Environmental Commission - Regular Meeting

This is the I'm calling to order the 10/02/2025 meeting of the Tree Advisory Board. And I will call roll. Karen Fonte? Here. Here. Eric Moon? Absent. Rita Renwick? I'm here. Betsy Satcher? Here. Mary Schoenhider? Here. Jim Testin? Here. Ron Van Dyke is absent. And we also have Ryan Sweeney from CRTI. And we have Michael Obodzinski, who is a member of the public. Okay. Our first order of business is to approve the minutes of the August 7 meeting.

I have one copy with me, but I'm hoping that people you can always go to the Meetings and Agenda section of the city's website. And you will see we were first up in line. You can see the agenda packet. And that will always have both the agenda and the minutes from the last meeting, if you want to check those before the meeting. And I think they weren't posted until yesterday afternoon. So you've got to kind of check the night before or the day of to see that. Are there any corrections or additions? I could read through the points if anybody feels they need it. Otherwise, is there a motion to

approve? So moved.

All right. Jim Testin moved. Second? Second. Betsy Satcher, second. All in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. The minutes are approved. Did you want to say anything, Michael? This is a chance for a citizen. What's It's on the agenda items, though, so you probably don't. We can call on you again at the end if you want to say something. Agenda items.

First of all, the Inflation Reduction Act inventory grant. I do have a bit of information, but then Ryan, maybe you can fill something in. In correspondence between Ryan and Phil Graff, who is the head of Great Lakes Urban Forest Management I think that's their business he said that as of June 30, the grant portion of the inventory is complete. So that means all the areas that were the underserved areas in Joliet that qualified us for the grant

money have been inventoried. And interesting, they inventoried

10,500 trees, and they found 5,300 planting spaces. So that just tells you that there are We're waiting for as many yeah, we are pretty behind on that. Do you want to and all of that information has been collected and logged into a GIS system. So you want to add anything to that?

Yeah, no. Thank you, Rita. That was a great update on status of the inventory, especially it's great to hear that it's complete in the disadvantaged areas. My understanding is that the entire inventory for because the contract, my understanding is I'm still trying to get a copy of that contract so that we can confirm some of the details. But my understanding is that the contract was for the entirety of the City Of Joliet.

So obviously, we don't want to do things piecemeal. So we want to make sure that everything is comprehensive. So the entirety of inventory still is outstanding. Phil Graff, founder and owner of Great Lakes, he mentioned that the completion of the inventory is expected in 2026. So there is still some time. That does push our official date of essentially, zero hour date for community engagement, where we're distributing information about the inventory.

That

does push that back a little bit. Because the contract currently, as Great Lakes reads it this is from the correspondence that Rita and I were on does not include any community engagement. So they're not going to pause their inventory while the rest of the inventory is still going on while we are doing community engagement to analyze the data. That's going to be something that, like I said, I'm still trying to get a copy of that contract so that it is possible that there may be a different interpretation of that contract. From my experience working with general contractors, Generally, whenever you have subcontracts, you incorporate the terms of the prime agreement.

And the prime agreement here was the sub award agreement with the Morgan Arboretum. That prime agreement included significant community engagement. And I'm not at liberty to give specific details of any vendors' contracts with other municipalities. But other vendors vendors for other municipalities have included significant community engagement in their contracts. So that's something that we want to make sure that we're getting clarity on.

I have followed up with Joe Norman and Greg Ruddy to see if we can get some more movement on this. We're trying to set up a meeting between Joe, Rita, and myself, at least until Joe is able to hire a new city arborist. My understanding is that once the new city arborist is hired, that Joe will want that position to take over much of the community engagement cooperation with the tree advisory board. But that's going to be something that I'm going to be leaning much more heavily on city staff about. Because whether or not it's through the city arborist, we have people at the Tree Advisory Board who are ready and willing to follow-up and begin planning and begin taking action community engagement.

Planning needs to take place before zero hour when the inventory is completed. So it does tend to the status of where we're at right now. Still working with hopefully, get some good cooperation from Judd and Red.

Right. If you looked at I mean, the original grant, which I worked with Steve Lane, who was then working with Great Lakes, It had community engagement as part of it. I mean, that was a requirement. And the actual time the schedule, which I think I saw somebody had, we were really supposed to have a meeting kind of when the inventory started so that we would tell people we're doing an inventory. This is what's involved, the value of trees to get them thinking about what this means for the city.

And we could I mean, to me, that can be done. And the junior college is willing to help. And in fact, I spoke with the city manager yesterday. And she said, any time we can involve a junior college, the horticulture people there had signed a letter when we applied for the grant in support of it and said they would help. And they contacted me like a year ago and said, when can we help do this?

I think it's something that could be done before an arborist is hired. It wouldn't be difficult to do a meeting to talk to people about it. But it's like we are private individuals. We're not staff at the city. So there's only so much we can do on our own. But mean, to me, the meeting I had yesterday was very positive. It sounds like they would help us do whatever, you know, if we want to try to put that together. They would help. I mean, I don't really anyway, I think we could do that initial meeting. And then you have a meeting that says, hey, this inventory now, this is what we have as a result of the inventory.

