Environmental Commission - Regular Meeting

We're calling the meeting to order. It's Thursday, 02/12/2026, the Tree Advisory Board for the City of Joliet. I will do a roll call. I'm Peter Renwick, chair. I'm here. Karen Fonte? Here. Eric Moon? Here. Betsy Satcher is absent. Mary Schonheider, absent. Jim Testin? Here. And Ron Van Dyke, the think one. And the additions to the case.

Minutes? And Hearing none, could I have a motion for approval?

So moved.

Jim Testin moved, seconded by Karen Fonte. All in favor, aye.

Aye. Okay.

Motion carries. So are there any citizens to be heard on agenda items? Seeing none, we'll move on to business. We have a new city arborist, and we are so anxious to hear from him. You want to get up and introduce yourself? Tell us your name, where you came from, and so on. Welcome, welcome. Thank

you. Hello? So yeah, I'm Pete Zubas, the new city arborist. I've been in the field for, give or take, about seven or so years. Started my forestry endeavors with open lands.

So I was a forestry trainee years ago. And then I moved on to become a production arborist at Davie for for a bit. And then I moved on to a park district where I was the park forester for a good amount of time. So that's where I kinda learned that I really enjoy urban forestry. And I quickly moved on back to Oakland and became their so called trainer for their arborist apprenticeship program. And then I looked online one day, I saw that Billy was looking for a musical forester. I applied, and here I am.

That's great. Yeah, we're really happy that you are on board. Wonderful. And we will help you however we can. We're all private citizens of Joliet.

And we've had a tree board for a long time. And we do a lot of the Arbor Day celebration stuff, try to do some educational things with the public. And we have some we consider obligations to try to meet with the community to complete requirements for that urban forest inventory grant. And so we're interested in helping you with that and making that happen. Yep. So ask questions whenever, you know. And maybe we can meet at some point and go through some things, too.

For sure. Yeah, we can definitely meet.

Do you have any questions of us?

Not at the moment. But just getting my just getting settled now, seeing how everything works. But I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions. Thank you very much.

Okay. You're welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Okay. Review of the Tree City USA application. I just summarized what the results were. I submitted it on December 4. I got statistics through Joe and Alex in the Public Works Department. And the per capita expenditure, so you total everything that we spent.

They want to know trees planted. We had 72, and that was mostly in the downtown area. We didn't have a contract this past year, so that was where most of the trees were planted. Fifteen seventy trees pruned. Not sure how much of that was contract work and how much of that was in house, but that was the total for a number.

Trees removed was five thirty five. Same there. Not sure if it's some of it done by public works or how much of it was done by contract. But those are the numbers. And then expenses, planting, I think I was told it was a little over $300 a tree, the purchase price on those.

And our old contract was like $2.00 $5 a tree purchased and planted, which we had a five year contract that then was expanded another five years. And that was a really good price. Hopefully, we'll be doing another contract. But I don't expect the expense, the cost of the trees will be that cheap. Maintenance was $47,956 Management was $142,676 So that's kind of salary and some hours of, I think, beyond of in house work.

And then volunteer hours, I put down nine. And I probably could I have to find out whether any prep work that I do is considered volunteer, if our meetings are considered volunteer hours. But most of that was wrapping trees over a couple of days. Karen did it. Her partner did it. And then getting the trees to different places, things that we met at the schools, the poster contest, and so on. So that was the total expenditure. I can also send you did I send you this detailed agenda? I can't remember. But I could send it to you so you have those.

Yeah. Whatever the total is, it's divided by the population, is like 150,000 some people. And that is how you come up with the per capita expenditure. And you have to, to be a tree city, spend $2 per capita to reach that goal. So we've been a tree city. If we are approved, and we usually find out in March, I think it's our thirty fifth year. It will be our thirty fifth year.

All Rita's work.

Well, we started in 'ninety. I think 'ninety one is the first year that we would have submitted, because we were formed in 'ninety by Don Fisher, the city planner. So basically, he's to credit, I would say, for getting the whole thing started. Anybody have questions? That always has to be done by the end of the year.

