 We're live. Still just the three of us. Sean has the wrong zoom link. I'll send her a new one. I do ask people to tell me in advance. Sorry to be late, but I was just planting trees. I was really wanting to say that, obviously. Was it on the right street or. Yeah. We were recording right now. Right. We're recording. We're live. Yes. I find it's maple trees. Nice. Yes. And they are enormous. They're like 14 feet tall. Really took it out of me. Yeah. That's a really big fall in Berlin for. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Sarah, do you want to let Julian and Ellen in or should I. No, I've got it. Okay. I don't know why they're using participant links. I mean. Public public links. I don't know. I don't know. Ellen was saying that they. They don't send me an invite. The town. Me and invite. So this is the only way I have to enter the meeting. Hello, vice president. Vice chair, I guess it is. Sorry. I thought your Shawna was coming right in. I just sent her a new link, but. I can take hours while we wait. Do we have enough for a quorum? We do. Yeah. Like, okay. So why don't we just be in. So I'm just going to announce that the webinar is. Being recorded. And be able to view it on the town website. They usually get posted on Friday afternoon. So. What about Friday afternoon? That's when they posted on the town website. Okay. All right. So we'll do ours while we're waiting for. Last people to come in. Sarah. Okay. Three. Two. Bennett. Five. Okay. Ellen. Two. Julian. How much. 18 for the two months. Shawna said four. What does that mean for. Four hours. Oh. Oh, so she's here. Okay. I get it. Okay. First just said for her. Okay. Good. She must be this person who's a call in. Who I can't promote to panelists, but I gave permission to talk. Okay. So. Oh, I see you couldn't. So she'll stay as an attendee. Right. Okay. I'm going to. Hide the participants and. Share my screen. With the agenda. We should next approve the minutes. Oops. Where am I? I want to share. Sorry about that. Still not wanting to share. Can you guys see that? Yes. Make you bigger so I can see you. All right. Any announcements? No public here, I guess. Just us chickens. We approve the July minutes. Any changes to it? Thumbs up if you want to approve the minutes. Okay. Minutes are approved. Ben, are you taking minutes? Today I'm a little hamstrung here. I just, my wife is about to leave. And I have the kids. If somebody else could do it, that'd be great. And I'll do my level best. Helen, do you want to try? Sure. I think I did them last month too, but okay. Okay. That'd be great. Thank you. Thanks, Ellen. Thank you. Thank you. If Brett was here, we'd assign her as the newest member, but. She's not quite official. And she's not here. So. All right. So the chair's report. And a bunch of things for report. First, a question for the treasurer. Did you get $500 from. It would have been from Hampshire village. I think you're a treasurer. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wasn't able to get a recent one. So I don't have the most recent one. So I don't, that's not reflected in the number I have. Okay. So the, if you could check on that. We got a check from them and it was made out to me instead of to the town of Amherst with the gift refund. So they said they sent a new check and it got cashed. But I had not seen any evidence of that. So I just wanted to make sure that that came in. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to send it tomorrow and then send an addendum with the, the minutes. For this meeting. Great. Okay. That's good. Um, was appointed. She's not official until she goes before the select board or whatever the town council. But she's in. We had one other woman. Come and interviewed who was also very good candidate, really interesting, but. She probably wasn't going to be in town. She wasn't sure if she was going to stay more than a year or two in town. So we went with Brit. We might have anyway, because Britt's just such a strong candidate. Um, her name was jupong Lynn. And I was hoping she'd come tonight, but, uh, she will join us for some things. So you'll see her. Um, the solar bylaw committee that's already on the thing. Oh, Al on 743 main street. They had requested a replacement treat. Is that being taken care of her? I don't know if I received that request. 743 main street. Yeah. They had a tree taken down and they requested, I sent you an email and they sent an email to, I think to you. So they took a tree down now. They'd like to have a new one planted. Yeah. And I'd be willing to plant it or a couple of us could go planted, but if you can arrange to get that. That would be great. I'll look into it and check on the email and follow up to make sure. Great. Thanks. Okay. Um, We got two people interested in watering now that the drought is over, but, uh, Adrian, uh, You know, who's part of it has been part of the group, but hasn't not an official member. She was contact me because the bangs trees were dying of the drought and wanted to know about if she could organize watering. Um, Yes, you can. So just do it. But, uh, Anyway, I don't know what happened with that. And then this woman, Lori. Um, just today or yesterday offered to water at, um, Golf Park, the