I mean, that's my thinking, anyway.

Yeah, absolutely. I think so there is a lot of community engagement that the Tree Advisory Board can undertake on its own, at least on its own without having the data from the tree inventory. I think we still need, especially if we're going be using the city resources in terms of spaces to reserve. I have been in touch with Rosemarie at Dibenedetto to see if I can get more of a detailed list of events, both meetings, formal meetings. I think those are listed on the city website, but also a list of more social events.

So getting that list, and then also seeing if we can identify the city's existing means of communication, the avenues that we have the city has for communicating. So whether that's press releases or city social media pages or if there is a print operation, want to get that information so that we have access to those city resources. So I'm still waiting to hear back from the Rosemarie, but hopeful that we can get a little bit more details. But yeah, it is not contingent. Community engagement is not contingent at all on the inventory.

There will be significant community engagement that is contingent on that inventory. I do have a copy of the project timeline from the application.

I don't

know if that will be something that would be helpful to send to treating advisory board members.

Sure, you could. And I mean, I think it hasn't been revised since it was first put together, has it? No. I mean, it defined things by quarters. And we have I mean, totally, it was almost three years to complete. But what is the deadline? Is it '27,

It is '27, yeah. So I think Third quarter? Yeah. I think third quarter is when I'm going to have to take a look at the details. Can just share But I believe it's October 1 is when the don't quote me on that. It's third quarter. I think it's October 1 is when the final report is due. I believe deliverables are due earlier than that. So that's when we're going to be wrapping up. But the project timeline, it's what's known as a Gantt chart.

It does have significant community engagement at multiple levels of the major tasks and items on the list. So I put together a list elsewhere that includes rather than in Gantt chart format, just a list of where community engagement could take place pursuant to the terms of the application, which is incorporated into the subword.

But we also talked before, this should be a standalone type meeting, right? Specifically for information about what the city is undertaking with the grant and the value of trees and all of that, right?

Yes, yeah, absolutely. So my communications with Rosemaria, I've made it clear that the meetings that are required under the grants, those will be standalone meetings. So part of asking for calendars and schedules is to make sure that we're not overlapping with other major events in Joliet. But then also asking for those major events and the schedule for those is to see if we can identify events where we can show up informally where it's not a standalone event. I can bring a tent out and table there, just essentially have a presence so that people in the city recognize, oh, what's this table for the Morton Arboretum?

How is the Morton Arboretum involved with the City Of Joliet? What's the tree inventory? What are we doing? Sure. And we can generate we can both educate and generate more interest in the sample communities.

Okay. That sounds good. We do have some clarification and and trying to set set things up. I mean, I I thought I had a couple of dates set by Centennial Park, but it's, like, in three weeks. And I this is not gonna come together that quickly. You know? So anyway, we will figure something out, I'm sure. In fact, I was thinking so we had Bicentennial Park as a possibility, but I even fought for the East Side, Betsy. I mentioned at my meeting yesterday, we could use a church because sometimes there are your neighbor council meet at a church ever?

We used to, but once the park

But you think, I mean, do you think more people would come? Do you think they're used to going to Noah Park for meetings? Probably the Park The Park District. And do you have to I mean, does the city and the Park District have a pretty good relationship in that, before your neighborhood council. Was there a fee to use that? There is a fee, but I don't I don't know. You know? Right. Know. I Well, the city talk to you about.

I have find out. And then I would think the city would think of that, you know, tab. Right.

I mean, there's a lot of parking there, right, for people?

There's plenty of parking. Yes.

But that road is pretty busy. Right? The 53 is Well, yeah, 53, whatever. But everybody's I mean, I'm just hope I mean, I'm

thinking it would be good to have

one meeting where there are people that would be most affected by

On the on the ESAC.

Yep. I agree. Yeah.

And if it's in, you know, early, you know, late afternoon, early evening, hey. We shouldn't have that much Okay. That much time.

Right. Well, the Spanish center, I don't know. We we were concerned about that because somebody might visit. You know what I mean? Oh, the goddess. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And I really I mean, I have brought trees there, and they've been I mean, the trees have been grabbed up and very enthusiastic. But I mean, I don't know if they have a large room there even.

I know they have a a whole big room that has food in it for food distribution. I know they have a preschool there or a daycare. And so I've seen smaller rooms, but I haven't seen a big meeting room. Now who is this? The Spanish Center. I'm not sure. I do have a gym. They have a gym. So you could do something there. So there are possibilities for several places that you could The library is always And the library does.

But, like, right now, so much construction downtime. And then the Westside Library, you're not really reaching the audience for the It is under construction, too. Since the grant is for the underserved area of the city, it's mostly East Side, near West. It's kind of Well, that's not

in the city.

It is in the city.

Mhmm. They already know.

