Environment, Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee - Regular Meeting

I just called the meeting to order, so let's do a phone call real quick.

Okay. Tierney. Here. Matt Newman. Here. Michelle Ritt. Ritt here. Corey Rich.

Here.

Edward Brooker. Excuse. K. See, what am I missing here? Oh, Kathy Brodbeck? What?

She's

I I know she's technically not here, but she's gonna

It's okay.

Is there anybody else? Did I miss it?

We see you, Kathy.

I oh, okay. See, I was like, I'm Brian Wall, and I'm Kathy Brodbeck.

Very confusing. Brian Wall. Yes. I am.

I haven't gone anywhere until until I'm replaced. That that's when I I will no longer be here.

Okay. Brian Wall. Yes.

I'm here.

Brian Brian Wall slash Kathy Broadbeck.

Kathy, that's a, you know, it's a hard cross to bear.

I I my big shoes. Actually loving it. Okay. I'll be quiet.

To be honest, Frank. Here.

I think that's all of oh, Kate. I hear. Right.

Okay. Let's move on to consideration of the minutes. Everyone online should have received a copy of last month or January's minutes, and everyone here has a copy in front of them. Do you see any items that you believe are left out? We've been altered these minutes. Otherwise, we'll be looking for a motion to approve them. Rich, motions to approve minutes from January.

Foxy seconds.

All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no. K. The minutes are approved. And so let's move on now to item number TV. Item number TV. Project and general updates. So first, we have upcoming events and the incoming three board member for that notes. But I put down Kate for this one. I won't I didn't ask her, but it's been very

I saw that. I was

like, oh, no. Did I not

need something? You know anything you think about, Corey, you could fill in or could fill in change. So and yeah.

Yeah. We reconvene, chatted a little bit about what was going on, and the events that'd be coming up for pretty much Earth Day, Arbor Day in the next month or so. So I think is that the handout here?

That's a a handout for all events. Earth Day, Arbor Day, organizations. So some we're involved and some we won't be.

Yeah. So there are some dates, times listed. I didn't know if we could maybe nail down people if you've reviewed it for volunteering time. And then, Corey, I don't know. I'm putting you on the spot. I don't know if you have any updates about reaching out to Adam or because we discussed following up with Adam about a career day slash field trip, but

mostly career day at this point.

So We've not been able to connect on that yet. Perfect. But in in process still, and I'll reach out to so when I talked to Adam about that, he was unsure. Sure. So I may reach out to to Zach at the city who's also associated with the Madison College. Mhmm. And we'll see if he's more knowledgeable about what career days they have coming up. Sure.

So it's still a work in progress.

And then I think some additional events, I know we were talking about attending or having a presence at would be the Eco Latino's event and the party for the planet.

Great. One of our goals this year was to pare back some of the some of

the events. I know Matt, in particular, last year went to all the events. And, you know, obviously,

if if there are events that you want to potentially do, but as a as a tree board, I think we're going to try to prioritize those two.

You mentioned the eco Latino event. They are mentioned four times on here. Is it the one where they are solo?

By what? By the conservation fair. Right? Yeah. The conservation fair. That's there's different workshops that I know, like, Lisa might be involved with, but that's the conservation fair is the one that we're referring to here. Okay. Thank you. And just so everyone knows, when we attended all those events, I should say, like, mostly myself, but Tierney was there for some. Other people were there for some of them. The goal is to help or give away heritage progeny trees. So wasn't just, like, an educational thing. There was a goal. And some of those events, we didn't really give away trees. So I kinda wanted to focus efforts on events where there's gonna be high attendance.

Kathy, are you going to party for the plan on this year? It'd be better. Jeremy?

Yes.

Yeah.

Kathy is.

Great. Thank I think Chirani nodded.

Yeah. I should be there. That event list, is that on the, like, shared drive? Or

I'm not sure who owns that list. I kinda populated it. I think it was, like, the Tree Canopy Collaborative list.

That yes.

So that might be, like, list maybe that in my mind.

