just put, we had this, we had this in my old house, which was another historic home, that maybe had clay pipes, they just put in a new thing that ran parallel to the clay, that thing that was made of whatever they make pipes out of these days. And I'm just wondering why it's such a big deal. So my question, are you talking about they call slips leaving the sewer line where they they slid a new line down the old line? Is that what you're saying? No, they just put a new line parallel to it. They dug up my yard. That's what happened. But basically, they were able to like bypass the old one. My question really is that it seems like it's construction and the cost of construction, but there's no cost associated with the tree because the tree is already old. But I mean, I feel like some of the valuing is sort of skewed here in favor of us, the humans who want the construction versus the trees were already there. Anyway, that's just my thought about this. And I sort of, you know, you're saying, oh, the tree has to go, the merry maple has to go, the main leader is dying and so on. But really, when does it have to go? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, that's like so true. All that is very true. And, you know, we do prioritize our gray infrastructure over our green infrastructure without a doubt. It's less, it seems easier to do. There's, you know, nobody wants to lose their sewer, you know, in the middle of the night somewhere and or have, you know, not be able to have water or but the the tree and the sewer line kind of cohabitate for a long period of time. Obviously, the sewer line is one of the older sewer lines. It's probably been there as long as the tree. I don't think those trees are really that old. They're silver maples and they grow very fast. And those two houses aren't that that young, they're pretty old houses actually. But we, you know, so we have to fix the sewer line, which means it has to be dug up. And unfortunately, the tree roots and the sewer line cohabitate in the same area. And you have to try to find a way to fix the sewer line without disturbing roots of the tree. And that's that's the that's the big issue we run with all of our tree infrastructure conflicts are mostly around root zone issues. And how do you protect those root zones? People, you know, ADA, there are laws that require sidewalks to be passable. And the town is liable if they have sidewalks that are not passable. So they have to fix those sidewalks. And with the complete street sort of concept that the state is, you know, pushing for funding for municipalities to get these fundings. It's worse, they have to be wider and the roads need to be wider because they also want a bike lane in the road. And so it's a cascading you know, impact. And the committee is aware of this, you know, we see it all the time on projects. I, you know, the gray infrastructure tends to take priority. The only value we give the trees is the inch per inch replacement value, you know, as far as dollar mall monetary value that we assign to it is to purchase new trees based on $90 per inch DVH. So it doesn't encapsulate the whole value of the tree by any stretch of the imagination. Just just how much it would cost to buy trees to replace it. Is the end treaty on with a hand up? Can you hear me? I see that notification as well. But I don't. Oh, there. Hello there. How are you? I'm just jumping on to say that we've got a very old tree that is going to be saved through a DCR grant at the Amherst History Museum. Yay. Yay. That's great. I didn't see it on the agenda, but I just wanted to say that we're so incredibly grateful. That tree is was planted in 1750. It was one of two trees. Two sycamores planted on the day that a husband and wife moved into the house. And because our house is very, very old, the museum is extremely old. We were very worried about a couple of those limbs. And we had brought the fire department by for a safety check and they immediately spotted that limb and said, you know, you should think about cabling that with more modern cabling. So. We got the grant. We're very excited and would love to find out more about how we can be involved for the Arbor Day. And I know that's a little bit down on the agenda, but we're meeting tonight at seven. So I just wanted to bring something back to our, our committee. Yes. Thanks, Ann. So I have been working with Ann and the Amherst History Museum and Henry. You know, we, because it's a DCR grant is, you know, through the municipality, the town actually had to apply for the grant and it's some, since the Amherst History Museum is not officially town, town organization, but it's perfectly okay for the town to apply for these grants to preserve a significant, you know, tree that historically has a lot to do with Amherst on multiple levels. When you really start learning about the history of this tree. So we are going to be working on, you know, getting a contractor to cable and prune and do some other work. The town is going to do some work. Hopefully install a lightning protection system in the tree so that it won't be damaged from lightning strikes. And then, you know, hopefully we can work with the Shadr Committee and we can do an Arbid Day event. We can plant a new bride tree. There's a groomed tree is still standing. The bride tree flew over in Hurricane 38. It'll be a second. What's that? This would be the groomed second wife. Yes. You waited a few years before, you know, to get married. And you have a new marriage. And where is that going with this? Yeah. So we need to work together to try to promote this tree and some, hopefully some fundraising to go along with that to help do work on the tree down the road in the future. So we can ensure that the tree, you know, lives another couple hundred years. Thank you. Thank you, Ann. I don't think we had gotten that news when