And so they had me list all the tree board members have to be listed. So we have to put in our ordinance and the main points of the ordinance. So a bit of work, but once it's in there, we don't have to really submit more information like the ordinance. We do have to submit pictures of our events that we did, any press releases, and so on. So we do that. Okay, Arbor Day activities. Karen, you've sort of taken the lead on that. Speak into your

The school will be

Lynn Thing. Lynn Thing Pen.

Lynn Thing I'm going to memorize it before that date. Thing Pen School. Yeah. Thing Pen. Thing Pen. I'm gonna Google this person. So we I haven't responded to tell them I'm gonna tell them about our poster contest, which we usually do, and I have to give them dates. And then sometimes we have a treat we usually have a treat planted on the school grounds, like one, and the kids shovel the backfill. You know, it goes in the ground, and then the kids put the spoils back in the hole. And then we usually have a few seedlings, like a couple 100 seedlings that are ordered that we give out to the kids for free.

So I did I was waiting to get confirmation on whether we'll have a tree and seedlings or not.

So we'll check on that. I mean, the city's always provided last year, the city provided the tree and the seedlings. And

it's donated.

Right. Last year, it was not. Okay. So But it is gonna be

on the actual Arbor day at 10AM on the school grounds. And we let the school plan the program. It's all up to them. Sometimes they sing. Sometimes they have poetry. If it's rainy, of course, we have to be indoors. But it's cute. The mayor has come out before. Sometimes council members. So

Right. And

have a just for you, we have a costume that's a tree that we let the staff of the school wear. So that's real cute too. The kids get a kick out of that.

Right. So our next meeting will be Thursday, April 2. And so the posters will be due about March 19 because they have the next week off for a break. And all the rules are in that poster contest that's been updated. And then there will be a city council meeting on the twenty first. And that's when the winners will be recognized and invited to come. And then the celebration will be Friday, April 24, which is actually Arbor Day. So that part of the Arbor Day planning is underway.

Does anybody have any other ideas? We've kind of got stuck in this tradition, but we're open to suggestions.

We did try to do a few other things. Like Bicentennial Park one year, we planted a tree. It was for Arbor Day. We didn't do a school. But you don't always get much of the public to show up. And when you do a school, the kids are there. And the teachers are excited. And we're always very happy to have a cooperating school that will host it. And we've never had a problem. We always find a school that would like to do it.

They all come to the city council meeting and get recognized and get their picture taken. And it's a lot of fun. So I did communicate to Joe and Greg Ruddy the trees that we looked at to give away. We'll have to find out how many classes will be involved. And in the past, we had gotten them from Schumacher's in Minnesota.

But we had requested Allegheny serviceberry, two fifty of those, which we hope Quercus bicolor, swamp white oak, and peach leaf willow, which is something that we have been working with the HOA to plant trees around their pond to prevent erosion. So they're very small twigs rolling 18 inches to 24 inches. So we've done that in the past. We could have well, the swamp white oak, I was thinking that we need to have some community meetings. And we'll talk about that next.

That we might need something as an enticement to get people to come to a community meeting about the inventory grant. And maybe those swamp white oak that are like 12 to 18 inches tall we could use. But that's something that we can decide. We can talk to Pete about that too. So any questions about Arbor Day? We'll discuss goals also later. But we should, or could, try to coordinate Arbor Day with a community meeting and try to get people play it up as an Arbor Day. The same

day? Or

No. It could be that week, or it could be the next week. It could be any time in April, I think.

All right. We're moving down to the next Right. Item

Yep. So the fourth item is the Inflation Reduction Act inventory grant. I don't really have an update other than maybe it's supposed to be completed in April. I don't know if we have any information on that. I told Ryan Sweeney from the Arboretum that we were having the meeting today, but I haven't heard back from him. And I don't know if he has an update on how much has been completed. And once we kind of know when things are going to be completed, we

I'll would give you an update.

