Environmental Commission - Regular Meeting

Is absent. Andy Neal?

Present.

I'm here. Betsy Satcher? She said she was coming. We'll see. Mary Schoenheider? Here. Jim Teston?

Here.

And I'm called Karen, right? Yeah. OK. Karen, thank you. We are here. Most of us. And Peter Zubek, our barista, is here also. So our first order of business is to approve the minutes of the June 4, 2026 meeting. And of course, those are all posted on the city's website. And you can always check that. If you get the whole agenda packet, then you can see the agenda and the minutes. of the last meeting.

You sent those.

I did send those.

But it's the same packet. Yes.

So are there any corrections or additions on those minutes? Hearing none, I'll take a motion to approve.

I'd like to approve those minutes.

Second.

Andy. He wasn't here last week. So who else would like to? Good job. All right.

Jim Teston, moved. Mary seconded. We're testing her. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. That's redone. Okay. Are there citizens to be heard on agenda items? Okay. We are going to go right to the Arborist Report. And I had fleshed some things out early on. And Pete, however you want to address those things, or whatever you want to say, we're anxious to hear.

So I don't have much of an update besides thanking the roadways crews for cleaning up all the storm damage and all the trees that blew down and all the hangers. So very grateful for that. They did a really good job. And we're just trying to catch up on a lot more work that we kind of fell behind on. But other than that, I'm just looking forward to the tree plan grant that we're going to be doing September 12th. And I have Tony from Opalines here who could talk more on that. But that's about it for me.

Okay. We don't have any updates on the treekeeper training. We're too early yet in the summer for... You said that person...

That usually does it as... Yeah, they're out at the moment, so we'll kind of get back to them once they come back. Okay. And you don't have any information on the grant inventory stuff? We're still waiting to hear from the company.

Great Lakes? Yes. Okay. And then what about the online digital planting request that we talked about? Right now you could go on the website and you could print off a form, but do you have any clue on when that might be actually active?

Yes, so we're meeting on that tomorrow morning. Great. Hopefully we have that figured out soon.

Okay. Do you know when people request a tree, will they have a choice of a tree or how will that be done?

Usually if it could have multiple trees, I usually kind of give them a couple options to choose from. But it depends on the site, of course.

I mean, I just know that in the past, we've tried to diversify trees. And when people kind of get to choose, you know, they could choose all the same kind of tree. I know that where my daughter lived before in Wheaton, they would have a choice of like three species that year. You know, so that then maybe, I don't know how they changed it, but then maybe another year it would be a different three species or whatever, so that, you know, not everybody's going to choose like a sunset maple or whatever.

So on that form, there's an option for me to write a note. So I kind of take a look at the block and see what's already there. So for example, there's already maples. We're not going to plant a maple. Right. From the trees that were selected for hopefully this fall to be planted, there's probably one maple or two maples. The majority of oaks that are going in.

And that's with what, the grant?

This is going to go out to bid to a contractor.

Oh, so yeah, we're excited about that because I wasn't sure that was happening. So how are we choosing sites for that?

Requests. So whichever resident reached out and then Hopefully next spring we're going to do all the areas that remove trees from the slum. So I already began plotting those and picking out species. So hopefully next spring we can do a pretty big planting as well.

What about the Grant area with that inventory?

Are we using any of that information yet? Some of them, yes. Like on the east side where we, I think we already pruned, right?

And we removed dead. Do we have, I know there were supposed to be like 5,000 sites or something for trees and part of the grant was to plant some there. Yeah.

So we're going to be doing some with open lands because that's in the priority area and then as residents request them as well.

Okay. So it's not going to be like just a blanket, go in and do areas that have open spaces. It's going to be by request.

Yeah, just so the trees actually survive their first year and grow instead of planting and replacing every year. Okay.

Anybody else have questions?

Well, I had worked with you guys in the summer, and it was all in one neighborhood. Is that what the September 12th is going to be? Have you picked that out?

Yeah, so we're doing plantings about a two-block wide, three-block wide. long planting area from North Rainier to North Center Street. So that's west to east and then western out to Oneida Street from north to south. Here's the manna. And I have extra manna. So hopefully we could get about 40 trees. That's the goal. Right now we have three. So there is a minimum we have to reach. So hopefully we sell like two months. So I think we could definitely do that.

