Environment, Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee - Regular Meeting

It's 03:47. Let's call this meeting the order. So first off the bat, let's do the roll call here.

Okay. Corey Rich? Present.

I'll come back to her.

Okay. Matt Noon?

Present.

Michelle Redd?

Red here.

Ted Ward. Ted Ward today? Checking. Tierney? Here. And Brianna Frank? Here. And Kate Mziara? Here. Oh, hi. Your. I don't know. I do feel strange as. I didn't.

Okay. So And then just for the analyst purposes, we do have this, like, tree board operating every minute. It looks like kinda just, like, a reminder for everybody, especially new folks that come in here. I know you're familiar with probably all of those acronyms that maybe currently, you should. But not everybody is.

And so just kind of, like, make sure everybody's heard, hit each other, and we're inspired. We just want everyone to be valued. That's what that's about. It's making my best feel loved. That's important, especially as they have, like, some new transitions coming up.

So if there were this variation of when it's made of accident stuff, has anybody, hopefully, everybody's had a chance to review the minutes. The minutes have been emailed out to the group. So if anyone has any, issues or things that they like to see changed in, minutes from our last month's meeting, I should speak up now. And if not, is there a motion to approve those

minutes? Motion's to approve min minutes. Sorry.

I'll second.

Okay. So there's a second to approve the minutes here. All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Mhmm. All opposed, say no. So the motion passes. Good, Lisa?

Yes.

Okay. So let's move on here to the project and general updates. So I think we've made some pretty good progress here kicking off the new year. We have three sub groups that have been meeting, or at least two of them, but at least three that have been formed. So we have the events group, which I think we'll start off first, but then we'll go on to the trip tree crabs group and then tree preservation of our workloads. I think Katie, if

you're still prepared. I can.

I guess that you're interested in Lisa,

do you have our little, like, planning sheets? I kind of assumed that I didn't print any off. Maybe I just wanna but, basically, we met last week. It was Corey, Matt, Lisa, and I, to review and kind of come up with, like, a events game plan for, this coming year. And so I think we worked off of an old one.

We kind of looked at the work plan for 2022 and reviewed it to see if there's anything we wanted to continue with this year or start fresh. I think mostly we just started fresh with it. We kind of decided to focus on the Earth Day Arbor Day events that we had pretty good success with last year, a lot of traction. So those would be our kind of main events for 2026, and then we discuss, working towards a career fair. So, hopefully, maybe latching on to either I know MATC has done one historically or kinda seeing what's out there and getting ourselves a table at a career fair.

And then we are also discussed a, like, agriculture field trip, and maybe collabing with Thane County Parks, Adam, on that. So that would be kind of our focus for the second half of the year after, the big April event. So then we transition into planning that for the fall, and I think we were bookmarking roughly, October or November for those events. So after April, those we'd have the next few months to kind of figure out where everything falls. And then end of year kinda to regroup, see everything went, debrief, and then look forward to 2027.

So I don't know if there's anything I'm missing from that meeting, but that was kinda the rough overview of what was discussed on that our game plan for the year.

I think one one of the things we talked about, if you look at April there, we have, like, one, two, three events, that we listed our our discussion, kinda concluded with, that we should focus on events where there's gonna be lots of traffic and where we can get out there and really, like, interact with people. In the past, we probably did quite a few more events than that, and that was a bit overwhelming. So I think part of our idea was to, like, scale back and focus on things that we think are most worthwhile for our time. Well, just to put a put a little add

on to that. Brianna brought up, prior to this meeting that maybe get to see if we can get it to the Garden Expo. I'll I agree with that idea. That would be a lot of foot traffic, probably the largest single event for, you know, for Dane County as far as foot traffic would be concerned. So, last year, operation fresh start was gifted free table space there so we could reach out and see if, if the tree board might have similar luck. And then, actually, we did that and then yeah. I think we did that and then we were posted on where Mueller show from that or maybe it was in the opposite order. But there was some cool press that came out of it. So I think it

was a great idea from Diana. Lisa, do you know anything about that? Do you think we could get a, like, free table then or something, or does it get to be too late?

It's probably too late since it's the second week in February, but, I can ask Amanda, from the show whether it's still possible. The other possibility, I don't know whether there would be room in the extension booth for anything, but if if possible, I can check. But I'll definitely ask ask Amanda. So I think

if we list it for this year, it's still a worthy target for next year.

Well, in this year, it unfortunately, the Garden Expo runs into the WA conference. Sure. So it makes it difficult for folks here that might attend that conference. Yeah. And often

Maybe we maybe we plan to do it in '27 then.

It's very unusual for that to happen. I think this is the first time that that's ever happened.

Yeah. Yeah. It's yours is usually end of the month. Right. And

this time, the Sunday is overlap, so it makes it really difficult for people that are attending that conference to be regarded expert.