Okay. I just wasn't sure if that lived online or got circulated over email. If it did get circulated through email, I'm

I'm sure that we could've just copy and paste it into our Yeah. Okay.

And we I can share, like, Google Doc too with everybody. Yeah. Was that earlier? No. I didn't think about

putting that. I was gonna say I could drop

it on there right now.

Alright. That's we can move on to item number two, school tree nursery program. The main thing here is that we're looking to include one new school tree nursery with West High School. Another side thing is we're going to be trying to include several up to four. It doesn't all have to be this year.

Air approved tree nurseries at different schools as well. And those will be going to high schools as part of the WAA demonstrations and trials project. So we're gonna focus on putting those at high schools. That way, the teachers can work with the kids to conduct the science experiments with the growing techniques and mediums. So I think we'll probably be meeting with West High School in the next couple weeks.

Yep. They canceled their meeting

Okay.

For the snow day. Yeah. But they're I'll let you know as soon as they reschedule. That's why I didn't respond to you yet because I don't have a date yet.

Yeah. No problem. And then I'm not sure, Corey, if you heard from your construction team with any

Yeah. Sorry. I meant to say, Steve said, yep. Just let let us know when you need. I've gotta follow back to what I with him and just, you

know, get the ball rolling in online and then have him take over from there. Alright. I did meet with UW Stevens Point leaf coordinator, and our goal is to take the school tree nursery program and create a turn it into some curriculum that could be applied to any school in Wisconsin, any school district. Her goal is to have a draft, something up and running in June for that. So I think that's pretty ambitious, and I'm glad to get that rolling.

Our goal is to create a bunch of different instructional videos too. That was kind of Brian's idea, but Katie would like that idea as well. Great. So we'll be doing that. And the only other thing is some different schools are gonna need some new supplies, whether it's gonna be tree pots, soil.

So I've been kinda reaching out to all the different school partners that I've been working with just to kinda get an idea of what they're gonna need and what the costs are gonna be for that and then try to figure out the best way to pay for those costs with either through, like, grant funding or support funding. So that's what I've been working on recently.

So, Matt, with that, tree, school tree nursery program, couple of questions. You said you're working with leaves. So are they doing the curriculum, working on the curriculum, or

are you developing that? They're taking the lead on that.

Okay. Awesome.

We'll be creating the video, the short videos for demonstration and, you know, filling in any information that they need. Okay. They comment following their lead though.

Okay. So they're gonna

be like, hey, it'd be great to

have a video on x y z.

Yeah. Or Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. But also, I think they're kinda work with us to make sure that all the different gaps and items are covered. Okay.

And I'm assuming with the you're not doing this on your own? Just double checking? No. We have People working on it?

Yeah. We have people Cool. Thinking about it, working together. So Awesome. Alright. Any questions, from the online group?

No. No.

Alright. Let's move on to the item number three, tree conservation preservation efforts, where we set it back. But, Priyanka, would you mind

Absolutely not.

Filling filling people in a little bit?

Me too. So we got together to chat about the preservation efforts and, really decided that some of the objectives of our coffee chat would be to have a collection of ordinances in the state of Wisconsin that we know of, that exist and really put them together and pick out the components that are commonalities between all of them so that we can document and have kind of an overall document that outlines what the components of tree ordinances in Wisconsin generally include. So it's a it's a little bit of a map for people that are interested in writing them so that they don't have to go themselves and research all the different ones that exist and and and pull out those components. And then we also talked about, being able to meet with municipal managers and finding out really kind of interviewing them and finding out what their barriers are to tree ordinances and getting a little bit more background information as to kind of some of the the issues that they have faced. And then we also talked a little bit about maybe at some point putting together a standard operating procedure in, how to how to enforce and also how to get help, when you're putting together a true ordinance, and working with, different different interested groups like contractors and developers, etcetera.

Did I miss anything, Matt?

I think that's pretty good. Sound good to you, Brian?

Sorry. Developers. And what was the other group?

I think Oh, contractors. Same thing.

And, yeah, even, like, legal eventually kind

of

make sure no voices are left out. Really just at once.