I sent out the agenda. So I'm glad that you hopped on to, to let us know. That's great. And do you have anything else for the tree warden report or further ideas since you've been working with Ann about how to collaborate for Arbid Day? Yeah. Well, I think what we should do really is form a, like a working group. And just a couple of people. We don't need to take up the committee's time. Tonight, but, you know, we were trying to get a speaker. Kevin Smith from the Durham, New Hampshire, US Forest Service Research Station. He gives an excellent presentation on the. You know, physiology and of old, you know, historic trees versus young trees and how they grow differently. And he was very entertaining speaker as well as very educational speaker. We're trying to get him on board and find a location, a venue for that to happen. And it's, it's, you know, the history museum has their board meeting. And, you know, Ann has to bring these things to the board to get permission to do so. And that's where she's going tonight. And. Somehow we have to manage to pull all this together. You know, because they didn't announce the grants until last, about a week ago. Beginning of last week, I think it was that they actually announced, you know, we got the grant and here's the letter. Please have your time. And you sign it so you can start, you know, spending funds on these grants. And so we're still waiting for the letter to come back from the town manager to get sent back to TCR. So we can actually start. On these, it was supposed to be approved and awarded back in January, February, but it kept getting delayed. So we're, we may have to do some of this in the fall. Or something like that. In order to get reimbursed. And so we're still waiting for the letter to come back from the town manager to get sent back to TCR. So we're still waiting for the letter to get reimbursed for our. Time and money we put into it. Sorry, could you repeat the name of that presenter. Dr. Kevin Smith, he's out of Durham, Hampshire, Northeast US Forest Service, Northeast research station. Thanks. But I can't even, I can't really, you know, I can't commit to having him here until we actually have a letter that's signed from the state saying, go ahead. So. Well, we, we do need to figure out when we're going to schedule things like the tree tour and other Arbor Day things. Yes. And so that might be useful at least get that information to and before we, you know, has a lot of the information about the historic aspect of the tree and using Arbor Day and the tree tour as kickoff to have, you know, to have that kind of. That set up there, the, the. I don't know if the historical term for a display is, but talk that talks about the, the tree and its history so that it can be. Begin the. Begin telling people about the project then essentially on Arbor Day. And I don't know if we'll get to it tonight, but Henry and I have planned the tree tour and that is the very first tree to kick it off. So we have written a nice history and have some, you know, photo historical photos to include as well. I know Ian was working on a display of some sorts, you know, that would go into the whole history of that. So coordinating those efforts. Yep. I don't know if you can still hear me. Oh yes, can I see. I see my grandmother's picture. We have a really neat core sample of the old tree that fell over. And I think it was the 54 hurricane actually. Yeah, I didn't know that until recently. The tree came down in 58. Thank you. And we have a lovely core sample of that tree. As well as some other photographs more recent. And then we also have historic photographs. So we're ready. We're ready to embrace the tree on Arbor. Arbor day. And thank you very much for making it the first stop. To be part of this focus group to coordinate more for Arbor day. And hopefully we'll get to talk a little bit more about that as we get to our presentations and discussions, but if we don't, I'm. I'm still an attorney leave, so I'm very scattered. But I'm also usually available. So we can definitely be in touch and coordinate. It'd be great to have some of those things on display. And that you were mentioning because we were talking about how much fun it was and how people were so engaged where we had, you know, a large. Rootball and a cross section of a large tree. Tree cookie. So, and those were really great things to have at our booth. So we can coordinate if it makes more sense to have, you know, you come to, to our tabling event or if we just do some sort of a, you know, coordination so that we can work, work together and direct people to where you'll be set up. So. Excellent. And you're tabling on the common on that day. Yes, at the farmer's market. Oh, great. Okay. That's actually may, isn't it? May farmers market or redoing the April farmers market. I can't remember if there's a discussion. Well, has anyone spoken to the farmers market in Saturday yet? Yes, I talked to the farmers market. Okay. I said we were going to do it like that late day in April. What was it? Like, what is it? Like 30th? I mean, but they're very flexible. They're very like, we want to move it. I don't think that would be a problem because they were just like, yeah, yeah, whatever you want to do. Yeah, so. 30th is the last Saturday. Yep. Friday is our day at the 29th. And the tree tour is a different day. Okay. That's what we have to do. Okay. I may have to jump off to go to that other meeting so I can just say, hold off. Something is happening on the 30th at the farmer's market, potentially. And we're good to go. I just have to line up different volunteers on our end. Yeah. And I'll email you. So if you can watch your email during that meeting, I will. Excellent. No, I'll send you the info. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Great. Thanks guys. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Alan, do you have anything else before we move to the treasurer report? I do not. Okay. Julian, take it away. Okay. So basically I checked with the town clerk. As of last Friday and she said the balance is unchanged. At 26,000. 587. 25 cents. So that I believe is our current balance. And did we use some of that towards the trees we planted on. Saturday. So nothing has been billed out yet. I still need to get the letter. The paperwork signed by the treasurer. Releasing the funds. To do the tree planting purchases. And I also need a, you know, the minutes from the meeting where you made the vote. Okay. You need to sign that in person. You just need to sign it. You just need to sign it in person. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you signed it in the treasurer. Yeah. Julian, if you have. If you can sign a piece of paper. And take a photo and email it to me. I can Photoshop it on through your real signature. You can also, if you want to print something out and sign it. In person. And scan it or whatever we can coordinate, but, you know, you can do it in person. You can do it in person. You can do it in person. You can do it in person. You can do it in person. Either works. Alan, if you want to email the form to me, that works too. Whatever. Henry. Did you send that stuff to Sarah? Yeah. I should have it from when I was the treasurer. So I should be able to send that to you, Julian. Or it to me and I can sign it. With my app. Okay. Great. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's it. Thank you. Great. Thank you. All right. Next up presentations and discussion. First up, we have the town sidewalk projects. Kellogg Ave, Mill Lane and Amity street. I think this is just going to be kind of a quick update from Alan. And. I want to be able to spend the majority of the time we have left talking about Arbor day. So I think that's going to be a good idea. If we do have time, I, I would still like to zoom around. In the map and. I come up with some different ideas for our planting locations. So that we can kind of plan ahead a little bit for our plan. Our second Saturday plantings this, this season. But our birthday is going to take priority in terms of planning. So we're going to do that. We're going to do that. We're going to do that. We're going to do that. Planting locations. We can push that back to me. So first up the town sidewalk projects. Alan, do you have updates on those three locations? Sure. So. Kellogg Ave. We started taking down the two trees that needed to come down. The dead snapped off stick. And then the other one that with the. Well, we haven't taken down yet. There's a, turns out there's a guy wire going to a Verizon pole that needs to be removed. Before we finish that one. But I think we have to grind those two stumps down. The rest of the streets there, we are going to be saving, you know, we're going to be cutting out the asphalt sidewalks and air spading around the roots and putting down the rubberized surface. So that the, you know, the trees don't have any impact on the roots from the sidewalks that we've done. They're also making the road, they're narrower and kind of, which is nice. So. We'll give the trees a little breathing room on the roadside as well, because right now they're essentially growing in the road in parts of it. And then. See you next. Elaine. So that. Excuse me a second. I was in Savannah, Georgia. A couple of weeks ago and they have trees growing right in the road. They just, you know, move the lane over or make the road narrower and it's like these big old trees and they really care for the trees. So that's great. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. The, um, so Mill Lane, that project is, is, um, going to start soon. Again, there's really no tree issues there at all. Um, there will be a, it's a potential planting location where they finish it. So that's going to be done by the end of June. So maybe it's something, um, depending upon where construction is, it could be a second Saturday tree planting there, planting along the lane and planting at graph park. Um, might be one of the options. And then, um, Every street they started out this week. We started grinding a couple of stumps that were in the sidewalk there. Again, no tree issues there. They're just, uh, replacing sidewalk in kind there. Um, and the tree roots aren't going to be impacted at all. Um, McLean street is was getting done, which is something that was new and that's going to be on the sidewalk list now. Um, And again, it's really the pine trees there. There's a red maple towards Lincoln Ave that I have to take down. Um, I've been putting it off for years and it's just reached a point where it needs to, it needs to go at this point. It's just too much decay in it. Um, So that's pretty much it for the sidewalk update. I know, uh, Somebody told me that the Taylor street sidewalk was getting redone. I don't believe there are any trees in the way, but I heard that it was. Yeah. Correct. So Taylor is getting done. Um, And we are grinding some state as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I talked to, I think it was somebody from the DPW and they explained that they were going to be doing the sidewalk and that, which is nice. Next up, Arbor day prep. So, um, It sounds like we are good to go for Saturday, the 30th at the farmer's market, which is great. Um, Now that that is confirmed, I can send out a time slot. So that everyone can sign up to for a tabling hours, just to make sure we have somebody there. Um, Does it start at eight? They start setting up at like 630. It's around there. I think it starts at seven. It starts at seven. We don't have to be there at the very beginning. And then it goes until one. Yeah. Yes. All right. So. We could probably do two hour shifts. And I'll just send a, I'll just make a sign up sheet. And then people