 Hello. So you know we are being recorded at this time. Yes. You make me a co host. Yes. What somebody else here she disappeared. Hello. Hello. This group is not the best at attending on time. There we go. Just need one more for a quorum. Okay. Well, then it won't be with us, but I haven't heard from anybody else. So. Anybody have Brits number. Yep. I just texted her. Okay. I texted Shoshana and Sarah. Great. The woman named Mary. I'm on and. I'm letting you speak if you want to say something, Mary. Hi, sorry. I don't use zoom a lot. I can't hear you. I'll see you unless you become a panelist, but we can hear you. Okay. Cool. Yeah, I haven't been to meetings before I was just kind of interested. Partly because I live near McClellan, which is. Has had a lot of trees cut down recently. And. I'm curious about getting trees planted there. Planting some trees there. I don't want to talk about that. While we wait for the quorum to have an official meeting. Sure. Mary. Where on McClellan do you live? If you don't mind. If you don't want to say it's fine. Just to also reiterate that this is being recorded. And we'll be able to see seen. On the town website. After Friday. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. I'm not sure how to, I'm happy to enable my video. I just, I'm not used to things where I need to. Be a panelist or something. Okay. Okay. I actually don't live on McClellan. I live on a little street that's right off of McClellan. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we have, there was a lot of trees. Private trees came down on McClellan and some of the town. Evergreens that were. Between the sidewalk and the road came down as well. We do. We do plan on replanting. On McClellan street. I don't know if there's any room in the public way there. Except for trees on. I guess that would be the north side of McClellan street. There is some room in the setback. Almost in the right away to plant. I think we planted. One, two, three, three trees, four trees there last fall. But there's more to do. Yeah. So. Will that be part of like a, a public tree planting thing like there was last Saturday? Hopefully. Probably be something we do in the fall. On the clown street. That's probably one of the things we'll discuss. Briefly this evening is the next. Next location. Cool. Do you know anything about why all the trees were taken down? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it is. So. The white pine that were between the sidewalk and the road. We're taking down because they. Really had outgrown their location. And that. And we're. Sort of. Trapped. They couldn't really grow any bigger. And because of the way they had been. Were all these multiple leaders. For branch attachment points. The trees were just sort of self-destructing. So. They've been on my radar for a long time to do something with, and the town decided to repave. The sidewalk on film street. Which was. Pretty bad around these trees in particular. So we took the opportunity there to hold a tree hearing to. And so. So we took the opportunity to walk in and we plant. There were a number of trees taking down. Large. Norris Bruce that were on private property. That the owner took them. And they were. That was a large section of. Kind of the open space over there. Yeah, I think we saw some being taken down. And then there were like a bunch more. So it was kind of striking. Yes. I'm not sure if my video is on currently or not, but. Not the only way you can be. We can see you on this would be to make you a panelist, which I'm happy to do. Okay. Yeah. If you wouldn't mind trying that again, I'm happy to enable that. And we now have a quorum. Although Julian has disappeared from view, but. There you are, Mary. Julie and I still here. So. We officially have a quorum. We can start the meeting. We were just. Filling in Miriam for those for, I guess, the Sarah who came late. Lives on near McClellan street. And so she was asking about those trees. So welcome. The agenda. We're not sharing anymore, but. First thing is just, are there any public comments besides what I said? So you have someone with you, Mary. Oh, yes. This is my partner. Okay. Anything you want to say or. Nothing that she hasn't already covered. Okay. And if you want to put your email address in the chat, I will add you to our mailing list. Cool. Thanks. If we'll see if that works. All right. So approval of the March minutes. Board member committee members. Everyone good. Ellen. Okay. So minutes are approved. Ours. We collect volunteer hours. And then that goes into our three city USA application at the end of the year. Sarah. Four. Julian. Nine. Ellen. Four. Four. And I think I did about 10. Yeah. Okay. Can I ask you a question that just occurred to me? Yes. So on the, when we do the second side of tree plantings, do you keep track of the number of people that volunteered? How long they volunteered for on those plantings? I estimate that. Yeah. Okay. So I'll probably add. Or half a dozen people. I'd say add 12 more. Hours. 10, 10. Because it's not all of them stayed that long. It's not all of them. It's not all of them. It's not all of them. Members of the committee column. So when we do the other day. Volunteer, they also break down. Like youth. Hours. And they count those separately from. Adult hours. So if we can. If there's a way to track. Youth. Separate from adult. Okay. Okay. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure an adult. Yep. I am 18 until this June. Yeah. Since you're a committee member, I'm counting you as an adult. That's fine. Moving on. Let's see what's on the agenda. The chairs report, I guess is next. Greenfield tree committee has a tree nursery. And they're having an open house this Saturday. Yeah. Henry, I'm sorry. Can I interrupt? Is anyone taking minutes? Thank you. No one is because I get you want to do that, please? Sure. It's going to take me a minute to get a document open. So. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'll make these announcements. Whether they get in the minutes is not as important. So Greenfield, they have a tree nursery, which we had years ago. They have a tree nursery, but there's this quite extensive. They have about 150 trees. They're growing out for the town. And they're having an open house from noon to two Saturday. You can show up there giving out free trees and you can see the operation. And then if you want to help out from one to four, there's a work day and that'll continue on Sunday, the work day. So it might be good. I'm working this weekend. I can't come, but I can't go there. But if anyone wants to do that, I can do that. I can't go there. I can't go there. I can't go there. I can't go there. I can't go back since we're talking about doing a tree nursery again at some point. When it, I'm sorry. I missed the date. When are they doing that? This Saturday, the 15th. Yeah. And the work day is the 15th and 16th. And then. Julian, you probably know more about this, but I got an email about the. That is correct. I can also confirm. That they're working on the solar survey and getting a good amount of responses. On that. So that's an update. Great. Okay. How are you going to attend those meetings or. I am. I believe both of them are out of the school day. So I believe I can attend both those meetings and. I'm just thinking they also are going to be planning for the sustainability fast. Great. And that's what we need to do also. Yes. If that's on our agenda. The other thing is I sent Scott. All the information about. All the activities we're doing this month. And we got a nice column in the paper. That along with Brits. Let it to the editor was nice. Although she said that as a private citizen, she didn't mention she was a member of the committee. So. And then we heard from a group on. Through our email. The art called. It's a company called orange theory fitness and Hadley. And they wanted to encourage their members to come help out. So they may show up at one of our plantings. But they didn't show up this time. So I don't know. The only other thing I have. I don't know. I don't know. Besides what's on the agenda is I went to. The South Amherst high school former high school campus. And I did a lot of the pruning of the fruit trees there. We have an orchard. At the former South Amherst high school, which was an elementary school before that across the common from the library. And those trees are for anybody to pick fruit. So we planted those. Seven or eight years ago. And then we planted the fruit trees. And then we planted the fruit trees. Anyway, the trees look good. And hopefully we've got more fruit this year. That's all I have. Julian, do you want to do the vice chair report? Sure. So two updates were about the. ECAC and the solar bylaw working group. Just noting those two meetings. Another update I was going to share was that I. I have a lot of friends who are interested in the sustainability fast coming back this year and hearing from us and working with that. And then. I've also talked to some folks on. Greenwich and Long Meadow who were interested in getting more trees there. So that is a potential. Location. We obviously have. McClellan and. Fearing as well. Yeah, and Woodside. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, we did. We did Woodside. Do you mean orchard? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. Bad area. All right. Good. Alan tree warden's report. Sure. We had a nice, Henry. Julian and I did a nice walk with the UMass class on. Wednesday or last Thursday last week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's an opportunity for the students. In this urban forestry class UMass to come out and kind of see what's going on in the community, how. How the tree committee works. How the tree warden works. Some of the. Issues, you know. Running a urban forestry program and trying to keep trees alive and healthy. And then we went to the county park. And then we walked. From there. Crossing over East pleasant street. To all the new buildings that are going up and then down Kellogg. We're currently doing the sidewalk renovation there. And we discussed some of the. Zone protections. Things we're doing to protect the big oak trees on Kellogg. It's something I've done for. It's been a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun. Even when I was a volunteer tree warden in town. And it's, it's always been a lot of fun. It was really good to have Henry and Julian there to talk about the community. Fit nicely. Tonight is the house move from sunset. Remember the tree hearing for the development taking place on the corner of fearing sunset. The last house is being moved. And it's going. Down sunset out onto Massachusetts Avenue. Down North pleasant street through the roundabout Danny's pleasant street and straight down towards rest streets. Across from Shea Street. And that's where the new house. House's new home will be. So there has been some pruning going on by contractor. By law. We cannot stop a house from moving down the street. So we have to do a lot of pruning. And I think it's a great way to get the law on the book. The public way. Essentially says, if someone wants to move a house, nothing can stop it. So. We obviously work with the movers and that it was actually big help. They actually pruned a lot of trees. That had poor clearance over the roads. So. And they did a pretty good job