Have a meeting. Sure.

The data should be all collected around April is the plan.

Okay.

And then there will be a final QAQC and generation of the actual data and stuff. And we expect to get that around July.

So

it would be considered to be complete in July is what we're looking at right now. And that's a rough target date, but that's where we're at right now.

Sure. And that's a three year grant. I mean, we can complete it over three years, so it's not like we're

We're getting inventory done, then we have all of our outreach stuff that'll go after that. So that'll be our next talking point with everybody that Pete will be involved with. So the data collection for the inventory will be completed this year.

Okay. The area that is designated as underserved that qualifies us for the grant, has been done. So we could do some of that. I think that part of it. But I know that it has to be qualified.

It's it's got to be looked at, all the information. And I don't know if that part of it has been. But I know it was something like 10,000 trees inventoried and 5,000 planting spaces. I did get some bit of information on that. I'm just wondering if we can involve some of that community that was already completed and have some kind of initial meeting.

Just because when we did the original grant, the timeline had us meeting with the public before the inventory even started. And we were supposed to have three meetings. I think it doesn't have to be that, but we can work with Ryan on that to try to do something. It would be, I think, kind of good for the public to know that this is ongoing, and we're hoping to come up with information you know, rather than wait till the end. But we can discuss that at some point.

So Alright. I'll give you the the area that was completed, that work was done initially at the very beginning, so we had that done. Right. We have since awarded a contract for tree

trimming Okay.

In that area. There's two contracts, one East of the river, one West of the river. Mhmm. Those are under contract right now. I have requested the status from the contractor. I've not got an update on that. That is to be completed by April 30 was the plan, all that tree trimming. And we also have another contract in the same area that is for the tree removal and the stump grinding. So all the data, these are the priority removals that we have, the things that we have a problem with. So those are all under contract right now.

So we've gone ahead with that. The completion date on that one, I believe, is June 30 for the removals. Removal of self grinding is completion date is June 30. So we'll have a lot of this initial work done. The question will be is what do we do with our outreach moving forward to complete the requirements of the

grant? Sure. Okay. I mean, speaking to some of the people who live there, it would be good for them to know that the grant is underway.

Right. That's what we'll be rolling in soon. And you know, we're we're not using any of our grant funds right now for the trimming and removal, but we still can. Yeah. We awarded it with the funding that we have, but we are working on these areas. And then we can get out and explain what we're doing and how we're doing it. And we don't really know what that's gonna look like. This outreach is coordination with the community. And that's our next big step as far as the grant is concerned. It's how we're gonna do our outreach. Yeah. Who's gonna be involved with that? What are our steps gonna be? Yeah. It was always my my my thoughts were that's what it's gonna take the remainder of the grant period. The next couple of years, we'll get all that done, get everything up to speed, meet all requirements for the grant, and then we can close-up the grant and have all that work done.

Okay. Well, we can work with Ryan, who's the grant administrator, and figure that out. So good to know that things are happening. All right. Educational signage for the city arboretum. That Route 66 Park was the Broadway Greenway. Then we had it designated as an arboretum. It did have a sign at one time. And I guess it's been Route 66 Park for quite a while. When I looked up the information about it, it was designated as that.

But there is signage along the trail at the south end and the north end that talks about the arboretum and how the trees there are examples that people can look at to determine what kind of species maybe they would like on their property. But not all of them, they're not identified. And we've tried different methods of identifying them at times. Stakes in the ground with signs from, I think it's Boss signs were the old ones. Then we also use zip ties and put printed signs hanging from trees when we did an educational walk.

Those are so so, and you can't put hanging signs. Some of them don't have branches that we can attach them to. And Jim, maybe you can talk about a little bit about what you were pursuing or looking at.

And we've reached out to both Morton Arboretum, CRTI as well. And so we brought this up at the last meeting. They sent us some great information about what they've done, what other arboretums have done as well. Most of our discussion, and I think with other arboretums, are going to QR codes more and more. Having a name of a tree is one thing, but it just doesn't touch the people as much as being able to bring it up and see some of the background, the history, uses, what some of these species have been used for over time.