Yeah. They do. I you know, well, all things can be considered. We'll try to figure out. Right. Yeah. They're pretty easy to work with, though. So I think for now, we've covered what we can. We do have a meeting in December. I'm hoping I mean, I think if we can work something out and we have a meeting before then, I'm sure that we can just reach out to the board and involve people.

We wouldn't necessarily have to have another meeting. We could have a small committee or something. Within the legal, I don't know if it's two people, you can't have a majority of a quorum, I think. So you can't have three. More than two. Yeah, you can't have more than two. So we will move on. Ryan, thanks for the update on that. I have been thinking about, since Eric joined and if you weren't here last week, Betsy. Eric joined last, and he came to his first meeting.

And he was ready to plant trees. He was ready to get out there and do things. And I thought, well, it would be good to involve the public in some efforts. I mean, I myself even thought on my street, probably have maybe eight new trees that were planted within the last few years. Many of them are not mulched.

And people have started hitting them with molars. And I thought, Okay, somewhere we could pick an area, invite people to come out, probably get a load of mulch from the city, because they have a big pile over at Cedar Wood, and just have people have an event where you mulch for a couple of hours and invite people to come. But that's just one idea. You know? I don't know if anybody else

With mulching cottage community

inter What do call it? Interaction?

Community engagement? Gavement? Yep. Yeah. Okay. That is included in the

hold that back

up here. So that's part of the maintenance tree.

So Yeah. Yeah. So that is I believe there are community engagement events that specifically reference mulching. We'll just make sure. Oh, that'd

be good. Can get two birds with one

to go. But I mean, I don't know that that Sorry. Expression. It's okay. Yes.

There is a whole a whole major task item that is community outreach, watering and mulching of trees requires board approval. That's the whole

phrase there.

And then in Q3 twenty twenty four was meet with community. That was a task

Spring in the back

plant spring planting maintenance, that was 2025, fall plant planting or maintenance 2025, spring planting maintenance q two twenty twenty six, and then fall planting maintenance q of 2026, and then spring planting maintenance, 2027. Q3 was review with the meetings.

Right. So multiple. I mean, I think it's, what, a minimum of three meetings or something. But we do want the outreach to people. We did a tree walk at the arboretum, and we could do something like that. I think that probably is under contract and gets mulched already. Although sometimes the mulch is up on the trunks. So you could go through and, you know,

fix there. And I didn't see them on the trunks, but I wasn't really looking close. It could use a little more mulch. It looks like they're blowing leaves into the mulch zones. That

is good. Yeah. Well, so, you know, if there's somebody that wants to I mean, anybody else have other ideas of where we could do this? I'm just thinking the public in general doesn't really think about the fact that young trees, putting mulch around them keeps the soil moist and prevents people from weed whacking the weeds and hitting them with lawn mowers. So it would be good to maybe choose somewhere. Now we could try to do it. I don't know where all the trees have been planted of late. Do you see many trees in your neighborhood?

I do not.

No. I drove over there yesterday, and I didn't see many new trees. I mean, I've seen a lot, like just North Of Jefferson. But I think they were they had difficulty because they didn't know where to plant trees the last time they planted. And they were planting a bunch altogether in certain areas just to get them in the ground.

Because we had 1,000 trees to plant, and there was a lack of anybody that was designating where they should go. Who wants anybody want to work with me and kind of pick a place to do that? And the city will advertise. And I will have to talk to public works about getting mulch. Now, we did all of that Infantry Drive project.

That was a CN grant. You think it's a doable it's just similar to, at one point early on, we had a tree walk on a certain street. And we identified trees. And we had the U of I Extension person come out with us and point out tree problems and how you should be taking care of trees, things that were, you know, trimming that was not done correctly, or how to take care of things. I mean, you could try to set something like that up too rather than mulch. Don't I know. I

just the mulch is like, they probably like to just shovel it off their truck at every tree, so it's hard to

have people do that. You'd have to

have wheelbarrows in a pile somewhere.

Oh, yeah.

We do. Think about it. Yep. Yeah. Unless it was at a park or something.

Right. Well

Then, yeah, that that would probably likely you know, for a large operation, that would likely require the involvement of public works, city staff. At my recent quarterly check-in with Joe Nordman, He mentioned that the city is in the process of issuing bids for pruning contracts, removals and subgrinding, and a planting contract. He's hoping to get those signed by the end of the year. The planting contract particularly, that might impact planting locations. Sure, you'd want to have some the city's would need to have some input on if we are talking about planting locations in addition to wallshoots as well.

Right. Well, maybe we just do another informational walk. I mean, that's probably the easiest to do. What do you think, Jim?

It really is. And and we had a a decent turnout.

We did. People who

showed up were really interested and wanted to be involved.

So Yeah. You think you think just do it at the park again? Now it's the Route 66 Park?

Yeah. A little bit

more Sage out there.

It's Yeah. Alright. So why don't we try to plan that? We'll try to plan it, you know, what, November?

Yes. I don't know. Getting back.