Yeah. That's a really good idea. Talk about foot traffic. Oh, I wonder about how to out if you're we got what foot traffic behind.

And I know that our business has, like we do a pull down that says, ask an arborist, but it could be ask an expert. And then we slide in a person that's like, everyone has a card, and it slides into, like, a pull down so that people can know that they can kind of ask questions. Learn things now. Cool.

Yeah. Because

I talked

him. Of the expo, like, a couple years ago, I still look at people for that.

So And it's just it's a neat thing to be a part of. It's it feels like it kicks off spring. Yeah. And there's so many people. There's a lot of good empathy.

Even though you're not kicking off spring.

It's true. It's

true. But it feels

like Yep. You That's important.

Right? Just want us there. Right? Okay.

We have a few people online. You guys have any questions about what we discussed up here? Right. So then, let's see. Then we had our tree group meeting, and that was Brianna, myself, Tedward, Lisa? I'm not sure. Brian. Brian. So I think it was the four of us. And I don't know if either Brian or Emma, would you be alright to give them an update on what we discussed.

So one of our main objectives for that meeting was to pull everything out of Matt's brain, and create the standard operating procedure that could be handed off, to anyone that was either interested in TreeCribs, or currently running them that perhaps maybe needed to if there's a change in hands of who is the lead on helping with those, just that it's an easy document for them to pick up, read, understand what are, what what we what they need to to run them, what the supplies that will be provided are, what they're looking at as far as hours, and then just basic instructions on how to, so the idea was to kinda put together a draft of the standard operating procedure, which is actually done. And then I'm going to give Matt a call and ask him all sorts of questions so that we can kind of elaborate on, you know, where it says water trees. Well, how many water trees? How much water? When?

How often? Under what temp you know, what temperatures do I need to so all of those details will will be laid out on in a in a neatly run document so that things are easier. I think that that about recalcitrant.

Yeah. Just another update. So some of us know, but we also earned currently applied to for $5,000 to the w a n a, trials and demonstration grants, the second year that they've offered this grant opportunity. So we received 5,000 more dollars to support this program going into the next I think it's four years. So that that's another, like, involvement of projects.

Now I feel like we have significant momentum between the national or the Natural Research Foundation grant on top of this grant, on top of the or the the tree board funding as well that we might need. And one other thing is that I'm not sure if anyone from our group, from the the TreeCrib group is interested, but I'm supposed to meet with the Leaf, team next week, and that's gonna be on-site. I think it'll be at Shabazz.

Okay.

And I I thought about trying to get the science teacher from Shabazz out there. I mean, I guess it's a little bit weather dependent. Right? It's gonna be the I mean, the four three, so it might not be a good idea to do that.

Do have a time and a day yet?

We have a day, and I think it's I think it's Tuesday, but there's an alternate, like, Wednesday. And another person I thought about inviting was the the board of directors. They're the board chair of the board of directors from the Natural Research Foundation from the the CB Bass and the grant that we got. He would like to agree with us as well. So I thought, like, maybe we could try to combine those groups of people with the people from the tree board that are interested in working on this and, science teacher as well with the coordinator. So just something I'm thinking of for next week.

What are you thinking about the people, officials, by the end of month?

I have to check the coordinator one more time real quick, you know, and kinda, like, nail down that time. So I would say, like, hopefully tomorrow.

I mean, I would definitely love to come. I have my schedule doesn't, like, less than two weeks notice, but I have actually hoping afternoon.

Does does everything, like, aligns? I think it'd be great to have, like, a larger group out there.

Man, have you connected with Caleb Williamson or if you can over with Williamson over about the project, though? No. I haven't. Alright. I can send over her contact. Of course, she'd be a a great contact there. Mhmm. So she's the director of conservation.

Okay. And I think we'd

be excited about this project. Yeah. That's all good.

Sounds really cool, Matt. Super excited.

Woo hoo.

It's fun.

So I think that's mostly what we got going on there, unless someone else has a question from the Internet. Alright. So we talked about establishing a third working group, although we did not meet last month. And the third reason for that, I kinda wanted to get some documentation together. Prior to our meeting, I shared with everybody, like, a sample report of what I was thinking that could be useful tool for each municipality.

So just based up on suggestions from Brian and a few other people, We're working on revising that, documentation, even, like, a map to, like, identify this, environmental resources that are valuable to each municipality and the ecosystem service services that they provide. So that should be done this week or next, and my plan is to get our group together once more. And I'm trying to think of everyone that was on that group. Brian

Kathy once.