Collecting all of the different parties that are involved.

Alright. Sound good? Let's move on to, discussion items. So number one on the list here is the tree board applicants. So today, later on, once we get to the, action items, I would like to see the tree board take a vote on candidates to fill in the two open spots at this point.

So I wanna reiterate once again that the tree board does not decide who fills those spots. The only thing the tree board can do is provide a recommendation to the county executive saying, we would like to see these two applicants become tree board members. So the county executive does not have to listen to us. This is something that I think is important for us to fulfill these spots. Some of them have been some of these applicants are from October at this point.

So let's see. So, again, we have three applicants, Michael Rui, Lydia Brooding, and Emily Nanken, I think is how we pronounce the name. And I just wanna also say that this meeting is recorded, so if we should be careful and considerate of how we discuss the applicants as we go forward here. So So I'll I'll open it up if anyone has any comments that they would want the other three board members to hear about an applicant. Or I've sent out the applications to everyone more than once, so we should have all had the chance to review applicants.

I did have an opportunity to speak with Bruning at the Wisconsin Arborist Association conference. She's quite enthusiastic and good energy. She's from Stoughton. That's something I feel strongly about for this group is with me stepping off, there's a lack of small dank smaller or medium Dane County representation. I was cut short in my conversation with her, but I would I would feel comfortable with her.

I wanna second what Kathy said is that also jumped out to me was having some representation outside of Madison. And I think we, you know, would be happy with any of these candidates. I guess maybe in addition to that and, you know, kind of what Kathy's comment highlights is maybe thinking about what we think we need in terms of the other applicants. So, you know, I don't know if other folks wanna weigh in. Know, You I think we're talking about, you know, different levels of kind of experience and backgrounds, and I think it'd be good for maybe us to do a quick needs assessment for who, you know, could be most beneficial to us and also in terms of maybe broadening representation on the board itself.

Yeah. I would say excellent comment. And Rui has there's a lot of depth there and lots of op of opportunity to learn because we all we all have different backgrounds. So,

yeah, pretty pretty impressive. I do like the civil engineering and planning background that Rui has as well. I think that brings a really great perspective to the group, especially as we're doing things like planning for

tree ordinances. I'll second that. That was my exact thought was, you know, having that planning background is especially vital to us right now as we wait into tree ordinances.

I do know Rory was also on the urban tree task force several years ago. And then I do know he's he's really passionate about treats and tree issues as well.

And he's retired?

Yep. Retired. Mhmm. Which I think is good.

I mean, we are looking for a catheter placement.

That's right.

Matt, was there a way that you wanted to come to some sort of consensus in terms of our recommendation?

So into the action items, my plan was to bring up three different options for voting. So we have three candidates, but there's only three different combinations of those candidates that we could vote for. And so I would ask the people online, you know, to break down the different options that we'll go over just to make sure we're all on the same page, and and then we could move forward with the vote. And room it's a reminder that these people applied a while ago, so we are not sure if they'll still be interested. But if they're not interested, we can proceed from there.

And they're all aware of that it takes a long time.

They are, but it shouldn't take this long. But that's where our letter of recommendation comes in handy that can help move things along. Okay. So we'll return to that when we get back to our action items, if everybody's okay with this. Right.

Yep. Makes sense to me.

Okay. Then it looks like I have discussion items, tree board events again. I don't know I don't know if there's something that we need to discuss about this right now or not, but we were anticipating, you know, this workforce career fair or, you know, whether we should attach our efforts onto MITC or any other organization or whether we kinda do our own thing. I don't know if we should assess people's preferences or maybe we just wait to find out more information, like dispatching our efforts to someone else if it's even a possibility. Yeah.

I think my my preference would be to allow us a little more time for information gathering with Adam and Zach and figure out what exactly is going so what I don't want us to do is, like, put a ton of effort into something that's going to be a replication of something that already exists in a similar time frame. Let's see what they've got going on. If it's something that we can attach to, how we might fit into that, how we can enhance and bring potentially, you know, more as more participants, things like that. And then if if there's not something, then, yeah, we should

really get it on our own.