trees there. We had planted a tree in front of her house. She's a proud tree owner of Amherst public shade trees. Um, Great to email. So Alan, it's one of the, I wasn't exactly sure how to tell them to respond. But I think they need to get water to the trees. Um, When they need it. Uh, So would it be helpful to have a private group doing that? You know, You don't have to. Uh, it's the trick. Trick is how they're going to get water to the trees and not near water. So that's always the trick. Yeah. I think they need to bring about 18 gallons of water with them per tree. Um, So. Okay. I can, I can, um, I saw the email. I saw the email. You know, Follow up with them. With her on that. Okay. And while we're on, let's talk about the drought a little bit. If you can give us a update on how it's affected things besides the fact that we didn't plant last month. Of this month. Yeah. So the drought has been pretty hard on a lot of our. Already sort of marginal trees, especially the sugar maple trees. So. Um, So a lot of those big sugar maples that have been, you know, struggling with low growth. Um, We're, you know, Going to see a pretty rapid decline in the next couple of over the next couple of years. Those trees. Other than that, you know, just trying to water this year was a major task for the crew. Um, We had one. One seasonal slash intern that was working with us on the tree inventory. And doing helping out with the tree crew. He spent most of his time watering the trees that we planted this year. And trees that we planted last year. So. Yeah. We lost a few, but most of them will survive. Okay. Thanks. Um, So the only other thing, um, I think that's about all from my. My report. Julian want to do the vice chair report. Yeah. So basically. My main updates have been that I told one of my teachers, Mr. Fable. I believe he lives near you. John Fable Henry. Yeah. And, uh, he was interested in our committee. I showed him the community activity form and explained that the next time we have a vacancy, that would head to the town manager and he would hear more. I invited him to this meeting and the meeting in October. He said that he could possibly make the meeting in October and would try to make the meeting in November. Um, so that's one update. I have other updates. Um, I've been emailing back and forth with a few folks just regarding. Planting and maintenance and how to go through the C click fix system for those types of things. And, um, Other than that, I think that's all I have. Cover. Yeah, that's it. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm just following up on that seven 43 Main Street tree request. Yes, I have been in contact with them. It's where we took down the very large, very old sugar maple tree. This spring. And we're working on doing the tree planting this fall there. So. Um, as far as other tree warden business, um, as you may have heard, Um, each leaf disease has been found in Amherst. So, um, it's not a good thing. It's a nematode that, uh, you know, since it gets in the vascular system of the tree in the leaf. And, uh, Over a period of years, um, you know, can. Kill a tree actually. So, um, There's a lot of questions about this nematode and. I don't want to talk too much about it because I'm not actually. You know, um, Sure myself, um, Where the status of this report is on the nematode. I think they were saying it is a native nematode, but they're not sure why it's causing problems now. Um, but, uh, You know, you can read up on that. Obviously it's will be in the media and you can look it up. Um, Each leaf disease, uh, nematode. So it's actually found on the Holic range in Amherst. Um, not in town, but, um, In other parts of the state where it's been found. Now there are some pretty heavy infestations. Um, it's a difficult pest to control because it's actually in the vascular system of tree. And it's an nematode. You know, so it's. Insecticides. So they do have some treatment for it. But, um, I might be working with a researcher at UMass to do some. Studies on town trees and significant town trees. Um, To inject them to see if it helps to prevent. Uh, Each leaf disease, uh, For occurring. So we'll see if that actually takes place. Um, Also, um, I just want to add in that I was hiking in the. Berkshire's and Keystone arches, uh, State Park and discovered it there and a lot of the. The beach trees there. Um, And then spotted lantern fly was discovered in Springfield. Um, They're in the process of trying to determine how big of an infestation it is. Um, It's a, uh, Nuisance and, uh, Pest and that multiplies so rapidly and it's a SAP feeder. So it, um, Like aphids excretes everything that sucks out of the. The tree and they are large and they produce a lot of this, um, Honeydew, It gets sticky on everything and they, they just mass on trees and there'll be thousands of them on trees. And since they're so large, um, It can be very disturbing if you have them in your yard or in your parks. Um, and they will harm a large, A large, um, Selection of our, uh, Trees. So it's not just one tree. It does love. I land. This is probably its favorite tree. We don't have a lot of violence in town. Um, We don't have a lot of violence in town. Um, You can also read up more