Tree Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

All right, today is June 10th. It is 6.33, and I am calling the free advisory meeting to order. All right, we have a quorum today. Did everybody get a chance to look at the email with the correct minutes that I did not put in correct at first, and then the agenda? Do I have a motion to approve this month's agenda? All in favor?

Very cool.

Do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the special meeting? We had already approved April's meetings at that special meeting, and the special meeting was literally just voting on Leanna, our board members, but do I have a motion to approve those? Second. Second. All in favor? Perfect.

Are you writing this down?

It is being recorded.

Yeah. Can you take it off of that?

We can always go back to the tape.

Yeah. Why don't you just do it that way?

Back to the tape.

Back to the tape, man.

They're running reels back there.

I do think all of these meetings should be on plastic film.

Old school.

If you want to watch them, you should have to go to text.

You get it into your budget requests. You can maybe do it next year. We have no public here, so no public comments today. So we'll just jump right into our general business. So first off, Leanna, welcome. We're very happy to have you. Do you want to do a quick introduction for the team?

Sure. My name is Leanna. I moved to Colorado like five years ago from New York. Been living in Erie for about two years. And I... I've been doing tree stuff for like the last nine years. And I'm a board certified master arborist as of a couple of months ago.

Tell us about that process. How do you become a board certified master arborist? I think I know, but I want to hear it.

Yeah, so first you got to start with getting ISA certified. So that is like a combination of education and experience. And then you get like a bunch of random points for other certifications, like tree rest assessment, fall abide, urban forest professional, another certification I got. You get a point for like every year you work in the industry and then you'd like a total of eight points. You take a very complicated, long test, and then you get your BCMA.

That's amazing.

So do you work as an arborist?

Yeah, so I work for DB Resource Group. So a lot of tree inventories, management plans, consulting, community engagement, just a bunch of stuff. That's awesome.

That's very cool. Very cool. Well, welcome. We're very happy to have you. And then where in New York are you from?

Westchester.

Okay. I grew up in Fairfield County. My name is Jason Schimmel. I'm the chair of the board and I work in the nursery industry. So I sell trees. So adjacent industry to you.

Brian O'Connor. I was served on the tree board from 2015 to 2025. and was the chair for a few years and then got elected to council and not allowed to be on an advisory board if you serve on council, so I had to resign. But I wanted to be a liaison, so here I am back again.

Tom Reed, been with the town of Erie for, I think, a little over four years now. Spent some time with Boulder Forestry before Erie and a little bit of time with Longmont. Forestry degree from Southern Illinois. Normal arborist with a bunch of those extra little badges too, but not the board certified yet.

Soon. Patti O'Donnell from Long Island. Another New Yorker. I was in the University of the Landscape business. I'm retired now. I've been here about eight years and doing this for a while.

For a while. I'm Taylor Thompson. I am also from Fairfield County. I've been in the area for two years now. This is my second year on the tree board. I work for an advertising agency in New York, so I have very little to do with trees, but I like trees a lot. So that's why I'm here. Cool. These are our official tree huggers. That's my qualification.

That's kind of my qualification too as tree hugger because I am an expert, but you know, I'm a tree protector. How about that? But I've been in Erie for six years and I've been on the tree board for two years now, I think. And I love trees.

It's hot in here.

I don't work in this building.

I don't pay enough taxes for air conditioning.

I'm not sure. I don't know anything very much about this building. It's to speed up the meeting.

Okay. I don't know that. I don't know that. I just feel like I need a thing.

Got you next month.

Okay. Next agenda item is we need to elect our officers. So chair, vice chair, and secretary. Okay.

I'll jump in here. So town clerk sent me some instructions. I think it's appropriate for me just to read them out loud and then we can run through the ordeal really quick. According to Title III, Chapter II, Section 3-1-4 of the Erie Municipal Code, each board, commission, and committee shall elect a chair, vice chair, and secretary from among its full membership. Each officer serves a one-year term. Members may either self-nominate or nominate another member for an open officer position. Voting will occur separately for each position, and members will vote on the nominees for that specific office before moving on to the next position. Members will elect a chair first, vice chair second, and a secretary third. Officers' duties include, but are not limited to, the office of the chair. The chair leads board meetings, helps guide discussions, and works with the staff liaison to develop meeting agendas and priorities. The chair also serves as the primary spokesperson for the board when needed. Vice chair. The vice chair supports the chair and assumes the chair's responsibilities when the chair is absent or unable to serve. The vice chair may also assist with meeting facilitation and board coordination efforts. Secretary. The secretary assists with maintaining organization and continuity of of board business, including helping ensure motions and key discussion items are clearly captured in the meeting minutes. The secretary ensures timely delivery of final meeting minutes to the town clerk's office. The secretary may also support coordination of board communications and follow-up items with the staff liaison. Any questions on the responsibilities of the three positions?

Nope.

Okay, those are more or less the instructions I received. So what I went ahead and did was I made four versions of it because I figured I would mess up. But this is the positions and all of the board members' names.

We'll keep the same people doing the same jobs.

I suppose you all could have a discussion and let me know when you're ready for a vote, and I'll record the tallies.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense to me. Do we feel bad nominating Leanne with the art not being here?

I guess that's a clutch thing when I was reading, but not comprehending what I was reading. Members may either self-nominate or nominate another member for an open office. So I think we need some nominations.

Nominations in some seconds.

We have to go in order. All right.

I second you.

We have one name that will be voted on for chair. Is there anybody else like to nominate anyone else for the chair position or nominate themselves for the chair position?

Good. I would like to nominate Claudia for vice chair because I think she's done a fantastic job.

Thank you.

The nomination for Claudia and vice chair. Okay. Then I'll just round it out. I'm going to nominate Leanne for secretary because she's also done a fantastic job for her many, many, many years in service.

I hear a second.

We currently have Jason nominated for the chair with plenty of seconds, so that will get voted on. Claudia has been nominated by Jason for the vice chair, and we got plenty of seconds, so that would be voted on. And Leanne Belair was nominated for secretary and we got seconds, so that would be voted on. Any other nominations for chair, vice chair, or secretary that would like to be heard?

Nope.

All right, let's begin our vote. For the office of chair, By a show of hands of the board members who would like to vote for Jason Schimel to be the chair in 2026 remainder. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five.

Abstentions.

For the office of, the second is vice chair. For the office of vice chair, we have one person nominated and that is Claudia Schmelko. Show of hands votes for Claudia as vice chair. We have four votes.

Just being accurate here. We have five? Okay, we have five votes.

For the position of secretary, we have one nomination. That is Leanne Villare. Show of hands from the board members present. I see one, two, three, four, five. Five tally marks. Let me do some quick math here. Based on my math, which is always questionable, it appears as though we have five votes and enough votes for Jason to remain chair, five votes, enough votes for Claudia to remain vice chair, five votes, enough votes for Leanne Dallaire to remain secretary. I will provide that to the town clerk tomorrow.

Okay. Now we'll hop into the next agenda item, which I foresee being sort of the main topic that we're talking about today. Leanne, a quick introduction about our biggest event of the year is our Arbor Day Earth Day celebration. It's probably no surprise to you. That took place on April 25th this year. And we didn't have a May meeting like we normally would have done to the recap because just some issues that had to be worked through. But yes, so we're going to be talking about that event that already happened. The first thing I want to bring up in that subject is the location, because I know we've been over at the Erie Community Park, but I know Tom in the town is pushing to move to Coal Creek Park in the future. So would you mind, Tom, just sort of telling us the major reasons why Coal Creek Park is the brand new one with the splash pad? It was gorgeous. I'm there almost every day. I was there again today doing the same thing. He rolled up on me earlier in the week when I was sitting there.