So I'm trying to tell me your name. Tony. Tony. Is Tony going to talk about all of that? Or do you want him to? Yeah, Tony did. I mean, we did have, when people saw that we were going to do a walk, they were asking whether we were giving out trees. And so Rachel Ventura's office was asking. And then, so it pointed out the fact that we were going to be doing this open lands grant. So they might do some advertising, too. People were looking to get fruit trees.

Could they get a hold of things like we used to give to the kids on Arbor Day?

Well, these trees, and maybe Tony's going to talk about it, they are decent-sized. You helped plant the last time. They're decent-sized trees. Yeah, 15-ounce trees. Okay. Yeah. But I'm saying for the tree walk, is there some place we could get this? Well, I think not in this short of time. But we'll talk about some of that later because we've got another event in October that we're thinking about. So anybody else have other questions?

Just for background, these trees that you're going to be purchasing, did you say we already have a vendor or do you have to send out a request for a proposal

Or the city planting or the volunteer planting?

The city planting.

It would be through whoever bids on the contract. Does that happen every year? It depends. We didn't have a staff member to do it for a couple years, so they had to plan for a few years. So this is our first year kind of restarting since I started.

And do you stay local when you're bidding out? Or is there like a range?

within about 100 miles is ideal just so we get species that actually grow here instead of importing trees from texas or something okay so thank you and then how many requests so the requests are already in for this contract or no so i just reserved uh like a blank amount of species And then I still have some extras, so as progress come in, I could fit them in. So right now I think about 160 people who want a tree. 160.

That's good. So, you know, already the application for Tree City USA is out there. And so I guess I'll get, communicate with you about, you know, we need to know how many in this year, how many trees were trimmed, how many were removed, how many planted. So somehow we've got to, you know, keep track of all that and put it in the, and then the amounts of the amount of funds that were spent for those three in those three areas to put into the application. Did you ever get the tree city USA stuff that was shipped to Cedarwood drive? Yes, you have it. Cause there shouldn't be like a 35 year sticker to put on one of the signs. And I don't know if anybody. I haven't seen any of that. Yes, I think I still have it. That would be nice. I think in the past nothing has happened, you know, with like a sign or something. So since it's 35 years, it would be nice to put that up.

Sure. Rita's hard work. Well, I was going to say, yeah, it's just a bit of paperwork usually.

I mean... We have easily met their goals. Doing the growth award is a little bit different. You have to do special things to get the growth award, and I think we've achieved it eight or nine times. Does the application come to you? I've been doing it with cooperation of the forestry department.

Do you get the application by email?

It's online. Oh, okay. You go in and yeah, I've got a password to go in and enter all the information. They like all the tree board members names, who the chair of the tree board is, the contact person of the city, um, all the information, and then it has to be signed by the mayor before it's turned in. So, yeah. Anybody else have information? Yeah, we'd love to hear from Tony. Yeah, thank you for being here.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Donato Rodriguez. I usually just go by Zoe, and I am a forestry specialist with Openlands, and I manage our tree planting program. So as you are aware, we worked with you in the spring of this year to get some trees planted already in the Julia, and then Pete has created a new target area for us to plant trees in. So I think our next action items are, one, getting more tree requests, and two, working with Pete to finalize the tree locations. So something that we're doing on our end is we do have a little bit of limited capacity to go out in Canvas and make sure that these people are aware that this event is happening in that territory area, but we also with a little bit of assistance in getting out there. It's about an hour and a half drive for us to come out here. So if there's some folks that are interested, either yourselves or friends and family, it would be very helpful to have some local boots on the ground, some familiar faces, trusted with trees, to go let people know that we have this opportunity in the neighborhood. So our goal is, as Pete said, to have 40 trees being planted that day. Our minimum for a Saturday is going to be 20 trees, and if it's 20 trees or fewer, it's probably going to be moved to a weekday planting, just for logistical sake and staff capacity.

So I think Pete said that, did you go door-to-door?

Did somebody canvass or no? We did that last go-round. We still haven't had the time to do a ton of... A ton of canvassing, so usually we'll spend a whole day out here and just going door to door, passing out the flyers, letting people know that this opportunity exists.

So you haven't really done it in this area yet?

Not yet. We've had maybe a couple hours out there as opposed to a whole day.

Because Eric Moon, who couldn't be here today, he lives just on the north side of Western Avenue, right in that area. So I know he said you would try to get the word out. That's kind of the cathedral area.

But I think it would be good, like you said, to have a handout so people can think about it and follow up.