And Kathy. So that's kinda what I'm bringing up to the so for that's another thing. Forgot to mention to the rest of the folks. But Kathy is officially resigning from the tree board along with Laura. So we lost that one person from our group. Think Ted worked. Yeah. Volunteered. I can't remember. Maybe not. Who's the director? Oh, I guess we might wanna try to replace the cap date on that worker with someone else. I don't think we need to, like, determine that right now, and and I also think it could be someone if that's okay, maybe someone from outside of the main challenge framework.

Maybe I think maybe even target somebody from a municipality that we would be looking to go, you know, present this to. Right. Right? I think the that info would be much better than anything that I've got to say, certainly. But

I think that Target and someone who's been recently involved, but I think Ian would be a good person to pick up to become part of the meeting that.

Or an engineering group. Maybe, I guess, more.

That's that's my fault. We target this I think we've kind of agreed that we're hoping this would be something that's not just a Madison, like, doctor. Mhmm. I think we wanna target somebody from a non Madison municipality to make sure that it's not It is. Purely urban focused.

But I think it's, you know, also important to have some type of model for for town as well. Yep. It's like we're kind looking at different machines. Oh, that's that's my thoughts there then.

Do we wanna?

Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. I'd be

interested in if Brian's got any suggestions for folks that would need to target for the, like, outside of the tree board for the preservation group. Are you pretty well connected in, you know, across across the county?

I don't have any suggestions at the moment. The only two communities that have really done, like, quote, unquote, tree preservation ordinances would be Fitchburg and Madison. Other than that, they really don't exist.

Walk the people that don't accept.

Of course.

So do you do you know any smaller managers, whether it's town or town, that might be interested in the discussion?

Is there anything that exists out in Mount Morab? It feels like that might be a you know, that that's an interesting kind of village slash town in my opinion. They've got a little more robust urban center, but it's largely rural. Yeah.

I don't think, I mean, I could be wrong. Our person out here, I don't think would be interested. But let's see. So town of Dunn, Hardy Krueger there, he actually now that I think of it, he does have a little bit of their ordinances I mean, they're towns, so it's a little bit more loose, you could say. But they also have they have a heritage tree ordinance.

He might be interested, but he also has and this is why I hesitate because many of my municipalities, they just they wouldn't have the time necessarily. But, you know, if we get the right one who's interested, sure. Party's just been hard to get ahold of in general, so to ask them to do that in ordinance, but maybe. Right? So I don't know. Off the top of my head, I don't have anyone for you specifically.

Yeah. I think those are the people that we do a Right? The people that are short on time, so that's gonna be what all those towns are experiencing. They don't have, like, a urban forest.

I'd make it would be person. Very important to make sure that our meetings are thought out and pointed.

Yeah. Mhmm. And maybe they don't have to be different.

Well, that's a good point. They could just be invited.

So maybe

we should meet and hash that out as a subcommittee and have them by the list. Right. That's I think that's probably a wise making that up.

Yeah.

And I do have some grant meetings coming up here in the next month, which are a little bit more, quote, unquote, intimate, so I could ask if they're interested at in those meetings. Just thinking about it too, Matt, so you were working with Cottage Grove, I believe, or maybe you're just looking at their ordinance. You know, there might be something there. Again, their leadership has bounced back and forth a little bit, but I think it's back with Park

and

Rec, and they may be interested. They they redid the they redid their ordinance or added to it, had a review done not so long ago. And like you said, you saw some stuff in there that they didn't even know they had, so that which was actually positive stuff. So maybe?

Right. Then Heidi Murphy. I don't know what you call the the person who charged them. That was but but I think she's a administrator, maybe. She's an administrator right now, but she's also a commissioner for the Black Works. I've been kinda familiar with that. I'm working a little bit here and then with the college area. Think think that might be good.

Yeah. So I I think maybe we could take that to our our little group and have a bigger discussion on that and and point down a list of folks.

Already have the agenda for our first meeting.

So I think we're good here for projects and general updates. And then we can move on to e, the discussion items. So number one, I just wrote work through each meeting. So I don't know. I guess this is something that we could facilitate outside of this meeting, or maybe for some people, it's well, I'll there to facilitate inside for a particular work to do. I'll just kinda throw that out there and let people choose. For me, it doesn't matter. It doesn't

So I think Trikriv has the next meeting all set. Like, they have Right.

We're good. And I think we got it.

Yeah. I think we have our next view, actually.

Yeah. Makes me So it's just not

Alright. Well and maybe we just pick a week like we did for crooks and just send out a recurring. And then, yeah, it's fun.

If it's further enough out there and recurring, then see if we can find our out, which seems to be the case for folks. So

yeah. So Mondays and Fridays, what that's the day.

Mondays and Fridays? About what about you, Brian? Is there particular days that we should just stay away from?

Mondays and Fridays actually work pretty good for me as well. Most of the municipalities don't wanna do anything on Mondays and because they're so busy because weekend stuff. And then Fridays, they usually have half days or they're not there. So

That's great. Sometimes we just make a date, call it up, file it, and then just make it a reoccurring. Like yep.