My son was right there. I sat Jason in the grass for five minutes on the clock and talked about trees. It was excellent. I don't get to ever sit at the splash pad while I'm at work. What a nice amenity has been provided. What I know about the slight push to move, ever since I've been here, really, there's been Different folks have mentioned to me, oh, that event really should move to Coal Creek Park. Coal Creek Park got built. Coal Creek Park is sort of designed for large events. And I'm not exactly sure. There's probably, I'm not exactly sure, but I think that they might be starting to deal with capacity issues at Erie Community Park, just when you got soccer, softball, and all that going on. I don't know if we've actually broken any threshold yet that would like trigger that we must. But I feel like that's kind of part of the sentiment. I can definitely find out if we're being, if it's a mandate, like if, if our only option is, is to leave that park. I think you guys have a say in it.

You guys could certainly. You know, I mean, how do we organize that? Well, you got the food, you've got good parking, fairly good parking and, You've got a splash park.

How would we organize Colt Creek?

Yeah. Then you've got the covered area with the picnic tables, and the rest of it's just grass.

we could set up in the grass we would be uh irrigation is typically not turned off turned on yet by arbor day sometimes it is if it's really warm um so the grass wouldn't necessarily actively be growing but the grass is an option the splash pad won't be put together yet um so the splash pad will it'll be post ice rink pre splash bed so that whole that big empty It kind of could be nice. Uh, you have the benefit. We have the benefit of that building down there that has good storage and a roll up door and stuff. I'm sure we could reserve, reserve the party room. That's adjacent.

Yeah.

Uh, the bathrooms, the, I call it a wound or, um, but that food truck lane of walking path that vehicles can also drive on there next to the grass is like, I is built, was built for food trucks. Um, So I see either part working more or less just fine from us. And so if there are some town staff members that have good reasons for us to move, I don't personally have much of a problem with that. I think a change of pace could be fun.

Yeah, I like the change of pace thing.

I like it in the sense that we're going to get a true idea of like what a standalone event this truly is. Cause I know we've always tried to lean in the fact that soccer and baseball and everything is happening. And I think we proved ourselves. Was it three years ago when it snowed and we went inside and we had an amazing turnout still. So I think we are a standalone event and I think this would further prove it. If we went like, let's say we set up on the splash pads, would that area where the food trucks go be kind of, not front and center like it doesn't make sense to have the whole event where the food because it works so well like you know they we had eerie pride on sunday we got the food trucks and everything is just right there and you can fence it all off and keep it together but i don't know i mean we'd have to submit an application of course i would know people that would be reviewing the application but yeah you know i they got to do their jobs too so i can't force them to do anything but

I would think that they would allow us to do food trucks in the Woundorf and then the event in the grass that we wanted, or they'd probably also allow us to do the event on the splash pad, but put the food trucks in the parking lot closer to your house. I don't think they have any problem with it.

Is there an indoor space that we can use as an alternate location for weather?

That's a great point. No. There? There's not, but there on the front side of the shelter and the backside of that shelter are those like huge, I mean, there's big, there's overhang, you know, like all those seats are underneath that thing. I don't know.

Yeah. They're not movable.

But you're totally right. We couldn't pip it to the library as quick, but I, and I think I've expressed this probably more than once, but I also don't think that if we have, if we ever pivot, I don't think it should be, I would, it should never be during the event. And I don't even know if you want to do a day of event so much. To me, that'd be more like a day before decision to make, so you would be able to tell people. Then we could put signs down there saying it's been moved to the library, but it's definitely not as convenient.

Given the size of the event at this point too, it could be worth exploring another indoor location as a pivot option outside of the library anyway. Given how much traction there is, given the size of it. I mean, I wasn't there two years ago when it was at the library. But the sense I got is that it was...

It worked fine.

It was fine, but it was tight. Super tight. It's tight two years ago when it doesn't have the traction. I think if the theory is this could be a standalone event, I think the proximity of Coal Creek to Old Town is really beneficial to move it over there. But I didn't get towards thinking this is a big event. The library may not even be a feasible option for us anyway.

In the past, we've tried to rent out rooms in the rec center, but those are very competitive and there was dance competitions that always seem to be in that stretch and that's what's kept us from going to a space that would fit everybody.

I think if we wanted to get inside the rec, our best chance of getting inside the rec would be bringing the subject up like Nine, 10, 11, 12 months in advance. And even a nicely worded letter from you guys might help me.

I mean, we're just asking for a backup. Yeah, that's right. I mean, if they can get it for something that's going to happen, why should they let us reserve it as a backup?

Yeah, and Arbor Day doesn't generate any revenue for the town. The programming of the rec center generates revenue. I fully get it. But if we were really nice and we asked, Really, really, really early. And maybe if the request came from the board, we might be able to. I certainly would love to.

I'm concerned about seeing our numbers go down. I am too. Significantly, I think. Did I see we had like 3,000 people? Was that the official number?

We're all using that. I mean, that's what the communications director said. So we're all using that number. Yeah.

We were at a thousand maybe two years ago. So this is it's grown a lot. I don't want to go with it. Well, if they tell us we have to. Well, I mean, if we have to, we have to. Right. Because that's a simple decision.

I hear you. Yeah, I think. So having been through a number of these events, my concern with Coal Creek Park is even if the irrigation is off, if it snows a day or two before, you're not going to be able to use the turf or tables. It's true. So the splash pad, is it the same size as that?

That's the basketball court.

That's the basketball court. Let me start a list of questions that I can answer for you guys in like a month probably, but I'll start the list. So like sort of just like hard surface square footage compared to the basketball court and the building that's surrounding.

It bleeds into those covered areas. So I would think square footage wise, it has more usable space. Okay.

But that's speculation. That covered area. Yeah. Unless they want to set up a picnic table that's hooked to the ground.

That's true.

All those tables, you know, the chairs do this. But they're all tables and chairs that are not moving.

Not on the west side. The west side ones are movable. They're just super heavy.

Yeah, that's true. I tried to move one once.

Yeah, they're just very heavy. Yeah, because they're trying to deter people. But if we got there an hour before, a group of people could move those out of the way.

Do the tables still move, though?

I think they do.

They're just very heavy.

So I guess we need to see an actual comparison of square footage.

I'll get you guys that at the next meeting, if not before. So hard surface square footage. I will ask some of the powers that be... if it's a mandate or if, yeah, we can push back a little bit. I'm curious about the parking.

Yeah, I was going to say, how does the parking compare?

I think Brian and Emily, maybe, and I, Brian and I, or Emily and I, a group of us talked about this a little bit at the end of Arbor Day, and somebody had the great idea of the Erie Bee. And I was like, yeah, that's a great use. And actually, the folks that run that for the town were there, and they paid it up. They're all, we'd love to support the event. So the shuttle bus may be available for us. It's not ideal, but it's...

But the Arbor Day is a good thing to do. Yeah. But the other thing with the Erie Bee is you could, if you keep it at Erie Community Park, you could still run the bee back and forth from town hall parking or wherever people might want to park.

I think there's like three or four bees out there. There's three, yeah.

That kind of works, yeah. The bee works no matter what. That's something to certainly consider, regardless. Yeah, they should have a booth in the future.