That's the tough thing. Or, you know, October. I mean, well, we can try to work on that. I'll try to reach out. Know? I'll reach out via email. I always do it so that if anybody answers, it comes straight to me, not the whole group, and see if we can come up with a date and something that we can do. At least get a start. I feel like we've kind of struggled to get going. So we can do that.

So Jim, I'm going to call on you to do the educational signage for the city arboretum. You sent us some really good information. What were you thinking other than you said that system, like QR codes, Is that the best system, do you think?

I like QR codes just because pretty much everybody has a smartphone. But it gives you so much more information than you just put on a simple sign. It gives a lot of background. So it really takes you to a site that would be created, talks about that type of tree. But in addition to that, the question becomes, is there certain groups that have done mapping as well?

So is there the potential to even, you know, do mapping? So if you're looking for a specific tree, you can actually not just scan the code there, but go look for that tree as well. So I've what I've researched so far, you've got different groups looking at it from a couple of different aspects, whether it's just educational, here's the sign QR code. Seems like that's a direction that a number of them are going with. But then we're also seeing mapping here as well, where something you get online to actually identify the trees and where their locations are and, again, pull out the information through a mapping tool.

Yeah. And I

don't

even you'll have to explain that to me. Because I'm not sure what you mean by mapping.

If you want to see a persimmon and they're not in your neighborhood, you

would go on a website.

It would be almost a GIS base.

It's Okay.

Here's a

map where all the trees Right. Are. But then, yes.

But deal with this. Right. Then we would be just doing it. You're saying, Okay, this would be at the Arboretum. And it would be nice if it was more than the Arboretum. I actually talked about a heritage tree program with the city manager. She said, oh, that sounds interesting. And I went over by your neighborhood, Betsy, on Elm Wood and Miles, there are some huge oak trees. And there was one that was scheduled to be cut down because of the sidewalk. It's still there.

Massive. So those could be you could work a heritage tree designation into something like the mapping if people wanted to go see.

Right. Especially if it's on Poland.

Yes. Because it's These

very complicated when it gets out to private Again, you're mapping these things to go to. So it's Right.

You know, poll

fairies, parks, forest preserve dishes, those types of things, a unique type of tree. Sometimes it's historic in nature. Right. There was something that happened with that tree or they brought back seeds from an pollen trip and they planted them and there's an pollen there's certain aspects of historical trees, but then also large champion. And maybe consider champion trees, the largest

tree

within the area or heritage, 100 year old trees are located. Yeah.

So that would be neat to start with at the arboretum. And then I noticed there's also the qualifications to designate it as a registered arboretum, which we could get into that. I didn't look at all of the specifics that are required. There are different levels.

And so A lot of good information in what was sent out. Some of the input that I can get from the group here is, again, advisory in nature. Far do

we take this?

Do we want

to involve scout group? It'd a great scout project. Is it JJC again?

Right.

You know, do we involve other but, again, city property and Oh, yes.

And that was in my meeting yesterday, that was a point that I made. It's like, we're all volunteers. So really, if we want to carry something out, we really have to have the city staff really has to be involved. There's nothing we can do on our own. We need approval. We need everything like that. It sounds good.

What I'm seeing with signage, it's necessarily, you know, expensive type of thing, especially the more trees you have that reduce the cost. But, again, it's insulation. I don't know if there's ever been issues there with signage previously since that is an issue with Right.

When that was first designated

an arboretum, it was an Eagle Scout project. So the Eagle Scout got signage. We tried to use grain stakes that were made out of recycled plastic. We had signs that he put up, but it was difficult to have those remain. Some of the plastic stakes would get mowed.

Put them in a mulched area, but a lot of it and then we tried attaching some to trees. That last walk we did a few years ago, we used a zip lock not a zip lock, a zip tie. And we put the names on white vinyl whatever and tried to Yeah. But Simple. We know. Not Yes, some of them are still there. But it is something that we have to do a little research on what really works. I mean, the arboretum, they have them on metal and they have them imprinted and usually, I think, hanging from such the tree.

Treaty tag and treat. Right. Could stake it. So there is, yeah, different labeling options here.

I think it's, I mean, I think it's something that is worth looking into. And maybe we could have it on my Arbor Day. I don't know. You know, have some kind of big splashy. Of course, sounds wonderful to do all these things. You're looking at us and going, okay.

Do we know how many trees are actually

in here? Not really. Okay. I don't think so. No. And and it has changed some, you know, because they've done some improvements and they've also removed some trees. So that's a, that's a, you know, again, we could, some people, scout could do a project. You just have to get a really Eagle Scout that's really on top of things with good support. It's doable.

It's almost creating it probably ultimately linked to the city's website. Again, doing the background on the trees, not just the signing aspect of it, I think, would be a great but again, it comes down to a little bit of a budget here, too. Is the next step reaching out to the city and saying, Okay, here's something we're considering. What are your concerns with regards to signage on the trees, in the mulched area? Is there a budget? Is

that the

next step?