So, moving on to number two. Lisa, could you pull up the work plan update? And I'm not really sure if we even need to go look at this right now, but maybe once people wanna have one more look at this, like, make sure they're happy with how things stand. I think it's a little bit, you know, influx because we have these different work groups that are trying to help us figure out or create our work by home groups.

I mean, I thought thought from as a newcomer, it was simple enough so that it puts yourself in a corner. Mhmm.

So this is the new pet, Lisa, by the way.

Isn't it? No.

That's for the events, work plan. Oh, sorry. One? We have, like, a general Dane County Board board plan 2026.

Hopefully, objectives.

And there's not there's not really a strategic plan.

A chart

like this month. Month more of this. Abroad, I think. I'm all Then if you can.

Sorry. That Oh, sorry. Take me a minute to figure out where that might be.

So I'm thinking of that. Yeah. It's tighter in the in the Google Drive itself 2026 work plan draft. Okay.

I need to find the don't know. Think the order

You're you're looking at a I way right now. You think of think things are pretty much kinda resolved when you trust every document.

I mean, looking through it, it looks like we're we're making good plans to accomplish everything that we listed at the kind of on the top line there.

Sorry. What'd you say the title was again? Approval of.

It just says, like, 2026 work plan. Yeah. 2026 work plan draft.

I'm not finding it and shared with me.

I think that's alright. Sorry.

We get rid of the

Make sure. Should we get there?

Yeah. If we have to.

It should be coming their way.

Oh, thank you.

So if we were doing the January, you know, summary of or review of how to use Legistar and Google Drive, we might not be having this problem.

January is almost over. Right?

I know.

I just thought I'd be a little snarky, you know. Had to get something in there.

Yeah. So one thing I'm wondering right now, Corey, do we have something in the work plan that addresses how the data entry board could assist the, ordinance that we work with. I don't think we

we just have tree preservation ordinance resource and then the folks that are on that and then impending of resources, input structure, and example, then it's a question mark. I'm not sure how to put the inflection on that, that's that's kind of what we mentioned there. So we don't we don't have anything laid out about supporting the one that we went on last year. But

it could be included in that umbrella.

I think so. Yeah. I think that committee that'd be for that committee to figure out how we have continued to support and advance that ordinance from last year, or we just work on a daily ordinance throughout the.

Do we maybe wanna add to the workflow streamlining our application process?

Not a bad idea.

Trayboard. So

I mean

That one may be a little bit out of our hands, but we can certainly find out and do our best to make it as efficient on our end as possible.

Okay. Any other comments on the 2026 work plan? Okay. So let's move on to the discussion item of the tree board applicants. What we've done historically is as a tree board, we review applicants, and then the tree board will make a recommendation of which applicant should be public or banks or fill the entity they can board seats.

So I I sent everybody the three applicants that we've had, and now we have two official resignations from one from Kathleen and one from Laura. So we have three applicants on two seats. So we're gonna have to come up with a way to evaluate these three candidates for those two seats at this point. We I'm thinking these subgroups that we've created have worked pretty well and efficient for working on specific tasks. So my recommendation would be to form a subgroup or maybe a a group that would look at and evaluate these tree board applicants, taking feedback from all of the tree board members to provide a recommendation for which applicants that we do will recommend.

So that that's one option. There are other options out there, but that's that's kinda one thing I've been thinking about. So and on top of that, that same subgroup could look into further of how to come up with a system where anytime that they found a true board and it has to review or discuss true board applicants, we can just slip into some type of both their session, if that's possible.

Brian, do you have any feedback on that as far as is there a way that we could get a closed door session permanently approved so that the Dane County Tree Board can have an open discussion about

That's a Michelle question. It's Okay. It's a county thing. Gotcha. Brian won't be able to help us with that.

I apologize, Michelle.

Well, I think we've all probably I don't know if I've here long enough. That's probably dealt with that situation, you know, having to go in a couple of stores. So so sure. I don't even know if that's That one up. Sorry. That's open to everybody. I have any feedback. Question.

Do you have any input, Michelle?

About closed session? On the potential of having, the

ability to have a closed session and permanently approved for the specific purpose of discussing applicant applicants? Yeah. We we basically need to run it through court counsel and make it a compelling enough reason. Closed session is something that should be pretty rare because, you know, it's you know, the the philosophy is, you know, open government. And with closed session, obviously, you're removing the public from discussion of a government committee. And so, you know, if we decide we want one, I will help push for one. So, you know, basically, whatever I can do to support the will of the tree board is what I'll do.

So a follow-up would be what do other boards in Dade County that have to deal with the same protocols that we do? How do they review candidates and provide recommendations or have some type of discussion?