But what's that? They had one this year. Did they? Yeah. Old Town, you know, like the farmer's markets, it's hundreds of people there. And, yeah, all of a sudden the parking out front of my house is blown up. But I think Old Town has the capacity to house big events. I mean, Coal Creek has some really good concerts, town fair. So, yeah, it ends up being street parking and you just walk a couple of minutes. But Old Town's done it before.

I don't think it's necessarily that. It's to Claudia's point, the dropping of the attendees. Yeah. You're growing an event. More exhibitors, more food trucks. They benefit from that foot traffic coming in from the games. I do think it is a destination event. Now, years past, it kind of really wasn't. There was years that we hardly had anybody show up. You guys grew this event. I'd hate to see those numbers go down.

The other thing is the amount of kids that we have at the event. I mean, they're already there. So it's like we're bringing the activities to them. If we move it somewhere else, we're not going to have all those kids. And then another thing is that we're going to, probably talk about later is our budget. If we're budgeting based on what we're doing now, and then our numbers drop significantly, it's just really going to be a setback for us. It'll be going backwards if we go down in numbers.

I guess what we need to do then is, you know, to Tom's point, sort of answer some of these questions. And then once we have answered those questions, then we need to decide as a board which location we want to recommend. And then potentially, like you were saying, write a letter to council. Like if our hand is being forced to Coal Creek, but we decide community center is better. we'll fight for it. So I think something like that, I would like to have all the members here. And I think, so what if we kind of scrapped this idea to next week or sorry, next month, we get some of those answers and then talk it out, maybe put it to a vote and what the board thinks. And we'll all write a letter recommending that. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you guys know the process now. So like we will, rate of the calendar turn, we'll be able to apply, right? But we'll start the conversations internally ahead of time to make sure that we're not going to get denied right away or something, you know, we'll let them know our plans ahead of time, but we'll still have to apply. I will get kind of a hard surface calculation between difference between the two. I'll ask how flexible our event staff are with letting us do what we want, or if they're really pushing this and we need to actually develop a good response to their no. Any other questions that anybody can think of right now that you want me to get?

I think we should consider the parking. I don't know, off the top of my head, I didn't have to park. I mean, we were all there early enough. It wasn't an issue. And with all the sports, they're taking up most of that parking. So really, people are kind of parking all over the place. So it would be same sort of situation, especially if you're talking about putting the food trucks in the parking lot.

That's a good consideration. We'd have more parking if the food trucks are in the Wundorf.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we did talk about doing a different layout for the food trucks. I think the amount of food trucks that we had was perfect. So if there's, if there's a way to keep them all on one side, cause we had only one on the other side and they were kind of like, like we put baby in the corner. I don't know that they got as much action, but I think if we could put them all on one side and like maybe diagonal or I don't know. Um, And then the other side, we could use that parking for us, and that would save a ton of parking spaces too.

Mm-hmm.

That little dirt area that used to be the garden center, what's happening with that? Any idea?

I mean, just call it Brian. Yeah, it's going to be developed.

It should be a parking lot for downtown.

It's going to be... It's been in the news and council meetings a lot lately. Yeah. There's going to be an ice cream shop, a bakery, and a restaurant. So it's going to... They're going to develop it.

It's privately owned.

Yes. But the owner had been leasing it to Erie.

No, that was the... Diplom Creek. Yeah, Diplom Creek. Oh. Yeah. The new one is now or the old? Well, they're leasing that also across Christos. Yeah.

The town definitely no longer owns the lot downtown. We do own the lot across from Christos that they're currently using.

I saw rough plans of moving like Cycle Eerie and another restaurant over there. A little development thing.

Some things I could say and some things I can't say. They're going to build things over there.

It's exciting. It's what the town needs in the long run. That is one other consideration I would throw into this decision and might be a bargaining chip for us to think about is if that site is intensely under development next May, that might be a great reason for us to stay put for one more year. I'll say previous town boards for Mike McGill, Parks and Rec. whatever he is, division manager, supervisor. He likes the idea. He's not going to put this in any direction, but he likes the idea of way back in the day where they held it at a different neighborhood park every year. And he likes that because that got that neighborhood to come. It woke that neighborhood up and energized them and got people from that neighborhood there. That's right. Yeah.

What's your gut feeling? Because you've watched this over the longest time and you've put the most effort into it of anybody here.

It was nice to move it to those parks, but the turnout was small. That was one of the years we were hit with snow and the event went from two hours to one hour or less. And having that backup space is nice. I think there should always be a backup space instead of canceling the event because so many other towns seem to have canceled the event when you have bad weather. I don't know. I could, I mean, I could, I see both options are good. I don't know about moving it around to the other community parks, unless depending on what happens or when the Morgan Hill park comes in or when the conference park moves, it comes in. I mean, I think I would, maybe those could be a consideration, but I think the numbers, if you want the numbers to be there, I think it's going to be probably keeping it here at community park.

So another consideration is that we kind of have this system down, the space, everything. So to have to figure it out every year, I think it would be hard to find volunteers.

It seems like the biggest variable right now is the how much of a done deal is this move yeah we you know we i think we're we there are lots of challenges potentially with moving it and i'm sure all of them are easy easy enough to overcome and we would be able to figure them out and that's like we would do it but if it is not a requisite that like we leave the community center in that area then We don't have to do that contingency planning. Or we can, you know, if they say yes, it's a two-year, you know, if the town says, yeah, you're on a two-year time horizon. Like, not next year, but you guys are, you know, we have to move this event in two years. That at least gives us more time to plan than one year if they're really saying, like, no, you guys are okay right now.

All right, I'll I'll get that conversation going and find out just how serious.

It's not a, it's not a, it's not a small move like this. I think, I think we're, we're, this is not, it's not a, Oh, we're going to move you guys because we want to.

Oh, okay. All right. Now you've got an indoor bar. Yeah.

It's not an eat it. Like there's, I think we right. Unicate that. It's not a, like ask, ask us to move the event.

And that would be, you know, if we ultimately decide that we want to support the community center, we're being pushed. Yeah, that would be part of the ammo of the letter that we would write.

It's not a small thing to be like, hey, this event that has 3,000 people that you guys have grown over the last decade and change, like, You guys can move it, right? I think that that's a conversation that has to be had and communicated.

It's a strain on both volunteers as well as the paid town staff that are there having to relearn how to do it.

The town's going to grow. New amenities are going to come online over time too. Ryan, I had a quick little side conversation that someday Schofield's going to come online and it's being developed as an event center. It's a two-story, three-story barn It's all inside a parking lot.

Kind of cool. And some huge trees. I think I would be open to that.

That might be big enough to draw people in. But when people think of Arbor Day, it's that...

It's at the park, you know, the same park. I can totally see people going there looking for it. Like, where's Arbor Day?

No matter what, if we move, we will plan signage for the old site. So that morning when people, if they do show up there, there'll be a sandwich board at every entrance that says, thanks for coming to Arbor Day. We moved.

You're getting too far ahead with the planning.

I kind of got to have like four or five plans. I think this is good. Let me find out a square footage for you. Let me find out just how serious this is. And maybe maybe serious.

We're going to get it just to recap. It's the only reason that we're thinking they're going to ask us to move is because of the like anticipated capacity not being enough.

Yeah.

Or do we know that I know of?

Yeah.

Are we anticipating like 4,000 people?

I think we're anticipating growth along with the growth of the town. But to be fair, we've gone from 1,000 to 3,000 really fast. So I know that we've actually tried to speculate what next year would be.

But that jump from 1,000 to 3,000 was over a year?

