 Okay, so now it's recording. All right, people popping in and popping out. One attendee. And there's attendee Bridget, do you want me to let her in? I was doing that now. Okay. Okay. With that part I can do some. I'm just glad we get to see who Amber Taylor is after getting I know. And all of my full partial remote learning at home with the kids glory. I just got an email from you today about the election thing. No, no, that wouldn't be me. That would have been somebody else. Oh, I thought it was you. Oh, no, there is. I think there's another Amber now up at town hall. So we're starting to populate. I'm trying to get the agenda to show up here. Okay, Henry, is this pretty much everybody you're expecting? Let me see. I'm on the trying to share the screen. So no longer know who's here. There's a couple more people, I think, but they should be able to join and I can let them in pretty easily. Okay, there's another attendee. All right. So what I'll do is I will just make you the host and I will exit out and you guys have a fabulous meeting. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I get this. There we go. Hey, Julian, you're here. Hey, Henry. How's it going? Good. Bridget, are you on a phone or can you? No, this is my mom's computer. So it logs in weird. Okay. What's her name? My mom's name is Bridget. She's not in the meeting. I get it. Okay. Yeah, you got it. Because I'm sharing the screen, which I shouldn't do. I lost all the controls have disappeared. It should be there somewhere. If you hover your mouse around near the bottom. Also, if you hit escape so that you're not in full screen mode, then it's easier to see the controls. Well, I'm not in full screen mode. And I tried sharing. Can you guys see the agenda? Yeah, yes. Yeah, I've lost the agenda. And there we go. Okay, that's so weird. I'm going to get rid of the agenda. I have these things at the top, but it's. There's no, okay, being recorded. So, okay, there we go. I stopped the sharing. That's why I lost everything. Okay. So we have three attendees. I'm going to, oops, I just left. Sorry guys, I'll be there. Okay. We have three attendees who are Gina, remote to panelists. Marian, remote to panelists and Rana. Okay. There we go. So somebody else wants to keep track. Shoshana, maybe you can do that if there's more attendees that show up, promote them to panelists. Or Sarah, I don't know how to do that. Is there like some sort of thing I should be able to see on the screen that shows people show up or something? Maybe you're not co-host. Maybe you can't do, maybe I have to do it. All right, should we get started? I'm going to have to read an official thing first. Is Alan coming? I think so. Yeah, I believe he's here. He's here. I'm here. Oh, okay. Oh, great, okay. I thought she sent me the thing, maybe she didn't. Okay, so I can't read the official thing says, basically, pursuant to state law where I'm reading on Zoom and blah, blah, blah. So everyone knows how to do the Zoom things and everybody seems to be here. Oh, I will try sharing the agenda again. And then we'll get started. Did I see it? Yeah, is Becky here? I can't see everybody. Becky's not coming. So, Gordon, you're the second. Gordon's doing it. And there will be a transcript. The meeting's being recorded. So it'll be a transcript that might help you. I'll try to get you that link as soon as it happens. Well, welcome, everybody. How are you all? Invigorated by a great tree planning on Saturday. How's that? Boy, you said the right thing. Yeah. Anybody else? I second. Does everyone know Reina? Is that the plan thing and was that a meeting in person the year or so ago? Maybe you want to introduce yourself briefly before we go on? Hello, everybody. My name is Serana and I'm happy to be able to join you via Zoom. And I'm a longtime resident of Amherst. Many, many years ago, I went back to the tree store training. And I wanted to join this community for a long time. My work commitment is not allowed to make it in time, but luckily it's already. We're glad you're here now and we appreciated your help on Saturday. Yeah. And I think everybody knows everyone else. So all of your names on your probably be good if you showed your names on your Henry, can I add that a lot of people saw us on Saturday and then I was planting all that sod on Sundays till a lot more to do. But people came by, they they were just really pleased to have seen us and they asked questions about the shade tree and I have a very picky neighbor who told me, gosh, this is going to really help the neighborhood. But we were very pleased and talked about how much they saw of us and of the trees on the streets, got lots of good press for the for the group. Thank you. All right. So let's get into the agenda, which I can't see even though you guys can see. It's weird that you can't see it. Yeah, I don't know how to see it. All right. Whatever. What's next on the agenda? Someone else can read it to me. Announcements and public comments. Although that did we just do that? Actually, we sort of did that. All right. And then there's hearings. There's no hearings today on other no hearings that I'm aware of. OK. All right. And then there's approval of September minutes. Volunteer hours. OK. So we count hours as you don't know. And we record them for our Tree City USA application. So if we have lots of volunteer hours, that helps. But you guys want to give me your hours while we're here. Shauna, let's say six hours. OK. Sarah. For Julian. Six. Gordon. Just three for me. Gina. No, you did. So four hours for the meeting and for the planting of the other work you did. Right. So three at the planting, one for the meeting. OK. Marion. So three for planting another planting. But I wasn't included before. No, I didn't. OK. Rana. Sorry, I called you Rana before Rana. OK. I think I was there for two and a half hours for the planting. And I don't know how long is this meeting. OK. And Bennett. Seven. OK. And then I'll have to figure out my hours. It'll probably be about 12. OK. Oh, yeah. And our one would be three. Right. I always I've never counted Arwin's hours, actually. Right. OK. And then is everyone read the minutes? So there are any corrections to the minutes from September? Raise your hand if you read the minutes. I don't think I got the minutes. They went out to everyone in an email, at least all the official members. I try to send it to everybody. I'm feeling like I didn't. I don't know. Was it it's like so long ago that I read it and then I forgot about it. That I read it and could be. Because I did read it's like a while ago, like a long time ago. I think you did send them out like a week and a half ago or something. It definitely made me wonder if the meeting was coming up quicker than I thought. Yeah, I thought the meeting was like last Wednesday for some reason. And then I tried to log in and it was like, no, this meeting isn't happening right now. Hey, so anybody have comments about the minutes or should we approve them or should we go back to the drawing board and you guys should read them again and approve them at the next meeting? I know I've read whatever you sent and I didn't have any problems with it. So I'll assume that I'm just having pandemic time stretching this. Want to just revisit the question at the end of the meeting. Maybe we can scan it in the meantime. I don't want people taking time out of the meeting to read them. And the idea is if we read the minutes, get corrections before the meeting and then