I know that, you know, it all comes down to you know, we can certainly give a recommendation, but it comes down to, in this case, whoever the, county executive chooses to appoint, that's what happens. And then that list of folks approved by her comes before the full county board for the final approval. And I don't recall ever being in a committee where there has been, like, intentional discussion about the different applicants like this.

So other other committees are just, like, leading into the, discretion and whims of the county exec?

Yeah. It it is within her power to assign mean, it's one of her responsibilities to assign these people. You mean, committees will give a recommendation to the county exec saying, hey. You know, please take this into consideration. But ultimately, it is, you know, fully within the power of the the county exec.

I think the way we've usually done it is that we do make a recommendation and send it to the county exec's office, real fully realizing that it may be over overruled. But that's I've not except for once, it's always been approved, but each county exec is different. And I go, do you remember Matt? Well, I mean, we just got Brianna

who I I think there were recommendations for you.

I yeah. I think they

We are

on the tree board.

It's not

like How much the county executive should Like, what criteria would the fuse to shoot?

Oh, if it's not our recommendation. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I think it's just First of first served for yeah. So or it just, like, books take a lot longer, you know, by providing that recommendation. I think, also, but the time is possible. I

think also because our subject matter is pretty narrowly focused, whereas perhaps some other and maybe Michelle and I maybe I'm not right here, but I think maybe because we usually look for people with some expertise in the realm of trees that perhaps that has influenced the decision, but I don't know.

So that sounds like, for me, your recommendation of having the subcommittee gather, you know, the overall consensus and and coming together to present at at an open meeting?

I don't I mean or we could I'm thinking that we could just have this, like, subgroup, get feedback from everyone. That's so good. Yeah. And I don't need think we need to have it, but we could just say that They'll reach out to all the board members, come up

with Separate and present them to

Submit the recommendation. Census, then we don't need to come back to the whole.

So, basically, an ad hoc committee that occurs essentially only when we have, you know, at least the following weeks a single time.

That sounds easy enough to go. We we do have these other subgroups, so maybe it isn't any different. Michelle, do you

Yeah. I I am getting increasingly more uncomfortable, and I guess I'd like to connect with, corp counsel on this because it's it's like borderline. We're not charged with, like, personnel decisions. You know? And I looked through the the three applications that you sent, Matt, and I'm like, I don't know these people.

You mean, I don't know the extent of what is behind what they wrote in their paragraphs. I mean and I I I don't know. It it makes me it makes me feel a little uncomfortable just the limited information that we have, having discussions and judgments about people who applied. Am I making sense?

I mean, I think a lot of us do have, like, some experience with, Kenneth, at least in the past. It was, like, kind of the. And, you know, we've had a lot of discussions too about, like, what type of roles we want to have on the training board. I I mean, I I feel like the alternative is just, like, leaving it up to randomness and waiting for who knows how long to these positions will get filled without the three boards supporting. But we've done that in the past.

Yeah. Am I I guess I I have a concern with whether this would be prioritized in any way if we weren't kind of pushing the issue of trying to get the positions filled. I mean, even even with, you know, the push from the tree board at times, it's taken a considerable amount of time to get people officially approved. Right? I've shared several times that, like, I stopped attending meetings and assumed that I was not accepted at one point because, you know, it's it's been, like, four or five months since I applied. Like, I guess

Yeah. I think for me, it took minimum of six months.

I genuinely was like, okay.

I guess I'm not in.

I haven't heard anything about it. And then, like, if we don't make a recommendation, what are the next steps to ensure that this has some sort of follow through? Are we like, is that a fair ask? I guess I don't really know how it works, but I feel like we're we're I mean, our maybe required isn't the right word, but we should have x amount of members present at meetings for them to be valid. So should it be be able to ensure that those seats are filled in some way? I don't know.

Required, do you? We have

paid for them. We can't meet. Right? But we just gotta call them.

Right. So if we're down two to three members, that makes it a little difficult for meetings.

I I do understand, Michelle, your your concern as well. I just don't know if I yeah. I feel like there there are other considerations to explore. But, certainly, I'm interested in hearing what solutions we may be able to come up with as a as a board or get input on. Like, okay. If it's not appropriate for us to discuss candidates and make recommendations out

Well, what are the next steps? Yeah.

How do we ensure the positions get filled? Because I I don't think that we'll be prioritized, you know, for the exec has a lot going on. You know?

Michelle?

Yeah. We can certainly okay. So I did just send corp council an email. I you know, chances of him being available for a phone call at 04:31 on a Tuesday afternoon are pretty slim, but we'll see if he's available. And we can certainly, you know, connect with the county exec's staff and say, hey. You know, we are really looking forward to your appointments. You know? When can we expect, you know, action on that from your office? You mean, something like that to push it through faster? I mean, I completely agree with the, you know, the the frustration that government works very, very, very slowly quite frequently.