on that, uh, Spotted lantern fly. Uh, the inventory. We got a good start to it. I didn't get anywhere near as much as I'd hope to get done this summer. Mostly due to the fact that, um, In turn spend most of his time. Watering trees. Um, So. The, uh, Um, Having a difficult time getting the trainer to coordinate. Um, With the town. So, um, I have to reach out to, um, The individual again. Let's see if we can set up some training. Opportunities and get some volunteers out there. Collecting data. I'll let you know how that goes. Amherst history museum. Here in street grant. I've had no progress on that. Um, So, um, I hope to start that planning process this fall. Try to get everything in line for the fall kickoff and a spring kind of. Spring activities and work. Um, To take place on the tree. So. There'll be more information on that soon. Uh, My equipment operator, which left. Um, For a job in a highway department. That position was filled this week. So I now have a, A new equipment operator on my tree crew. Um, he came over from my park side. Um, and so he's been working with the tree crew for years and, Um, He's been working with the tree crew. Um, And as a really hard worker, And I think he's going to be a really good fit with the crew. Unfortunately, it leaves a vacancy on my. Crew. Parkside. Uh, where he was a key player there. So I now have to fill up. A key position. Um, on my park side as well. So those. A job posting went out this week. Um, Last week. And, uh, We'll be interviewing for those in a couple of weeks. Uh, I think that's about it. Um, obviously no new tree hearings or anything. No word on the Mary Maple. Um, Town manager should be making a decision shortly. Thanks. Um, Sarah. I guess there's no treasure report that'll come later. Yes. And let me share my screen again. Um, I don't know where it is. Did I close it? Agenda. Sorry about that everyone. Okay. Now I've got it up. Share screen. Agenda. Okay. There. Yes. Okay. Um, so the town tree inventory. You talked a little bit about it and. About, um, Yeah. About. Training. So we'll move on to social media update. Julian Shashana Bennett. Yeah, I can go first. So basically we are, I posted the work day to the Instagram page. I've been. Keeping all as up to date as I can on the town manager's decision. Regarding the Mary Maple. And moving that, I think we have three new followers this month. And, um, I did get one question about, uh, free, um, on the North. Or on the South Common in South Amherst, uh, near the church there. But I said that there had already been a secret fixed request about it. Um, And I'm not sure has it been addressed. Alan. It's a dying. Maple. Yeah, there's a dead Norrie Maple. Um, On the South Amherst Common. Has not still there. Still dead. Right. We'll get to it soon. Yeah. No, Bob. Um, other than that, uh, that's my social media update. Um, I have been communicating with the ECAC. And the new Amherst climate justice alliance about our push for a town budget line item as well. Okay. Good. Thank you. Shashana. Anything to add. She said she posted to Facebook and she said, She said she posted to Facebook and next door about updates on the Mary Maple. All right. Thank you. Something else came in. And Bennett's having some child related chaos over there. So he's going to be in and out. Okay. All right. Good. Keep me posted. We know what's going on. Um, Town tree tour next steps. I haven't done a thing. Alan, have you? No, maybe we should get together and I was thinking, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this, but it might be nice to do a fall tree tour as well. Although my schedule has gotten a little chaotic. So. But at some point you and I should sit down, Alan, maybe anyone else and really try to come up with the brochure. Okay. Yeah. If you want to start, you know, come up with some ideas of how to, um, how to lay it out and display it. That'd be great. Is this going to be a printed brochure? Would it be like something you could download on your phone? Oh, probably both. Okay. I'm still old school and don't download things like that on my phone, but so for people like me and. Yeah, but for both, that'd be great. Okay. Good. Alright, so we'll table that till next month. Yeah. If we can't do anything this fall, which I think I'm not going to be able to do. Let's maybe we'll do it again in the spring. An actual walk. It's a nice idea when everything's blooming. Yeah, I think falls a nice time too. You know, see it. I imagine actually, you know, every season, you know, it would be kind of cool, but that's a lot of work. So we'll see. All right. Second Saturday plantings. I heard from Bennett that it went pretty good despite. Half the committee not being there. I'm more than half. Anyone want to talk more about that? Sure. It went very well. We had the UMass charge. Women show up and they assisted us in planting. Two red maple trees and maintaining an additional just mulch and weeding and pruning and that type of stuff. On a sizable amount of others, maybe 10 others. And we got done. What is I learned was technically considered the North Amherst Common at one point. In between Fisher Street and Pine Street on North pleasant Street. Yeah. Good. Anybody else. Good. Thank you. All right. Next up is the history museum. Oh, no. For October. Are we going to do. It says on the website, we're going to do. McClellan and. Faring streets. Is that good? I'd like to. Definitely fairing street. The McClellan Street tree work that hasn't happened yet. The. Citizen on the street there has just cut down. Eight or so large spruce trees that are just. Off the right away there. So. Street is going to look very different. As soon as we take down the rest of the trees that are on the streets. You'll definitely. McClellan is definitely going to need it. I guess we could play it by ear. And see how. Other removals go. Okay. It is Columbus Day weekend, I believe. Second Saturday. So we want to confirm that, but yeah, I'm almost positive. I'll be there. I think. Oh, I may not be. No, I think I should be there. So hopefully. Most of us can make it. If you can't. I'll be there. And it might be good to Julian's might be your type of task. To go knocking on doors on the street and say, Hey, we're doing a planting and. Come join us. On McClellan or fearing. Well, at least fairing, but maybe talk to Alan before you go. Sure. And I'll. Head over on fearing and do that. Certainly. And I know we had discussed. I have a friend on Woodside. Who noted that his street had a few large trees. Cut down. So I walked over there and spoke with a few of the neighbors and stuff. They said that if it's possible to do it this fall or next spring, that would be great. Yeah, that was supposed to be the planting for last Saturday. So we will definitely get to that. Yeah. Great. Yeah. And that is a long weekend. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And Alan, I think we can do a second Saturday, November. Planting. I mean, we might be able to do it. Looks like the temperatures are going to be pretty warm. Long range forecast calls for pretty mild temperatures. So maybe we could do. Woodside F then. Tentatively. And if it's too cold, we can do a work day or. We'll call it off. Yeah. Okay. So that's a good plan. Great. And then it's not too. Soon to start thinking about locations for next year. So drive around, look at the town. Let us know your best location. History Museum Alan said, does anyone else have anything to add on that? No. And then the Mary Maple. We don't know the outcome yet, but. Yeah. Okay. So that's a good plan. Great. And then it's not too soon to start thinking about locations the next year. So drive around, look at the town and. Let us know your best location. Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about, but. I think. I know I've been thinking a lot about. Like how, how that came down for us as a committee. And we approve the removal of the trees. I think we need. Need some lettuce to the editor explaining our position a little more. Really. You know, I mean, maybe, maybe it doesn't help. But I think we need to, you know, I think we need to, you know, I think we need to talk to the editor. About us and about the tree. So I think we need to sort of respond to that and figure out, and I'm not sure how to do that. Go ahead. I would tend to agree. I noted at least five or six community members asking me personally, what, why I made the decision to abstain. And at first they seemed sort of skeptical. Once I explained it to them. I think that would be the same thing. But just sort of that. That a lot of the community doesn't understand why we voted the way we did. How each person voted and why that is. I think that would be something that's important to explain to an extent. Yeah. I would like to know why you and Henry abstain from the vote. I did not know that was even an option for us. Yeah. And I didn't feel it was particularly helpful to the decision. So I think that would be a good option. I'd like to hear from both of you about that choice. Sure. Do you want, Henry? Do you want to speak to go first? Okay. So I personally abstained for one of three reasons. A is I wanted to. The public understand that. I did listen to their comments. I did respect their comments. I understand what they have to say. And I take what they have to say very seriously. And I think that would be a good option. And I think that would be a good option. And I think that would be a good option. And I think that the next vote would not convey that to the public and rather a. No vote would convey that I did not. Trust in what Alan. Was putting forward with the facts that the tree was not in good health and could not survive this type of construction. And was likely to die in the coming years anyway. Soon coming years. Three or four, apparently. I understood facts on the two sides of that. And felt that an abstention would have been appropriate position there. I also assisted in leading the meeting. So to not appear as if my. Leading of the meeting was biased towards one way or another. Is another reason I chose to abstain personally. And. Oh, I guess those are my two main reasons. The third reason was just that. I felt as though. It was important to take a step back from. The committee and allow. Committee members to sort of step up and take their positions rather than following. In my role or Henry's role. That was just my sort of take on why I abstained. I hope those reasons make sense to you. But feel free to ask any questions. Yeah, actually my reasons were pretty similar. I think in retrospect, maybe I should have said no. I support taking down the tree, but with that much public response and people being that upset, I wanted to acknowledge that. And I didn't feel like I could say yes to this, even though I think that's the best choice. Because of that. But at the same time, yeah, I didn't want to. Say no, I know I could have said no, I guess, but I didn't want to not support Allen and support what I think. Support the calm, the North common project, which I think is a great project. So. Yeah, so I thought that was my way of. Sort of siding with the people in the community, but not. Not strictly saying no, but in retrospect, after we got grief in the paper and everything, I think maybe I should have said no. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. Like I said, I just didn't even know an extension wasn't an option and I was a little taken aback. So I appreciate hearing your. Your thoughts. Yeah, I mean, we're in a. An interesting position. We don't have authority. We advise Alan. He usually listens to us, not always. And our, our charge is to support street trees and to encourage the growth of the trees and Amherst. And when we vote to allow a removal. As useful as that is for the town and for, even for our committee in this case, it would save us money that we could use up for other things, but. If our charge is really to support the trees that are here, then to allow a removal is, is tricky. And I think we have to be cautious about that. So yeah, I mean, in the past when Nani was on the committee, she voted 100% to save every single tree. And that didn't feel right. Other people on the committee have voted. Remove every tree is like, well, yeah, this person wants to remove the tree for a good reason or Alan thinks it's best, you know, so. We're, we're in a tight spot in that way. And there's strong feelings on both sides. I've, I've. In my maturing as a. Organizer and as a, as a, someone who thinks about these things I've, I've come to accept that the middle ground is best. So. Shashana. Shashana wrote, I voted no, because I knew it would be, it would go to Paul anyway. And I think it's important for people to know that we listen to them and fight for trees. Yeah. Anybody else want to speak? Actually, maybe we all should speak. It might be good. Sarah. I think that unless we have a personal conflict. It's our duty as elected officials to have a yes or no vote. Right. I don't know. I think abstentions are for. If, if you're non biased in your opinion, like when some of the, some of the tree removals we look at, I've designed the plans for because of my job. So then I abstain because I, I'm in a conflict conflicted position, right? Okay. But I think that. I don't know, like we're a public committee, so there's not really. A place or it's not, and it's not our place to talk offline. But I think that sometimes having more candid conversations about the point, the positions we're going to take and why. Could be something beneficial to have prior to an official vote because I hear what you're saying, but I also like, you know, Henry and Julian. But I think that we, these are hard decisions and we have to make a choice. And it's important to come down on one side or the other of the line, despite how difficult it may be. Unless you really have a conflict where you're, you're unable to be unbiased. So, so that's why I voted to approve the removal, because ultimately at the end of the day as the person I am, I think it's the right thing. I want to fight for all of our town trees, but I also want to think longterm about all of the trees in our town and the future of trees in Amherst. And I think have, you know, sometimes you have to. Cut down trees to plant new trees. So that's why I voted the way I did, because I felt like I abstaining was not doing the town or the tree committee. True service. In my position. Despite. Despite how much I wanted to. So, so that was my vote. Thank you. Ellen, do you want to talk? Yeah, I mean, I, I stand with Sarah with everything she said. I, I, it was a very hard. Decision and it was an uncomfortable decision. But. A lot of it for me, perhaps because I didn't grow up here. I think it's a great thing to have these childhood memories of the Mary Maple and the sentimentality that a lot of people do have about the tree. But I thought about the recent projects. The town has done at Kendrick park and at graph park. The new dog park, which I was very much involved with. And I. I feel the town's doing some amazing. I had to put some faith into this new plan. And I, you know, I've been impressed with these other three recent projects. So I feel that they will. Do right by this new one and. And I don't know. I believe what Alan said. So that was, that was my reasoning. Safety, safety was a big one too. And that's great. That might be a useful. Let it to the editor about us, you know, or about your position on it. What you just said was really well done, well spoken. I agree. Yeah. Bennett, are you on. No, all right. So that's everybody. Thank you. So anyone have anything else to add. Alan, do you want to add anything? I, you know, obviously I'm not a voting member of the committee. I appreciate. The committee's. Respect for my opinion. You are there to. You know, take public comment and listen to the public and. You know, take that public. Feedback and, and try to come up with a. You know, Emotion of vote plan. You know, to. Recognize what the public is saying. And that's a difficult thing to do. Especially when you can often have very different sides to, you know, discussions. So. It's not an easy decision for me either. And that's just the position I'm in is what I'm supposed to do is. You know, make it a public, a public decision that might be very. Unpopular. And I'd say this is probably a very. Unpopular decision. A lot of people aren't really happy with it. I think there's a lot of people who are okay with it. And even greater number of people who. Probably don't even know what's going on. But I do, you know, I do believe that project is going to, you know, significantly improve the North common. For the next several generations or more. And the North common is. You know, sadly run down. An upgrade and the tree. As I've stated. Is not. Long for this world is going to become. Structurally unstable in a very short time period. This drought did not help. Any of those trees. Especially the maples on the North. Linden's a little more. Hardy there, but the. The maples just don't like it. And this drought is going to impact them significantly. We'll see what happens going forward. And there's, you know, a discussion going on now with the, the merry maple. Whether to. Hold a merry maple lighting event. If to use the smaller merry maple. It's been used in the past as a new merry maple. So those discussions are happening now as far as what. What's going to happen. So if the tree comes down, when it's going to come down. All that. So. More information to follow. Okay. Any last thoughts. I would just say I appreciate what Sarah and Ellen said and looking back on it. I probably actually would have leaned more towards voting. Yes. If. I had not decided to abstain. And I do. I do. Hope you guys can understand. Why I would lean to vote. Yes. I didn't abstain. And why I'm staying in the first place. Yeah, it's very helpful to hear. What your rationale was behind it. I wanted to ask you right then and there, but obviously I couldn't. So. Appreciate that. All right. Let's move on. Okay. I'm going to go to the committee member. She was approved by. Paul Bachman and. I wish she was here. We could celebrate, but. Anyway. We'll see her next time. Whose term is up next year. Does anyone know. Actually, I can find that out pretty quick. They're three years, right? Yeah. So I believe I'm up. Yeah. Actually have it here. Let me just look real quick. 2021 approved. So. Ellen. Looks like your term expires in 2023 and Sarah. That one quick. Well, we hope you will stay on. I can't find you guys now. I'm going to stop sharing. There you go. Okay. Yeah, that's all right. I'll share again. So I'm. Oops. So then I can't do that yet. You go to look at something and it's. Yeah. There we go. Okay. Okay. There we go. Yep. No, you guys disappeared though. Aha. Okay. Everyone's back. We're back live. Okay. So town budget line item. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He sent me an email. He had heard from somebody who said the town of Irving has a $30,000 line item for a trees. Budget line item. And was wondering why. You know, we can't enamor. So. I heard from Shashana, but let's finish this. Anyone else want to say anything about the town budget line item. And what we can do for. To really keep moving forward with this. Is it for planting new trees or is it like Alan's budget? That's just for. Removal and maintenance. I don't know. I could look, but then I'm probably going to lose you guys again. Okay. So actually, I'll get rid of the agenda. So. Sharing his pause and maybe this will work. I'm going to have to go shortly because it's a bedtime at our house. But I do have. Some thing to share about the library trees. Okay. I don't know. I believe I forwarded this link, but it was quite a while ago, July 1st. The library got schematic designs from their architect. And I have them up right now. I can share my screen. We can see the trees that are being called out to remain in the plan. Okay. I stopped sharing. So. So here, this is Amity street. And these architectural designs reflect the new design, but in the front here, it says existing trees and plantings to be retained and improved. So nothing to be cut down there. And then. In the back where the large trees are. In the front here, it looks like the 1, 2, 3, 4 of these large trees. Are to remain. I believe there's a small one here that's to be cut down. And then I'm not sure what other vegetation, Alan, you might notice if there's something missing from this plan. But it looks like these four large trees are to remain in this. Schematic. I think that there was a different. Different page. I was looking at, I think. It looked like one of the yolks. Did come down over there, but. I could be wrong. I also may have been looking at an older plan. I'm not sure. The construction, you know, impact there is what's really important. So if they are to remain. You know, what are they doing to. Protect the roots of those trees. Cause those weeks go all over that area. So I have a contact with the library committee. Alex the fev. So if we want to. Work with them about protecting the tree roots, or if we have any questions or want to. Invite her to our meeting or anything like that. I can reach out and set something up. I don't know if this is enough to answer the question about the library trees and we just want to stay abreast of it, or if there's any kind of outreach or collaboration that the committee is interested in doing. Yeah, I would. I would, I would love us to do as much as possible. Maybe we should hold off until we see if with the new, the new budget numbers, if it's actually going to go through. If it looks like it's going to go through, I think it would be great to meet with them outside and see, look at the trees on the ground. Okay. That would be very useful, I think it was about. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead, Julian. Okay. I was about to just ask whether. If they did not end up going ahead with this plan and just did. Renovations and or just did repair work. Rather than expansion work. That would not pose any threat to the trees. Is that correct? Are you asking me? Yes. I'm not sure. I would assume it would have less impact than an expansion would, but to Alan's point, we would still have to see a selective removals plan to see what trees protection was going to be put down for any construction work. Thank you. That's great. That's really helpful. Okay. I'm happy to be the contact person, but in all transparency, I'm not staying fully abreast of every, all the developments. So if somebody else wants to let me know. When it would be appropriate to reach out and set up a meeting or something like that. I'm happy to do it. I'm just not. Totally on the level with all of the things going on in the town. So I'm just putting that out there. If anybody else hears anything and then thinks it's a good time to set up a meeting, I'm happy to be the contact person, but I'm not totally aware of the timeline of as this project develops. I keep up with the. You know, with the Amherst Bolton and stuff. So I'm pretty much aware of what's going on with that. So I will keep that up. Okay. Share my screen one more time and then read something from. Oh, you have to stop sharing. Did you stop? Yeah. There we go. Okay. Now I have to find out how to get you guys back. Why do people disappear in this thing? It just goes to the sidebar for me. No, it doesn't. Okay. I'm back. Okay. Good. I did get a text from. I sent it to the clerk. It either. Shashana wrote. Maybe I'll wait until that's done. That's my partner's phone. She's grabbing it. Okay. I'm about to be spending lots of time away. I can stay through March zoom meetings. We'll be continuing through. Oh, so it just disappeared. Hold on. So, yeah, so she'll be able to be on zoom, but she's not going to be in town very much. Okay. Okay. So anything else on the town budget line item where we passed that. No. All right connections with Stockbridge school. Alan you had reached out to someone. Anything new on that. I mean, other than the internship. We had this summer. I'm not sure what you mean by connections and stuff. Well, we, Julie and I talked to a couple of you from Stockbridge school at the tree warden forest is dinner. And I felt like that would be a, have them come to our meetings for them to be for us to be involved with them and vice versa. Yeah, I can. I can reach out to one of the. Professors there and see if they're, you know, if there are students interested in, you know, sitting in on meetings and stuff like that. Or even the professor come to give a little talk about it would be helpful. Great. Thanks. North Hampton road. No updates. No updates. You've been continuing to take pictures. And I'm sorry, I have to go. All right, thanks Sarah. Good night. Good to see you guys. Bye-bye. Shashana says not since pre-project. All right. It'd be good to keep photos coming. So we have the before and after to compare. Are you able to do that? Shashana or are you out of town already? Okay. She says, good. Thank you. Library trees website update. Ben at a year on it here still. All right. Complete streets, state level initiatives. I'm going to be speaking, I believe, at the next tree woods dinner. Is that true, Alan? Yes. It's October. October 12th or something like that. It's on my calendar, but on my calendar. Yeah. Yeah. You're the. You're also going to try to get another community, I think, just. Committee to talk as well. There was. Oh, okay. I'll reach out. 13. I'm going to be attending that. I could speak if you wanted. That's great. Maybe we can talk about what we're going to talk about and do that. Sure. I'll reach out to a couple of the tree committees. Great. I mean, we have a half an hour. You'll be up first. And. So it'd need to be concise, you know, kind of run down or what. What are you doing? And. Yeah, I don't probably have. I don't have a half an hour with stuff to say, so I'll. Yeah, that'd be good. All right. I'll reach out to another committee. Good. Significant tree ordinance. Sarah left before she said anything, but I don't think anything's happened with that solar bylaw group. Julian. Yeah. So basically. These polar my law working group. I attended three of their meetings and they are currently working on. They're working on. Mapping. Doing like aerial mapping of areas where solar could be added. I know there was some discussion about below the power lines, which they couldn't do because of maintenance access. And basically they were mapping areas. Including the high school parking lot, et cetera, where solar could be added without cutting down trees. They kind of started to draft. Even with. Settling down the bylaw, with that they hadn't started drafting the bylaw as of the last meeting I went to. So hopefully that will continue. But. I would just. I like to add in. No. All this discussion of solar. It'd be really nice if Amos. is the opportunity to put solar panels say on the high school parking lot instead of cutting trees down around their house and they can net meter back to their house. So other communities do it, gives people who don't want to cut down all the trees around their houses an opportunity to have solar net meter back to the houses and gain all the benefits of having solar we're not having to cut down the trees. So it seems to fall in deaf ears with everybody I talk to and if anybody wants to help push that concept with Town Council or the committee's energy action committees. Next meeting I go to with the solar bylaw work community group I will bring that up to them and the ECAC meeting not tomorrow but next Wednesday I'll also go to that and bring that up with them. Great thank you. Do you know what community solar is or do you need more information? If you could send me a little blurb or something that'd be great but I generally got just that it's like a community solar panel say in a neighborhood parking lot or field or at the high school that has individual electricity providers for the homes in that area and the folks who use that electricity. I mean it's done a couple ways you can do a you just have a project and say maybe if you if you you know take your solar money and all your solar credits and all that stuff and end up paying you know 15 eight whatever a thousand dollars you essentially put that money into that project and they install the solar panels they install the meter and you know you get the electricity and you get the benefits and all that there are multiple ways they can do it I can send you a link to look at that. That's great thank you. That is great and thank you for volunteering to do that. All right um anything else we've finished the agenda? I just wanted to add Henry I did receive a call from uh and I think I talked to you about a gentleman at colonial village um who was very upset with the number of trees being cut down at colonial village um and uh I repeatedly told him that you know no authority on private trees property owners can cut down trees on their property if they want to um and uh recommend they talk to the you know inspection services possibly the wetland administrator because it might be some wetland area over there um but he kept calling me back and he got very frustrated because I wasn't doing anything um but uh you know again so it's you know no authority uh significant tree owners might have had some play there on private property um again I was not able to reach out to the property owner to find out what their plans were from what I understand they are talking about planting new trees they took down a lot of white pine um that had been planted originally when the colonial village was built um but uh it was just a you know very frustrated citizen who felt there was no no action being done and all these trees have been cut down so um yeah I I called him I had a long talk with him uh it was hard he was upset and I couldn't offer more than just to listen to him and say I really understand what you're saying but we it's private property is not much we can do and I talked about how we want to have a significant tree ordinance although I don't know if that would help these trees but um you know he he calmed down after a while and took a while to get him off the phone. Would it be of any help to possibly do a planting in that area on public property where the trees would be detected by the law? Well we've done plantings actually even on the private property along the driveway going through um and they don't really take care of the trees you know um yeah we could possibly encourage him to say we'll plant trees in the public way and you could help maintain them etc maybe that's a way of channeling his frustration to activism. Yeah well we did I think we've planted all the trees we can in the public way both on um Belcher Town Road and on southeast street. Okay um and I've gone and pruned some of those trees um some of them most of them are doing pretty good so yeah great yeah all right anything else no well thanks everybody uh Ellen if you can get me those minutes uh soon and then I'll put them out to the group yeah and it's sorry you missed Shoshana I'm glad you could listen and text in so that was good um and uh we'll see you guys next month stay dry it looks like the thunder is coming now yeah it's getting dark yeah all right thanks everybody bye thank you