So real value in going to a QR code, but I think it's still to that discussion point, it's great to have the arborists here now too, is not only to look at the inventory that's out there, because a lot of them have no signage out there at all, But the types of signage here that we want, something that's going to be around for a while. And it's very interesting going out there because you can see a little bit of the history. You can see some of the tags that are hanging and some of the posts that are still on the ground, but there's scatter. There's, you know, a handful maybe of of each out there. So something that we're gonna be able to utilize, not gonna be beat up by mowers, something that's not gonna be easily vandalized.

You know, what can we do out there for from a signage standpoint? So reach out to Public Works on the inventory. It doesn't sound like there's a whole lot out there. So I think it's going to be one of those things we're going to have to work a little bit from scratch. It would be nice to have some history mapping that we create along with this in case things over time do go missing.

Right.

It'd be nice to have the the mapping of what species are out there, so an inventory of the arboretum itself on that. So I think that's probably gonna be the next step is maybe have the arborist come out. We can walk the area and see what's there, and maybe talk about next steps of what we can do for signage.

Right. And I envision that as being kind of a longer term project to get what's identified there now. I mean, lot of it needs work. I mean, some of the trees are not in great shape. I don't know. I think is every public property that the city owns, all their parks and so on, was that all inventory too in the inventory? Do you know?

It was mainly the right of ways, so not necessarily all the parks because some of those parks are not ours. But mainly are right of ways.

Bicentennial Park and that Mayor Schultz Park, are those those are So

we had to go back in and add in and do. So we'll have to see when we get the data. And if we're missing some, we'll we're we're missing critical areas. We'll go back in and get them is what we'll end up doing. So yes. Okay.

Great. So we're still working on that. And then we'll have to once we figure out the best way to do it, and then we'll have to figure out the cost, we'll have to figure out we'll have to go to the city, get funding, and see how we can proceed.

I've got a question. Does the inventory pick up any kind of GPS points at each street? Yeah? Yes. Oh, Okay. Then you're mapping them easy.

Yeah. Yeah.

If they have inventoried that.

Yeah. Right. Or maybe follow-up stuff.

Yeah. Right. Okay. Any questions about the sinewedrometer? Okay, so new or old business. Every year we try to discuss goals. And I think there are probably places where we could be doing more. We had an educational walk. We'd had one, but it was like five people. It was kind of last minute.

Information didn't get out on it. And so I think we need to work a little bit more on that. I mean, we could do something around Arbor Day. We could do it at Bicentennial Park. Or we could do it at our Arboretum.

It'd be nice to combine it with one of those meetings that we're required to do. Right. You know? So

Yeah. That's I mean, that's what I was thinking. It wouldn't have to be a difficult thing to do. When we talked to Ryan, he thought we could, so we can work on that. But also, we don't really put a lot on the city website.

I went to one of the comprehensive plan meeting, and people were asking questions. It was the environmental one. People were asking questions about, oh, there's a lot of dead trees, and the city hasn't been planting any trees. And I'm like, we've planted 1,000 trees a year for ten years. So obviously, the public doesn't know that. I mean, we lost so many, probably 8,000 trees, maybe. When I look back at our tree city information during the not the Dutch elm, but the Admiral Asheboro. So we did plant a lot of trees through

the

years. So I think we probably could be more you know, boost what is actually happening. Don't have

that newsletter anymore. The city's never going to do that again. The mail to your home a couple times a year, right? Do you remember what I'm talking about, though? So it's a possibility to have one a year, maybe?

I think they were do were they doing it online instead or something?

Because we used to put stuff in there. Know how the water department sends out emails to everybody who signed up? Or

Yeah. One that we use? About the

mailing list to send out a newsletter from our did they let us? Check check with the. Yeah. But we could do it digital.