Part of the problem is that the county board only meets once a month. And if there are more pressing items, things get bumped. So I We do meet twice a

month most of the time. It's a little bit less over the summer, and then it's more during budget season. But on average, it it is twice a month. But it is I mean and then not everything gets put on the agenda that you would expect to be put on the agenda. So, you mean, there's there's a lot of moving pieces. Yeah. But it it does move very slowly.

Yeah. And just like one one last thing, there have been instances in the past where it was actually really important for the tree board to be able to provide a recommendation to your applicant. I if we weren't able to do that, it wouldn't cause problems for the whole.

So as it stands right now and I'm I I just don't know. So please jump in and correct me if I'm, saying the wrong thing. So we shouldn't do any of these applications. It should just

be helpful.

It shows that your advice right now is that for the time being,

we need to table any discussion of the applicants? Because like, I like, my radar is going up like, oh, this is this I'm not comfortable with it, but, you mean, I am not the only member of Treeboard. I would feel most comfortable if we waited on, like, full out discussion until I hear back from corp counsel. And he does respond, like, in a very, very timely manner. I mean, I'm I'm shocked at how much he can actually get done every every day.

So I would expect to hear from him, you know, certainly by tomorrow or the next day at the very latest. I mean, that puts us off another month unless we add another meeting in. So I don't know. I know that's kind of a non answer. You know, personally, I'd rather wait, but I am one voice on the tree board.

Is it possible without, like, violating, blocking forum and those kind of things to, to get, like, a clarification on this question sent out in the email form? And then it's like, okay. Yep. We're we're good to review the Maybe we could see if there's anybody that wants to form a, you

know Yeah.

Like, quick little group like we discussed already. Yeah.

You know?

We can we can have one way communication. So whatever whenever I connect with corp counsel, I can let Lisa and Matt know, and then Matt can forward out one way BCC information. You know, the whole thing with walking quorum is that we don't want a a voting block making decisions not in a public format.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, we were never talking about having a full on discussion of the applicants. We were talking about having a subgroup Yeah. You know, make a recommendation based upon feedback without violating any blocking or rules. So

And then that would come back to the main board and then the main board

Well, or the main board right now could essentially just authorize that subgroup to make recommendations based upon the feedback that they've received from three board members without violating any particular rules. As long as court counsel says in SQL. Yeah.

Michelle? I don't know if she heard that.

Yeah. No. I I'm putting myself on pause until I get official legal recommendation on how to proceed.

So if if we if the Dane County Tree Board did not make the recommendation, what would happen to the district applicant applicants? They would go to the county exec, and they then they just hear back

Unless yeah. Unless they start covering them.

Yeah. I I don't we've never done it that way. We've always made a recommendation. Oh, okay. Don't know.

Has that been, like, discussed as a greater group in the past? I'm curious how it's been done in the past whereas it's

Like, a recommendation had to come from somewhere.

We we always would have we'd always recommendation in the past.

And I'm assuming that was just discussed at a meeting, or, like, how did

you make the recommendation? We

We voted on that?

Yeah. Oh, we we did have a discussion then. All of those were done before we had other than face to face meetings. But that's not anticipated.

So in those circumstances, we were outside or something like that. Well

Well, that's a Michelle, if if it is only a if we notice a meeting as a face to face meeting, meaning that we don't record it, is that is that going around the law? Or

Yes.

Okay. Well, that's what we've done for years and years, I'm afraid. We didn't know any better,

I guess.

Thank you for my Sterling record.

Well, it sounds like

it will hear back, and we'll know a little bit more. Yeah.

Yeah. That's fine.

I guess we're not gonna vote to authorize a subgroup to make recommendation.

Then So we you're right.

Or do you guys think they should vote that pending?

I I did file this voting to have a subgroup pending the answer

from from was it

core count count count or

To make an approval of a recommendation. Yeah. Because some of these people, they were they have five months ago.

Who knows, like, what the interest is anymore?

Right. Yeah.

That's that's one of true.

It's not

fair to them to

No. And it's not like you get a sort of notification, like, you'll be reviewed, and it could take months. It's just, like, you send it off into the abyss and cross your fingers.

In 10/23/2025, is when Michael replied. You know?

Are we not allowed to talk on?

We can't. Have.

Have in the past said that the

I mean, even just a monthly Yeah. Email saying your application is still pending. Still being reviewed. I would have appreciated that just to know that it's I would think that's well, obviously.

Like, oh, okay. Yeah. I guess it takes a while.