One other, they just had a meeting that went over frequently asked questions about the program. So when they have that finalized, it might be a good place for us to look and see if there's any gaps to help with in but if there's if there's kind of frequent problems or concerns that come up. What what is the group? I'm sorry. Madison College.

Oh,

And

now might be a great time for us to

exert a little bit of influence on that discussion too. If they don't have something, maybe maybe they want to partner with the tree board long term to get an annual everything going. With apprenticeship up and running, you know, they're gonna have a need for both apprentices, but also to connect employers to apprenticeship. That's gonna be a huge push that they've gotta make, and we cannot potentially be part of that solution with them.

If arguably not the biggest Yeah. Concern. Yeah.

Lot of, yeah, lot of tool to roll that rock up right now.

And just a reminder to some folks, our annual budget is $4,000 a year. I think the best way to use that funds is to have the largest impact possible and try to meet our mission and vision statements, support those. And I think this career event, workforce development, would be a really good use of that funds. And I think we should be sure to save you know, set aside a significant portion of our tree board funds to potentially support this effort, not knowing what financial effort it might take. Yeah.

So so previously, we had been this is probably three, four years ago. We've been spending most of our budget on public service announcements, and I've tried to make the group move away from that. And we've been spending majority, 75% of the budget on school tree nurse service. And I I think that's had a lot of impact. We have seven nurseries across Dane County now that were funded entirely through Dane County Tree Board.

And it also supports Operation Fresh Start, whose kids get to build their nurseries. We've also been historically for the last two years purchasing heritage bulk saplets from Basketball Nursery. These are acorns collected from 200 year old trees in Dane County that Basketball sets aside several different rows where they grow these, trees that we could say are heritage old. So the first year, we gave away 600. Last year, I think we gave away 700, something like that.

I'm not not quite sure. So that's just a a reminder of what we've been spending our money on. So Anyone have any additional thoughts or comments on this?

I have a question on when those are available this year.

The trees or the money?

The trees.

Well, I think the pickup is, what, the April or something like that.

Okay.

Soon. And so those are the trees that we're gonna give away at these different events, party for the planet and then the Eco Latinos event. But we have different partners, nonprofits like Brown Swell, and there's some organization that you've done in the hospital. They're interested in getting a bunch of these trees to give away. We've been giving them away to different municipalities.

We started this rural free tree program where we give away new trees to anyone that does a development or, in the rural area towns, we make a free tree available to them or multiple trees. But they'll be available throughout the year too. So Okay. To anyone that wants them.

So where do where is pickup?

For the big bulk order? Would that would be I'll I'll pick up all the trees of bulk from basketball, and then I'll store them at different locations. Like, some will be, like, in my driveway, garage, but there'll also be a bunch over at Adam's gravel bed. He's got a space

for me.

So do you need help with that, or do you have that covered?

I would need help. Yeah. Yeah. So Mhmm.

Sounds good.

So you they come as bare root, of course. But then I ended up potting a bunch of them. That way I have some that are available to whoever wants them direct to you.

So So do you pick them up in a truck or a trailer?

Well, when you pick them up, they're just in a couple boxes. You know, a box could have, like, 300 trees. So they're two to three year olds.

Gotcha. We could have been hashbrown.

Yeah. They're two to three years old, and they're, what's available this year is from heritage oats that we've collected or red oak, burr oak, and white oaks. So this will be the first year that we can get white oaks that are available from the trees and acres that we've collected.

And potting them up has worked for you?

That's a lot of work too.

No. But it's that has worked. They've lived. They've Yeah. Well.

Yeah. Good. I mean, our kids always use recommendations and you know? But

I think you're the expert, Matt.

It's all thinking of a system.

Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, also, if you need help, like, padding those up, etcetera, let us know so we can, you know, figure out our schedules too to help you. Yeah. That would be You know, sometimes you're probably just like, between dinner and bedtime, I have an hour. Yeah. Whatever. But, you know, we can do something more to Mhmm. Assembly line it or whatever.