can sign up for times that they are available. Um, It'd be great to have multiple people there just to, um, Be able to, to field conversations, especially during the busiest times. Um, and, uh, Shout out to our volunteers. Um, We would love to have you with us there. So, uh, Please, please stop by. Um, and if you're interested in tabling, I'm just being able to talk about trees and the tree committee. Um, this isn't necessarily, uh, just for committee members. We're happy to have anyone who supports town trees. Um, you know, participate in outreach for, for Arbor Day. So, Uh, if there's anybody else who's not on the meeting tonight, who's interested, um, Please feel free to include them, um, In these preparations and forward the sign up sheets. So we just, We can have as many people out supporting trees as possible. Uh, logistic stuff. Um, Henry. Yeah, go ahead. I just checked the website. It's seven 30 to 130. Okay. Great. Thank you. Logistic stuff. We have the signs. Um, Henry, did you find those? Do you, did you. I have. I will look for it though. Okay. The banner. Yeah. And then we also had another sign or someone was going to make one. I have the banner. Ah, it's in the car. I forgot to take it out of the car. Yes, I have it in the post. Great. Thanks, Gordon. Um, and Ellen, you raised your hand. Were you going to make a sign for the tabling? Yep. Excellent. I'd also, um, I unfortunately will be away that weekend. So, um, I'll get it to somebody before then, but I was also wondering if I'm ordering signs. Um, If we should have like a lawn sign or something for when we do plantings, you know, I was thinking, you know, when cars are driving by or something, if it could be like, I don't know. Another tree brought to you by or something. Um, you know, just to advertise when we're on a site. Doing our work. I mean, of course we reach people if they're walking by, but we might have more if we have. Signage we can put out while we're. On site. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Okay. I think that'd be more effective than T-shirts. I mean, seriously, let me, I like the T-shirts, but I think that people driving by are like, What are those people doing? Or who are they? Okay. A sign would be great. Okay. Anybody has a clever. Very pithy quick. Thing that to get across who we are in a very, you know, Amherst public shade tree committee is a long, long, long time. I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. I think it's sort of a mouthful, but if there's something, you think of, let me know. I'm going to have to order the signs very soon to get them by Arbor Day though. We have a logo, which I'll send. So Sean has sent me the logo, which is great. What size are you? I'm sorry. Go ahead. There. No, go ahead. Well, I don't need exact dimensions, but in thinking about a pithy statement, are you talking to like, is it, um, you know, is it, do you have a sense? Is it like a four foot sign? Is it, you know, like, I don't have, I don't have any mental picture of what it might be like. I honestly don't either. I mean, one signs are, you've seen them everywhere. They're not super big. Yeah, like a political signs. Right. But we could do like three or four of them that could go along the road. I can look into, um, You know, You know, You know, You know, Bigger signs. I know we have the banner. I just think, um, It's because it's green and we work in the summer. It's a little harder to see sometimes, or we can't really display it in a prominent way. So I was thinking something that could be, you know, sort of staked down on the ground, it might be good, but. Um, yeah, there's, there's many, you can basically do as big or small as you want, but we want it to be portable. So like, I think, I don't know if. We might need at least a political signs, you know, it's like, okay, according to town, right? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it would be an issue, even if it's just up for the three hours that we're doing a planting and then it's taken down. I think it would be fine. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's not, we're not making a permanent sign or anything. It's just something to. Let people know who we are and what we're doing. You could, um, you could ask for permission if you want to leave it up longer. If it was planted in front of somebody's property or house, you can ask them if it's okay to leave it there for a week or something like that. That's generally it's, you know, if it's a sign in a public way, you're supposed to get permission from. The adjacent property owner to put it there. And if it's on, if it's a sign on a town piece of property that's next to a town building or a park or common or something like that. You're not allowed to leave any kind of signs there. So we did, I made these signs when we refinished the, the sculptures of Robert Frost and Emily Vickinson, because we had to remove them and it said, where did Emily and Bob go or something? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Paul Bachman was really appreciative that we put those signs there. So, um, Maybe it's a ask for forgiveness, not permission issue. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's a little different. I mean, that is an art installation. So I mean, I think it's, but if you're putting, um, just the way the rules are in town around posting signs because of controversy around many political signs. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you can put a sign on a piece of town property. Okay. If it's for something, you know, whether it's a lawn service or a committee or a political sign, they just don't allow it on. Okay. Okay. I see what you're saying. Right. That was a more informational explaining what happened, but, um, you know, you know, leaving a sign if we're planting on the common, there's nothing wrong with putting a sign on that tree next when you're, when we're there planting. I mean, I don't, I don't have, there's no issue around that. We just wouldn't be able to leave it there on a park or town common. Oh yeah. I'm not thinking of leaving anything. It's just while we're working, but. I'll look into options. I can share them via email or something. Figure it out. Okay. Thanks. And Ellen, while you're doing some research, we can mobilize funds for printing out something. So either reimbursement or you can bill. We can, we approve the funding so that you can bill it to our account. Okay. That's fine. I actually was thinking of doing this. I'm happy to do that. Thank you. Save the money for the trees. Now, Ellen, I think I remember you saying that like the, a state of Dr. Seuss was like really stingy about. Letting out their intellectual property, but do you think there's any way we could like. Get the Lorax involved. Like a little sign that says like Lorax at work with like a little Lorax with like a little shovel in his hands or something. Oh God, I'd talk too much. I shouldn't be saying things like that. I do think that will be problematic. I'm afraid it's a cute idea though. Yeah. Just because of my job, I wouldn't want to be the one who actually made that sign. Yeah, definitely. But yeah, it's a good idea. But I don't think that we should. They'll want lots of copyright and. Legal papers and. Yeah. Shoshana, do you, are you going to have the, display rack ready by then? Yeah, it's already done. Oh wow. I think we can bring the canopy and a table. Great. Thanks Henry. That's excellent. Alan, do we have. Tiny trees to give away. We are, we're going to have tiny trees. Lots of them. We have. We have oak and. I think it was oak and bald cypress. Okay. Great. Do we have any other tree related things for people to interact with? We can coordinate further with Ann about the. Historic society tree stuff, whatever she might have. And that could be a way to kind of. Advertise for the tree tour. If we have a date picked out for that, we could, it could be a way to. Advertising if people to come for a tree tour. But do you have anything else like the big tree cookie or. Those sort of interactive things, or is there a place we should. Contact in town or something like that, where we could get some more of those kind of interactive materials, because those are a big hit. And I think that's a great way to get people. Interested in what we're doing. And also to. To let them see from a distance, what we are like, we're browsing around at the farmer's market. And then we're like, you know, you, you want to be able to see from the crowd in the middle, what each booth is like, Oh, I'm going to go over there. Cause they have cupcakes or whatever it is. If we have like obvious tree stuff. As well as our sign that I think that's a great way to get people to come over to talk to us more. Yeah, I can definitely, you know, we definitely will have another big large wood round to. To put there. And I can look for some. You know, really planted trees and hopefully have a few trees and pots and things like that. So I can kind of come up with some. Active interactive. Things. Last year we had a really good turnout because of. Our Facebook push that we had. There was a lot of people that like came directly because of the tree. So we're going to do that again this year. Great. We should coordinate it with the Instagram and, and probably do something on both. That's an excellent idea. Yeah. I like that. It is there. I remember when we, when I'm in the booth last year, people were really into the tree. Is the tree cookie. When you say that is at the cross section of the tree that has all the, okay. So people are really into that tree cookie. And I've been thinking, and so it's great that we'll have that again. And I've been trying to think of like, is there something that we could make it like, you know, the same way of like, guess how many jelly beans are in this jar type of thing? You know, is there something we could do with that cookie where, you know, people could only get so close. I don't know how you do it, but like, I would like for people to guess how many readings are on that tree. And then give them something like, and then if you win, and this is probably way off base is if you win, you get to tell us where to plant one of our public shade trees, you know, with lots of rules and regulations about, you know, we can't plant in certain places. And as we public, that's the, which is not, you know, it's probably not something we would want to commit to, but I mentioned it. Yeah. Give out apples or a tree fruit or nuts. You know, you know, you know, if you spend a little bit of money on that, I'd be happy to contribute something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We could have multiple winners with that. Like whenever anyone answers it correctly, although that requires someone to actually count out the rings beforehand. So that we know the actual answer. I can do that. Put me down. It makes me so dizzy trying to do that. That's a fun idea though, a little contestor. Would it make sense? Maybe not. But to enter the contest, you have to give us your email or something. So we can have more people to. Build up our list. That's a legitimate tactic that gets used quite a bit. So it's not unexpected. Would it be possible to. Plant. A tree. Like you win a tree. Like. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, you were saying where to plant a tree, but like we could plant one. For them. I know we used to plant on private property. Could we give them a bigger tree in the consolation prize for people who don't get it right is one of our tiny free tree sticks. To go. At your own house. I mean, personally, that would, I'm on the tree committee. So that would make me really excited. I mean, we're not going to be doing that. I mean, I'm not going to be being plain or wherever I wanted to plan it. That'd be cool. Let me think about some like. Let me think, this is an unformed thought. So let me think about some other. Including that some more options that would be easily done. Giveaway, you know, an instant giveaways. The thing about. You know, Henry's idea is it. You win and then you get something that day and you take it home that day. And there's instant gratification. So. Maybe there's some other tree products or things that we could add to sweet in the mix. I say that with one eye on the clock. I know you've got some other things you want to get through. So. Yeah. The Arbor Day proclamation. So as Henry brought up, we, there's the. Focus group meeting tomorrow. To put together the Arbor Day proclamation and. You know, we also can. We're planning to send in whatever we want to say. I think Amber is going to post it. Alan is what we talked about previously. Do you have, do we have what we send last year? Yes. So I sent them. I sent Angela. I sent her an email saying, let's use. Last year's proclamation. Just changed the dates. And since the town. The subcommittee on town council is, is doing the proclamation. I'm assuming she did that. I didn't receive a response that she was doing that. Or had done it. So I'm glad to hear that. So yeah, so they'll read the basic proclamation. And what we need is to have someone there. And we need to, you know, say thank you. And we hope you join us at. Arbor Day. We hope you join us on at the farmers market and participate in this great tree tour and put a plug in for the. The big sycamore at famous history museum project. So. Yeah. Talk about the ceilings. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. We also talked previously about. Bringing up the merry maple. I think we should have. Some plan. I know that there are people who will bring that up when we're tabling for Arbor Day. And so we, we had talked about. Giving people the space to talk about the merry maple and celebrate the merry maple. We've previously said we don't want to take too strong of a stance, right? We don't want to end up having a, you know, an argument. It's not. That we're trying to save the merry maple or condemn the merry maple. It's more about providing space for people to celebrate it. And then. When it's time for the tree is the town to take it down. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. People will have had a chance to come to terms and. And that sort of thing. So, so. What I'm thinking about for Arbor Day is being able to. Point people towards an event or social media where we're having discussions about it. Not. Necessarily the argument of. Are we saving it or, or not, right? It's more about talking about it and pointing people towards other resources. Well, are there any, you know, I've, I've got a circulated a draft op-ed, which is, you know, just a work in progress. About the merry maple. It would be nice at the end of that. Cause I started to write it. Into it, you know, maybe I did write it on the end of the draft. Like stay tuned for. You know, more events, public forums, things like that. And I just don't, as far as I know, those things aren't planned. And I don't know if there's any plans underway for that sort of thing. So. That was as far as I could take it. Would it make sense for the printouts of the op-ed there and have like some on the email sign-up sheet, the checkbox for merry maple news or something like that. Those that are particularly interested. Well, the way to get merry maple news is a sign for a newsletter, right? I mean, just making that up, but. Right. It does seem like that seems like the place to do that. I'd be hesitant to, to do things where. I mean, Alan's going to have to decide at some point that this tree is dangerous and needs to come down. So it's good that we're letting people know, but I would be careful about starting a conversation where people think they might be having an effect. Yeah. I like that. I, um, I like the idea of, you know, trying to just keep it to what merry maple means to people or some, not even what it means, just, just writing a note or a sentence or a word. Maybe there's a way, you know, I don't know. Now I'm thinking of like a time capsule. Maybe there's a virtual time capsule. Maybe there's a way that people could. You know, send us either. Can either right there, right down something on a piece of paper. And it's going to get posted on. You know, the website, the committee websites. Or one of our social media things. What the tree. The words that describe the tree to that person. Maybe we could do a time capsule kind of thing where, you know, the tree is removed. I'm not saying it's definitely going to be removed, but if there's a tree hearing and the town decides to cut it down, then, you know, could we put a time capsule in somewhere, you know, that we, you know, once we figure out how old the tree is, if it gets cut down, um, then, uh, you know, it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be, you know, you know, you know, I'm sure there's probably some kind of social media equivalent of a time capsule. Someone has invented somewhere where instead it would be a digital thing instead of a physical thing to get people's thoughts on what the tree means. Or maybe it could be a document that gets kept in special collections of the Jones. Yeah, exactly. Or the Amherst History Museum. Yeah. We could plant a new tree and marry the time capsule under that tree. An undetermined amount of time, but someday that tree will die. It'll fall over, create a hole in the ground and the time capsule will appear. Yeah. Did we're retrying to do something? I have like the day of June in my mind. Is there a deadline in June, something about the merry maple that has to be done before then? So I was told back in. February, not