I was like, all of us think we we get an application. We should send a preemptive, like

Hey. I got it. Automatically

stop. Yeah. But, you

know, basically, like This

may take

three months or more. Yeah. This process may take several months. And, you know, like, to be fully transparent, it's slow.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know

what to expect, so I was like

Yeah. I was asked

to apply and then was like, dang. I guess they asked me, and then

Yeah. I was like, what did I put in there?

Michelle was on the phone.

Yeah. Probably with court counsel. So Michelle had mentioned that she didn't feel comfortable making a recommendation, because she doesn't feel like our application had enough information or whatever. Okay. That's kinda news to

feel comfortable discussing Right. To make a recommendation.

Brad, are you suggesting that do we need to make our application more robust, more, like, informative?

It comes from the county. We don't have any input.

And then if we already have like, we have applicants right here. All of these have recommendations from people off the board or that we're

off the board.

So like, there's pretty good information. I mean, we didn't do them.

Okay. I was confused about that because I was like, that's it's new it's new to me. I mean, I guess we've rarely had more slots than or I'm sorry, more people applying than we had slots for. And in those cases, we did have applicants who were clearly, better positioned than others. So it was easy, but it's new to me that this whole not being comfortable making recommendations thing.

Well, I mean, maybe we should just move on to the action items, and then we make a motion that would create a subgroup and that we authorize that subgroup to make two recommendations based upon feedback from the data entry board pending council's communication

with Michelle. Yeah. And

Yeah. I'm comfortable with that.

Yeah. That right now.

Let's just

do it.

Yeah. So did you get that, Lisa?

No. I did not. Well, anyone's named that.

We all said that.

Sure that someone else said

I don't know. I can make that one.

What? I'll Yeah. Mean, can you make a motion?

I can do it. Yeah. Put my name down.

Who makes that

Well, exactly, what is the motion?

To

to create a create a route that would be authorized to make a recommendation to the county exec. Is that right?

To that. Or

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Okay. I knew so.

And the pending approval Right.

And the recommendations are gonna be based on feedback from Yeah. Three board members. There will be no walking for them. Got that covered. Be careful with reading now.

Oh my gosh. My

guess is that that we probably can't do it directly to the exec. It would have to come back to the board. But Yeah. Neither neither here nor there.

You mean the accounting board? No. Over here.

So the

the committee would report to the board, then you would make the right thing.

Correct.

Okay. So, the motion is to create a subgroup that would take input from the tree board and use it to make a recommendation to the full board that would go to the county exec for vacancy. Yeah.

Do we need a a little little caveat of, like, pending approval? Pending approval.

And did I hear Michelle say that she had not been?

She's still on the phone.

Oh, okay.

Okay. Alright.

Well, I I second that.

Alright. That was kinda tough. Sorry. There's one other thing I

Can we do that, though, without Michelle here to Let's go to take both. Okay. So we have the motion that was maybe. Bridge. Okay. But but alright. So we have it ending Yeah. Until Michelle gets back. Alright. There has been cosigning of it. So

Yeah. We'll we'll circle back and bring the vote. We'll let

Michelle is back. Jeremy, did I noticed your mic is open. Did you have a comment? No.

It's fine now.

Alright. We can circle back to that as soon as Chuck gets back. We'll wrap up the meeting as quick as possible. I don't think we need to officially vote to approve our work plan. It seems like it's kind of a living document. That's fine, maybe. That should be good. Probably put it on our website if thought that would be useful or if anyone else have changes they'd like on the website. One other thing to note that I I noticed maybe Brian knows are the I Tree funding, I guess, was the seats. And they are, like, requesting by their speech support for the I Tree program.

It's something to be more could submit if you wanted. You could send it to the forest service or your state forest there, probably for professional representative, probably state forest that would be most appropriate for us. What's the time plan? I only found out about this today.

Okay.

So but that's I think, like, as, like, my personal work organization, that's something I would like to do. Might be something that I can that works for too. I don't know how many people use that IT software. It's like a a collaboration between US Forest Service and the baby tree company. They developed this tool. So

Just a little clarification there. The email should go to the I believe it's the chief of the forest service. I went and sent it to our state forester, and they'll they'll they'll take letters from anywhere. So

So you're you're probably well aware this time?

Yeah. And I I brought it to the WAA as well. I know it was last meeting before, to also write a letter of support if they so choose.

So, something I was thinking we should be, doing as a tree board, Brian, if you're familiar with this.

I'm sorry. I lost I lost that while I was trying to word some of the other things from

Great. Great. I

mean, I'm in I'm in support of writing a letter of support for

This is for supporting the I The I Okay. Okay. Don't think you're, like, much of this.

Not not familiar any kind

of those risk working with every three clients. So I'm I'm in favor of it. Anyone?

Check. So

I'm in favor for the tree board to submit a letter for recommendation for support of the I Tree program, USDA I Tree program

And the motion all step and update of splits.