Yep. That would be, helpful.

We'll see your boarding party at

the next meeting.

I figured we were out.

Yeah. Yeah.

On that note, Matt, do you have a sense of what portion of the budget, like, those trees plus the supplies for the giveaway? I know in the past, I guess, my conceptualization of the supplies was plastic bags and some other things, but then it sounds like pots would be included in that too. Just, I guess, just thinking if, you know, we wanna be considerate about the budget and, you know, keeping budget money for workforce development stuff even though we're not entirely sure what that looks like yet. I guess I'm just curious kind of how much of that we know we're for sure gonna be spending for that tree giveaway. Because then we can think, you know, later down the line what we have available for tree nurseries and then also what we have available for other events type stuff.

I don't remember exactly off the top of my head, but we do have, you know, the budget information from the last several years of purchase history. And Mhmm. Brian, do you have an idea of, how much they they're less than a dollar trees or no. It's less than 50¢ a tree. If we bought 700 trees, I think it would be not more than $300 or something like that. So they're they're

cheap. So you're purchasing pots and soil?

I think, initially, like, this is just for the giveaway. Right? We're gonna wanna give away as many as possible. And we already have some leftover soil quite a bit, and we have some leftover pots. We want some recycled pots. But we're gonna have to purchase more pots and soil for to resupply these schools anyways. So and I think it's good to, like, try to keep away as many as possible, really. That's my goal. Cool. Thanks. Get repotted are pretty much the ones that I we couldn't give away at different events or to different organizations.

So it's your expectation, though, that people plant them soon?

Yeah. Mhmm.

So is there an opportunity to not ever put them in tots and just have people take them and go plant them right

Oh, well, that's the goal. Yeah. To try to give them away as bare root.

Okay.

Yeah. That's the goal. So if we can give away, like, you know

That makes more sense.

All but, like, you know, 60 trees or something like that, that'd be great. And then we just pot up, like, the remainder to forty fifty trees.

That's what we've done in the past. That's what all the banks were for.

Yeah. Our our Chinese takeout banks.

Yeah.

Just, I guess, thinking about that, did we still want to do that sign up sheet? Did we did we ever we we sent out that survey. Right, Matt?

Yep. Mhmm. So

How was feedback for that?

Yeah. Just a a reminder, we collected all the addresses from the trees that we've given away to kinda map out where they've ended up. And so they've ended up in over 24 different counties in Wisconsin and, I think, like, 10 different states even. So they've kinda distributed. And so each year, we we keep track of also their, like, email addresses for a potential survey.

We did survey the folks at the contact list that we had, and I think we got 28 or 30 something, survey responses. And I I did bring those into a meeting one time, but I'm not I don't think I shared them maybe, with the online. I'm not sure. But if you're interested, I could share those with you, the results. But one of cool things is we got pictures too from everybody. So Yeah.

Because I know, Brianna, I guess, just not, I guess, knowing about how we've distributed them or what we've done with them. I know part of the goal for that survey was to see, like, whether or not they survived, and kind of that test of, did you take the tree home and plant it, or did you leave it in our takeout bag and, you know, authenticate it in your garage or on your front porch?

Which nobody will admit you.

Right. Those are the people that didn't respond.

Right. Those are ones who didn't do the survey.

I I do think, like, the primary response because we asked, you know, what can we do to improve the the system and this program project? And a lot of folks said that they would like some type of, like, tree protection, tree cage or something. Like a tube. Tree tube. Mhmm. So that that's the one thing.

Just quick. I I pulled up the pricing list for the general public. So these are not heritage oaks. These are just the general ones. And, obviously, you get more as the volume goes up, but we're looking for if you're looking at a 100 of the same species, 85¢ to a little over a dollar a piece on the oaks It's a little bit less if you're getting more, but 70 some cents. But I don't know if they

So if you buy 300, how much is that?

So the next jump up is if you buy 500 of the same species, but I think you've been working with Jeremiah or Roger. Yeah. So it may be a little bit different.