And I think he does have a couple of flyers available. So he does have this. I believe he might have shared this with you all. He showed it to us last weekend, yes.

The thing, it doesn't have a date or anything on it. And I know that this Liz from Rachel Ventura's office, Pete got her all of the correct information. So I'm thinking maybe they would help get it out. And also, the press release that went out about our walk, could we do a press release about this planting? I mean, if you want, I could probably do that. and get it through the city, I mean, would that be something that we would do through the city? If they're planting trees in the city? I don't think. I don't know. But we can talk about that. It seems like if it's out there, and I noticed the press release went out about our walk on August 19th. I brought copies of it. I don't think the paper did anything yet. Okay. But WJOL posted it, and they had it, and it popped up on my computer. So if we got something like that out as a press release, you know, describing the area, I would think people would, or even if you put a sign somewhere on a block.

In the area.

Yeah, in the area, that's, you know, that would have something like this. I mean, I could laminate and enlarge and laminate it and stick it somewhere. Like garage signs. Yeah. Or zoning changes or notices or just have a sign, somebody in the area that would agree to put it in their yard. You know, that might do it.

Because I will put it in a couple hours, whether putting those signs up or knocking on doors or...

I just don't want to go to a house where someone's already been to.

That's true.

So you really, well, you did go to some houses already.

I'd have to check with my co-worker to see what area she did. But she didn't get too far into the area. And there's also the matter of not everybody was home when she was there. So people still might not even know, even though we might have left this place. The fire might have blown away. It's been pretty windy. Right. So our next step is once we have a good solid list, myself and my coworker Leslie will go out and we will do site inspections to make sure that all the trees that have been requested, it is an actual valid spot to plant the tree. Make sure that there isn't actually like a ton of existing trees. We did have a couple of folks that requested something like five trees in the past and they already had a bunch of trees in their house, it wasn't really spaced. So we'll be marking, on the curve of the white line where the trees should be going. Um, and then we'll be submitting, uh, bigger requests with Julie.

So last time we said it could be in a front yard or the parkway. Is this the same thing or no? Yes. I think that would be good for people to know. And I think I told that to this Liz. Um, I can't imagine people. Well, I can't imagine people not wanting a tree, but I would think.

They're really nice quality trees. As long as there's access to the front yard. So if it's gated, then we can't. Sure. And these go in the parkway?

They can go in the parkway, but people can also request for their front yard. Oh.

But that changes. We don't need to get into the weeds on this. No. Okay. Yeah. But this is where the project

project is this year yes and then next year there'll be a new designated right and they did one in the spring right also mary mary went and helped and that was like east of it's kind of like in the area where you're going the south like where the streets are numbered Oh, yeah, by 4th. It was by the school that we had planted it the day before.

Over by Washington's junior high and over that way on the east side.

It was very efficiently run. I was like, oh, that's great.

Yeah, the trees represent about a $500 value between volunteer time, our staff time, the material, mulch, and they also do come with an ongoing maintenance program. So we will be coming out in three years to do the first structural pruning on trees that we planted, and we'll also be doing follow-up structural pruning in six years. So that way we can help peak a little bit in the forestry department, and they don't have to worry about at least pruning our small trees, because we'll be coming out with that. And then hopefully we can then wrap around with the treekeeper program, to then have your tree keepers come out and assist with that. Right.

We're anxious to do that. So I got a whole list of names in April, but now it's going to be later that we're going to be doing this. So anyway, we'll keep trying to build that list of people interested. And we can do that on our walk, too.

And do you remember the name? I don't remember the name of the tree company that brought the trees. They were fairly close, weren't they?

We use a couple different nurseries, but they are all relatively close. So we do Kankakee Nursery, Possibility Place, and the one that's a little bit further afield is going to be Woody Warehouse over by Indianapolis. And then it just depends. What they have. Yeah, what we have and what's acceptable. So I think the majority of these trees, if we go with September 19th, they're probably going to be coming from Kankakee Nursery.

And you said, did I miss, I had written down September 12th. Is it September 19th? No, it's September 12th. It's September 12th. Okay. All right. Well, and we did 20 trees that time. So you're saying if you only have 20, it might be during the week? If it's 20, we can still do it on Saturday. Okay. That sounds great. They were big, nice trees.

Yeah, the nice thing is that once they go on the ground, they will actually look like trees, and then they'll keep growing.

Yeah. They won't be the tiny things that we had. So I have another question, too. Rita held up the handout. Is it possible to have a door hanger thing to leave in case people aren't home?