And when they redid that park because there had been a big sign when you entered that said, Arboretum. Well, that went away. It became Route 66 Park. But they did put a couple of metal signs, very nice signs, that said, this is an arboretum. It had all the information about it, and these are trees that are examples of what you might plant in your yard and what to form.

So there's one close to where the ice cream place is, and then there's one at the farther end. And so if it's an arboretum, we should be able to identify the trees and make it legitimate. And there are grants, like that Common Green Region grant thing that somebody else submitted, that So Theosophical

I've reached out to them. Haven't heard back to see what program again, it'd be easier to do something that somebody's done before when they already have the background, especially if it's within a region where they've got the state of trees to pull from

Right. And they were going to plant. They had they got a grant to plant trees, 40 trees, and do the signage. So that would be interesting to see. They might have a budget and everything and have done some research.

So we've reached out to them. We haven't Right.

They're in Wheaton.

Yeah. Yeah, the person was just off for a while. So hopefully, we get some of that

information And as then maybe we can pursue that. Okay. The other thing that you had in there was a website or YouTube video from Purdue University that showed And how to turn I thought, now I don't know, but I think we should check to see if we can add some of that to the city's forestry you know, the city's website. Mhmm. Because, I mean, that would be great to advertise.

It's nice. Even though all might have looked at the title and saw our rear toolkit, it does have some the tree care aspects in there, which I think would be nice to start just adding things that we don't have to reproduce anything.

It's just

a matter

of putting that link

and then trying

to highlight.

Right. And it's much better than if you do a little pamphlet or something. I don't know if people look at it that much, but here you have a person who's actually trimming a tree, showing you how to make the cuts and all the parts. Then, so I think we should look into that. And that Purdue one was really good. But there might be even more stuff out there. Probably the Martin Arboretum, I don't know if they have a video, like a YouTube type thing or?

I'm not sure about video. I know that we've got material, paper materials, as well as website information where we can share those sorts of resources. But I can check and see if maybe there is a video out there that they would recommend. I know at Purdue, we have a lot of we have one particular employee who is Lindsey Darling. She's over at Purdue. And Purdue has great, very knowledgeable people about pruning,

things I like did have a

question real quick about the city arboretum. Is that on city property, or is that a separate park?

It's city property. So

that is located in one of the disadvantaged census tracts. So my guess is that the inventory is already complete there. So maybe that is something obviously, it might not be something that Great Lakes, depending on what their contract says, they may not be required to provide information. But maybe we can ask. Can provide information just in this area on the data of how many trees do we have here?

And then we

can get that involved with transporting that data over into mapping software. Sure. Oh,

and they would have the species and the condition and everything. That would be great.

Thanks for that, Ryan. So we've said Route 66. Isn't there some big

thing next year? Well, it's the anniversary of Route 66.

So that part will be kind of they're probably dressing it up for

Well, it's it's already pretty dressed up. Yeah. I mean, I went to the last year, they had a big

They had new sculpture.

They had Grant, and they did all of the they did signage, and they have they have a big Route 66. It's a sculpture type thing that you can sit on you can sit in and get your picture taken. And they have another sign where with it's all Wednesday, June flowers.

Yeah. So, I mean, we don't know if there's gonna be an event there next year. We can check it too. Yep. Tandem with Right.

That would be nice. Mhmm. Yep. Okay. I think you think we're good, Jim, on we'll just continue to do some research. And

We'll continue to dig in. Like I said, the Esample Society is is one I haven't heard back from yet, to and see what they're so finding out now. We've got a lot of information here. See where other groups Right. Used as well.

And we can once I maybe hear from Ryan, he probably has a million things to do. But if you have, do you have video or anything? Otherwise, we can check with the city on what it would take to put something like that on the city's website.

Yeah. It was kind of nice because that video was actually from the arboretum. I was kind of like, we invented it. Oh, so so much which is

Oh, okay.

Nice feature because it's part of that city Arboretum toolkit from the Arboretum.

So Oh,

okay. I I you know,

I think those kind of things are very helpful through the Arboretum. Yeah.

And I wouldn't wouldn't go to the city's website if I I would just Google that term tree. You know?

So I don't know.

But almost like just to be a highlight on the website, here's something that tree advised you. Here are things going in. Just to catch somebody's attention. Yeah. Right. Looks at the website. You're right. Most people probably not know. I wanna show this is an active board. And then there's things

that we know. Support, you know, because there's a million videos probably.

But that that also might be something that if you do set up a QR code system where depending on what the signage is gonna be, if there's like a a basic signage or if every QR code takes you to one web page, that web page can then link to whether you want it to link to an individual tree, or you can post the resource, the video online, post a link there. There are different options depending on what you

want want to to do. Do.

I have people ask, I've heard that I can buy my own tree to be put in the parkway and the city will plant it. Well, I don't know where they got that information.

I don't

think so either. But people do sometimes go to the website looking to see. And there are places where there are forms to request a tree, that kind of thing. People sometimes do. But I know what you mean. I'm usually a lot of people say, oh, I wonder. I'm like, well, just Google it. All right. We will move on. We just have a few more things. Harbor Day. Are we

You told me to wait till this meeting.