A couple years.

Yeah.

I mean, not exactly 1,000, but. You know, 500 more each time. I don't think that Coal Creek is as big as the one we're at now.

No, it's not as big.

We're talking about growing.

Those concerts have to have a couple thousand people down there.

They're all just sitting on the grass.

That's a good point.

A couple different things.

That's a very good point.

Yep. That's some really nice grass in that park, though.

I'm just serious. That's some really nice turf. This was due to an irrigation glitch, but I was down there for, oh, what was it? Erie Fest? Last June. Yeah, and they couldn't. It was so wet that they really couldn't do anything on the grass. And so, you know, if we get hit with snow a couple days ahead, it's going to. It's going to put a damper on it.

Mosh pit.

That's what I was thinking.

Mud run, whatever that thing is, the leaf composting.

I watched Woodstock on PBS last night. I'm talking about mud.

Why don't you all feel free to, um, send me any question you have between now and the next, just email me and don't email the whole board. Just email me directly. Now I will be good with communication rules. Um, And I'll just record your question and I'll try to answer it before we come back for the next one. And then you guys will have more information and can continue the conversation.

Yeah, that's perfect. Because all in all, this is a great problem to have to solve. That traffic is growing, that the town is growing, that we have more beautiful parks that we want to utilize. So yes, brilliant problem. Claudia, did you guys get any vendor feedback? Did they have any constructive criticism for us?

They want to be invited again. They were happy with the turnout. I think it was better to have just three food trucks. And then we have the coffee truck that was amazing. And they're definitely interested in coming back. They were the ones that got the most action, probably. So, so far, so good. I haven't heard any complaints.

And is that like including the exhibitors too or just the food trucks?

Just the food trucks. I haven't got together with Karen, but we should probably get that scheduled soon, maybe after the summer once things slow down for families. And then we can regroup.

Did she put out a survey this year?

She did. I think she did.

I haven't seen the results.

I don't know the results yet.

Does anybody else have any feedback from the event that they want to discuss, pros or cons? It was a great event.

You guys put on an awesome event.

I do have one thing to add. We should consider a DJ for next year.

I think... People seem to be able to hear me slightly better. I don't want to say it was perfect, but it definitely felt better this year than last. And I think a DJ would help grow that exponentially, just that people in the back could actually hear what's going on.

Yeah, it'll definitely help with like awareness of the food trucks, like who we have there, where to go for certain things, you know.

like an MC rather than a DJ.

Well, I was like, yeah, but we're dancing. We can have music.

I think there's music going on and then it stops and I can talk and I still foresee like me doing some of the intros.

I think kind of like what you guys have talked about before was that it sort of serves two purposes. One, you have entertainment. Two, you have professional sound with a professional human being who can adjust said sound and everyone can actually hear us. It's not me grabbing the speaker from the basement of this building.

We're trying to reach 3,000 people now.

Good point.

So it makes sense.

Yeah, and I have zero idea of what a cost on something like that would be.

I don't know either. I know that there's, I think, 4th of July, the town hires a DJ. So maybe we can look into that, like whoever they hire, because they were actually good. It was very, the music was very diverse.

Is that in the parking lot west of the Rexham? I don't know, those food trucks and all that? I don't remember where it was. I don't remember where the DJ was. That's where the action is.

I'll ask the folks that organized that event what they can tell me about the DJ. Bring that back to you.

Are you guys thinking of going another hour on this event? I heard a little bit chatter.

I think the climb that it is right now is good because I think by 1230, 1245, it seemed to kind of fizzle out. I think another hour would have been long.

I don't mind either way. It's a lot of work for you guys and a lot of work for the town. For how long is the event? Three hours. Ten to one.

Three hours is enough.

I heard, so I just figured I'd have no problem extending the event to longer. I think extending the event is... There are a lot of things that I think are contingent on location.

Great point. Also, I mean, it's like... If we extend it by an hour, we can make up some of our lost attendance in that hour. If we do have to go to another... So maybe that's a thought. If you do have to move to Cold Creek Park, tack an extra hour onto it. You got an extra hour.

I don't know if vendors are going to want to do another hour.

I don't know.

I mean, when they're done, they're done.

A lot of those guys used to post enough for a whole day. It's four hours, not three hours. And I think every vendor is going to just... They're going to know it's four hours, not three hours. I think it has communicated clearly.

And I think if we know the raffle is a big part of the draw of people coming in, so does that get extended? Is there a third round or is the second round just, if we decide to go to two, is the second round at one? I think that could potentially help keep people longer.

So one way to test the waters, which is kind of late right now, is to ask the vendors what they think about it in that survey that we sent, but it's been sent already for this past event, so... I mean, you could do a follow up.

There's lots of ways we could.

I don't know that Karen wants to do all that.

I remember for some reason it feels like that was a survey question last year.

Really?

I might be remembering wrong.

So you've heard of multiple people talking about extending the The time or?

It wasn't multiple. It just came up.

I think you just want to party longer. Now that you've heard, we're going to have a DJ next year.

I was looking up online the cost of a DJ in Erie, Colorado, and the range is a little wide from $400 to $50,000. $50,000.

And I think we're probably shading towards the lower end of that range. Just given our needs, but you know.

Tiesto or Buff, man.

Tiesto or Buff. It's a morning Saturday morning. Give us a discount for a morning show. I do think that you could, one, I think you could make an argument for extending it. I think you can. Like, I mean, you know, given the foot traffic, I think if it's extended, people will stay there. If there's a raffle that we extend into that final hour, there will be people there. I think it's a... I mean, it's sort of a question of, like, tolerance of, okay, how long do we want to do it if there is a contingency, if it does rain, if we do have to move it indoors? Do we want to be telling vendors, hey, we told you four hours, but it's actually going to be two because we're inside now, and there's just not going to be nearly enough people. I think that's something to consider. It's just, like, the downside risk of... us extending it and then having to pull back as opposed to the upside of, oh, maybe people are hanging out for an extra 15, 20, 30 minutes after the event is over.

Yeah, because I think any vendor exhibitor judges the show by how long is the foot traffic. I don't think anyone would mind being there an extra hour if the foot traffic was there to justify it. Conversely, if we make it four and they die out after two, then there's frustration. And I'm taking that from the perspective of having done a lot of trade shows in my life. If there's eight hours of foot traffic and it's worth it, awesome. But if you're standing there for the last four hours doing nothing, then you lose the sour taste.

I'm looking at the results from last year's survey. Only eight. Oh, fewer than one. Eight. Weird table, but I think seven or eight people actually responded to the survey.

Out of 40?

Out of our main vendors, we had two years ago. This is the 2025 survey. That number is 20. Exactly right. It was right in that range.

Really?

Maybe external, not including internal or something?

I feel it was more than that. I thought that's how many tables we set up, so it would have included internal town.

You're probably right. These are the questions that were asked. From your perspective, how successful was this year's Arbor Day event? All of them answered the most answer. Did you attend this event before? Almost all of them said yes. One said no. Did the event meet your expectations? It's on a one to five scale. They all gave fives except one gave a four. How was communication ahead of the event? On a five scale, they all gave fives. One gave a four. How was communication during setup for the event? They all gave half and half fives and fours. How successful was your booth at the event? We have a three, a five, a five, a five, a five, a four, and a five. If not successful... If not successful, what would have made your booth more successful? One vendor said all three tree companies were very close to each other. Leanne made changes to that this year to adjust for that. Another one said if not successful, why? It was mostly successful, but we had to tease folks over. Other Earth Day events had bingo cards and booths to visit. With the prize at the end, that helped them motivate folks to visit.