Well, people asked about the trees and about, oh, people don't water the trees, the new trees. And I've always considered whether you put something out there. I mean, you really we used to put hangers in the doors of people who got a tree. That was not consistent, I don't think. Because we got the hangars through the arboretum.

And I don't know that it was really required of the contractor to put them on a door. That's an extra thing. And then there's the, what if you urge people to water, and then you're telling people to conserve water, and the prices of water is going up? And you just hope that people take care of their tree, but it's almost like if you make an issue of it, you're a little bit afraid of the blowback on doing that kind of thing. But definitely, people I take walks, I see where people have taken a chunk out of the base from mowing and that kind of thing.

I noticed in St. Louis last fall, their new trees had a piece of plastic around the base about eight inches high that would prevent mowers from hitting the base or weed whips. And I don't know if we do a new contract if that should be something that should be included. I don't know. I think there are ways that we could try to encourage people to take better care of their trees, emphasize the value of their trees.

Do we have a lot of flexibility on the website about what we can put? Because it would be nice. Is. I'm visual guy, so when it comes to how many trees have been planted, I'd like to see the graph with going

Right. And

Yeah. But do we have a lot of flexibility on what we can put on it? Because sometimes it's just easier to correct people and say

what other

tree may or

the rest.

That information's there.

I mean, when I talked to the Morgan Arboretum years ago, they said, you can use anything of ours, like how to correctly prune a tree, whatever. Just give us credit. So I think some of that could be done. I mean, mulching.

That's one.

And they have

the descriptions of the tree species on there, too, that we could link.

Right. Ultimately, we have to link to what we have for the arboretum. That's why the mapping is is so important. And they could actually I don't even have to necessarily go there to see what the trees are that we have in the arboretum. So I think there are certain links and a lot of good information because I think you're right. From what I've seen and had discussions, don't realize that so much of this is actually happening.

Right. I think we did have one press release about the inventory and the grant. But that was we got that grant probably a year and a half, two years ago maybe now. I don't know. So that was quite a while ago.

Right. And I know that we have the urban forest management plan that was passed in 'twenty two. That's on the city's website. And that does give quite a bit of information. It does have a list of approved trees.

And it has a list of trees that should not be planted. So people can look at that. And it has quite a bit of information, but I don't know that people are directed to that or would look at it. It would be better to have something that's more visually the picture of how you trim a tree. Because honestly, a lot of people want the information for their own trees on their own property. And also maybe some kind of push for people to plant trees in their own yards, since most of the city's trees are on private property.

So do we find out who to talk to regarding the website?

It's probably a city manager eventually answered, but then the tech people, and we would have to come up with. I know before, we talked with people in

Yeah, we had Rosemarie, but she in a sense left. So she was our media person.

Right. Well, can find out. We can ask around and see. Are they going

to hire someone new? Should we just wait a little? I think if the job is supposed to wait. We

could. But that's something I think we could work on. Okay. The other thing is when we filled out all the paperwork for the grant, we got a letter from JJC, their horticulture department, in support of. And they are interested in being involved. And I talked to Erin McMahon. She's an assistant associate professor of horticulture there. And she sounded like she would love to get her students involved somehow. So that's another and I did talk to the city manager at one point. And she said, oh, it would be great if we got the junior college and the report department somehow involved in even public outreach.

And it wouldn't have to be necessarily for the grant, but they might assist with that. But just to inform the public about the value of trees, tree care, and so on. So it doesn't all fall on the city arborist who has a list about this long of things he's going to be responsible for.

I think an opportunity for that might be at the neighborhood group meetings.

Oh, HOAs.

Like, CAPA. Right.

Vice President of

Bluffs and St. Pat's and Cunningham and all that stuff.

Yeah, you're right.

I'm just going

to come up with a spiel,

I guess.

Right. Well, it wouldn't be difficult to do.

That would be a good job for the I assume it would be intern credit for the JJC kids, maybe?

Well, and we do hire interns every summer, usually. I don't know if that's in the budget for next year. Usually is. So it might be an opportunity. Sometimes it's hard to find kids who will do that. But it would be good to coordinate with them. And I did notice in one of their publications, their greenhouse puts out information in their department. And it sounds like they are going to try to collect native seeds and plant trees at JUCO at the greenhouse. So that would be a great project to get people involved in. Anyway, just some ideas. Anybody

Yeah, thinking about it, too. Could we even look at having a student member of maybe nonvoting of this board as well? It probably would rotate depending, you know, every year type. But it just has that link to it, somebody that could direct contact with the rest of the students.

Sure. And in fact, no, I didn't contact Erin about this meeting. Last time, she was not able to come in December. Think I talked to her. But yeah, you wouldn't even have to have it be in an ordinance. You could just invite somebody to come. I think there's information in there that allows anybody can come. It's a public meeting. So you could invite students to come. You could invite involvement from them without having an official ordinance change.

Do they have an arborist program there?

I do not know. I don't know if their department has that. I'm not sure. Anyway, lots to think about. Anybody else have ideas on what I really, you know, we've sort of just kind of done a minimum in involving the public. And it seems like the one tree thing we had where we gave away a tree and that, we had quite a crowd of people.

Are they gonna plant any trees at the new square?

They are planting. Yeah. They are planting.

Maybe there could be one reserved for a public event,

that kind of thing?

They might already get everything done.

Am I right with that?

I don't know. Yeah. I'm not sure. I think they were planting some trees. I'm not sure how close to being finished they are. So

You know, people are so busy.

And April is always a big month, because it's always Earth Day. I mean, for every forest reserve district and lots of organizations, it's almost overwhelming to have that. I'm

half thinking that there's a YouTube video out there that's really good. You know, there's so many. If someone could tell us the best one and put that link on the website, would help. Because everybody does YouTube now for everything, right?

Yeah. Yeah, we should work on reaching out to the public more, I think. Obviously, after attending that meeting and hearing people say, oh, we don't plant trees, you know, it's like an eye opener. And also that we take care of trees, too. People are always like, oh, my tree needs to whatever. Anyway, any other business that we need to discuss? Eric, we're glad you're here. You're new. Did you ever do your did you do your public I'm whatever

official.

Oh, great. That's good. And also, I did get DAY: a message from the mayor's office that people are being reappointed. And I said, yes, Karen, Betsy,

If Mary. You have a possible replacement someday, put me on the list for a replacement.

I want to retire. Retire. Total retirement.

I just

have my ten year retirement from work.

Okay. That's always a possibility. Even if you're reappointed, you can always turn into

a I want to leave you blank.

We value input from

everybody. For sure. When will I who would I talk to about if we're going to have seedlings and a tree at the school for Arbor Day? Because I don't want to promise something. Would that be you

guys? Yeah.

I'll sign a confirmation too. Okay. Well, If you're communicating, we'll read it, she'll forward it for me.

Have you seen that request that we had? But it's on that Yeah,

I reached out to the nursery.

Okay. I mean, we're guessing at how many trees we need. And if they say, oh, the whole school is participating, we might have them select, like, one grade level so that we have enough trees for Yeah, we could

just tell them this is how many Right. We also volunteer to help bag them up if they come bare root. We've had little bag you know, where we sit to snag them in the bags and the rubber bands. So please tap into us for

that. Right. When they come in, then just let us know. I have everything that was left from last year, so

I just have to see if

it's enough. Those Menards bags and the blue paper they're like a paper towel, that shop rag or whatever it's called. Don't

know which bag them was.

We used what we had to put around it. All right, anything else? Our next meeting is April 2. So Karen and I will be working to get those posters from the school. And then we will judge the posters. We will

come a little early before the meeting to house judge. And staff from the

building are invited to vote. Right. We have done that in the past.

We sometimes have three awards, sometimes five. They're just certificates. The kids get a kick out of shaking the hands of the mayor at the city

making stuff.

Right. Okay. If there's no other business, is there any public comment? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Eric, and a second?

Karen, second.

All in favor,

aye. Aye.

Opposed? Okay. Where is your