We do not have the resources to create a door hanger or get that printed out. This is, we're a scrappy organization, so this was like me making the flyer and being on template.

I'm just wondering, because door hangers, you know, a lot of people won't even answer the door if they're home, but if you leave a door hanger, they'll pick it up and look at it.

And if you're interested, I can provide the QR code and the link to the to the electronic request form so you can use that on social media and if there's a talented designer amongst yourselves or your network that can help you out with that so that qr code is just for the resident to request correct yeah and i'll ask for their contact information It's available in both English and Spanish. There's a little toggle at the very top where you can choose if it's going to be displayed in English and Spanish. And then we give them a couple of general guidelines as far as what they would love to see with their trees. So one, I would like the arborist to choose a tree for me. Two, I would like a tree with good fall color. I would like a tree with flowers. And I would like a tree to increase diversity in our neighborhood. And we just kind of go with those general things, kind of get the temperature for what the resident would like their tree to do for them, and select the best tree that we have available that kind of follows their wishes, that also would work well with their site.

Sounds great. Well, we'll see what we can do. I mean, that's just like kind of along the way, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can work with, I'll tell you, I've worked with the department here, Sydney Thompson. In fact, I think her office might be right over here. I got her all the information about our walk. She enhanced it and made it wonderful and got it out. I think she could do that for us, and that might help. The more publicity, the better. Exactly. Good for Open Lands, too, of which I am a member of Open Lands. So, okay. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Any further questions? Yes. Thank you so much.

Yep. Okay. We are on to our new... Tree board member is Andy Neal. He is here for the first time. Do you have any words as... Tree wisdom? Tell us what you're... You know some tree wisdom because... Because... Yeah, I'm semi-retired.

Taught teaching at Joey H. in college, biology. Spent plenty of years doing restoration work, volunteer work at the McDayland. Mostly... prairie landscapes, but also woodlands. And it seems like a natural thing to be helping and serving on this board, given its mission. A long-time resident, seen trees come and go. I've planted my own trees since I moved into a home on Terry. So I have some special, peculiar things about my neighborhood, my street, and the trees that are growing on the boulevard right now, or parkway. But yeah, I'm very much pro-tree.

And we like that.

I don't climb trees as much as I used to.

You hug them?

I've been known to hug both trees. Thank you.

Welcome. We look forward to your involvement. OK. We are on to Arboretum accreditation. We are undertaking getting accreditation through ArbNet. And Joe Teston has been sort of our go-to person working on that. But we decided at the last meeting that we probably should vote to recommend the city of Joliet achieve this because it would be the city that owns the property and would have, you know, should get approval for doing this. That being said, they already have, when they redid that route, which used to be the Broadway Greenway, then it was... that it had, we called it the Arboretum Arboretum because the scout in I think it was 2010 labeled all the trees and did all of that but then it became Route 66 Park and so that's the label on it right now but they do actually have they took the Arboretum sign down but they do have metal signs at the area close to the rich and creamy ice cream stand. And they have another one at the farther northern end that talk about the arboretum and the fact that there are trees there that are examples of what people could plant and so on. So they have sort of already determined that, but we really don't have any official. Accreditation so I don't know if Jim you want to address that at all Yeah, I've already been into the the application.

I think it's a pretty basic application for the most part contact lists and rest Based on what you are. There's different possibilities, but probably one of the key ones is number of speech So to be a level one, we just need to identify 25 species out through there. I think that's where really we need to actually have some kind of specific count mapping of those trees as part of the application. in and of itself the only other one in the area i looked it up working with jjc they are actually a level two right through our event as well so it's something that's you know generally acceptable really from a city standpoint i don't know if there's a need for a write-up or anything like that accredited every five years uh on this there's really now obligations other than you need to identify general management of the property and whose responsibility it is but there's really nothing that the city i would think would find that you know is challenging with that so from our standpoint yeah getting it accredited i think would be a huge plus and if we do have signs out there that may be of value if we can find a way to attach the qr code to that so somebody could get on the phone and actually find different trees on site would be ideal. Then we don't have to worry much about signing on the site itself.

Right. And they're metal. We can look and see how that could be done. But I know that Pete said he could identify the trees, which some of them are easier than others because some were planted that are like cultivars and things. And in fact, we had taken down some of those signs that we made for the last walk we did. And I don't even know if it was October. I think we had done those signs for 23 when we did a walk. But I have a few that had to be taken off. And one of them was a, I came across it, it was a hardy rubber tree. Hardy rubber tree. So when we were out there looking at it, we couldn't figure out what something was. That was one of them.