Okay.

What changes do you recommend? I think I shared this with all you guys last year, but larger, more visible signage for the event and parking would be good. Appreciate the setup help from the Boy Scouts. Certainly teardown help would be great as the area of the event isn't close to parking. Just a bit better handle on the timing of all activities during the event when speeches are scheduled, drawings, etc. Yeah.

Not to belabor this point, but if the feedback from vendors is parking and foot traffic related and we are at a park that has less parking and potentially less foot traffic, again, not to harp on this, but that is another consideration.

This person wanted the water fountains turned on. We did that for this year. And then this person wanted two chairs for every table. Okay. How interested are you in next year? All fives. How did we, what did we do? Well, communications organization, having the Boy Scouts, logistics emails. And it was lovely to have the tables already set up. Yeah, most events don't provide tables like we do. It's like a chalk square on the ground. So I think people love that we provide tables. What could we have done better? Same, no answers there. Additional comments. See you all next year. And thank you so much. So I guess we did not ask about the length of the event. And I'm not sure what questions Karen sent out this year.

It would be something we could vote on, I guess, if we want to extend it or not and go from there. Because I'm not passionate either way if

people want it for four hours and whatever we'll do it for four hours but when we do vendor rooms you got the coffee vendor this year we can do a straw poll maybe we could straw poll when we talk to vendors this year for next year what would you know oh we're thinking about four hours like what's your what are you what's your feelings on that and just you know solicit some feedback informally from the vendors If they say, if all of them are like, most of them probably that we don't care. I mean, most people I don't think are going to have a strong opinion about three versus four, but that would give us our, at least an answer that nobody. on that side cares, and then it's really a question of, like, do we think that we will have foot traffic for that whole time?

Yeah, it's a more calculated decision. We're also leaving out a giant factor, and that is we are only one half of the decision-making board for this event. So if we decide it's four hours, wonderful.

Oh, yes.

Sab's voice is equally as important as ours. So Arbor Day is co-hosted with the Sustainability Board, so that's why it's Arbor Day Earth Day.

And when we talk about numbers and things like that, it's important to remember that we got a large bump in numbers when we joined them.

I don't think there's any thought of not doing it together. To me, it's too perfect that we all work together, and I think the two boards are all friendly, so they work together in general really well, not to mention the messages. There was a time, though. There was a time. God, that's in the past.

That is in the past. Out-swag, out-swagging sustainability board this year. Totally out-swagging. Speaking of out-swagging, though,

Stickers were excellent this year. That was cool. They were awesome. Almost all gone by the end. They were flying. I made stickers out of the grade school poster contest winner.

Aw, cute. They were very cute.

The winner for the whole state last year was from Erie Elementary.

Nice.

So speaking of raffle and the issue with the disc spinning forever.

Oh my gosh.

You could do a prize drop. It's a lot more straightforward. It's a lot more straightforward.

How do I tighten this thing?

It only spins once.

And you're in it, and the kids would be like, boom.

Of course, of course. It's their time to shine.

Okay, let's move on.

Yeah. So once we make our decisions next month, we'll take it to sad and see what decision. Yeah. We have 10 months before the next event. So we've got time.

Fast though. So it's true.

You got six months until you got to apply.

We got to keep thinking about it because we'll be here before we know it.

Okay. So we've talked about all the things I wrote down for Arbor day. Is there any other except pros or cons that you'd want to discuss with the team? Otherwise, yes, we will definitely be bringing this up next month to talk about sort of the two major things we've talked about today, location and timing, as well as if Leanne or Amy have other things to add. If we have nothing else about Arbor Day, I will hop to the next agenda item, which is the Tree Talk newsletter. We missed that one because the deadline was 6-1. I sent out an email, but nobody answered me, but I understand everything is busy. Tom, if we set a deadline for 7-1 and just put out July instead of June, would that be okay on the communication and your end? Team, are we okay doing that?

Yeah, I would hate to not have our quarter. We shouldn't have a gap.

That's exactly how I feel. Even if it's a month, I still think it's important to have that cadence of four times a year.

Are you familiar with our newsletter? We just started it last year. We've done about six issues so far and we kind of take turns writing small um parts for this 800 word newsletter that's our limit okay so it's not it's not very lengthy and um and yeah we just like i said we just take turns so you're you're next what kind of topics do you guys cover

it's anything tree related we've done things where it's like patty's favorite tree i think last year she wrote about the bristlecone pine obviously like one of the things that i would like to write about this is just do like some of the facts of what trees bring the benefit they bring us and make that in relation to like why you should be watering your trees before your lawn because your lawn doesn't do this this is what your tree does So it's things like that. We were doing a whole series for a little bit on like narrow trees that were for your tight backyards. And so we are open to any and all suggestions. It's just whatever we can do to facilitate the tree knowledge that we have to the people. So I'm sure you have like a million topics. And we typically do like, yeah, like Claudia was saying, like three articles. I promise you, you write it out and it's 500 words and you got to sit there and try to backtrack. So yes, if you feel confident doing one, please. If not, it's quarterly. So we'll do this all again in two or three months for the next one. And then something fall-related.

What's our next date?

July 1st. We'll do July 1st. We'll push this one and then the next one will go back to normal, which I think would put us at September 1st to get put out in the middle of September.

So we try to pick out coffees that are relevant to the season as well.

Isn't it on the Erie website?

Yeah, it's archived on the Erie website. I was actually going to ask Tom about that because I was asked to have it moved up. I don't know where it's at.

I can't find it either.

Well, it's in Forestry. Where is this?

And these are like forestry. Let's just try to look and see what the archives.

Yeah, because we were supposed to also add like the option to put in your email.

So if you look to sign up for the newsletter, if you go to the advisory board, if you go to the advisory right here on the front page.

So here's all of us listed our meetings and at the bottom.

Perfect.

And then view archive issues is right below it.

Perfect.

There we go.

Thank you, Tom.

Ashley or somebody, I probably, you guys probably told me and then I probably sent an email and then forgot about it and then somebody did it.

Well, I wasn't paying attention.

It's like, oh, it's you that brought us to the attention. So for context, the fall, the spring one was a blurb about urban air day, water restrictions and trees, which may be something we will also want to flag in this, in the upcoming Tree Talk newsletter is any updates on water restrictions for the town and neighboring towns. I think we talked about that as a...

Right. I don't know that we have an official update on water restrictions.

I think you could certainly include something in there. I would just make it flexible. I wouldn't say the town is currently in phase or stage whatever. Right now, as far as I'm aware, we're in stage two. But if I were to write a newsletter, I wouldn't say... The town is currently in stage two. I would say the town has a four-stage water plan. It's your responsibility to pay attention to town communications and to know what stage we're in. Well, you could provide a link, too. Yeah, yeah, totally. And you could maybe say, if the town is currently in Stage 2, this is what you should be doing. If the town is currently in Stage 4, this is what you should be doing. But I can't. I have no way of knowing if we drop into Stage 3 the same day we email the letter out. Yeah.

But even a quick information on where to go to find out about your water. Because I have no idea if anybody... in the neighborhood I live in. There's any idea what stage two, what stage we're in and what that means. Because I see sprinklers on on days that are not stage two days.

They only just turned that sucker back on from last year.

Yeah, it's a bug. 99% of people are going to plug and play their irrigation system.