Yes. I didn't do anything. Oh, no. Not until this meeting. Right? Because we said let's wait till after Christmas.

Oh, Christmas.

Yeah. At the school. Then reach out. Yeah. And But we do want to reach out to because I was talking to Michael, and he grew up around Plainfield South. And there are he mentioned Charles Reed School. And we have been at Charles Reed, I think, twice. Yeah. And real recently, like, years ago. Maybe. Yeah. And then once way back. Okay. There are other schools that are in Plainfield that I mean, that are Plainfield schools that are in Joliet. And I think there are Troy I'm not sure if there are Troy schools also.

There might be. But last year, we only reached out to Joliet, District eighty six. So this year, we just want to make sure we include. And we're kinda looking to do something farther west because we've done the East Side. We did Woodland. We did oh, the school last year right next to Washington Junior. Right. Yeah. And he

And he yelled at the district. What's that called?

School district. The district? Number. No one else. I don't know. Just playing field school district. The

school I I can look it up real quick.

Oh, that's

alright. But I do not know it by unfortunately.

Yeah. That's alright. And we and he

was talking in high school, but I said we usually do elementary. Yeah. Right?

One of the school some of the schools

so much on college. There's sorry,

Oh, okay. We'll we'll have

a look. Okay. Yeah. Traveled so much on Collins. Have you ever considered that Saner Sanchez school? We we have done Saner Sanchez, but years ago. Yeah. I mean, we've been doing this for probably twenty five years. And I Some have a list of every school that I could figure out that we've been to. But some would go back because it's been years.

You know? Totally different principals, of course, all different kids. But the one thing I wanted to mention is last year, trees for the grade schools and Arbor Day giveaways were always ordered in the fall, like November. And we usually went to Schumacher's in Minnesota for our trees, for the seedlings, saplings. And then some were obtained from the state nursery in I'm trying to think where it is.

Anyway, but you almost had to drive down there to pick them up. And last year, we were ordering late. And I went through the list at Schumacher's to pick out trees. Now, it used to be that we gave away white pines. That was a favorite of our arborists.

I never really liked that, because who has room in their yard for a white pine? Now, the story goes, well, you could put it in a pot and just keep it, like grow it wherever. But I don't really so last year, I chose a crabapple that had, for the birds, had very tiny fruit, which is what's recommended for birds and fungus resistant, all that kind of thing. And it was kind of last minute, and I suggested Schumacher's. And I think public works tried to they were trying to find trees cheaper, and I think they ended up Schumacher's.

And they actually were able to get what I recommended. But I think we need to be proactive and find either one or two kinds of trees that we could have ordered and have them set aside to be shipped to us that we would get like, the week of the week before Arbor Day. So if somebody wants to look at the I mean, I was doing research looking at the tree species. And it was don't have,

like, my first pick would be surface barrier redbugs.

Right. And you know what? By the time we were looking, they were all out.

All right. So maybe we need to get an order

and Yes. Mean, do you have any suggestions on that, Ryan?

Yeah. I'm not sure what the specific species or varietals that they have. But our stewardship team at the Arboretum does have significant trees available for distribution. So that might be something that we have set up with other municipalities, set up plantings. So that could be something that Joliet could do, the community could do in coordination with CRTI at the Arboretum.

Or that would be something maybe if Joliet wanted to handle that itself, that might also be something that we could provide the trees to. But that would be our stewardship team. I can reach out to them and see the details and then connect them with you and see if that might work for the advisory board.

Okay.

And what you're talking about is like Eric Moon, our new tree board member, who wants to plant trees. These would be maybe a little bit larger trees that you would plant in a park or in a neighborhood, right? And you'd have people participate?

I mean, they would still be our trees that we plants, they're still under three inches DBH. So they're still relatively small. Two and onetwo inches DBH is usually kind of like limit.

But for us, that's big.

We're talking about

were talking like a plastic bag. Like this. We give to them

like it's an arbony tree like that. First graders would get a little sapling thing, which we also would do. And maybe 150 to 100. Yeah. Little guys. Yeah, I think last year I mean, and that is one nice thing. Public works was whatever we suggested or asked for, they did for us. So I feel confident they would do that. So we could get giveaways for last year, I did the school. And I think I had some for little didn't I come I came out to the when the East Side Neighborhood Council, or I don't know which group, was planting and cleaning That was 20.

Yeah. That was Two years ago? Yeah. Okay. Oh, that was the year we had seven fifty trees. Yeah. 150, exactly. Oh,

yeah. That

was yeah. Public works. They went all out, but, you know, that we don't wanna have to do that again. But so I did order, I think, there was an HOA that wanted, like, 50 trees to plant around their detention area. And I ordered, I think, I got river birch for them. They wanted willow, but there were only shrub willows. And they did not want shrubs. And I kind of tried to convince them not to do that. But they had cypress before, and they did have some cypress survive. But, anyway, I'll try to see if somebody will look look at Schumacher's.