Have you heard of a Hardy rubber tree?

So, so he, so he knows, but I don't. So anyway, I do think we should have like a motion and a second and approve that the city, I mean, they should approve of doing this and know that it's part of, you know, what we're doing in the city.

I think it's a big plus for an advisory group. It's technically the city, so that's where I think the city actually identifying, yes, we're in support of this application.

Right. So I would entertain a motion that we recommend to the city that we seek this accreditation. And so I need a motion and a second that we do that. So moved. Need a second? Second. Okay, so Jim Teston moved, Andy Neal seconded. All in favor, aye. Aye.

Aye. Okay, aye.

Aye. Okay, aye. So, opposed? Nobody's opposed? So the motion passes. And I will see what I need to do to get that before the council to vote on it somehow. Okay. And Pete actually showed, he communicated with you too about what you would do. We would use the information from the inventory, right? Yeah, we just have to collect it first. Right. He's got to identify all the trees and then get it into a system. And I know you sent an image, but You know, my question was if people do that QR code, will they be able to figure out where the trees are?

It's just like looking at a GPS map. It shows you where you are. So as you walk, it will follow you.

Okay. So you should be able to do it. And that's going to be the same as kind of what we have for the inventory, right? Same thing, yep.

Okay.

The ideal thing would be us is be able to get located to it and then have some background on that tree so they could actually see what the leaf structure and some of the other things are so when they come up to it, just as a check. Yeah, and I don't know if that's a possibility. We could add that in.

Okay. Those tech people will come to do it. All right. That sounds good. So the other item then, I don't think anybody had questions about that. All right. The inventory, as I understand it, is completely done. I don't know what stage the management plan is in. I know they're trying to put everything into a file or organizing it all. There's some lack of knowledge about whether the contract to do the inventory and management plan included like a presentation to the public and like the city council or whatever. In the grant, there's supposed to be a presentation to the public, kind of to the people who were included in the grant. the disadvantaged area of the city, which is a huge section. But that hasn't taken place. And we had volunteered to try to help with that, but nobody's reached out to us. And so I think we should ask that Great Lakes, who did it all, should present something I mean, it could be at a city council meeting like on a Monday where they usually have people present their plans because then everybody in the city would know and the city council would know. The management plan actually puts forth how you should manage your trees in the future. You know, in the past, and there is a management plan right now on the city's website. It was passed in 2022. And it has things in it like recommending that all of the trees in the city be pruned like once every seven years, like you are on a seven year cycle to prune trees. You know, it talks about diversity and what percentages of different families of trees you should have. It has the accepted tree list, the trees you are not right, the ones you don't want planted. Um, and it talks about, you know, who's responsible for what people, uh, anyway, how they, how the ordinance is carried out is separate, but the management plan is something that would be pertinent when the city has to decide on contracts for planting, contracts for pruning, removals of dead trees and how they're going to go about it. Um, and so I think it's important for them to know. I mean, I feel like the trees kind of get squashed down at some point and other things are perceived to be way more important. And since we're the tree advisory board, we speak for the trees. Yeah.

It would be nice to have almost two sessions because you want the public involved because you want to build that enthusiasm and work, but you want the council involved because a lot of this will lead to budget items ultimately as well. You can go back to the plan and say, we're going to talk about this and then when you get to the city. But you might have certain with tree trimming and rust that flows into that. So it's almost a two-prong aspect would be nice. Yes.

And then if the grant needs this public meeting, it meets that requirement as well, right? So three-prong in a way. Yes.

And the results will be how many, what percentage of our trees are maples. We, from the last grant we had, which was done just kind of in the cathedral area, they kind of extrapolated that out and said, oh, we have 40% maples in the city, which could be true because we have so many silver maples.

And so then that determines what kinds of trees you want to plant and all of that.

And how many empty planting spaces we have. So all of that helps determine what we do going forward. So I just think it's an important thing.

Just for clarification and background, you said that a tree should go through a pruning cycle every seven years. So how well are we doing that?