Well, and it goes back to what you were saying about the value of trees, like why you should invest. I'm not saying to overextend yourself with water, you know, But some people might think, oh, well, I guess they can't water the tree because there's restrictions. We don't want that either. So it's important to explain the value of trees.

You're spot on. So those two ideas go together right after another.

Talking about sprinkler heads.

Does someone here feel confident writing that, like, here's what the restrictions mean, here's what you can... Here's where you can find it. I love the perspective you were bringing where it's not saying we're here and this is what you should do. It's just here's the overall information. Here's where you find more. And here's why you need to keep yourself up to date.

Because we don't want to be regulators on our newsletter.

Just information.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I can write that.

Okay. And then I'll do the facts that segue that into here's why you need to prioritize your long-lived trees and the benefits they bring you. And then write it on my calendar.

Sorry, what did you say you're going to write?

I'm going to do something along the lines of just fun tree facts as the importance of them and how it relates to why you need to focus water on that and not the law.

Probably get some iTree eco benefits to start a treekeeper. You guys are using that, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, directly from the database.

Yeah.

I'll say this is directly from Erie. There we go. Stepping it up a notch.

Big data.

Love it.

We can definitely do that with our park trees. The eco benefits don't fall out so nice on our street trees because we don't have a condition for every street tree. But the park trees, I trust them pretty good.

Could we offer a recap of Arbor Day?

Good.

If we've ever done that before, that would be fun.

You could do a recap, and you could say, if you have suggestions for Arbor Day, please email the tree board. And just put the tree board email there.

Just tell us what you like.

We'd love your feedback, too.

We all do. You get that. Oh, yeah, I do, don't I? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you get to have it? I do get to have it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you're totally right. Yeah.

Do what? Yeah, we didn't actually put anything.

For a second, I didn't think we had an email, but we definitely have an email. You could do Arbor Day by the numbers. The O.co short.

Some of the facts.

Now we have to do a tree? Who did the prairie fire? Isn't that thing gorgeous? It's so pretty. I love it, though.

Dave was in town yesterday. We were looking at trees.

We did that one. So the other thing I was going to suggest. Yes.

I'm like, are you going in there?

Yeah.

Well, we did pin. Did we do pin yet? Or did I just do bristlecone?

Yeah, it was on the CNG. I did their first ever. On Saturday, I had Annie Odie, Mike Bone, Dave Dickey, Stan Brown, like a really good friend of mine.

I don't remember. Like my buddy Matt. Bristlecone. For winter.

Like huge success.

For summer.

By top. Everybody else was likely. Yeah, it's a five.

Very rare plants. We don't have anything else.

That's our go-to. It's like a trial garden. Relevant.

Instead of Aspen.

Yeah. How about you, Evie? Where are you guys at with that? Emerald Ash for her?

Do you guys have it? Officially, yeah.

We haven't really talked about it.

Are you guys treating?

We have our whole neighborhood done. That person was there sticking this thing in the tree and just sitting there on their phone watching movies on their phone while this stuff goes. I thought, this is a great job. Only one tree after the next. The whole thing.

At least a new 500 a year. Will it help? Absolutely, it helps, yeah.

We had somebody else come.

98% efficient.

Put the ones on to lean, those maples and oaks on to lean for the chlorosis.

There's more than one injectable product.

They look good.

But temporarily... EAB from a town perspective, in our parks, I think we have 40 something ash trees total. I have 4,500 trees. So when I came on board four years ago, I inherited less ash trees than that, which is awesome. I managed EAB for the city of Boulder before coming here. And that was thousands and thousands of ash to take care of. So very few here. We have gained ash since I got here because we have acquired a few properties that were covered in big mature ash. So it's kind of a bummer. But we treat 10, 15, something like that ash is all we really have to treat in our parks because we have so few of them. There's a lot of parks in this town that don't have a single ash. In the streets, it's much, much different. There's a lot of ash in the streets. Town staff are not responsible for managing street trees. individual residents are adjacent homeowner or adjacent business or adjacent school is responsible for managing those ash um so continual reminders to the people that are responsible for managing the street tree ash is a great idea to me i'm always all for anytime you can throw eab into a conversation about trees i'm happy to do it so yeah you need to get help uh

That was the first one. So we have three topics so far. Water restrictions, value of trees, fun tree facts, and an Arbor Day recap. So that's probably enough to fill the 800 words. So who wants to write what? I can volunteer for the Arbor Day recap.

Taylor said he was willing to do...

The water restrictions.

I'll do the fun facts one, and then let's do EAB in the fall. Does that work?

I think the deals come out sometime in July and August, so if we want people to know what they look like, it could be a good July topic. But if it's already here, it's probably... Not a huge, like, get the message out.

There's also a specific time to treat them, right? And it's before you actually see them?

The best time to treat, and it depends on, like, what you're doing, but, like, for injectables, it's typically, like, right before leave out. So maybe that's a good time.

We did English EIV in, when is this one? It's volume two, number two, spring, last spring.

Yeah, it's a good time to do it.

Okay.

In spring. Okay. We did it last year.

Yeah. I like rolling it out in the spring. So it reminds people that they're going to do treatments to do.

Yeah. What about iron chlorosis? When is that? When is the last time to treat it? Not sure about. Okay. Right.

That's all over the map. Like some people like to treat in the fall.

It depends who's selling it to you.

That is correct. But it's a mobile nutrient that acts fast. So you can do it at any point and it cleans up. I'll tell you.

You can also accidentally drop off leaves off, which is why we do it in the fall. You have to do it in the years later. If the tree doesn't like it, all the leaves drop off, and that's actually fairly common, so we do it in the fall.

Well, that whole Tallinn, there probably was 20 trees or more. Yeah.

They're big trees.

I mean, there's people in the Creekside neighborhood, once you go off of Tallinn, that have the same trees. And they're like, they look like that hat.

Yeah.

Ridiculous.

Oh, I've seen some small trees that look like that. I have two oaks. It's like they don't even have a feature that look like that.

There's also a lot of sunburst honey locusts in this town. And sunburst honey locusts just looks that way.

And it always is kind of a ratty tree. It's nearly as formal as like a skyline or shade. All right.

So I think we're set for tree talk. No pressure. It's due in a month.

If you get it to me early, with some of these topics, it might be nice to get it to me a tiny bit early because I'm probably going to have to edit a little bit. And then I like to try to show you what I edited before I do it.

Yeah. And then it'll fly next week.

This will be a perfect thing to work on on the plane. Shoot it over to you.

And then you can provide some pictures from Arbor Day, right?

I'll reach out to Gabby.

And if you don't mind, ask her, just double check the attendance numbers. I want to know what she has to say about it.

Well, I know for a fact that she said 3,000.

That's the official one.

That's a beautiful number. Okay, next agenda item are the tree walks. We have a tree walk tomorrow at the dog park.

It's going.

It's going. I'm bummed I can't go. Today's my daughter's birthday. And tomorrow's the tree walk. So I told her, I have to go to this meeting. We'll do your birthday tomorrow.

We're going to the dog park.

I know. I go to the dog park four times a week, minimum. Thanks for the new benches. It's going to be at the.

It's at six. Yeah, I'll be there for sure.

Okay. Yeah. The new place is fabulous.

True.

You did a great job.

It looks so good.

I did the trees, but a lot of other staff took care of all the other stuff. I agree. They did a really good job. And I shouldn't even say I did the trees. Terry, Kelly, Tim, my staff did the trees. I did one of them. They did the rest.

Team effort. You definitely have some awesome teammates underneath you.