pruning overall. So. So. College street. From. South pleasant street. Where North end road comes up. Meets. Self pleasant. And then turns into college street. It goes down. Towards the substation. So from South pleasant street to the substation. Every source is going to be undergrounding. All new. Conduit system for. There's one tree left on that side of the road in the grass belt. It's in Norway maple. And I will be. Posting a tree hearing for that tree to come down. There is also talk. Of undergrounding utility lines. On the other side of the street. Sort of on the Valentine hall side of college street. If that happens, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. To complete a completely new. Streetscape. From the center of town by the common all the way down to. The substation. So. The, the underground, the utility. Kind of it going underground this. Spring after I was college. Homecoming. Graduation. So that's for new power cables. It's not for the existing power cables and told. So the other power cables on the far other side of the street. They're not part of this current phase of the project, but there's talk of doing that. So I have to post this hearing next month. So we'll have a site visit schedule. For next month's tree here. Committee meeting. See. I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah, you want to do a treasure report. No update. You didn't check. I'm wondering, did the $25 check get deposited? I, I'm not sure. Allen. Allen. Are you talking to me? Did the $25 check that I dropped off at your place? I did receive it. And I gave it to. Sarah in the office to deposit. So. Great. So Sarah, if you could keep an eye out for that, it'd be great. I'd say that there's going to be a. This is not a tree planting, but we can talk about it now. We need to do a vote for unless we already did. I don't remember. To spend money. For tree planting. Till July 1st. When the new. Budget hits. Did we do a authorization for every month? We did. We did something that was kind of in perpetuity, but I don't know the lengths. That it would be active for. Okay. I haven't been told. So I. The trees that we planted. 16 trees. The best quote came from Emerson nursery. It was $3,252 for the 16 trees. 18 trees. I'm sorry. 18 trees. Probably saw smoke coming on my head. Add that column up. Yes. So it was $3,252. For 18 trees. So. Is that going on our expense or in your expense? That's on the tree fund. Expense. The new. Go ahead. I'm sorry. What were those trees purchased for? The second Saturday tree plan. I just did the math. It appears they were about $180, $190. Yes. So. Okay. So that's coming out of our budget. We'll have to look up whether that. Was covered, but maybe we should just say. Do we approve that expense? Oh, in favor. You could do a vote. Okay. Make a motion and do. I propose that we budget that we agree to spend $3,200 for the trees that we already spent and bought. 3252. The 18 trees that were already planted. All in favor. Passes unanimously. And then should we do that for next month or. If you. If you don't think the past. I. I do feel like we have had one. In the past. I wonder if I don't know. It said for the seas. I think it was for the season. Was it for. I don't remember the wording on that. So if it was just for one year of planting. Was it a calendar year or was it a planting season? I don't remember us having a termination on it. But I think the wording was something like that. During the planting season. Which. Applies for. Every year. That we do planting, you know, to the, I think the idea was to exclude expenses for buying trees during the winter months when we're not planting. And during the month that we take off on the top. So I can check the wording, but I believe. We are. I don't remember us having a termination on it, but I think the wording was something like during the planting season. So I wonder if. I don't remember us having a termination on it. So I don't remember, but I think I'll name. The. The termination is the year of the save. We already, we kind of covered it. Okay. In perpetuity. Yes. If you can check on that for next meeting. We can either update it or. That's that. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. What's next? Social media report. Anything. Julian. dog digging a hole for Bennett but that is about it. And did that get the huge response that he was expecting? People liked it here and there but only five or six I think. All right. Okay so presentation discussions the Mary Maple Love Letters exhibit I think that was Brit or was that Ellen not you so okay. Arbor month plans we pretty much planned out we have Arbor day Alan wanted to shoot me to share something it's going to be a whole event around the big tree at strong street let me see if I can find that flyer. There it is this is going to be in conjunction with Amherst College and with the Amherst Storkle Society and the Amherst Library Jones Library. So I will share this and you can see let's see if I can find it here. All right everyone see that. Yes. Okay so it's it's pretty exciting it's going to be a talk by Alan and then this this guest speaker is going to talk about big trees and then it's going to be a tree walk on Amherst College after that and then back to the library for a children's book reading and then planting the new sycamore. So Sean and I had a quick meeting a zoom meeting the other day with Jones Library. They're going to have a children's book reading and a craft event based on trees that the teen lounge group is going to participate in and then from there we're going to go over to the Amherst History Museum and use a tree planting of the the new sycamore tree. The new time our this lecture with Dr. Kevin Smith from US Forest Service. I think I've said this before but just to repeat it. He gives a very entertaining I believe entertaining presentation that's you know science based on tree biology you know the difference between a mature you know old big tree and younger trees they really do respond differently to the environment around them and they they grow their energy supply system is very different than young trees it's interesting he's very entertaining so if you want to learn you know about how big trees work this is an excellent opportunity I hope to get mass certified arborist ISA credits any other kind of professional landscape nurse admin association those kinds of credits I want to see how many you can get to encourage people who work with or around or plan buildings around old trees to go to this so they can learn something about preserving big trees. Amherst College Amherst College will be hosting a walk and discussing their big trees on campus and their tree planting program on campus as well and they will be planting a tree great and that's on April 28th which is the last Friday of April so I expect to be at it and whoever else wants to join me that'd be great and I will forward this piece of paper to Scott Merzbeck so we can get more information in the paper and Julian and if you can talk to Shashana make sure it gets out on all our social media yeah I just want to preference this that this is a draft so this is not it's not a final a final version I haven't your proof this or anything this is literally finished it this afternoon and wanted to show it to the committee so the schedule is right but it's not a final draft for press release but you want to start you know okay sending it out there it's fine as long as you realize look at it make any corrections that should be made grammatically here okay yeah I can do that and where I can wait I'll do that and I'll make sure Bennett puts out a special newsletter mentioning this and the the link that's in this the coal assembly room link that's not for that was that's an internal link that wasn't intended to go out public it just shows the room where the presentation is taking place okay yeah I noticed that all right good any comments on this no okay great good so I will stop sharing and be able to see all you guys again just quickly at the so the sustainability festival is next we really need to have a schedule who's going to be working when the setup I'll get the the canopy that I got last year or whenever we last had an event and then we'll need people to staff the booth and we're giving out the paw paw seedlings and the tulip tree seedlings if you have them Alan yes I do great okay so I think that'll be popular and we need to also publicize that we're giving these out so Julian if you can meet with Shashana and really try to make a big push on that on getting the seedlings or on getting the word out oh yes absolutely absolutely and maybe we'll just pass around by email a sign-up sheet for when people can come help out rather than do that now with only four of us here all right and Miriam and partner whose name I forgot I'm sorry um you're both welcome to join us and staff the booth or just hang out and see what we're doing so yeah great okay um back to the agenda okay individual tree requests we'll table that for now uh town tree tour that's really we decided to do it in the fall so Alan at some point you and I should get back together and figure that out again but okay second Saturday plantings we had a great planting this month it was great and a lot of neighborhood help and it was fun Alan yeah I mean they have Blue Hills Dana very uh they're very active they have a very active email chain you know in their neighborhood so it's I've had a lot of email follow-up about how to maintain the tree not to care of it you know they're all public tree trees they're all planted in the public way but there's they still want to help help them protect them so I will continue to encourage them give them the information they need we will be watering them as well um so uh orchard just desperately needs trees sweet you have two more trees there that might need to come down one definitely um and I think we have some stumps left to grind but I mean that's that's an option Greenwich and Long Meadow believe it or not most of those would actually be private trees they'd be setback plantings um the right way there is not um conducive for tree planting in the grass area because of all the utilities everything is um there's sidewalk on one side and it's too narrow to plant trees and then on the other side all the utilities run underground in the grass belt so we can't can't plant in it so they'd all be setback which can be done it's a little more complicated so which are we doing in May are we going to do uh orchard street or do we have something else in mind yeah yeah I mean we could do orchard and uh hop back over to amity street or something like that there's a few more locations on amity street that might I could use trees um I could also talk to um embers college and get some permission to do summer northampton road they may have pulled back some of the construction project by May um so we could actually plant some of the stuff on northampton road in May that would be great I know we've done a planting on McClellan so that's all set but what about going on thuring ab the fairy ab is another one desperately needs trees they've lost a lot um tough side you know the side with the power lines you know there's no sidewalk over there but there's you know we can't plant under the power lines they're very successfully with any sizable tree without going on private property um and the sidewalk side there's no there's no room you know in the public waiting plant just a narrow grass belt I do want to plant there it's a little more challenging than orchard I think I think orchard and northampton road would be because it connects to one another you know um would be a good a good place to go so I'll start I'll start working on that talking to embers college and see where we could plant trees you know on their property they own most of the property and from like orchard up to the center um those are all embers college properties yeah all right why don't we um plan that for the May planting I may not be here for that planting so hopefully the rest of you will all come out it's on May 13th for the day all right um so it's a town budget line item I was supposed to write a let it to the editor and I have not done that I will try to get that done I've just not been writing lately but I will try to write that so I apologize um UMass interns that's also Brit so we'll postpone that tree nursery nothing much to say right now I think that's a longer term project but I'd really be great if some of you can go show up at the um the greenfield tree nursery if you need the location I can I posted it on Facebook um but if you need the location contact me that's the Saturday um and then is the old stuff anything new on the town tree nurse tree inventory on no update on that I um I spent most of my time working on the embers history tree that part of the grant getting everything buttoned up so I can get it all build out and get everything accomplished so um June 1st is deadline for submitting all the application for reimbursement for the grant um and I'm trying to pull together slowly that the inventory information so which may may I'm just going to have to hit the inventory really hard um so and when uh when is the work going to be done on the tree on the big uh second one yeah probably uh last week of April first week of May somewhere around there looks like it'd be interesting if how that affects the April 28th date shouldn't shouldn't interfere either way okay all right uh that's good I mean we're getting we're making through some of these some of these things are on the agenda and they take forever but the history museum grant and all the work is actually happening it's very exciting um next thing on the agenda state state level initiatives and I haven't done anything about that lately um I am still in touch with Joe Comerford and Mindy Dom and I will continue to stay connected with them significant tree ordinance Sarah anything new on that you can shake your head if oh okay and I I'm sorry for the minutes um Alan the you said a June 1st deadline to submit reimbursements that's for that's for the dcr grants we got for the immerse history museum tree work the heritage tree grant we got for that and then we also got a dcr grant to update our inventory um and develop a management plan urban forestry management okay thank you yes I see your email Mary and I will add that great thank you all right um the only other thing is um the solar action committee we talked about that unless Julian you have anything more to add about that no okay I think we're more or less done with the agenda unless anyone has anything else um let me just look at it one more time make sure I just bleed it no all right so there's no topics uh not reasonably anticipated by the chair so I think we can end the meeting before you do Alan let me just grab this email address I could um I'll just add that um if anybody knows of somebody I've already talked with Julian who is looking for gainful employment over the summer month we um are trying to attract seasonal employees for the summer um we still have a vacant position full-time position in our division um that we just haven't been able to fill for the past uh five months six months so can't find people to work crazy yeah um question about that uh on the form it said under it said are you under over 18 I clicked under but I'll be over 18 when I begin work will that be an issue no that won't be okay great awesome and you guys are pretty short staff basically what I'm hearing well we're short staffed by one person one full-time employee yeah so how how old do you need to be for the summer work uh we strive for someone to be 18 um we have taken people who are 17 I'm told in the past um it's these are basic seasonal labor jobs my son is 16 so probably too young I was hoping to apply last year when I was 16 but I felt I was a little young so okay um yeah did they just reach back out to me for an interview uh I didn't get an email or anything so is that all that work so yeah well you should get an automated email that your application has been received um and then it gets this it'll get sent to um if you're depending on which boxes you check it'll get sent to DPW and then um all the divisions in DPW will look at it if you selected any particular division like tree and grounds um then I'll get a you'll get sent to me directly otherwise it gets dumped into a pool and we we comb through them got it it didn't have a space for me to set anything specifically which was okay so I don't know but you'll probably eventually see it you've seen it yet I'll look for it I'll log in to the for the system and see if I may have gotten an automated email I did not check so I will look for that okay all right um I got your email addresses and I think we can end the meeting awesome thanks everybody and thanks everybody I'll send an email around about signing up to take shifts at the Stain Building Festival and I will see everyone there that's probably the next yep media event yeah thank you everyone bye bye thank you bye bye you