we can just rubber snap it and it doesn't take a lot of agenda time. That's my goal. So let's postpone it for now. And next month, let's try to get September and October minutes already ahead of time and we get here. You know that we're ready to approve. Sound good? Sounds great. Sounds good. OK, I'm going to stop sharing because I can't do the other controls. So I can look at that separately. So is anybody nobody's in the attendee list? So that's good. But now I can see the minutes. OK, so committee reports, the chairs report in the tree water and the treasurer. And I have a few things for you. After I left the planting, I drove down to Glendale Street, where this guy really wants us to plant trees in front of his son's new house. And I looked at that and I met his neighbor. The son's new neighbor and they want trees also. And I thought there's a few other spots and I thought maybe Glendale Road, the part closest to 116 would be a nice location for a spring. We can talk about that when we talk about second Saturday plantings. I've been in contact with somebody from the Brook who contacted Alan. And then I spoke to a few people at the Brook. I went down there. That's one of the apartment complexes off of East Hadley Road that we talked about trying to get trees in and their private roads. So I'm a little confused as to how to move on with that. You can talk about that a little later. I also put a call on to the boulders, but did not hear back from them. And I have a low battery, so I'm going to go charge, plug in my computer. The only other thing I have is I went up to the nursery, the future nursery with Marion, and we looked at the land. Marion, do you want to talk about that while I get my power cord? Oh, OK. Yeah. So there are various options in a field that I have that's not being used for anything but somebody's growing tomatoes there. But it's the rest of it has ample space. It's somewhat wet in the spring in the late spring. It still isn't that that dry. But I think, you know, it does dry out in the course of the spring. And a lot of trees are growing fine there. So I think I'd love to have it happen there. If you want to have it happen there, I think it'll be great. I just have to add that. Can you hear me now? You can. OK. A little later, I was it was really pouring rain when we were done. And a little later, I was inside and suddenly my dog got absolutely intensely excited and was trying to climb up the French door to go outside. And I looked at and there was a moose walking through the field. So that was my big excitement for today of a teenage moose. But pretty big. Just the same, pretty big. And then I was going to get my camera, which was upstairs and I missed it, couldn't get back in time. What part of town are you in? This is Amherst, North Amherst, on Mark Hill Road. Yeah, so it's right on the edge of the woods that goes down to the yeah, so there's a lot of stuff happening down there that we never see. Occasionally, somebody comes up that might be a bear. It's usually turkeys here at night. You know, it's very, very well-traveled. Well, I'm mad because I haven't seen a moose in 13 years of living here. Oh, I don't want to hear about your moose stories. Aren't you celebrating with me? Come on. You're right, I'm celebrating with you. You don't have to believe me because there's no picture to prove it. But it was really a good thing that you're seeing moose because if we plant trees here, the moose will. It's all trees. Well, I've never seen a moose or since, so I think that there. They do wander quite widely, I believe. Yeah, yeah. It could have just been passed through. There will have to be some fencing around them, though, because the deer are browsing. But, you know, maybe we can find people with old fencing just need more stakes. So there's some money involved, unless you had stakes. I have a mole of fence if you want it. Oh, yeah? Okay. Does anybody have stakes that are at least four feet tall? I might actually. My parents recently put a fence around an area for their dogs that's like real chain link fence. And I think they have like some extra actual fence and some extra poles. I'm not sure how much I can, I can find out. Chain length, this is. Yeah, it's like regular, like you would see around like a school or something like that. Wow. I don't know if I could handle that. That's all. Okay. Well, we could use the poles if you didn't want the chain link. Yeah, I won't say no. Maybe in my neighborhood association, I could put post something about stakes and fencing needed. Marion, there's also this website. I'm on it. It's called buy nothing Amherst. That one, people are giving things away, but I've also seen people write in search of. Yeah, I'm on that group. I use that group all the time to get rid of all my crap. Yeah, I just got rid of something I wish I hadn't. I'm like, if you're re-gifting it, remember me. I want to ask Alan a question. Do you think the fact that the field is pretty wet, will that be a problem for the nursery? It will be if we want to dig the trees in the springtime, we can't, it's too wet to dig. I mean, that's usually when we're going to be digging them is in the springtime. Like what, how early? Preferably before they leaf out. Yeah, so. Well, I think maybe we can put them in that, not in the place that was too wet. I think that'd be possible. A lot of trees are happily growing there. You know, it's up and planted a lot of trees and they're very happy. It'd be nice for not having to water them a lot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That was one question that came up. If I were to go away, since I'm just here and there's no strong man anymore to help me do that kind of thing, could I call on members of the committee to come up and water if I go away? Was that something that people could see doing? I mean, I only go away, you know, once or twice a summer for a week. I'd come up. Yeah, I could too, in the two-four. I'll send out an email and I have to get more hose. I have quite a few hundred feet of hose, but it's nice to have something that's already just in place. So I could try for that on the by nothing site. I have 25 feet of old hose that I don't need anymore if you want. I just, it has to be pretty sturdy hose, that's all. It has a leak. I don't want it. Okay. High hose too. What? You, the committee can buy high hose too. If the site's not going to work because we can't dig the trees in the spring. So you have dryer spots that you didn't show me today. Well, I don't, I'd have to go inspect it. When are you going to plan them soon? We're hoping to do a November work day to get the trees started. Yeah, I think you should trust that it will be possible and good. I really do. I'm not just saying it. Okay. I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry. And I'll, I'll talk to my tomato growing person and see what he thinks. Okay. So should we plan that? Alan? Okay. Yeah. Are we going to do that as our second Saturday planting experience? Well, that's an idea. November, yeah. Unless we want to go a week earlier because it's Saturday to get cold in November. It does. Well, we haven't ordered the trees yet. So we have to see if they're available and bear root and can get them. Okay. Do you want me to call Amherst Nursery to do that or are you going to do that? I can talk to John. Yeah. Okay. All right. So I'd say let's move ahead and maybe just hold off on the date, figure second Saturday for now and see if we can get the trees in time. Sound good? Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Next on the agenda is a tree warden's report. They're going to be hopefully closing West Palmaroy for a waterline project this week. So we hope to get on there with the tree crew walls closed and do the crown lifting and removal of dead trees while the road is closed. It's a very narrow, very fast road that is very difficult to work on when it's open to the general public. So let's start that on Thursday, hopefully. We've got four more trees going on East Hadley Road, well, closer towards the Hadley line, four Linden trees going in there. So that's helped to continue that planting we did. We were able to get some funds to rent a crane from Northeast Crane, Northeast Tree Service. So their operator and a climber helped us remove, you know, 130-foot-dead white pine had been struck by lightning twice. So without doing any damage to the cemetery, that was a big help and big time saver for us. Let's see, obviously the big event this past week was the storm, the windstorm, which lasted all of five minutes and caused extensive damage, mostly in North Amherst, Central and North Amherst. We had three town trees that actually failed. There were probably, you know, seven significant trees that failed around town and that closed roads, you know, for more than 12 hours. Some of those roads, excuse me, that closed roads for upwards of 12 hours. And then there was another five, three roads that stayed closed for, you know, over 12 hours, almost 24 hours, because every source and the cable and Verizon weren't able to get their lines out of the road. So the road stayed closed due to that, not because we couldn't get the tree damage taken care of, but the fact that the trees were wrapped up in their infrastructure or the infrastructure was still physically in the road and nobody could touch it. So we'll be probably spending some time this week cleaning up a few of those areas, now the wires are out of the way and going around and cleaning up odds and ends that people have called in since the storm and need to be taken care of. Other than that, DPW is updating its web page, including the Trees and Grounds web page, which really hasn't been updated probably for eight years, seven years maybe. So we'll be going through that process of getting rid of old links and updating it and trying to make it more functional for users. That's pretty much it. Do you want some help with the planting on East Hadley Road? I think we'll do it. I have some time with my staff to do it and it's four trees, we should be able to get it done. But thank you. Anybody have questions for Alan? All right, Sarah, our new treasurer, do you want to check on the balance on that stuff? I have a question. I'll go ahead, Julie. Sorry, how's Nani doing? She hasn't been in our meeting recently. Yeah, I saw her, we went on like a little tree adventure and we had fun. And then she, a couple of days ago, dropped off all the stuff that she had for the tree committee, like some cards and stationery and envelopes and stuff with the tree committee's information on it. Then I guess it should go to the next treasurer, perhaps. So is she no longer a member of the committee? Yeah, her term limit came up. Oh, okay. Thanks for updating me. That's a good transition. I need treasurer orientation so that I know how to do that job. I would suggest you call Nani, but she didn't really do all that much. So I think the basic thing is once a month, you just check the balance by calling town hall. And if there's less or more money, try to figure out where the money came from. And then you have to sign off when we do purchases as a form that the chair and the treasurer both sign. And then maybe it's holding on to the stationery, which is mostly cards we send out as thank yous for gifts and things like that. Sure. So I didn't call town hall because I didn't understand it was that simple as making a phone call. And I will update you next month. Yeah, the person you want to talk to is Holly. Okay. Henry, we need to, unless you already sent it and I don't remember getting it, we need that form for the t-shirts to purchase the t-shirts. I thought we signed the form a while ago and I gave it to you. I don't remember getting it. That doesn't mean you didn't give it to me, but how longer would that have been? I don't remember. Quite a few months, I remember. When we voted on it, it was quite a while ago. Okay, so then I have it. And then I'll do it. Do you have the one for the placards? I have a request for the t-shirts. We have the quote for the t-shirts. I haven't gotten anything for the placards yet. But you have a form for the placards. Oh, I don't know. You, the Shady Committee has the forms. No, I know. I filled out a form for both of those things, gotten on a signature and gave them to you quite a while ago. Okay, then I guess I had to look through my records and see because I don't remember getting them. So I apologize. If not, I have more forms. I can sign them and then get them over to Sarah to sign. Okay. But you got the request for the t-shirts already? I have the quote. The vendor is currently the town vendor. So that makes that simplified process. And I just need the form. Yeah, let me know right away if you can't find it. I'll give you a form over to Sarah. I'll check tomorrow for it. Okay. Great. So then next is second Saturdays. We did good considering we started late, but we had two good plantings this year. And I'm looking forward to doing the new nursery. And then, you know, figure out locations for 2021. We have a few that are that we thought about that we haven't got to. And then I'm suggesting Glendale Road and possibly if we can do something at the Brook and the Boulders. Alan, I'm not sure how, since the Brook and Boulders are private roads, I'm not sure how we go about that. I know we did plant in Colonial Village, which is also private. The trees that we used at Colonial Village were donated trees. From Hanley Garden Center. That's why it's kind of an odd mixture of trees. So what I would recommend is, you know, if they're interested in doing something that the association, the condo association or whatever it is would purchase the trees and the committee can provide the labor, which is actually, you know, as one of the biggest costs of planting trees is actually the labor. It's not the tree. So that would work in favor and it would be a partnership and it would show that they're invested in the trees and making sure they live. Yeah, I spoke to them and, you know, there's a few people who live there. One is a tenant, the others are owners, but only the owners have a say on the board. But they were not sure the board would agree or have the money to afford the trees. So I told them we would provide the labor. They said exactly that. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, they would have to come up with the money for the trees or the tenant or the committee would need to find some, somebody donate the money because I can't use town funds to plant on private properties like that. You know, for getting trees and have the garden center this year? No, I don't think we are. Or from whatever it's called now, gardener supply. They have not reached out to us. That might be something one of us could do is reach out to them and say, hey, you guys used to donate trees that you couldn't sell at the end of the year. Are you still interested in doing that? I could do that. Okay. So I don't know who's in charge at, you know, garden supply, but you had the garden center did donate trees. So. Okay. Has Wanzik ever donated? What's that? Has Wanzik nurseries ever donated? Not that I'm aware of. They grow them, most of their trees. So how the garden center buys theirs in and they have no place to really overwinter them. So they want to get rid of them. Well, we could check with Dan Zomek who he used to work at Hedley Garden Center. Now he's at Wanzik. That's well, that was the connection I was making. Yeah, I think that, let me take it as I know Dan, I will reach out to him and see what he can do anything. Great. Thanks. And then we can use those trees to things like this where it's on private property. Yep. Sorry, what was Dan saying? Dan. His last name is Z-I-O-M-E-K. Sorry. Z-I-O-M-E-K. Oh. Zomek. Zomek. Yep. It's all over town. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. I think he's also the bird called guy, right? Yep. Yep. Okay. Well, that's good. Anyone have other ideas for locations for next year's plantings? I will say, I don't have a specific recommendation, but I will say that generally speaking, I asked a lot of people to come plant on Lincoln. None of them came. About half of them said, why would I go plant trees on Lincoln? No offense, Gina. It's just a street that's known for, it's a very leafy, nice street. It would have been easier for me to, I think, get people to go to, and I didn't do this in the previous planning, but I think if I had, people would have been, it would have been easier to get people to go to a place where you're like, I, you know, it's not as, not the leafy, shady streets, lots more, you know, just kind of construction going on, lots of apartment buildings. That would have been the easier sell, I think. So my vote is for, it's just places that are often overlooked, I would say. One place that jumped out at me is in our neighborhood up here, that's the intersection of Pine and North Pleasant. A big tree came down there, so that their corner is fairly barren. I don't know, Henry, if you know what I'm talking about, by the Korean restaurant. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that area is scheduled for redesign on the immediate corner. So not a good time to plant, you know, directly in that area. Why is that? Because they're gonna be tearing it all up. Oh, okay. That's not a big problem. We wait till they plant, till they tear it up, and then it gets delayed, and then we find the plant, and then they do something different, you know. Yeah. It's a bit of a challenge. I'm kind of a, you know, pollinator tree plant. I have a passion in that zone, and I wanted to know what kind of trees in the pollinator line could be introduced into the new collection of trees will make available. Linden and basswood are good pollinator trees. They have to meet certain specs that make them not too delicate. Yeah, you want to show you that is, you know, resist hardy, drought tolerant, can grow in compacted gravelly soils, and salt tolerant, salt spray tolerant. Yeah. So is it, I just want to check and see if I really know this that you are thinking about pollinator plants when you plant trees. I mean, they're not thought of as plants, they're trees, but they're still some really useful trees. I do take it into consideration somewhat. I mean, most of my consideration is based on survivability and not, you know, conflicting with the surrounding infrastructure. So something that can grow in the available root zone, something that can grow without having to be, you know, constantly pruned severely to avoid wires, buildings, roads, signs, street lights, pedestrians. So if I don't want to be annoying, but I just want to be sure that, I mean, if I have an idea, would you sort of give an opinion on it? I don't. I mean, if you suggested a species that were very beneficial to pollinators, I would definitely add those species if they're not already in my mix, then I could, you know, if they're growing conditions, meet the site conditions, then I could definitely site them. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, we do think about that. And, you know, most of the trees are actually beneficial to different pollinators. Some have more species of pollinators that are suitable for, but others provide pollination for, you know, rarer, rarer, like for instance, you could plant oaks, which have a lot of pollinating habitat, but that wouldn't help say the rosy maple moth. You need a maple for that. So the diversity of planting and the other considerations, we generally plant native trees as much as we can. Yep. It's also important. So we're thinking about that, but in broader terms. Okay. Well, yeah, anyone on the committee could definitely suggest, you know, the favorite tree or the most pollinated, friendly tree or whatever, to add honor to the committee and we'll definitely consider it. Okay. And in terms of locations, Bennett, and others, you know, drive around town and see a location that looks pretty sparse that you think would attract your friends to help plant, you know, that you would like to plant in, and we could do that. A recommendation would help from me. Like, you're right. Just go and find a place that seems suitable, yeah. Yeah. Any other comments about second Saturday plantings? All right, let's move over to the ordinance. I'm sorry, I do. Henry, are we going to do planting? Well, we'll find out from you if we're going to plant in November at Marion's for the nursery. We'll find out later. And I know you all had to check to see if the trees were even going to be available. Mm-hmm. Yeah, let's put it on our calendar and then, you know, we can count on it. There's the time. Yeah. I had one other thought on that subject, which is it might be easiest to protect them from deer if we plant them in groups in the most favorable places and like five, you could fence in five, not here and five there. Does that be too strange or could you see that? Because the deer are as much of a problem as the... They'll be fairly close together anyways, because they're only going to be in the ground for years. Right, right. So we could do that. I mean, I think the need for fencing is more of a threat than a water problem because the deer are very, very excited about the young trees. But all my... Since Alan told me about the six-foot radius and, you know, it worked like a charm, but I didn't know about that before and I lost two chestnut trees, not because of... That's actually, yeah, someone moved them down. What's the six-foot radius thing? Oh, fencing. Oh, fencing, okay. I know it's three all around, so six-foot total. A diameter. Okay, should we move on? Sarah, placards. I went and visited the extra trees to increase the number of placards and I can turn those around. I have to put the data into iTree to get all the numbers to plug in for the flyer, but the ones that are done are done and I believe we approved them. So once they're printed, Shoshana and I can coordinate time to go put them up. Okay, so right now I have eight final ones. Yep, and I've got a couple others that I went out and measured and I did and I just need to put it into iTree to add to the bunch. Okay, so I'll wait for that and then I'll make sure Alan has the form filled out from us and then I'll go order them at Amherst Copy, which is a vendor, so that's good. Great, I will, I'll get into you by the end of this week so that we can get those up. Excellent, great. Anything