I'm lucky. You prioritize these activities.

There are still a few spots way back in that corner.

If you come to the tree walk tomorrow, I'll tell you all about this. In a nutshell, remember that Reach 2 is about to happen well it will happen someday so Reach 1 was the development of Coal Creek Park and the re-fixing of that the creek in there and now we have a blank space we haven't fixed yet and then you get into King Open Space which would be Reach 3 so that the town will someday soon be realigning the creek in between those two points which is adjacent to the dog park and most likely giving us a nice multi-use path for connectivity along there as well So knowing, knowing that the town was going to do that parks employees decided, hold on that corner. What we said, we'll, we'll get out in front of it. We'll do everything that we already did. Everything we did is basically in preparation for that project. We just didn't want to, we didn't want to both happen at the same time. We didn't want that project to impact the use of the dog park. So where we put fences and how we did things was perfectly strategic. So when that project starts, the dog park will get to remain awesome.

Have we done any advertisement for tomorrow's tree walk?

I talked to Ashley about it. It's going up tomorrow. I think they're using, from what I can just see, it seems like a lot of social media is out there right now, encouraging folks to give their feedback on the streetlight update that's happening in the town right now. And so, yeah, our slot is tomorrow morning.

Can you put something out on green films for us?

Yeah.

Yeah, I can do that.

That'd be great. Thank you. So we normally have them on Fridays at noon, but this is the first one we have in the evening and we're, we just want to test it out and see how it does. See if we get a bigger turnout and.

is there like a sign up for this no six o'clock let's see i'll try and make it six it might also so brian runs a facebook page called the eerie green thumbs which is unbelievably active fun cool like when we get this time of year there's five to ten posts a day and just like fun banter back and forth people showing off people asking legitimate questions you may enjoy it joining he's done a great job with that that page so it is like the best advertising we can do for something like this but in general it's just fun lots of plan shirts and then there's instagram right i think it's on instagram the town has an instagram so i never it's funny i never check it but i assume that when she puts up on facebook it winds up on instagram as well

Nowadays, Instagram is actually very active.

There's a lot of stuff. That is how I found out about the tree board. I'm one of the four people.

I have not actually seen anything about the tree walks on the town's

Instagram. It wind up on their Facebook and we thought that I would assume that they just do both always.

I do not see anything at least about our most reasonable.

When Ashley sends... I'll ask her in the morning.

Confirm. Let's confirm.

Is there any other social media platforms that I don't know about?

Sure.

I don't really do that.

There are 7,600 followers of that page.

Which is not, yeah, not nothing. All right. I'll bring that up to Ashley tomorrow.

Thank you, Tom.

Well, the next kind of point I have down this subject will lead into this, I guess, a little bit. We've been asked to set our locations for our September and October walks because the clerk wants to get them posted. So the earlier that they're posted, the more notoriety they can get. The other reason, the big reason that's happening is that we often have like three or members or more. So it's technically, I kind of say classified, basically like a meeting.

Yeah. When three, when three of you hang out and talk about trees, it's a meeting.

We have to legally get that posted. Um, but I think conversely that will also help us with your advertising. So we have the date set for nine, September 25th on the calendar and October 30th. So we get another Halloween walk and that, I thought the one last year up at the cemetery, I think, was one of our best attended tree walks ever. That was fantastic.

It was.

Do we lean into that again the day before Halloween? It would be the Friday with Halloween being the next day? Or do we think that's old news at that point?

Can we do an Austin tree walk? Sure. Maybe we can get kids to participate.

Have a prize or something?

Another sweets gift card or something?

Maybe it's cold. Maybe it's cold.

You're right.

It might be cold. It might snow. It might be 80. We don't know.

I would think doing it a second year in a row, I think maybe by the third or fourth year, it's a better conversation to say, are we overdoing it? But I think it would be fun to lean into it a second year.

I think it's fun to lean into a second year. It also could be fun to turn that into a recurring tree walk. A themed tree walk that could build some traction for the tree walks themselves. We know if it becomes a popular enough tree walk.

And especially if we're linking it to a costume event that it's slightly more than just a tree walk.

It could become overplayed and boring. It also could become interesting. I think there's like

Kids love dressing up. They never get tired of that.

And the history side, eventually are we doing this tree walk with the historical preservation board and we're getting more of these backstories of these great workers that are 150 years old.

Half of them are knocked down. Yeah.

That's really cool. I like that idea.

It's the cemetery that's up on the top of Collier's Hill. You kind of see it from Coal Creek. It is the best view. He spent a while last year just talking to people like, look at that swath down there. See how that's turning red early? I think it's that tree. Not only direct, but this over.

Every time we drive on that road, my grandson will go, where we walked around and looked at trees and dead graves.

The angle with historic preservation might be better in Old Town because I think they're going to be more knowledgeable about the homes than the grave sites. Because that's more of their focus, aren't they?

Historic homes. So is there, do we try to do like September in Old Town with HPAP and then on October 30th up at the cemetery? Sounds fun. I mean, that could be an option. I'll reach out to Mike and see what he thinks about joining and doing a, I mean, would you be, since you're sort of the lead talker, would you be okay kind of trading back and forth? Okay.

He might be able to, you know, well, and they're also trying to gauge interest in a historic district. So he might be, that might make HPAB more interested because of that. Right. So there's no historic district.

Yeah.

And it might be good to ask Mike what homes do you think you should show and look at it on a map and connect to old towns to make sure that you're benefiting those.

That's well said. We've got to make sure it benefits both. We'll have a very specific, hey, we're going to walk 100 feet down here, 100 feet down there.

This person's house. Mike tells me where we're going. In the historic yards.

Super old house. Super old house. When do we think that tree was planted? Probably when that renovation was put on. Yes. Exactly. I think we should invest in a small train and I'll drive everyone around on a little train.

Oh, like one of those, you know, this track, like if you go to like the pumpkin patch. Yes, exactly. We get one of those good old carts going through old town. You have to have like the little microphone like here, like you're on a, you know, like a Hollywood stars tour.

Yeah.

That's what, that's really what we've peaked on the tree. The tree ride is what it is.

Well, that's the team up with I love Erie business collaborative. Well, anyway, they do the horse carriage.

Oh, yeah.

That'll bring kids to the tree walks.

The best idea has come out of a really dumb bit. I just connect dots.

Well, you guys weren't playing, but it might be fun to have that little train in Old Town for the kids.

The tree train.

Yes, I like that.

Wood-fired. Yes.

It's going to be coal-fired. Come on. So are we set on locations then?

Yeah, set on Old Town for the 25th and the cemetery for October 30th, and then I will reach out to HPAP and see what their thoughts are for that September walk, and then I will bring that information in the next month's meeting. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I know the town also gets excited when boards kind of do things together, collaborate, and this is a great example of how we collaborate.

Have we done really anything with HPAP?

They come to Arbor Day, Earth Day. Mike sat in on that one meeting when we were talking about linear park and brought in some of that history. So we're all friends. But I think to my knowledge, that's the extent of the working collaboration.

Mike is always ready to go. He's a great resource.

Yes. I mean, I think anything we can do to foster cross-border collaboration.

It's still occupied. Oh, yeah.

Which is good for the town. There are a lot of things I think that we can do with some of those other boards that are interesting that probably require just a little bit of... Oh, let's think outside the box a little bit about how we can align. The tree walks are... People go, but there's not 50 people at a tree walk, right?

The one at the cemetery, that was the busiest one. We had a ton of people at that one.