Brianna, were you taking that on?

Sure. Did

you want

me to send you the email that I had shared with the WAA, or did have you that one?

Who was drafting it for the WAA? You know? Like, do you want me to draft it for both of them?

No. I think the WAA one perhaps was already sent in.

Okay. Sure. Thank you.

Yep.

And then I see Michelle has her hand up. She's off the phone. She's ready to tell us stuff.

K. I got good news and bad news. What do you want first?

Bad news.

Oh, I I shouldn't have asked.

I'm gonna start with good news. Okay. The good news is we can, yes, have a discussion, an open discussion in our regular meeting here about the applicants and, you know, form a recommendation through our discussion to forward to the county exec. You know, the the the corp counsel is like, you know, certainly, you know, be you know, focus on strengths, be as kind as possible, but, you know, this is a recorded public meeting, you know, that will be saved and anybody can watch it. So, yes, we can do that.

The challenging news is that and I I swear that this is a differing opinion than I got a couple years ago. For those who have been on the tree board for a while, a few years ago, we had official work committees. I don't remember what we called them, but we did I I went through an ordinance amendment process to get the I think we had three subcommittees going, and we had to it it was an ordinance amendment. They have, what do you call it, Lisa, when they when they go night night, when they, like, go out of existence? I mean, they only had the they sunset it.

Yeah. We sun. Yeah.

Yeah. They they sunsetted by ordinance. So those were legal. Those were staff. They had agendas, minutes. They were publicly noticed. I am told that we need to do a very similar process to have work groups now. He said it does not require an ordinance amendment, which would take at least a couple of months, but that I need to connect with county board staff to make sure that we legitimize them and make them public, and we would have to have, you know, agendas and minutes and and everything for those.

So can I ask

a clarifying question? I thought I thought as long as we remained under quorum, like, that was that this was to allow us to,

like, be efficient and mobile and actually get stuff done. Yeah. We're not these aren't actually they're not board groups. It's just three board members that are not in quorum getting together on their own free time. You know, we're not documenting this as per diem. That's why we dissolved those official work groups. These are, like, nimble things we can, you know, get together. That was the whole purpose of why we got rid of those. So I I don't know. I don't think we I don't think it's worth called something else. Oh, yeah.

Friends, they will.

Yeah. Then We're grabbing coffee. The right word.

I I don't know. I don't I'm not sure what's the right answers here because we already passed our the the time. And it seems like this is kind of a bigger discussion at this point. Yeah. I don't know if we can resolve all this. But it's I think it's something that I can work with, like, with Michelle to try to recap some of the things that went on in the past and make sure we have more clarification on this. I think that's the best way to proceed is giving the time.

And it works. Yeah. I I have thought that there was I I agree with your memory, Michelle, that we had made those work groups, and then somebody else on corp council said that we didn't need to have official noticed work groups where I had to be there and, you know, agenda minutes, the whole nine yards. But I don't I don't remember who it was that you talked to, but that's my memory as well. That that's why we sunsetted those groups and that we were allowed to make these other groups. But maybe

Well

we have a different person we're working with now that has a different legal opinion.

Well, bottom line, the coffee chats, are not making any decisions. They are bringing information they're gathering information and bringing it to the board for the board to make a decision. So there's nothing that's in the dark.

Except the discussion. Do we wanna just make this a

I think

we have to make this a agenda item for

next yep. Yep. Next month is a good word.

Yeah. Sorry for still a lot of confusion for everybody. But I think I'll try to get that all straightened out as soon as possible. So I think I'm gonna able to do it. We got Teachers, meeting items and dates, February 17.

So the WAA is during that time, so I'm not sure how many people that would affect. I know Adam won't be able to make it. I won't be able to it. Brianna probably won't be able to make it.

I won't be able to make it.

Often. Yeah. I wouldn't be there.

We'll have to figure that one out. So thanks for the heads up reminder. H, public comments and items not in the agenda.

I have something.

Go.

Just just note that Dane County, not necessarily Dane County Tree Board, for the efforts at Indian Lake Arbor Day celebration last year was nominated for an ISA Gold Leaf Award. And my understanding is we were awarded it or Dane County was awarded it, and that will be presented at the, on probably on the seventeenth, actually, whenever the award's mentioned is at the WA.

Brian, do you know if, I believe Urban Tree Alliance was also nominated and awarded one for their work in Fitchburg in the Dreams Haven this morning? No. The Operation Fresh Startup shout out in.

And you said what it what the award was called. Gold Leaf, did you say? Yep.

P I s a gold leaf. Thank you.

Alright. Thanks for that, Brian. Items, such other business as allowed by law. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? Rich makes a motion to adjourn. Second.

I can second it.

All in favor of adjourning the meeting say aye. Aye.