Yeah. I think they're pretty good at, like, giving us some, like, flexibility of that Yeah.

Requirement. So

So 600 trees would be of the same species?

I would say probably it looks like 75¢ ish, $7.07 cents whatever. So a little bit more than I I thought. Prices probably went up.

I know one thing we talked about last year that was, like, getting a hydrogel to coat the roots in as well

just to try to keep them hydrated for the car ride home,

assuming if you pull up the meat in the ground Not a bad idea.

Immediately. But, yeah, that was a good idea.

I also I don't know how smart this would be, but that could also be a way to maybe involve kids a little bit more so that they could dip their own tree in the hydrogel or something.

Well, that's a really good idea.

You you

just It might make a mess.

I could go. Yeah. I think that's an awesome idea, My kid would go nuts over that. Cool.

And then it's so you would just dip them in and put them in the bag?

Yeah. I think that's that give us a better shot of, like, you know, short term survival, I would think.

Yeah. Because what we were doing before was having a couple of, like, five gallon buckets of water and dipping paper towels in them and wrapping the roots. But, you know, depending on the the weather and our our biggest questions too are, like, how long can I leave this in the bag? And, you know, it can be kinda hard to say how long did you leave it in your car.

Yeah. And then other than that, for the tree giveaway, bare root tree giveaways for supplies, like Jerry said, we have plastic bags, or we can get free biodegradable ones from Adam, I'm sure, of somebody like Dodge. And we still have lots of plastic bags, know, sort of takeout bags from before. So that wouldn't be an expense. Those are super cheap anyway.

So they mainly, it's gonna be the trees and the hydrogel. Mhmm. Cool. So I'm hoping that we could when we get to the action items, we could take a vote on the initial supplies that we would need for these tree giveaways that are coming up. Because party for the planet's gonna be, like, the April.

So it'd be, like, right after our board meeting. So I think we wanna try to get this voted on this action item before party for the planet. That makes sense. So more on today. Yeah. Yeah.

Wait. Did party for the planet last I knew, it was May 2.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That was May 2. I'm sorry.

I no idea. I just assumed it was.

You're just making stuff up. Yeah.

I don't

know the dates even though I made the list. That's why I made the list of of that.

Okay. Very good.

But thanks for, pointing that out. Okay. Does anyone have, additional questions about the tree board for tree board events, I guess?

Wait. One more thing about party for the planet. So there's the there are the usually, it's a shrub and a tree that Adam gets away or or the zoo. Somehow the county is involved. And then there's the Heritage Oaks. So separate things. Brian, do you know if Adam intends on doing his usual?

Yes. I already ordered the trees.

Oh, what what are they gonna be?

Hackberry, river birch, and American Yasilant.

Okay.

So would we have the same process for all of them as far as, like, the hydrogel and bagging?

If we want to

It makes

hydrogel. I mean, it seems

like it should be the same for every share.

Yeah. You probably have to. Right?

Yeah. It it it does need to be the same. Otherwise, chaos will ensue.

Agreed.

We don't want that.

Yeah. Hopefully, we'll just set up, like, right next to each other. Usually, it's volunteers that run the other Right. You know, giveaway post, so I think they kinda look to us for any actual tree related questions or any help. One

other quick question.

Would it be beneficial to potentially have, like, a link somewhere where if they couldn't plant them in the ground right away, they could cut them themselves?

Yeah. We could do that. We already have some, like, information pamphlets that we created. And, I'm not sure if it includes something like that, but, like, how to, like

because some people may take a tree, and they don't know exactly where they wanna put it, which would delay them planting it. Mhmm. So then if they have instructions on how they could pop the tree until they found their resting their final placed plant.

Do you think, that's something you and I could work on, Tierney, just to take the existing printouts that we have and, like, add some text to that?

Yeah. I also think it would be good. I forget exactly what we had for a QR code before or what exactly it went to, but I think that was a thing last year from remembering correctly. And I think it could be helpful to just eliminate some QR codes and, like, tape them onto the table and then just be like, scan this so they can pull it up on their phone. I mean, we could have in if in I was gonna say in person paper ones. I guess that makes sense. But I just I feel like when you're at those kinds of events and sometimes people end up with a lot of stuff and they get lost. I don't I don't know what folks think about having something scannable. We can offer a paper copy, but sometimes people don't wanna, you know, take extra stuff.

Think it'll be easier if

at least from our end because I don't

know how there's limited maybe you have, like, 40 or 50 paper copies for people that want that.

We have a lot for the planting.

Well, we're also talking about potting. Planting and potting.

Oh, okay.

I mean, I think, like, I think of if I were at an event and I was gonna take a tree and I was gonna argue with my family members about where the tree was gonna go, maybe it was gonna go at the cottage or whatever, I'd wanna be able to, like, plant it and a minute. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Think what Adam usually has for the ones he brings or or Brian orders for him is he'd have, like, a half a sheet all about hazelnut, what it likes, what it doesn't like, what it's good for, and and another one on Hackberry. And so a lot of people take over the years, instead of taking the paper, they have, oh, also photos, like, just a couple of images. People started taking photos of those. Also, the DNR kinda cute, How to plant a sapling.

Same thing. Over the years, people people just like taking a photo or you a QR code. So but the having having that little bit more information about a Hackberry, where it where it would fit, that that's all good.

Mhmm. Yeah. I think it sounds like it might be best to have some combination. And whatever we do have maybe already existing copies of, we can give them out. Otherwise, I think it would be good to just take the little bit of extra time slash money to get some stuff laminated, especially because if there's gonna be hydrogel being flung around and soil and stuff, just to laminate them and get them stuck down on the table.

And just a reminder to folks, the newer folks, we do have full control of our website. You know? So if we wanna, like, put information about whatever, like, into a QR code, it's super simple.

So Mhmm.

Okay. Looking at the time, it's a little bit after 04:30. Do have three number three for discussion items, other tree board matters, but I'm kinda thinking we should move on to the action item. I know Corey has to leave properly. So if this doesn't make sense for people, let me know. But number one for the action items, board recommendations for the tree board and applicants. So, again, there's three applicants, and that would make three unique combinations to fill those two different seats.

Do you want us to say what our number is?

Yeah. And so but I'm hoping for the folks online that can vote, you you can write this down so we're all on the same page. We all have, like, a little printout here that shows the different combinations. And then each board member will just vote for either option one, two, or three.

That makes sense. I think we just need to hear the combinations online.

Okay. So option number one would be Michael Brewery, Lydia Bruning. Option two is Emily Mangan, Michael Brewery. Option three, Lydia Bruning, Emily Mangan. So those are the three unique combinations. We have two open board seats. So is everybody on board? Does that make sense? Yep. So all in favor of option one, Michael Brewery and Lydia Spruning, say aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Oh, can you record the numbers?

I I didn't see it. I'm sorry. I was looking at 123456. And Michelle?

I'm abstaining. Okay.

K. All in favor of option number two, say aye. All in favor of option number three, say aye. Okay. It looks like the tree board have voted to unanimously support option number one, support of Mike Rui and Lydia Brewery to fill in the two vacant tree board spots. So with that said Hey.

Point of order.

Go ahead. Yes?

Yeah. We are like, first of all, I I wanna abstain from all three of those options, and we are recommending we're not placing these people on the tree board. I just wanna make sure that's clarified in our notes so nobody thinks that we're taking the power away from the county exec.

Yeah. Yeah. And that one's worth of

really It says recommendations for tree board applicants.

But thank you, Michelle. That is an important point. I did try to mention that earlier that we have no control whatsoever of filling these spots. All we can do is provide a recommendation of our support to the county executive to fill these spots. So thank you, Michelle.

Appreciate that. So with that said, I will draft a letter of support. We've done this before for other people. So I already have existing language, and Visa will help me with the latter head or maybe send it to the actual appropriate folks. And thank you everybody for participating, and and that's so I think we can move on at this point.

Action item number two, Dane County tree board purchases. So this is the purchase for supplies and bare root trees that would be required for the two events that we have scheduled and also sharing these bare root trees with other folks. We already have the supplies needed to repot whatever does not get, find a home as a barrier tree. So we just heard from Brian, we're looking at for, let's just say, 600 trees. Hydrogel, I don't know if we can get that for free or not.

And I just booked 10 pound bags, a $100.

Yep. I understand. Sorry.

You said how much? Blah blah blah.

The 10 pound bag is about a $100. It doesn't look like you can get it in a smaller farm because, it's a pound for 20 gallons.

You can get it in a 50 pound barrel.

That's a lot of hydrogel.

We'll have

it for years

to come.

Yeah. That makes two

family members.

Inspiration. We're

gonna hydro dip the kids.

So

I don't anticipate the cost for these events to go beyond $700 with everything we just talked about, but it might be appropriate to, you know, approve the cost of a thousand dollars

I would say I would go with that, just in case.

For supplies, which would be 25% of our budget. We'd still have 75% of our budget remaining for events or school tree nurseries. I think that's a worthy cause, and hopefully, we can make difference there.

Is the motion to spend up to 1,000

single motion.

Oh, okay. I I was just trying to record what I thought I was hearing.

But that would be a

good one. I'll motion to approve up to $1,000 for for supplies for tree giveaways as part of our budget.

I'll second.

All in favor of the motion, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed? K. The motion passes. That's all I got. K.

For action items for our next meeting, we could talk about school nursery supplies and maybe retouch events and some other updates that we have going on. Does anybody else have anything else? Okay. Let's move on to g, future meetings, items, and dates. So the next scheduled meeting would be on 04/21.

I don't think it's that'd be nice enough to do outdoor meetings yet, but I don't know. You never know. If it is, would you all be up for trying to have an outdoor meeting on 04/21? We might not be able to know until, like, the Thursday or something before, and then we could always have an alternate location, which would probably be here.

I really miss this lighting.

I

don't know, Michelle, what your schedule is looking like or how you're feeling about that. Sorry.

I couldn't get to the button. Don't we have to declare a week in advance the location when we post the agenda, Lisa?

Well, I don't know.

We we've been able to do it where we have an alternate location.

Yeah. I I think that's what we did.

Okay.

I could look it up. But yeah.

So far, like, I haven't had to do the post the meeting agenda until, like, the Thursday before. So Do we wanna select the respective location? I mean, because we've been able to basically done before.

Go down to our or was

it that we saw the the sudden wind drop? That was neat. Oh, that's not

Oh.

That was the Mendota

Yeah. Health Institute. Yeah. Sudden sudden branch failure.

That was a sunny day.

It was like, forgot. It was exciting.

I made Lisa move, and Jay wouldn't move because we're sitting under a dead Oakland. I'm like

I moved. And

then a gargantuan live one dropped. Yep.

Open the tree next year.

That will be the industry board.

Make that one history.

Probably big, like, national news. I do need to, please.

Okay.

Thanks, Brian. Alright.

See you.

Well, hopefully, we can get somebody to recommend place. I don't like having to pick the place each month and stuff. I'm down I mean, I like.

Yeah. Big, pretty tree and sandalwood.

It's very nice. Very open. Where was that?

Minto Vet Hall. It's the two.

Yeah. You sent out a map, I think, of where to meet because it was kind of, like, thralling.

Yeah. It's a little confusing up there.

It is. I needed a Drive way

I drove past, and Matt was like, come back.

I don't know if there's still construction going on in that area. Yeah. Yeah. I know. So I I would I think we should check on that. I thought Burroughs was a nice spot, but, yeah, I don't know.

Okay. That sounds like, Medota or Burroughs. I can check on if Medota Health Institute. I think the construction are mostly finished at this point. But yeah. Okay. Public comments on items not on the agenda. Such other business as allowed by law? Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting?

I'll make a motion. Okay.

Motions. Okay.

All in favor of adjournment, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Okay. Motion passes. That's awesome. Thank you, everybody, for attending the triple a meeting.