to hold a tree hearing in March. And then it would probably wouldn't be till June. It was just an estimate time where they might begin that conversation. So June is, is sort of the. You know, in May, I'm going to need to check in. To see how people want to proceed. You know, are they actually starting the project this. The summer. Or are we, is the project in delay till fall? You know, I'm saying. Or next year. So. We'll have to check in June on that. Alan, is that the, the North common project to you? Yes, the North common project. So. Bennett, like you were saying, I think it'd be nice if we did have an. Event we could point people towards. And that would alleviate us having to have too many. Difficult conversations. I know it's just a, a patch, a passionate topic for a lot of people. And if we could say. You know, we're going to talk more about. We're going to celebrate the merry maple and talk more about that. At this time and place, then we, we can kind of direct people where they can best. Spend their efforts. I don't know if that's something we're ready to plan right now. I think waiting till Alan, you said. Checking in in May and then June will know more. But we also don't want to wait too long because we want people to express themselves. So. I like the idea of having. People be able to like write messages. Well, you know, what they want to say about the merry maple and maybe some, one of the social media. Posts we could start in May would be like a merry maple minute. Where every. Whatever it is Friday, we can post something that someone's written about the tree, what the tree means to them, something like that. So. I do feel like we're getting ahead, personally, I feel like we're getting ahead of ourselves because we don't really know. Like right now, there's no tree hearing scheduled. There's, if you start making commemorations to the memory of the merry maple, it sounds like it's a done deal. And we're going to take the tree down and there's actually no, I mean, it's, it's one possibility. It's not the only possibility. And that might be alarmed by me, maybe more alarming to people. If I, if I were manning a table right now. And somebody said, Hey, what's going with the merry maple? I think we should be able to say, well, here's some, you know, here's some different things that are being discussed, but nothing is, you know, we want to be prepared for that conversation. And then I would, I really would all joking aside would say, you know, there, there will certainly be more about the merry maple coming up in the coming months. Nothing is scheduled yet. You should sign up for our newsletter. And that's where, you know, to the extent that the tree committee is involved with anything merry maple related. That's where you will find that. And that's a way to, you know, like, it gets found us for a newsletter, which is not really the main point, but nice. But it's also, it is an action that is true. In the lieu of any more concrete information. So that will be my, that's my gut instinct. I think all the ideas are great. I just think they're, I don't, I don't, I don't get, I don't get the sense of where they're yet. So. That's a great point. Directing them to our newsletter and maybe our May and June meetings. If they want to be more actively involved. Great. That sounds great to me too. I just was wondering, is it worth something that, is it worth, is this something that would be worth discussing with the committee? I don't know. I think the history. People more because it is sort of a, the history of trees in town is kind of a historical topic. And this would be, I don't know, maybe they'd have some ideas. Just a thought. Yeah. I think that's something we could bring up with Ann. Certainly if they have any. Historic photos or anything like that. I think that would be a really. I think it would be a good idea to find. Whatever happens to the Mary Maple. So when we, when we meet with her about. The history museum tree. We should have, have that in mind and be able to, to mention the Mary Maple as well. Mary Maple is on the tree tour. And I did. Ask at the Jones library, the special collections. They did not have really any historic photos. In their collection, but perhaps the history museum does. So aside from. Signing up for a tabling. Are we ready for our day? Are there any loose ends to tie up that I'm. Forgetting. The only thing I would add it's. Is we should schedule the tree tour. The initial tree tour and I'm wondering if we should do it. On the 29th, which is. Arbor day. We could do a Friday evening tour or something like that. If that makes sense. Make sense to me. Ellen, are you available that day or I. You're away that whole weekend, right? Yeah, unfortunately I'm away that whole weekend, but don't let that stop. If you feel that's a good time. One thing is you could also advertise the tree tour at Arbor day. And get people to sign up for. Something for it. So it could go both ways, I suppose. Yeah, I was thinking that we were going to. Talk about the tree tour while we were tabling. And if you have it on actual Arbor day. You know, we're not going to be tabling until the day after, right? So. The timing. Yeah, so we could do it after it'd be nice to have some. Yeah, but it does make sense to have it on Arbor day too. You might actually get like some, you know, hardcore Arbor day. Celebrators. I think you can do it multiple. I mean, it doesn't have to be a one and done deal. We could have two or three offerings. You know, this season. So. So. It's a little bit of self-guided, but for now we'll be leading it. The weekend after. Arbor day is, well, Mother's Day is the Sunday, but that might be a nice time to do something either on Sunday, which is Mother's Day or Saturday. I feel like that could be a nice. Well, we have tree planting on the day before Mother's Day. So maybe Mother's Day is the day. I'm available. I think so. Yeah. Look at trees. Yeah, it's definitely got like a Mother's Day feel to it. And then you can get like hook people in because there's probably a lot of people that go out for brunch. It's like a big, like go out to dinner day. They go out to brunch and then they go to the tree tour. It's like a perfect day. We have to make a decision on one day. So. Well, that sounds good in terms of arbit advertising it. Right now on the Saturday. Would we want to have a rain date or do you go rain or shine? That's the only reason why sometimes it's good to get people's to sign up, even if it's free, just in case you have to communicate something with people, but. I mean, it's not, it's not necessary, but it's not necessary. It's not necessary. I mean, it's not necessary. But if there's. Terenche will rain that day. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say if it's torrential rain, no one's going to show up. But. If it's just like a light mist, you'll get people showing up still like that. It could snow also, but. Why don't we just schedule for that day. And then if it rains, we can, you know, we'll see. But let's just try to just do it. So it's scheduled for May 8th. Or May 15th is Mother's Day. Oh, Mother's Day is the eighth. I'm sorry. So the tree planting is not till the fall of next Saturday. Yeah. So. That's fine. And what time. Would we want to do it? Early afternoon. Makes sense. So it's scheduled for May 8th. Or May 15th is Mother's Day. Oh, Mother's Day is the eighth. I'm sorry. So the tree planting is not till the fall. So it's scheduled for May 15th. So it's scheduled for May 15th. Makes sense. One or two o'clock. Maybe two o'clock. Two o'clock. Okay. And you're back by then, Ellen. Oh yeah, I'm just away that one weekend. Unfortunately, it just worked out that way. And where's the, the meeting point where, you know, if we have people sign up for this, the meeting location for the tree. To be next to the library, you know, to the library. Yeah. And I'll, I'll lead the tour. And Alan, if you're there and Ellen certainly, you know, pipe in whatever, but. All right. So it's on Mother's Day, the eighth at two o'clock. Yes. All right. I want to like, you know, advertise this on social media too. Okay. Okay. And then the next door, the next door app. I usually put stuff for us in the next door app as well. When I do things. Great. Okay. And then the last Arbor Day. Thing is we talked about printing more of our handouts. Yeah. Someone said that they had an actual printer and they could do it at home, right? Like is. Am I remembering that right? Yeah. Yeah. Rather than getting them printed. I do not. Which pieces do we have that we're printing? So we have some stuff from last year. Yeah. That brochure that I made with Nani. We've got that. I don't know what. Of those we have printed leftover. I think that was the thing we were going to have printed. Right. Yeah. Okay. Do you have the extra material, Henry? I have a bag of stuff. I'll go through and see what there is. Okay. I think it would be good to print. More of those brochures. Just in case. We can have them printed. So who has the original? It's in our Google drive. I can get them printed. Okay. How many copies should we do? I think last time we did a hundred. I'll see how many I have, but yeah. Okay. Henry, I'll, I'll coordinate with you. If we have, it looks like we have a lot left over. I'll. Amend it, but otherwise I'll plan on a hundred. Okay. It's not in my drive. Okay. Seven. I don't want to keep everyone too much longer. And it is. Maybe bedtime at my house. So I am fine with a tabling. The second Saturday plantings for May. And we will have our main meeting before our May planting, I believe. I'll just say that I believe that the May planting is going to be. On country corners road. Yeah, it's looking very. Possible that will be where it is. Okay. So we can plan on that. Stay tuned for updates, but that's a good. Assumption, I think. And then for our May meeting, we can plan out ahead so that we have everything kind of lined up for the rest of the season. And then I guess one last thing before we wrap up. The open letter. That got sent out. But did we, we wanted to follow up with the op-ed for. The budget line support. Did that get. Sent in. To the paper. Well, Ben, it's not here now. Okay. The only letter I saw was the. The recent letter, which is about the Mary Maple. Right. He did one. He did another one. Yeah. Yeah, we edited it and I've signed it and everything. I did. That was signed. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I signed on to that. It looked amazing. So I'll just. Coordinate with. Bennett. But I don't, I've never sent in an op-ed before. So if anybody. Wants to send this letter in, I believe we're ready to go. Okay. Yeah. I don't know if that's the most recent thing from Bennett or the prior one. The prior one. We all signed that. So I can. I can submit it to the. You submitted electronically. It's pretty easy. I'll do that. Okay. I have a final version, Henry. I'm not sure if the, the last one was the, the. Final one. On Google drive. So. Right. You should have the link. Yeah. And it's got your signature and. Yeah, some other, we're all sort of listed there. So, yeah. Okay. Great. Great. I will send that in. So we are. Just about ready to wrap up here. I'm looking forward to our Arbor Day event. That's going to be fun. Does anyone have any closing remarks before we sign off? Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for coming. And yeah, I'm looking forward to the, the Arbor Day event and, and more plantings this season. That was really fun to get out. So. Thanks everyone. As long as we don't get COVID. I'm sorry. I tested today. I was okay. So hopefully we're all okay. I tested negative yesterday. Okay. Okay. Thanks everybody. Bye. Bye.