Well, we have at one time, because I've been involved with this for like 30-some years, at one time we were using neighborhood block grant money and different city councilmen would put their district and put so much money in their district for pruning. And so some of the districts were getting kind of more regular tree care, and then that didn't happen anymore. And then it's been kind of people calling in wanting trims, people calling in saying they have a dead tree, that kind of thing, or requesting trees to be planted. The problem with that is it's way more expensive. So if somebody over here on the east side wants their tree trimmed, and then somebody on, you know, you have a list, but it's all over the city. And so it's much more expensive. Whereas if you can go street by, you know, you're going in a district and you're doing blocks at a time, you're hitting all the trees, the young trees, the old ones, whatever. It's less expensive because that tree, that company doing the work can do it more efficiently. Same with planting in a way. I mean, we were planting 1,000 trees a year. So there, I know some areas in that last year because we had trouble getting where the locations were. There are some streets that a house on a corner got five trees. And the parkway had two on one corner, three on another. You know, because they were trying to find places to plant them without having an address, which was tough for them to do, but they got them planted. It's just, anyway, that's the ideal. I mean, they could come up in the management plan and say every 10 years or whatever, but I do think people's perception of whether they want a tree or whether the city trees look nice. If you go to somewhere like Downers Grove or some other city, You drive down a block, all the trees are nicely trimmed. They're elevated. You're not seeing dead trees. So the public's perception of having trees in their neighborhood is much different.

Let me ask another question. And we'll have to probably cut this off, just because I'm the new guy. So the pruning that's done currently is all based on whether or not homeowners call it in.

Or if there's a storm and there's broken branches, limbs falling, then those get priority. That's done right away. I mean, I've done that. When I take a walk, there's a big branch hanging. I'll do citizen view if you're aware of that. Yeah, I've done that. So I report it, and then within like a week, they'll clear it because they've been out there and they took the branch off. So that's the other way.

I'm just thinking, I've got friends that live in a far west subdivision, and I've gone for plenty of walks, and I go, God, why is that tree? Why isn't somebody taking care of it? And so I'm thinking, could I just take a picture and submit a, You know, a request? Does the homeowner have to be the one that submits the request?

I've reported trees, and I'm not the homeowner. Like a branch has fallen down, it's partly in the street, like the tip of it is in the street, and I've turned it in. If it's a parkway tree, it's a sitting tree. Yeah, if it's a parkway tree. So if it's a concern, I think you could turn it in. Whether it's, I do know, though, that, I was talking, I've talked to, you know, like the Aurora, the people in Aurora, I've talked to people in Naperville, arborists or whatever, and some of them have on their website, your tree will be trimmed in a regular cycle every so many years, and unless it's a hazard, it will not be trimmed. I mean, they just have it right out there on their website, which to me, That makes it clear to people that, I mean, what I see is like a lot of the trees that are younger, they're hanging over the sidewalks, then homeowners are doing it themselves, which legally they're not supposed to. They're supposed to get a permit and all that. But if it's in people's faces and they're walking, they're turning on, you know, but they don't, that's what we're doing like a public, walk I mean it's more for people's own in people's own yards some people just trim them because they're in your face and we just we need well the treekeeper group would help tremendously because we could do those young trees that have the low branches that are easily trimmed and would know how to do it the right way but it is it's

I'm just curious. We don't know what's in the new revised management. No, we don't. Okay. So we don't even know if it says the seven-year thing. No. Okay. So anybody know? We're kind of getting in the depth about trimming and the whole issue now is we want to be presented. the plan.

Right. Well, I have asked and have received information, but we would like to have some. We'd like to be able to look at the plan and have input. I don't know.

The input is a pre-public display. Right. Okay, that's two issues then.

Well, we'd like to have some input.

Okay, so one request is we'd like to review and have input before it's finalized, right? Yeah. Do we motion for that?

Well, we have this inventory and management plan presentation to the city council by Great Lakes is the immediate thing we were talking about. And we can, we could have a motion and a second to recommend that they do this present to the public and to city council. Before we review it? No, this is just, this is their results. Oh, okay. Yeah, the inventory.

The results, the notaries. The results, OK.

But we could ask that we do the review the inventory. Do a first look before. I mean, we could vote on that and then have it presented because we aren't going to be, once they present it, you know.

But who do we address this request to?

To the city.

Oh, OK. To the city council. Yeah, OK. Yeah.

Peter, do you recommend anything specific on where we're going with this?

I think it's good. Yeah. Okay.

So maybe we should now, we've got this on the agenda as inventory management plan vote. I think that's how it's done. So maybe we should do a motion in a second that we have input into the management plan first. Again, who are we addressing this to? The city, whoever is in charge. And we're going to ask that we be given that opportunity to review it and have input.