But yeah, there's the open space board that there'd be some obvious correlation with.

We haven't really done anything with them, right? With open space. There's trees in open space. We should figure something out.

Bike ride. Yeah, well, maybe when you have... The rail bikes. That would be interesting.

The pedal. The tree tour. Yeah. i've never seen erie from that perspective we don't manage the land it's pretty cool actually you haven't done it yet no it's fine you do have to pedal uphill on the way back but oh just let everybody know yeah a little bit of an exercise and he knows quite a bit about erie history so That might be a different way to try something different.

These are really good. Next year, we're going to have tree walks. There's going to be tree walks next year and a little bit of planning. There are some fun ways to... To the point of is the cemetery laid out? We want to really be outside the box about it. There are some fun ways to make the tree walks...

out there a little bit yeah just trying with more excitement and then that gets people that have already done it excited about coming back because i think i see a lot of new faces each time and it'll also target a different audience too so you can reach a different group The next agenda item, this is just a really quick one, the Planting Your Future recap. I just had all the numbers and I thought it'd be fun for everybody to hear. So this year we did five total schools. We did two grades at BlackRock and then we were in four others. So like six total groups, if you will. 21 total classes, 504 total students.

So we've taken three. it's so many words 504 students 504 based on the numbers that your teacher gave me usually we do like a towel person in the gym when they have the seed pods it's kind of fun how many kits 504 no no like the actual kits the growing kits that we used how many did we

21 classes kids yeah i i thought i had them all picked up in soaring heights email me yesterday like we have one kit sitting here so i have one kit in the back of my car right now that i gotta get over to you yeah i have a suggestion um i participated in one sort of but i think that we would do a lot better having like a set

like a curriculum type of thing, like some sort of program and outline materials. We each follow the same thing. And we just follow the same thing. And I mean, we can, yeah, well, we can refresh it maybe, but.

We know what we were doing, but there was no specifics.

Yeah, I struggled. I struggle with the kids.

I mean, I was there with Chase, so I said no words. I just let Chase talk.

But I understand your perspective because there's a lot of people that don't... I have no problem winging it. I know I've talked to you. You have no problem just going and letting it happen, but that's not fair to expect other folks to do it. And it would take 30 minutes to write like a rough draft i did this for like another instance when i go to like high schoolers and talk to them because there's other people that express the same thing i was like you're spot on and it takes so little to put one of those together and you have it at least you like flex within a box hey we're gonna skip this but we'll go to this next point because i think as much as we format it you still need to be understanding these are first second third graders Things may derail a little bit, but at least this can help you get the train back on. So I completely agree.

Maybe updating our posters or just new material. I think we need to freshen up the program.

Should we have, well, we're giving them the dirt and the seeds. I was thinking of some kind of handout.

Our pencils and stickers. There you go. And the stickers bring awareness to the fifth grade poster contest, too. So it works.

Yeah.

How are we doing with those stickers? Do we have any? Do we have a lot left?

I don't know. I haven't opened any boxes from Arbor Day.

I just moved it all back. I think we gave away almost all of the tree stickers. I feel like we had a stack of hamsters.

Maybe we just do an inventory of what we have left from Arbor Day. Now, anyway, just thinking about an inventory for next month.

And put like an actual kit together for the program, you know, that has everything together. Yes, an outline and like having the stickers in there and the pencils and posters and handouts and like we need to have a system.

Tom, I think we could add some of that stuff, but Tom and his team did that. And I would text them like, Hey, I need four kits tomorrow. And I'd come in there before perfectly put together kids with the right amount of flyers. And what goes in it? Yeah. Like what goes in a kid?

I have my, I had some of that. I built my own spreadsheet that Jason, Jason and I started, we should have done this a long time ago. But when Jason hits me an email or a text with the informations that I have this worksheet and I go out the worksheet and he gets it with the worksheet. And it helps keep me honest. So like on the top of it, it's like, this is the school, this is the day, this is how many kids. And, and then I build the kits that way and kind of tell him how many pots I threw in there. How many of that stuff in that, I think that's helping work. But any materials that you guys bring to the classroom or a guide, you know, an agenda or an outline that you want to like talk off of, I'm all for all of it. I, I'm, I'm going to ask you guys to do it, though. I guess I'm going to tell you that I don't have time to do it. And so if we want it done, it would be the board's project.

And I have no problem putting that together and then sending it to the group for feedback, any pointers on something that I can work on.

That's a good idea.

Yeah, that's a good call. For sure. This is the right time of the year to get it ready, too, because you've got a long time to get ready. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I think was, so I was in on the Black Rock meeting with the kids and we gave away all of our Arbor Day flyers. So maybe, you know, in part of the kit, since it's usually around Arbor Day, maybe just a third of a sheet or something like that or a quarter sheet. So we're not giving away little sheets of paper to the kids, to every kid. that might be something to add to the kids. Agreed.

I felt like the outreach this year was really good, though. We went to Meadowlark, right? Yeah. Which was the first time that they had done it. That's the only Boulder Valley school district school. And they were like, I felt like we had a really good turnout there. And they seemed like, oh, this is great. It worked really well with their lesson plan and where they were. I think the way that we did outreach this year like seemed to really draw, drive a lot of engagement.

Yeah. That was Brian's idea to pull for the websites and for more emails. And that's our contact list went from 30 to 90. And that was a big reason that we were in front of more schools.

I wonder if you may find goods like Arbor day foundations website. I mean, that's, that's a resource that we don't really tap into. I mean, if I'm being honest, sometimes I would say like, I don't, to me, I don't think being a tree, like having the name tree city USA means all that much to me. Cause I mean, we live in it, but sometimes I wonder like how, what are we using that name for? Like it's good in grant applications, but we're not really applying for grants. What it also is is like a really big repository of really good information. That's like free to us. And I, I think we may have to ask permission for it, but some of the content that goes in the newsletters, I think we can get from the Arbor Day Foundation. I wouldn't be surprised if you poach around long enough on their website if there wasn't some materials already built. four classrooms that we can either take from them or we can modify from them.

Um, it took me two clicks to get on a youth education on the Arbor day foundations website.

So yeah, I'm not sure if, because I have a login, if I have access to more than y'all or not.

Um, I mean, yeah, this is just like if you're an educator looking to bring trees in the classroom. Here's still literal. I mean, it's not even that heavy handed. It's like, yo, you're a teacher. Here's some tree information. Love it. Yes.

Going back to the flyer idea to bring them to the schools, maybe we can just create a flyer tailored for the kids. that talks about the prices that we have for kids now because then they'll tell their parents that they want to go to Arbor Day and win a prize.

That's a great idea because the flyer has been otherwise kind of useless to like, you know, a seven, eight-year-old.

Because it comes for Arbor Day. Yeah, just a little reminder. Arbor Day is whatever it is.

And we love April.

yeah flyers don't forget to come see most of the kits i was throwing like a pack of them in there some days i probably decided to not print that many or something but some days i wasn't some days i wasn't i think right i was giving when i i was giving them all the teachers and letting them stand out because it's so adult oriented so that's why i think that's a fun idea i still think we put the standard ones for like the parents and the teachers but having a special kid cool

would be very very cool i mean depending on how much we want to bring to like give away we could even make little baggies for the kids that has the flyer in it that we would just need to see where our budget is that sure and because i'm not even sure what else we would put in there because 504 students is 500 pencils 500 and all that so yeah i think we would need to make sure that we have the budget for that first Yeah, that's true. I didn't think about that.

Yeah, because that also could be...