I'll look I'll Google them.

And see and see if they have if they have

I mean, those would be those

are nice trees for a yard. And we never did figure out exactly what to do for kids who did not have a yard to plant anything in. We didn't do it last year because we

just the school, and they just didn't

care. Well, no. That Sandberg school, the principal went and bought little plants for every kid that didn't get a tree. Oh, really? Like a house.

Yeah, something. I don't know what

he ended up with. Something to think about. But, Karen, if you look up the kind of supply they have for redbuds or service berries, I love.

We had one here. Mhmm. Some of

them were service berries. Okay. Anything else on Arbor Day? I mean, maybe we can do some if we get work with that stewardship group, then we can do something more to involve the public, which would be good.

The arboretum does our stewardship team does have smaller saplings as well. So I'm not sure what their sourcing is for that and the inventory that they have. But that is something that I've been to many events where one of the stewardship team will show up with 10 satellites

to go about to kids. You

get little four year old kids walking away with

the first satellite. I mean, I I actually was hoping and I did send an email out, but I think I got no response about having a public meeting in October and having, like, 25 oak trees. But I got crickets back. So you know? And it's, yeah, kinda late to set all that up, but that would have been really good. People to come to Right. Yeah. Something to give Oh, yeah. To give people to entice them to come to a meeting.

So while we have Ryan here, just did we ever tell you what we do for Arbor Day? No. Okay. We have a poster contest. You know, the one school just kind of takes the lead, and the kids make posters. The theme is trees are terrific, and then they pick top five or whatever. So anyway. And then they come to city council here, and they get to shake hands with the mayor and

get They get a certificate.

Certificate. So it's cute. Then on our Arbor Day, we go to school. We somebody plants a tree. It's the various people have planted it, and they have the kids in the same grade plan plan out the day, whether they wanna sing a song or a poem or they do whatever they want. Yeah. So if you have other ideas, though, we've been doing this same program for years and years and years. So it seems to be working, but I don't wanna get stuck. You know, if we're

There are

I mean new ideas out there, we should probably entertain them.

All you have to do is Google it. Yeah. Oh,

Arbor Day events?

Oh, yeah. In fact, the Arboretum, you can go. There's a whole educational section that teachers can use.

No. I

And I kind of put that at the top, I think, when I send out the poster contest information.

But didn't wanna, like, force the schools to do it.

No. We try to make it.

Wanna do. So

And we do have a costume. So Oh,

yeah. We have a treat.

We don't.

Call it a Twitter. Retired members.

Made it. Mhmm.

And sometimes the teachers love to wear it. And we haven't had to wear it for years now, so that's good.

Yeah. We used to wear it. Tried to back to So one

size fits all. Yeah.

Yeah, depending on the material, it could be pretty hot in

there too. Oh, Oh, yeah. It's got pants and a top.

No. It's got pants.

No. And it's got a squirrel hanging from the the you know, we need to invite we need to invite him this year. Yeah. Well, I think it's nice though that we have an outdoors. Right. Yeah. You know, if you're

talking about alternate things because that's

Yeah. It's it's wonderful.

I was always roped into it, but somebody else was still up. You wanna get away.

Yeah. I can send a picture to people. But that would be fun.

You have any other cool ideas, though.

Yeah, we try to make it not we try not to put too much work on the school, because Not to work on ourselves. Yes. And because they have so much that they have to do anyway. We're always so grateful when a school says, yes, we will post it, because it is a big deal. All right, I got one more thing here.

The Tree City USA application, this would be our thirty fifth year as a Tree City. I have all the plaques in my basement, because they took them down from the wall. I do have some extra flags that we haven't used. So I have been putting that together every year recently. So it'll be interesting this year, because things are sort of in flux right now.

But I think I'll be able to get the numbers. We didn't have a growing contract. They have been planting trees downtown. Probably our maintenance contract for pruning and removals and stuff will hopefully boost us. We need $2 per capita to be at Tru City USA.

Did they simplify the application last year? Were they looking for

too Yeah. How they simplified it is that they did not ask for all the receipts for everything, which in a way, well, I think it made it easier for the state. There may be fewer people working on it. I mean, is like a, what, the state forester, and I have no idea what kind of staff they have. But they didn't require any receipts.

And in a way, I felt like I didn't have a good idea then of what we actually spent. You could see every tree, everything from different contractors, what they took down during storms, extra emergency removals, or that kind of thing. And I felt like it gave a better idea for us of what the whole program is like. But I'm sure, like at Public Works, where they're paying all those bills and everything, they have a better handle on it than we would. I think sometimes trees that are planted in the downtown might be in a separate department.

It's done through a different like a contract for the city center. And public works wouldn't necessarily have that. I don't know. So that will be something I'll have to start trying to round up numbers and do that. And all of these extra things that we might do, like a tree walk or whatever, that all counts in getting Tree City USA or a growth award that we try to do.

And we have earned for I can't remember how many years nine years we've earned that. So that's coming up. So anybody have anything else? Michael, do you want to talk a little bit? You want to tell us what your interest is? Is that microphone on over there? Okay.