Even if it's just a recommendation from us? That's right. That's why we have no authority.

as well.

Oh yeah, well we would review it and see if we want any input into it.

I mean we are an advisory board. Is there a timing issue here?

Because we only need We can call an extra meeting if we want. But it doesn't seem like they're moving along very speedily.

The last update I had is in May.

May?

Do you mean finalized? I have not. I don't know when they'll finalize it just yet. You know why?

Because I bet that's the end of the three-year cycle for that grant. I'm thinking it was a three-year cycle, and it got approved in, I'm not sure. I don't know.

I think it was June of 24. No, I think it was like June 5th of 24 that I got approved. And so it was supposed to be a three year.

Although I think that Chicago Region Trees Initiative, you know, they've been working with people trying to get through the whole process. And it's just been slow in cities. Not only us. So, you know, But I believe that's it. So what I think we need to do is have a motion that we be allowed to look at the management plan and for input from our advisory board. We use the word draft management plan then?

Yeah. I motion.

the city permit the tree advisory board or give us the opportunity the tree advisory board the opportunity to review the draft for management plan right okay so that's a motion i would like to second that okay so karen moved and he seconded paul and faker aye aye opposed okay And I mean, we could wait and do this, but I think that we could also vote to recommend that Great Lakes make a presentation on their findings. And maybe it'll be their findings and the management plan at that point. And that may be after we get to review the findings. I would think that would be the sequence.

Can I ask, where is this management plan? Where is it? Physically.

Physically, the current one is on our website. That's from 2022. If you look in Forestry, at the bottom, it'll say 2022 Urban Forest Management Plan. So you can look at it. It's a fairly long document. And honestly, I worked with Steve Lane at Great Lakes on that, with him, quite extensively, and also on the grant. So it's there. Once it's presented and the city council approves it, it would go on the website. And that would be the management plan that we would hope to follow as a city. as far as what we're doing with our urban forest. And all of those things, having an ordinance to preserve trees, having a management plan, all of that is also part of being a Tree City USA. And it also qualifies us for grants. If we didn't have that, if you're doing a grant, a lot of times they're looking for that, especially a federal grant, which we got. For this inventory and everything that's USDA or something like that.

Question. Who actually writes the grants?

It will be Great Lakes Urban Forestry.

They write it for the community of the city.

They have a contract. So they're going to be doing it. They're going to use all of the survey that they've done, which will tell them all kinds of charts on species, variety. They'll have charts on ages of trees, on sizes of trees, what they project for how many trees will have to be removed over a period of time. And they talk about planting trees so that you have varied ages of trees. Like if you plant everything the same time and then didn't plant, everything's going to be the same age and they'll reach maturity at the same time and then your costs that kind of thing so they will do it with hopefully input from our arborist and from us and then it will should be presented and then the city council approves it so do i hear a motion that we ask that great lakes urban forest management present the results of the inventory and eventually also the management plan to the public and the city council in their process. So moved. All right. Jim Teston moved. Second. Second. Mary Schoenheider. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? OK. That's our big business for today. So the only other items we have are the, we have a tree walk, let's see, coming up. And at the last meeting, we talked about Wednesday, August 18th, but it's actually the 19th. We're going to do it at 6 p.m. at the Route 66 park. I had to fill out a special advance. That's been approved as of today, but they also, they approved our... You know, they put out a press release already. So that's the press release. And I am telling you people, Pete can't be there, I guess. Oh, darn.

Would you just like to come and see what it's like?

I don't know, but look at all the things that we're going to present.

We're going to do a guided walk that will provide homeowners and nature enthusiasts with practical information on selecting, planting, watering, and caring for trees. We're going to tell people how to identify a variety of tree species found throughout the park. We're going to hope to know what those are. I mean, I can go out ahead of time and meet somebody else and discover which are best suited for residential properties and those can be You know, some of these things are just common knowledge. I pretty much can do a lot of that. And as of today, CRTI is sending us 25 tree care booklets in English and 25 in Spanish. We have Cesar Guerrero has said that he will come and interpret in Spanish for us. So we didn't put that in the press release. But I'm going to do a flyer. I need to design a flyer. And on the flyer, I'm going to say that we will have a Spanish speaker at the end.

And he's the city councilman.