else about the placards? Okay, actually what was next on the agenda and got mixed up is the ordinance, which is also Sarah's ballywig, so go ahead. Yeah, so I got comments from a couple of you and there's still time if anyone wants to read it and send in any comments. I think the biggest thing, which a number of people brought up is just to clarify issues around approved removals and what the replacement or payout is gonna be for that versus an additional payout or replacement required for not approved removals. So I think we're just gonna have to revisit that language to make sure it's really explicit and clear in the document itself. If anyone has other ideas or specific wording or some concerns they wanna bring up around that topic and more specifically, we could talk about it. Yeah, it didn't even occur to me when I was reading it that there should be a difference between the fee and the fine, essentially, depending on how you cut down the tree. Yeah, I think that language is actually a really good way to kind of specify those two different actions. And so that's what we're, I think that's the thing to work out. Anybody else have anything they want to share about that or we could open up to any other specific ideas and questions? I had one general question about the requirement for a plan, site plan. I was wondering if somebody wants to remove a big tree on their property, I thought the wording was such that they would be required to have some kind of site plan. And would they need a plan just for removal or is the ordinance really just for like construction and projects that have plans? That's a good question. I don't think it was written to imply that you needed a removals plan just to take down trees. I think it's just approval. And that seems to make sense to me, obviously, if they would have a significant construction plan where they're going through like the zoning or the planning board, then they're going to have a selective removals plan and that'll be something separate from this. I don't know, what do you guys think? I don't want to make, and this is to one of the points that Bennett raised when he sent in his comments was, we don't want to make this too difficult so that there's a lot of pushback in getting it passed and also just as residents and amherst and property owners, home owners, we don't want to make this too much red tape, too difficult for people to do. It's really supposed to protect the trees. It's not supposed to be more unnecessary legislation. So what do you guys think about that point of having a plan or flagging or a way to have a specific demarcated approval? Any ideas or opinions? If the idea is that you don't have to have a plan for a removal, I just wonder if it's slight wording in that section or approval of the tree warden or something like that, I think of minor, or maybe I'm the only one who had that confusion, I don't know, but it seems like a small change in the language where just some kind of approval is mentioned in a non-dependent clause on the plan part. Might do it. I think I remember this cropping up before too, that we didn't want to have too much put on Allen's shoulders. I think that's probably where that originated. There should be a tree preservation plan. Once someone, there's going to be some kind of application or notification and there's going to be a review process that's just going to be myself reviewing is this part of a larger project where they're already going in front of the planning board and they're already holding a scenic road hearing. And we've been talking about individual trees that haven't triggered multiple other things that will already be triggered in the town, whether it's a curb cut permitting process or someone has a sewer line they need to replace, they're putting an addition on the house. It's an historical district. Whatever gets created has to be merged into the larger kind of permitting process the town has. And to make it so it's not overly burdensome on the applicant. Is that something the ordinance that we're writing should say? Or is that something that? I think it should be discussed in the order and somewhere in there that, you know, this is part of the process because it's already very confusing if you're a property owner and you want to do a project or your developer or your construction worker and you're trying to get a dig up a utility somewhere. You know, there's essentially two avenues to go through. One is through DPW, one is through planning and they try to end up at the same place but they trigger different things. So we're adding another layer to trigger, you know, outside of Chapter 87 tree hearings and things like that. And I did have other, you know, thoughts I want the committee to think about the, you know, limiting the size of this to, you know, the downtown area that either the bed area or maybe some of the historic areas in town and starting small and seeing how it works and then expanding out from there in the future if it's needed and the committee is gonna need to work on a very professional and detailed presentation that's going to need to be given to a lot of different people and boards so that everybody can understand why we need this in town. So we need a really, you know, professional looking, especially PowerPoint presentation with talking points and with the data that shows why this is needed so that it can move forward. I think that's a great point, Alan and I'm happy to head up that presentation. I could certainly use some help if anyone wants to just be like a sounding board or a partner, someone I can bounce ideas off of. It's always helpful just to have a second pair of eyes on something that's gonna be public, like a presentation but I'm happy to get that started. And- With the presentation, I'm happy to help. Great, thanks, Bennett. And I think that Alan, your other suggestion to limit it to the bid district and focus on the downtown and kind of run that and see how it goes is a good idea. Anybody else? Yeah, I'll help with the presentation also. I'm thinking I'd rather not limit it to the downtown but make the size of the trees really large so that it would be fewer trees and to be really a more clear reason, like the tree on Southeast Street. That was a huge tree. So people can really look at that and say, wow, that's really special, it's worth saving, that kind of thing. So that was the initial intention when this was written was to identify two distinct areas and I don't think it came through in this but the first area is extending the, it's not an extension of the right-of-way zone but it's creating a secondary right-of-way zone along the road sides. So in that zone, and we could call it 20 feet but I think there was reference to some case studies that Ryan and AJ did to kind of figure that out and it's not clear but the initial intention was to have a zone that's like 20 feet from the right-of-way and in that zone along all public ways the DBH would be smaller because having street trees are beneficial for all these reasons and in some areas where we don't have room for street trees, we would have a smaller definition of what's significant on private property in an effort to create more of a street tree kind of street. Second area is anywhere that's on any private property than it would be quite a large DBH. So that was the initial intention and I don't think it's particularly clear in reading this, so we could definitely clarify that point or we could just make it more simple and not do any sort of right-of-way, extended right-of-way planting and just have this like, Henry, like you were saying, a larger DBH all private property and just keep it at that for now, addendums possible but what do you guys think in terms of clarity should we try to divide it into those separate zones or? Well, is the street tree zone already covered by another thing, like, because that's already a thing, like we have to have our like meetings about the ones that are on the side of the road. So I feel like it's possible that that's already taken care of but maybe it needs said again in this one just so that it's clear the difference between, you know, our street trees and people's backyard trees. Yeah, so. And 20 inches seems big to me, I don't know. This is in the section three, definition of a significant tree. Trees within a 20 foot offset from the right-of-way. So what we currently have tree hearings about are trees that are in the right-of-way and this is meant to like expand upon that, expand 20 feet upon what we currently have under jurisdiction. And then the second line item, is only if they are farther than 20 feet from the public right-of-way, then it is increased to 20 inches. I think, you know, and admittedly, I haven't read the document, sorry, but would you have some kind of table in there? Because, okay, I'm thinking the right-of-way and I know Alan explained it to me, then I have to add 20 feet onto that and then we've got the 20 inches. If it's in this spot or in this spot, I don't know, some kind of table where you could say, with the definition and these are these sizes or something like that, because at least my listening to you all now, I'm trying to envision it and I can't. Or maybe like a sample map. Yeah, a cross-section. Here's your road. But maybe to kind of Henry's suggestion, do we want to even try to do that two different, DBH trigger sizes in two separate areas? Or do we want to just go with the simpler, larger DBH? It seemed like keeping it simple would be a big plus. But I don't know what the other ramifications are. Are there any things like, I mean, if the town is, I guess when we're reading this, one thing that came up to my mind a lot was damage to trees and damaged trees. If a tree is damaged and somebody needs to take it down, is that, do they have to go through this whole process? Or if the tree is damaged, might they point to the town and say, hey, I couldn't touch this tree because it's a significant tree. Therefore, hey, town of Amherst, it's your liability. The fact that the tree fell in my house or whatever it is. So I don't know if those are significant concerns or not, but maybe those are already addressed elsewhere. So that, I mean, that's certainly something that I was thinking about in terms of liability. We don't want anyone to not do their due diligence of assessing tree health and protecting their personal property and then blame the town. Nani was originally helping me with this and she was quite adamant that all other avenues be explored as options before tree removal was granted like any sort of tree pruning or maintenance or anything else that could be done to prolong the life of a significant tree as opposed to just, oh, it's losing branches so we need to cut it down. So that is a little bit reflected in the attempt to try to preserve trees if at all possible. But it says clearly that if it's sick, it can come down without repercussion. Right, so I mean, we didn't, I wanted to make sure that people weren't going to try to blame the town and obviously trees have a lifespan just like everything else and it's a much longer lifespan than we're used to thinking about, but eventually they do get sick or die or reach the end of their life and need to be managed, especially in an urban context. So I don't know if you think there needs to be more kind of non disclaimer legal information about that. I imagine before it goes to be voted on by town or whatever, it'll probably have to go to the town lawyer, right, to get looked over. Yes. That's great. Cause I could certainly use help with that sort of legal language. So tell me what you all think, I'm sorry about background noise. I like the idea of having it where in some districts, like downtown or historical districts, we could have a certain DBH and then a different one for outside of those districts and for the rest of the town, like what Henry was saying. Maybe set one at 15 inches in historical districts or the downtown and then outside of those districts, it could be 2025. So, Julie, and I'm not sure if you had a chance to read it, we don't currently have it broken out by zoning and we did that kind of on purpose just so that this isn't tied to zoning regulations and lives a little bit separately from that. The attempt was made to try to do right close to the street, all the private area and the DBH minimum requirements were determined based on prior study. So what other towns in particular North Hampton have done so that we could use them as an example, similar towns, similar place in the world ecosystems. Yeah, I haven't read it, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. So that is something that we talked about. And if that's something that other people want to see added, but even more specific requirements, I think in the end we determined like with what Ryan and AJ were doing for their class requirements, they decided to not go with tying it to the zoning, but that's certainly something we could explore if we want to research that further. Yeah, thank you. Henry, you're muted. I was just saying, oh, I'm muted, as you said. These are good questions and we need to make decisions about them. So let's just maybe do a show of hands right now who favors the simpler one and who favors the separate, but who favors the area near the road close to the right-of-way to add that as a separate section. Raise your hand if you support that. The difference between near the road and people's backyards. Right, and that's how it is currently broken out. So support keeping that and clarifying it or simplifying it to just the larger DBH everywhere, I think, is that what you're getting at, Henry? Yeah, okay. So all in favor of having the area along the road protected, raise your hand. Definitely. We can't have people chopping down our trees that we just planted. Only bristle, every time I look at this, I bristle at the significant trees or six inches in diameter by height. It just, that would, you know, one-handed, all trees are significant, but that one, I would, if somebody asked, you know, if we presented this to the town council or somebody who said, you mean a six-inch tree is significant? Like when I think of significant trees, I think of, you know, ancient towering oaks and that sort of stuff. And that could just be my, you know, like I'm, this is, that one I don't, it seems like a hard one to enforce. What if we called it the street tree and or street and significant tree ordinance? So it differentiates between right in the title of like these street trees are protected extra and the big guy in the backyard somewhere is also protected. Well, I think the six-inch is too restrictive also, but Bennett, trees don't grow as big here as they do in Louisiana. But yeah, I would say maybe 16 or 18 inches for trees near the road and 30 or 36 inches for trees in your backyard. I mean, I would make it pretty high. So it's not that many trees come under the thing. And those feel more significant to me for sure. I mean, just make it out, I mean, you know, and I don't know how this, Alan could say that, you know, my guess is Alan, you have a better or not, like this could be super restrictive compared to other towns or, I mean, Sarah, you actually compared, this is compared to Northampton. So, you know, I don't know how far a field we are kind of norms. I just don't know. Shouldn't we be consistent with our ordinance that we already have with our street trees, right? Like, because we already have like our parameters that we did like a couple of years ago about the DBH and when that kicks in. The public shade tree, you know, La Massachusetts brings in a lot of trees because it's, you know, anything from, you know, well, I think in our ordinance, for reimbursement's sake, we said six inches, I think, for any kind of removal and reimbursement. But this is, you know, the title of this ordinance that we started out with, I think is a significant tree ordinance. So we're trying to capture those trees, which are large. You need to find what a large tree is, a significant tree is. We keep trying to bring in more and take more oversight. We need to stick to significant trees and pick a size. So we could look at Northampton. We could look at Springfield, you know, other communities that have significant tree ordinances and those are what will get trigger the ordinance. The Northamptons is 20 inches in diameter. I think Springfield's around there somewhere too. And that's where the 20 inches came from. Does Northampton have the setback separate? No. Okay. Not that I, no, not under this document that I've reviewed. I don't know if they have some, if they broke it out separately into like two separate documents, because I didn't review their street tree, just the significant tree ordinance. It seems like we following other towns would be important. If people feel like we're going out on a limb in any way, it seems like we'd get more of a pushback. That's a very wrong analogy. Yes. So that, I mean, I didn't write this document. It was given to us by the UMass students. And I, in the first round of edits, I specifically asked them to use a lot of references and references that would be appropriate for Amherst. So things that are local, sounds of the towns of a similar size and similar geographic location. So there is a list of references and an appendix of the draft, which I haven't read all of them. But I did specifically ask them when they were drafting this for Amherst to be a workable document that we needed to use a lot of references and basically not to propose anything that was too controversial or experimental, even if it was based in good research, you know, like scientific studies or something that's important, but that also it has to be based on similar legislation. So I asked, I put in that request in the initial drafting of this, but I didn't draft it myself. So I'm not sure how closely that has been followed. And there's not specific references in the, that specific definition of a significant tree section. There are references to the other data in other parts, but not in that specific part. So we could include more references there too. Substantiator claims. Well, how should we proceed? I mean, I'd be happy to sit down, Sarah, and talk with you about it and work through those details and come up with a new draft to present to the committee or the committee can make a decision now. I mean, I definitely think it needs some editing. I'm happy to go through and do incorporate the edits everyone has sent in so far and the concerns we raised this evening, and then I can send out another draft. It would be really helpful, I think, to this effort if we did kind of a crowdsource editing, like if everyone took time to really read through this and get in there and do a hard edit with adding specific languages anywhere that it seems unclear, whatever other information you feel is necessary to really make this a well-researched and thoughtful document before we bring it to anyone else in the town. So I'm happy to do the next round of edits, but then I really think getting in there and just being very detailed and specific in reading through and commenting and editing, even to the choice of wording and all of that stuff that's kind of been brought up, but really just to crowdsource it to our entire committee would be helpful, I think, in making this the best it could be. One thing I found when reading it was that it was hard to come up with, like I came up with a lot of questions, but they're complicated answers, so I didn't feel right just like putting in, you know, Googling it and then sticking in my answer. Like it seemed like they all needed discussion. Yeah, and just because we meet so infrequently, that's what I was kind of hoping to address with crowdsourcing it, if it's a Google Doc and everyone can kind of answer. Ask questions, answer questions, respond in more of a real time, as opposed to we wait a month and then everyone forgets what we're talking about. That sounds good so we can put it in comments back. So if I'm happy to do like the next round of edits incorporating everything so far, but I think if we did more of a natural crowdsource edit question, answer and let it develop a little bit, with more eyes on it would hopefully get to get to some of those answers in a way that's more efficient. That sounds good. Yeah, Sarah, thanks. I have a question. I'm used to working with SharePoint like for work. So when you say crowdsourcing, is that you're putting it on some share drive and we all go in and you can see who's working on it at the same time. How does this work? I would just put it on a Google Doc and share it with everyone. Yeah. So we would be able to see Gina that you're in the document. When I'm in the document and I can see that you're make, I can see your edits as if I'm kind of looking at, as if it were. All right, so it's the same. I just haven't used it through Google. Okay. Yeah, it's just, it's on the internet so you don't have to have a specific software or anything. Okay, I would be happy once, you know, like you have a lot of things and I would be happy. You probably need at some point, some people sit with you and just like go through it. You know, like, yes, no, not permanent. You know, just boom, boom, boom. Otherwise I can imagine that you might just, you know, it could go on and on. So if you do decide at some point that you want some people just to be with you while you're going through all these comments, deciding which one's valid or whatever, I'd be happy to sit with you and maybe I'll just be cheering you on. But happy, happy to be there. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah. Great, so Sarah, why don't you get it out to us the edits from today and that you've received so far. And everyone really, it's like reading the minutes ahead of time. I know I've said this before, but people don't generally do stuff like that. So let's really support Sarah in this and support the note-taker and thing by reading the minutes so we can get all that stuff done timely. Yes? Thumbs up? That sounds good. I think we'll send out the next draft and I would encourage everyone to ask questions, Gordon, to your point. I think even if all you have are questions, just putting them in will help us figure out where we need to cite references or something like that. Just if any of us have questions, other people will have the same questions and probably things we haven't even thought of. So any sort of comments or questions, even if it's not the answer or you don't know the answer, would just be really helpful because then we can start to kind of plug the holes in to make this a really well researched and meaningful document. So I'll send this out. And then anytime you get to it during this time before next meeting would be great. I would love everyone's continued feedback. So thanks for everything so far. Oh, did you get my comments? I don't know if it sounds like maybe you didn't. I did, I did. Okay, good. There was one thing that came to mind which was that it seems to me the conservation, I was worried about another committee staking the claim on private property. And it sounds like the conservation committee already does this. And I was just wondering, is that, and I don't know if people, I guess that's something I could discuss in the document, but it seemed, well, I'll put it in the Google Doc and do it from there. We should move on now. Okay. Well, T-shirts is next to the agenda but it sounds like we're all set. I gave Shashana the list of what I think we should order and I'll just make sure Alan gets the form signed by me and Sarah, if he doesn't have it already. Web design. Ben, are you starting to get in there or are you? Yeah, I have, I haven't heard back from, I sent a note to Sean, Hanon, I think at the town about asking basically what can we do? Are there guidelines for it? I haven't heard back from him. I do have, given the time, probably not the right time to do it, but I've started to think about assuming that he, my guess is he's gonna come back and say, well, you don't radically reinvent this, you can change the menu items, you can change a number of menu items and you can change all content within those pieces. I've started to think about well, what menu item should we have when you go to that page? And I have a draft of that, which is really the architecture for whatever it is that we want to end up doing and it's different than what we currently have. And so maybe that's probably something I should share or I mean, I could present it at the next meeting or share it after we get off this call just for feedback on what the, specifically what I would be looking for is, are we missing anything with these menu items? Is there anything here that shouldn't be here? So just by way of example, and I'll shut up, I added a make a donation tab and I removed the request a tree tab because I understood that there was a time when we had a lot of trees to give away and that's no longer the case. And for the make a donation, it's not a big part of what we do or how we get our funding, but maybe it, people might want to get for that. So things like that, those are the kind of questions that kind of go into how we might rethink what we've done on loan. So yeah, maybe with nine minutes left, I should either share it after this meeting or probably share it in advance of the next meeting and then spend 15 minutes actually talking about it. Yeah, share it as soon as possible. And then there was doing with the document, we can get between meetings and get information back to you. Okay, great. Call it to present. Great, thank you. All right, we talked about a junior tree committee and then Julian found out that you don't have to, there's no age limit to join our committee. So I encouraged him to apply to join the committee himself and Arwin could do that unless people think a junior tree committee would be useful in itself, which it might. Well, I'll read you exactly what he wrote to me, Paul Backelman, so that it's in the minutes. So we have this documented. From Paul Backelman's office, it says, there is no formal subgroup like this when I was asking about a junior developing a junior group. They can join as members. There is no minimum age or they can continue as valued volunteers. Paul Backelman, town manager, town of Amherst. Thank you, Shoshona. I remember you told me about that earlier, so I really appreciate it. But after learning that information, I guess I see the need. I can still see why there might be a need for a junior tree committee. However, I think it might be more effective, just in my personal opinion, to do an outreach type of thing where we say, here's the open seats and try to advertise that, whether that's in the schools. I can reach out about it on my friend group and see if we can get some members. Well, that's you, you're the committee who are younger. And I already filled out my community action form just last night. And I'm hoping Arwin can join and that would fill all the seats that we have. So yeah. Yeah, I wrote back to Paul, thanking him for his response and then told him that you were to expect your bid. Awesome. Where's the seat there? And said that you were a good kid and all that. Thank you. I have a question. You said you filled out the citizen activity form. Yes, I just filled it out before the meeting actually. Rhonda's still on, although she's not in video, but I think she filled out a different form. So I'm a little confused. Where do you find the citizen activity form? I got it on the town website. It's pretty clear there. You just click, how do I volunteer? And then it pops up is an option. Okay, Rhonda, are you still here? She's in the list of participants, but I'll email her and say, make sure she's filled out the right form. Because I know she's interested also. All right, anything else on this? No. I think that's all we have. So we can do a quick checkout round. What do you think of the meeting? Anything else we're missing? Let me just look at the agenda one more time. I feel like there was something else. Well, a new tree inventory, but that's and statewide efforts, but those aren't really happening for us. So let's just table that. Any other comments or issues not anticipated? Sure, this isn't really an issue. I just wanted to comment. I know we had a tree down on our street or not a tree. It was just a limb across our street and a tree up the road. And the prompt response from Alan and his crew to make sure everything was done. It was done right, done well. And I just want to say thank you for that. There's definitely a lot of good work that's been going into prepping for incidents like that windstorm. And I think everybody notices it. I know some of my neighbors even commented, wow, that got cleaned up quick. So we really appreciate it. Thank you for that. That's good to hear. Appreciate it. Other comments. All right, so let's adjourn the meeting and let's respond to Bennett and Sarah's emails with the projects they're working on and respond to the minutes when I get them out to you. And yeah, Alan and I will talk and we'll make further plans for the nursery and see if we can get it for that second Saturday date. Sounds good. I wasn't able to unmute for a second there, but I wanted to thank Sarah and the whole group for putting so much thought into this significant tree ordinance. Cause I just happened to have a neighbor who just went roaring through the trees around his place. And you know, not that he didn't ask if he could. I don't know how significant they were, but I just think it's really, really important at this point in our history to make trees have a high profile in terms of their value. So this is a good thing. Yeah, thank you, Sarah. That's great. All right, thank you everyone. And we'll be in touch by email and then we'll see you next month. Have a good evening. All right, bye everybody. Bye.