It's at for it to work.

It should be Saturday night.

Test? Oh, Yeah.

I do wanna say, you guys have many, many great ideas. I love the community involvement ideas. I was doing some note taking. The ideas I do like are the community mulching, the community planting. The mulching not only brings joy to the people by doing it and helping the community, but it will also help beautify and better our community looks wise as well.

When it comes to the board approval, again, I do plan on attending council meetings. So I know being a visitor here, bringing these things to the council could also help you guys. So I will bring some things to their attention as well. There's different things as well. For like, I remember you mentioned the wheelbarrows, and that, and the mulch, and the truck, and that being a problem.

Something I could recommend is maybe having big, like, painters tarps to put the mulch on. That way, the mulch is there, there's no mess. And then once, whatever mulch is left over, you could pick up, put back in the truck, and then there's no mess. Another thing I remember you mentioning, the Eagle Scouts. I personally, as a little boy, was part of PAC eighty three at Saint John Lutheran Church.

Mhmm.

Mhmm. And I do know people who still go there. So I do have connections with that. I could definitely talk to some people, possibly getting them involved, because I do remember the term leave no trace. That was the number one thing they taught. And it was a lot about nature, it was a lot about trees. A few questions I wanted to ask. Does your committee provide these community oriented services where you do the trees, you do the mulch? Is it just for public areas like the Route 66 area? Or is it for people's houses, businesses? Is it is it is it just for specific city areas? Yes?

Yeah. It's all it's all public areas.

Public areas.

Parkway areas. And also, Park District is separate from the city.

Okay.

But we have worked cooperatively with the Park District for some grants and that kind of thing.

And if I'm not mistaken, dragging my memory, the Park District is the Inwood Athletic Center, correct?

Well, it's yeah. They have, I think, 70 I think they have 78 parks

or and Pilcher Park, that's all Park District.

Okay.

So a lot of people get confused. Their boundaries are are they

the same or different?

They're a little bit different for our district. Uh-huh.

I remember you mentioning you wanted to go to different schools. I do have one Joliet school, I remember. Remember, I did go to Plainfield, I know a lot of them. But there's one specific school that my friend went to who graduated the same year as me, and I do feel it could use a little bit of community attention with the mulching and the trees. That is Hufford. Have you heard

of Hufford? Hufford is being rebuilt right now.

Okay. So again, I'm

a little

I'm I'm a little out of the I did just move back. But Yeah. That is one

of them. My kids went there.

Another one was Westmere, Timber Ridge, and Grand Prairie because I know Timber Ridge is part of the annex over in Shorewood. I remember you mentioning Troy.

Mhmm.

Another thing is, like, for the school, I don't know the timeline of when you're going to do a community event, but maybe theming it towards the the fall aspect of Halloween for the little kids. And another thing I wanna say, I noticed you mentioned a costume and a mascot.

Yeah.

That would be something, if I were to get involved with you guys, I would love to do. I'm just saying. Would love to be that mascot with the children and the joy. That would be awesome. But the other thing with the metal plaques and the trees and memorial, I was gonna say we could use metal plaques, but I noticed, again, relating to, I go to state parks a lot, they use the vinyl boards. So the vinyl boards would be, would cost less to replace over time once they wear. But also the QR code idea. That

is

a very smart idea and I wanna commend another committee that if I'm not mistaken used the QR code idea. I was walking through downtown today exploring a little bit for the first time by myself since living here. I actually went to kids fest a long time ago. That was the last time

I was in downtown with family.

They used the QR code idea on their electric box art for the music. Mhmm. For the music committee. Mhmm. And I scanned the QR code and it was actually very smart. It was a very smart idea because it brought like like mister?

Justin.

Justin. Like mister Justin said, it brought up a entire map of each and every box, and what, and something you guys could implement in that is, it could explain or come up with a software where they click on each different tree that is on that map, and it will explain what that tree is. Something, just an idea for that. Then one last thing, I know you remember, I remember you mentioning the saplings. Me and my partner, we three d print, and he has a three d printer.

Something I would be willing to do, if I'm, if I come to any of these events in the future. I could talk to him about three d printing little like coins or medallions. Once we're done here, could actually show you some he printed me. And those coins could have either the tree committee logo or something related to trees on them to give to the children. So kind of like a reward system for participating, but just a little three d medallion that could help. Yeah. Because I know that the the budget could sometimes be rough with the trees and getting enough for that many children.

Right. Well, thanks. Nice hearing from you. I'm glad you attended.

Yes. And if possible, before you leave, I would like information on if you have any dates of community events coming up that I could attend.

You know what? I'll get your information, and then I can get it to you. Okay. How's that? Like an email address. That would be fine.

Yes, Ms. Reimlich.

All right. Thank you. Thank

you so much.

Anybody have any other info? Anything else to share? Okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn?

I motion.

Karen Fonte, move. And I'll second it. Mary Schonheider has seconded. All in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. We are adjourned.