He was. He's the township supervisor. But he said he would come, 6 PM. So I'm hoping that people will help out. I don't know who can come and help with that. Basic tree. Do people realize that everything the tree does is right underneath the bark and how important it is to keep it? People just don't know these things, I think. Maybe Andy could wear the tree costume as an issue.

Oh, no.

I don't think we want to do that to him.

He wouldn't love it. Maybe we could get it. I have sight unseen. I need to see this. I'm going to send you a picture.

It's got a big leafy thing over the top. But people were asking if we were giving oil trees.

I know people have oil trees.

And people were asking, yeah, if it's free, which it says it's free. So there's already been calls, and Ada is the person that's answering calls, and then she'll get to me if people have questions. I mean, we aren't having people register. We figure maybe 25 people.

We had good success at this time of year.

If we have 50, it would be...

So we'll have these guides. We can just use those as kind of our agenda for the tree care guides. Oh, the tree care guides. Oh, yes.

If we have to split up into two groups or something. Yes, we could. I mean, you know, all the practical things about how to trim without damaging your tree, how to mulch without damaging your tree, which out there is not a good example. I have people pointing out that that arboretum thing, the park, The mulch is all around the bases of the trees.

Well, we show how it's wrong, that's all.

The problem is, and this happens on many contractors that go out there, they dig on the edges of the circle around the base of the tree, and they throw the soil back up next to the base of the tree, and then it mulches. If you look at Bicentennial Park, Those things are up like this. And I have tried to go around the base. And in some cases, the trees are planted a little high. And there is a reason for that, too, if you read about it. Right, Pete? I don't know. There is a reason sometimes to plant trees up a little high.

You just don't want to go too high. Pardon?

You don't want to go too high. No. Sometimes the tree settles a little bit, but I mean, we're talking an inch or two. Right. Right.

But these things are, you know, volcanoes, like you can't believe.

But my question about that is whoever's planting the tree, I would assume, knows what they're doing. And would also know not to put the mulch all the way up the length of the tree.

But it isn't the planting. It's the care afterwards.

So that's after it's been planted. Yes. But even after it's been planted, are they mulching?

Oh, yeah. They mulch so it looks good, and it keeps the weeds down. But they do it to a degree that somehow the message doesn't get through to the The grounds crew? Right. Yeah.

The grounds crew aren't aware.

Right. Because they're used to blocking the snow. Well, no. It's contractors that are doing all this. It's contractors. We're teaching homeowners on this walk, primarily, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, so I'm hoping, and maybe I'm going to, I don't know. I think we can, I will bring some, like my R's, a little saw. And my little hand pruners, my art pruners. You have to try to show them not to go into the trunk of a tree and all that. And how to make your crust ahead of time, you know, farther out of your knees so it doesn't skirt down and all of that. Because we did do a tree tenders course. We called ourselves the Tree Tenders. This is like 30 years ago. Marcy Pizak from... Extension taught us. We had the book, the whole book from the Arboretum. We learned all of it. We had t-shirts. We were going around doing the small trees. That lasted a couple of years. You know, difficult to keep volunteers going like that. Plus, we're all volunteers. Anyway, the last thing is that Oktoberfest, we're going to try to do a table at the cathedral area. They're having a, it's called a beer walk. And Eric said he would get me a list of like five homes and we can pick one where we would put a table. And I would like to involve CRTI to see if they would do an event like they did for Earth Day where they brought maybe eight trees, nice trees like I'm sure Open Lands is going to do. And do a little demonstration and then have either a drawing for treaties to give away or they just handed them out everything i'm hoping they would maybe be involved but that would be in the cathedral area so it'll be right on the edge of where uh open lands is doing their grant and they'll have people i forget how many people they said hundreds of people come they do so right so for that we'll need to have some information ready. And last time, Public Works actually did, they took those tree care booklets and they actually made some extra copies for us. But I can see what CRTI will also give us. They do have those door hangers on how to water your trees and how to mulch your trees.

Is October 3rd

I don't know the time of day. So any other new or old business that we need to take care of?

Any public comments? Well, it will be the Thursday. It's the first.

No, the third is a Saturday. So it's what? It's the first.

We will have a meeting right before it. Right.

I just heard how much, I just learned that butterflies really rely on trees. A lot of us think pollinators and the flowers. So I thought that was cool. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I do have, I have some posters like that. Any other business then? So October 1st is our next meeting. So I'll ask for a motion to adjourn.

I motion to adjourn.

Karen and second. Andy and all in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay.