Tree Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Calling the tree advisory board meeting to order. We have how

many of us? We

have five of us, so we have

a quorum. Do we know Nate will be here?

I am not sure. I haven't heard I haven't heard from him. But for sure, Jason's not gonna be here.

Is there some sort of recording we need to be doing here? Video? Is the video on with that?

It would be that.

Here we are. Teamwork.

We're doing this. So first things first, did you guys get a chance to look at today's agenda?

We did. Do I have

a motion to approve that agenda?

I move to approve. Second.

Alright. And next, we have February's minutes. Did you guys get a chance to review those? And do I have a motion to approve February's minutes?

A motion to approve.

Second. Alright. What is it that

I'm supposed to say when

Say all in favor?

All in favor. Yes. That all in favor.

Opposed? I froze those minutes.

One of these days, I will get it right. Do not worry about it.

Okay. So we don't have anyone from the public, so no public comment today, and we can get started with our agenda. So first thing is an update from Tom, forestry update from Tom.

So if y'all don't mind, I'd like to modify that. It's like, yeah. That can that's considered a can the change. But I'm not fully prepared for it. I do have something that I could present if you really wanted to see a little bit of stuff tonight.

But what I thought I may do is is ask you guys what sort of stuff you would be interested in seeing and then make sure that I I have that for y'all next time. Like I say, I have a I have a slideshow that I presented a little while ago to some of my internal staff that just talks about the way the way we inventory trees and what we inventory. And so maybe I can give you a little overview of that and then kinda let you know the the immense amount of data that I could bring and see where you guys what you guys would be most interested in. So about two years ago, we started using a a software platform called Davy TreeKeeper. And at that point in time, we already had a decent tree inventory.

The folks before me had been keeping that just in basic GIS ArcGIS software. And what what TreeKeeper is, the way I look at it, is it's sort of like a a shell that works with ArcGIS software, and it's just really, really tree specific. And so it provides me some really nice things in in the tree world. So, currently, we have all I'll probably give you the exact number. All those maybe changed slightly.

All 4,614 this would have in January. 4,614 park trees are all inventory. In our park trees, we collect more data than our street trees. So in our park trees, we know everything from, the species to the diameter. Every single summer, we update the condition of those trees as well.

We know their location. Anything that's been planted since I've been here, we also know the day that it was planted, and we're beginning to track what we consider provenance nowadays or, a simple way to think about that is, like, seed source where the genetics actually come from. And Terry and I are contemplating going so granular as recording which tree nurseries they come from, thinking that that data may be of use to us in the future. That's our park trees because that data is really thorough. And every single summer, we're using an intern in the summer months to update the diameter of every single tree and their condition.

What that gives us, what I'm hoping it will give us is in fifteen, twenty years, We will have because Erie had all these really unique species. Right? All my time spent in Boulder, I knew of two or three public magnolia trees. We've got threefold bat here already. You know?

Species like, hardy rubber and, you know, these weird things that that we have here and have been growing for a while. What I wanna be able to do is show all of our neighboring municipalities on the front range in a decade from now or so, growth rates on these weird trees that that other municipalities aren't aren't as used to. What that also gives us because we are tracking enough data on them, it it makes me feel pretty comfortable about the eco benefits numbers that the software spits back to me. So that's things like pounds of carbon sequestered, last year by blank tree, gallons of storm water intercepted and kept out of our storm water systems by a particular tree. I'm less confident in the tree by tree number.

But when you take that kind of data and you project it over 4,000 plus assets, I feel really good about it. And so we know that sort of stuff with our with our park trees. That software is so sophisticated, that we can ask any kind of question you can imagine, ifs, thans, buts sort of questions. So you could say, show me every red oak between six and ten inches in diameter that's in good condition, that is in Erie Community Park, but is not adjacent to the street, and it would show us something like that. So you can ask some really complicated questions.

And you would say, show me every magnolia in town that's in poor condition. And then I could have staff go out and maybe address those trees. I also use that software to track all the work that we do. So moving forward, I will know each time that a tree was touched for a pruning operation, each time an ash tree was treated with a a an emerald ash borer injection. You know, maybe a tree sits in a poor condition for three years, and then we have a work record that says we finally gave it some iron, and it got happy.

And in the next year, it bumped to a good condition. You know? All that sort of data will be there for eternity, and that's pretty cool. We did not have a street tree inventory when I came in. It's important to remember that in in this municipality, street trees between the sidewalk and the curb, the right of way there, are town property.

Their assets that we all own collectively, but they're the maintenance responsibility of the adjacent property owner, typically an individual resident. Right? So what we did last winter, and this took substantial amount of staff time. Most municipalities will contract something like this out, but we did it with our in house staff. We drove, all the all the streets in town in filings that were past warranty that had been turned over to the town and collected a fast collection of tree data in those areas.

So in those areas, we may not know the cultivar. Right? We don't know that it's an auto blaze, but we know it's definitely a Freeman maple, but we're not a 100% certain certain because we didn't plant it, the tag's not on it anymore. So we just know it as a Freeman maple. But we know the diameters of them, we know the locations of them, and we know the species of them. And that's for our street trees. In order to collect that kind of data as fast as we tried to do it, which was, a month and a half's worth of time, we couldn't get that granular. So getting a big picture was better than having no picture for me. What we just well, I was about to say we just finished, but I talked to Terry yesterday about it. We're not quite done yet.

What we intend to do every late winter moving forward This town's relatively unique, right, growing so fast in a municipality like Boulder where I used to work to get, like, a whole new filing, a new neighborhood built. Like, it only happened a couple times in my entire eight years there. Right? Here, it happens every few months practically. Right?

So what we intend to do moving forward is, this time of the year, every year, have our GIS team, update me with the new shapes, if you wanna call them that, the new filings on the maps where the neighborhood was built two or three years ago. The town has signed off on it, and the town has taken over maintenance of of the public infrastructure in that neighborhood now. When that changes anytime last year, those all get given to me as a batch this year, and Terry is out there working through those. So, like, there's some interesting parcels out out out that part of town, some parcels over kinda by the Home Depot, and then, like, a fair amount of filings up in that'd Northridge, off of county off of County Road 10 And A Half there to the north of 10 And A Half. Some new parts of that neighborhood that were built a couple years ago have finally come over to the town.

A couple new parts of the neighborhood that's near Clayton Park, same story. So each year, we'll have less data to collect. And then I don't know, like, when our return interval is gonna be to go back and recollect that kind of data because it's a really time consuming project. But we now have that general data as well. What I would say the big difference between the two two datasets is is that in our park trees, we have very few, very, very few green ash or ash in general, white or green ash.

In the street trees, it's a totally different Mhmm. Landscape. The really important thing, I think, is that it is very different neighborhood by neighborhood, and this is common in all municipalities. So if the neighborhood was developed in a particular era of city planning, it's likely that the right of way is fairly narrow, that they're large mature trees, and that there are a lot of ash. Remember, we stopped allowing ash to be planted a number of years ago, because of emerald ash borer.

So you go to a neighborhood like Compass, and I think the entire neighborhood of Compass somehow, like, wound up with two ash. There are two ash there somehow. They know what they have. But that's the entire neighborhood. So the way I kinda look at that is the Emerald Ash Borer issue projected onto this town is is really desperate. You wanna look at it like that. Some neighborhoods have nothing to worry or think about and don't need to be burdened with constant communication from the town about Emerald Asheboro because they

don't have any ad. Mhmm.

Other neighborhoods, they're 30% or more Yeah. Ash, and it's a big deal for them. So knowing that that's a sort of and, again, with the street trees, I I couldn't have the guys slow down to the point of doing a condition assessment on every tree. That's 14,000. It it would have taken way too long.

So because because I don't have an accurate condition for each one of those trees, those eco benefits don't real either don't display at all or aren't trustworthy in my opinion as those eco benefits are really based on the size of the tree, the species of the tree, its location in relation to the nearest building, and, and its condition. I did have him record what was dead, so I know where some dead trees are certainly. But, so that's where we're at. We're really proud of the Park Tree data. That stuff gets you know, I always say, this is what the number is when I last looked at it, but it's live software.

And so my my folks, every now and then they wait till the end of the week, but, really, for the most part, they're updating their data every single day. When they plant, they just, like, update it immediately. Nice. So all that's there. All that Park Tree data is public, or I would say the majority of it is public. I don't make the work records and that sort of stuff public, but the location of them, species diameter, eco benefits, all all public. Knowing that, what sort of what sort of stuff would you guys be most interested in? I might even have the answer to it now. But

Sounds like extra credit on Arbor Day certificates to me. Yeah. Yeah.

It helps for their application. I think our I think our application is a pretty easy review.

Yeah. We need extra credit.

Yeah. That application, there's a very specific dollar amount that we're supposed to spend per capita, and I need to put in a whole bunch of data to prove that we're over said dollar amount. And I don't even really need to show them all of our budget. Like, our staff salaries Mhmm. Pretty much covers us there, and I don't even put mine in. So, yeah, we spend enough money on trees in this town to be considered trees of The USA. We have a tree board. We have tree code. We hold an Arbor Day event. We do a proclamation, and that covers us for Arbor Day. But we are above and beyond.

I was gonna say, I think we're above and beyond with our inventory alone.

Thank you

for doing all that work and and then for not outsourcing it too because I I'm always skeptical. Like, no one cares more than we do. So thank you for prioritizing that.

Thank you, guys. I mean, a good perspective, and these are usually we can usually, like, piggyback off of other municipalities, which is nice once a company an inventory company signs a contract with a Denver or Boulder, we can usually the reciprocity. Is that Mhmm. Yeah. So we can usually do that sort of thing, and Boulder's done it a few times since I've been around. So as a perspective, you get charged per tree that you that a third party inventories for you, and you get charged more based on the amount of data you collect. Boulder and us pretty much collect the same data. And as an example, years ago, nine oh gosh. No. Plus four four thirteen, years ago twelve years ago.

Davie was charging Boulder, like, around $6 a tree. So we would take our street tree inventory of 14,000, multiply it by six, and that's the sort of cost we'd be looking at to have it done from a third party. Mhmm. If the snow doesn't come and we don't have a lot of snow to push, we have some time in the winter. So it's a good project for my certain endeavors to do.

And we didn't. Rough winter for trees.

My my staff have been watering a lot lately.

Are you monitoring the trees on Vista? I'm really worried about those trees with the new landscaping.

I'm not. I'm not.

They're not ours too.

Oh, they they would be adjacent HOAs.

That's the HOA.

Or the metro district.

The one. Like, kind of mister Ridge neighborhood? Yes. So I see them watering with trucks. They come out. Oh, really? Yeah. Like Nice. Every couple weeks. Okay. I don't know. It's so dry.

Yeah. I've seen

The rocks are gonna dry Yeah.

They are.

Dry it out. Yeah.

Dry and hot. I know.

I have had a few HOAs reach out recently, and one in that area was one of them for various reasons, reducing water. Some of them, it's, like, for foundation issues and things. And so basically, showing me some bids from private companies and saying, hey. Like, we need your expert opinion. How much water do these trees really need? And and to be honest, like, the the simple answer is always $10 or 10 gallons per diameter inch. You know? Maybe you can limp them along with a little bit less, but probably shouldn't. And if it's a blue spruce, it's gonna need a lot more than that. Hackberry.

Right? So it's tricky answer to give them, but that is something that we're we're facing with water shortages. You know?

Will the will the data that we're collecting this year and next year give us a good sense of what the impact of, like, this year of water is going to do or would do on long term growth on the, you know, on the, I guess, the tree canopy?

Probably not. No. You know, maybe over maybe over time, that might. Another attribute I didn't mention that we do collect on our park trees is the type of irrigation they receive. So I know which ones get drip irrigation. I know which ones get overhead irrigation. So as we enter a year where I'm likely to I already have been asked to reduce water usage. It's super helpful for me to know these trees get water from their own dedicated irrigation system, and it's a drip system. And I can run it in the middle of the night when evaporation is gonna be, you know, leased. And, so these trees are gonna be easy for us.

This batch of trees gets irrigation from when that soccer field gets irrigated. The overhead also catches the trees or that, maybe it's just passive turf and turf that we don't use for sports, and those trees are have no irrigation other than what they're getting that we're using to keep the grass green. Mhmm. And so that's a good way for me to know right off the bat, hey. If we're gonna quit or reduce watering on these passive grass areas, okay.

I can easily tell which trees I'm gonna need to put on water routes and have staff go out with water trailers and hand water. We could you know, in my opinion, we could let some of the grass brown, but it would be a mistake to let these, you know, these these trees go. The software will even give us, you know, valuations from a money standpoint. You know? So so, gosh, it's a $40,000 tree.

We we we ought to spend a tiny bit on it for water and keep it around because we can't replace that asset overnight. But so from the water perspective, I I did you know, the growth rate thing? Yeah. Eventually, when we look back at that dataset after we have ten, fifteen, twenty years of it, yeah, we would be able to compare water reduction years to growth rates and see if there is, like, a noticeable hey. Look. They literally did not add diameter in in the year that we didn't water much. So, yeah, that that sort of stuff could be there eventually. Yeah. But I I would say, like, anecdotally, right off the start, like, no. At the end of this year, I won't.

Trees tend to respond so slow to things. You know? Trees that get hurt by construction damage don't usually show it until you're out of warranty and everybody's moved into the building. And yeah. So yeah.

Along with the nonessential turf ordinance, there's gonna be no more tree lawns in terms of new development. So that will be all drip irrigated, but also more rocks. So

That's that makes me mad.

So

because they're, like, they're trying to save they're trying to save money on water, and they're reducing the lawn. But then you lose the trees on top of that. So you don't have any grass now, and you don't have any trees, and now you just have hot rocks. Like, if

we're It's gonna be Phoenix. Phoenix is hot rocks. And Yeah.

It's not about it's not about the cost of water. It's about the the actual amount of water.

Mhmm. So there was a

state a state initiative.

Especially after this season too. I'm assuming that impacted the water that we have.

So I heard something kind of changing gears a little bit that I was was interested in talking to you about my another store. You know, I work at Home Depot, and the one of the stores over in Boulder County, the Department of Ag went in and told them to remove all their jutubers.

In the parking lot or something?

No. Remove or sale from for sale.

For sale?

Mhmm. Because there's such a fire. The state? Wildfire.

The state of art today.

Well Yeah.

Yeah. It's good news to me.

They do have the nickname of gasoline bush because they

are Get it. Highly flammable. Get it. Yeah.

Both of them are Oilers as well as then all the needles in them that fall and accumulate at the base of the

Yeah. No. I get it. I I am not a fan of the juniper by any stretch.

Well, that's a whole noth Had to remove all conversation of fire mitigation is also counter to water Mhmm. Things. So the two are a little bit opposed to each other, which is challenging.

Yes. So I mean Yeah. I mean, there are you know, people are being asked to, you know, protect your home, do this, this, and this. One of them is remove your junipers out of your yard. Yeah.

Yeah. And we'll have

folks at Arbor Day this year and had them there last year that are part of that, the county initiative. Right? But it's a an urban wildfire interface kind

of Yeah. The the The community wildfire protection plan, I think that that's part of it is removing I don't know if that's required or, like, mandated or if it's a suggested thing or incentivized. But

Yeah. I can say, you know, since I since I've been in rehab, have planted a juniper in house.

Like that?

I I did.

Tree right there might not be totally sanctioned. Alright. Right up against the building

evergreen. Yeah. So Austrian pine.

In pine. But,

yeah, I mean, that sort of stuff is will impact us all.

I was just Yeah.

Asked to consider a bill today that they just introduced at the legislature called wild wildfire protection save the beavers. Something in how beavers are hunted, but they're important to flooding, flood control, and wildfire protection. So I was looking at our legislative agenda policy to those, like, we have no sections on beavers. No idea.

No idea. We're in.

They pop up in the area all the time too. Yeah. I mean, in the in the in the forest, beavers serve a very good purpose, and the wetlands are super important. But we can't let beavers build a wetland in the in Old Towne area either. So while the beavers might build a wetland and that would help us in a fire, we can't that will never be part of our solution.

Yeah. Right. Right.

Yeah. Maybe it will. I don't know. But, yeah, I mean, I'm glad the state is proactive in doing stuff. And if the state comes and asks us to do stuff, we'll fall in line. But, no, they've not reached out to me about anything like that yet. I did just get trees to give away at Arbor Day. I just bought them today. Very strategically did not get gender fluid. Yes. But they're always available to me. For what it's worth, this year in in seedling form, we'll have what did I do? Oh, for for Kelly and the horticulture folks, I got just old school French lilac. So because because we need more lilacs. So Yeah.

And then for trees, I did that river birch. Does everybody wants an aspen?

Nope. Because it's great, good alternative.

And river birch is

It's a great one.

Pretty resistant to brown birch, or whereas your paper birch is, like, candy to it.

Yeah. So

and then for where some of the some of the vendors who are gonna be here there this year have already reached out to me, which I appreciate, and said, hey. We wanna give your residents pretty treats as well. What do you want us to get them? I said, awesome. Awesome. I don't want you to get them these. Mhmm. And I want you to get creative.

Right. Here's the weirdest.

We can get weird.

So Get weird. It's weird. Like, I

no, Autumn. Then he said, no. No. That, please get weird.

Love it.

Nice. Well, I'm excited to see what the data can tell us over the coming years. That'll be really, really cool.

Yeah. And if anybody has specific questions, you know, you want me to bring back with next time, I I I totally could. Yeah. I I wasn't at work last week due to a family emergency, so I don't have it ready for you right now. I know that Mike and Luke Bollinger have both asked me to put something together more so in, like, memo form for counsel Mhmm.

So that you guys outside of the meeting can read it on your own time. And and I suspect that would be a little bit a little bit Ash focused because that's the high level stuff that that I may need y'all's help with. But, I mean, for you guys, I would probably lean, and I could pull this up right now and chat about it if you guys wanted to, but I suggest me not. You know, I I could pull, like, easy species die you know, species diversity stuff. I mean, we're really good in every park is the long story short.

If you pull a diversity report for any of our parks, we're not heavy on any one species. They're all super unique and weird and diverse, which is what our goal has always been. It's the street trees that are of polar opposite. Do

you have any updates on Linear Park?

Was just gonna ask that.

No negative updates. Mhmm. Just that I'm under the impression we're moving forward. I believe Mike has met out there a couple different times with contractors, and he's brought our irrigation experts out there with him. The details that that he shared with me, everything's pretty busy right now, so it's sort of like, this is what you need to know.

And the soonest I would be planting out there would be this fall. And I'd probably wind up doing, like, two or three batches. So, like, do one this fall and another batch in the spring. And I there's no reason we can't. I would love the planting in that to be as much of a community thing as we can.

All of all of you guys are always welcome, but if we can even do it as a old town planting party and bring all the neighbors out, that that sounds great to me too. And then my goal would be to be highly diverse in in the species and their sizes, so, like, some huge maturing things, but also some small usually, the huge maturing things aren't your your strong pollinator stuff, Paul Weed. I mean, silver maple is a great pollinator, but, so a a good mix, some flowering stuff, great pollinator stuff, good shade, and go from there.

But Cool.

Yeah. I'm everything I've been told is we're still full steam ahead. So so I'll let Mike keep driving the bus on getting the irrigation in that we need, and then we can plant. We also did a a you guys will notice it soon enough, but we extended some irrigation. For lack of a better terms, I'll call it four corners, but Erie Parkway and County Line Road there at the Northeast corner, you got the Erie Community Center.

Mhmm. Well, in that true Northeast corner, like, around our electronic marquee there, you have the big open lot, and we use it for overflow parking. Sometimes they're pretty soon gonna start pumping concrete down in there to fill up the the mine cavities that are underneath that soil. Well, we've already extended some drip irrigation along County Line Road essentially from the nearest trees down towards that marquee sign. And I remembered correctly.

I wanna say 13 sticks in my head. Something like twelve, thirteen, 14 trees that'll get planted there this spring. So get a whole new batch lining County Line Road there. Yeah. Mean, other than that, we have a year. We got a tree truck in on Tuesday, our first batch of trees. Really cool. Good, unique, weird stuff. A good batch of magnolias.

What size do they come in for you?

This they're everywhere from, like, 1.75 to a couple of them came in close to two, two and a half. Sure. Yeah. Some POTS, some BNB, a little mix of everything. The next, I intentionally split I intentionally split this batch because the weather's so weird right now. So I said, like, give me half of every species I wanted. Hold half my magnolias, but give me half of them now in case we are clear of winter. And, like, this is weird. Alright. So

It's a little weird.

If we're not I kept some of my eggs in the same basket. It's just a case.

Yeah. Look at the temperature. Next. 83 day. That's unbelievable. It said 91. That's unbelievable.

Mean, it's a 115 in July.

Just making sure.

July. I don't know the next day.

I kill myself. Ain't the

You know how it gets really hot and then the next day, it's in the

house? That's not good either.

Yeah. We're usually working out in it, so it's fine.

You're done? Park's licking good. The warm of a storm.

Yeah. Are you done? It's usually a big wind, warm storm.

With this phase? Yeah. I would expect a few more phases, but we came in to do that phase first in an attempt to disrupt dog park usage as little as possible. Mhmm. So that was our way of doing it where we would never have to fully close it, hopefully.

But, yeah, that that the fence along the creek side will get realigned soon enough. It'll get bumped into the dog park quite a bit. And then another project that would be I suppose that we have the public works or storm water project, the way you look at that. That the the project that will realign the creek there and also involve a multiuse path to connect you from there to the new King Open space and eventually the whole Front Range.

You know?

That that's in the works. And so because we knew that project was coming in, we said, well, we we'll use our own staff, get in there, and do this ahead of that project so we can limit the disturbance. So all those trees got irrigation upgrades.

I love the little boxes around them. It's really cute.

That was my woodworking project. Yeah.

I built

I built the first prototype,

and then

Terry, the folks, took care of it from there.

Here's how to make a box. Yeah. Yeah.

The the box is amazing.

Yeah. So that they all have new irrigation, new landscape fabric. And then I was asked to not use organic mulch there to keep it out of the crusher fines so that, like, keep weeds at bay a little bit. And so after a little bit of research, I decided that pea gravel was our best Mhmm. Stone option.

I would rather use bark mulch or something like that, but best we could. So with that being said, we're we're starting a new thing with the dog park where a few times a year, we're gonna supplement all the dog park by hand with our water trailer. And each time we do that, we're gonna fertilize those trees. You guys have probably heard me say plenty that I don't like to fertilize trees. I said, generally, the limiting factor is water, not not nutrients out here. But because that dog park has almost no organic material, can I want those trees like I'm a dog person? Poop. Trees at a dog park. Like, that's Yes. So we're gonna start fertilizing them a couple times a year Yeah. Because they're in such an interesting landscape.

Cool.

Cool. Is that project scheduled to be done?

The dog park's open again. The that second, call it, like, reach two is probably what you guys know it know it as. I don't know where that is in the in the in the planning process.

I feel like it's also federally funded. Right?

Your problem? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Knows?

Good point. Yeah. Good point. So You know, I'm asking

because we we wanna have a tree walk there. This like, maybe have a an evening tree walk instead of our normal noon time. So yeah. I think this Edwin would be a good time for that.

I I mean, I don't know when that project is gonna get going. I don't mind taking the public adjacent to an active project. I mean, people have questions, and I think it's good for people to see progress.

Sure. Yeah.

See how hard some of these projects are to do. So it wouldn't bother me if there was a on the other side of the fence, an active project going on.

Sure.

This this data could help inform, like, future tree walks

Oh, yeah. Too. Mhmm.

I mean, not this year, but, like, future year tree walk. Mhmm. Yeah.

I mean, we're starting e even stuff that, like, you know, my staff know, and it's very easy to do with the software we use. My staff know, like, if a tree looks particularly good on a particular day, like, snap a picture of it and put it in software really quick because it takes a couple seconds. And so, like, these magnolias that are blooming and stuff for us, you know, we're able to to just go back, click on the tree, and scroll through the pictures really quick and be like, oh, wow. That one was in bloom on blank day this particular year. Let's angle towards a tree walk that week because of that. You know?

Oh, that's awesome. Magnolia tends to be in

bloom on Arbor Day for us, which is really nice.

Plus, of course, it's eighty five and eight and March.

The little magnolia that's in front of Schofield Farmhouse. I noticed the other day before I left town I was out of town all the last week. But before I left town, I stopped by there to check on that tree, And they'd actually put out a first set of buds this year, then that's and they got to about this big, and then they dried up. They're still on the tree, but when you touch them, they're not Mhmm. Mhmm. They're not viable. But then there's this whole second flush of buds on it that are twice as big, and they feel like a sponge and, like, they're getting ready. So that's exciting. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. A lot of people think it could be a bad fruit ear because of the way the spring is going. I don't know if I feel that way.

Okay.

Like, it depends if you eat an irrigated tree or not. If it's an irrigated tree, it's happy right now. Right now. We'll see what happens over the next month.

But Exactly.

Irrigated trees I think

we would get, like, a deep, deep freeze at this point I

got a word.

I think all of them are all great August.

I don't think anything winter's coming in May.

This would be the year we have Arbor Day indoors.

Oh, this would It'll be snowing afoot on Arbor Day.

Yes. Oh my gosh.

I get 12 inches of snow on my

probably on Father's Day.

We'll get 12 inches of snow on on Arbor Day.

I have never wanted a blizzard so bad in my life.

You can do it. Right? Yes.

But blame it on. That's bad.

Five, six inches between the seventy to fifty days last week to do it for you.

I filmed something two weeks ago with our communications team. Gonna go on social. It's not out yet. They're saving it for some reason, but they said it's gonna go on social. And I was like, well, what do want me to talk about? I'm like, well, what would you wanna tell the public about trees right now? And so what I chose to talk about a little bit was that, sure, we're coming out of this winter drought, and everybody knows about it. But when you see snow in the forecast, it's from a tree perspective, in my opinion, it's not the time to get excited and be like, oh, great. I don't have to water. Right.

If it's a week out and we have warm weather leading into it, in my opinion, it's actually the time to get the garden hose out and water the trees ahead of the event. One of the best tree what's the right word for this? Tree sayings that or phrases that was ever taught to me, and this comes from Kathleen Alexander in Boulder, is that, wet spaghetti bins or, yeah, wet spaghetti bins, but dry spaghetti breaks. And the basic concept is that if a tree is already drought stressed and dry, when it gets a whole bunch of snow weight on it, branches bend and then eventually just pop and break, and you get a whole lot of tree damage. If it's if the trees are properly hydrated before we get a heavy wet spring snow, they tend to, like, bend all the way to the street, and they're touching the street.

But when the snow melts off of them, they go back, and we don't see that much tree damage. So

I was just talking to Brian about that on the way in. Like, what do I do? Because of my finally, new trees are leafing. So I'm hoping we get snow. Okay. I'm actually starting that for myself.

I know I went actually to Home Depot and Lowe's. I actually went to both and bought one of the oscillating sprinkler heads so that I could I was tired of pulling my hose around and so that I could also water my grass. And so my so I'm like, here's old fashioned hose going. Yeah. We're selling the heck out of that stuff. My

my mother spent this Christmas at my house. She takes a different Christmas to spend at one of her children's houses. And this year, she was in Colorado. And as you know, it was very nice around Christmas time this year. She was, like, blown away. I ran the garden hose all day Christmas Eve and all day Christmas, like, eight hours a day, and she was, like, blown away. She's like, your water bill is gonna be through the roof.

And I

was like, okay. But it has to happen. Like, I have I have huge mature trees and lots of landscape. And to keep them happy and healthy, like, they need this water, and they need it on Christmas day. So but it is.

Maybe the Japanese beetle larva is all dried up and dead. Glorious.

Yeah. They probably hate all the warmth.

Well, they do the drought will help us when

we go down. That's Yeah. What somebody told me.

At the time of the year, they're they're developing in in the roots of turf grass. And so, yeah, like, a strategy to knock back populations is to turn off irrigation, which is like what Grand Junction did years ago. Had a bad outbreak, and they kind of eradicate it eradicated it from Grand Junction for a

minute until that

struck showed up with it again.

Got it.

But all the golf courses, the municipality, everybody agreed, sat down in the room and agreed to turn off.

True.

And then we'll let the golf courses go around. They did that, and they were able to knock it back really strong. But it's always a truck away and Mhmm. You know, a good growth season away from going through the roof again.

It's really me and the Japanese beetles have the same taste in plants. Plants and all sorts of stuff that they love.

They seem to love more and more each year too. Yes.

Linden's employment too.

Linden's. I know. And all of a sudden, they're on the Linden's.

From the inventory standpoint, was a week you know what? One, two? As far as three years back, I think, we've been because of my insect and disease background, I'm I'm terrified of Linden because of what you guys just said. Right? And so, I didn't plant on my first year here, but we have now, since then, been planting at least one I can think of that's being marketed anyway as being more Japanese beetle resistant.

Yeah. And from what I can tell from just looking looking at the plant myself, it appears to be the genetics appear to be a lot closer than to the, like, the true Tilia americano, like basswood out of the Midwest.

Okay.

Bigger leaf. And it has a real real legit, like, fuzzy pubescence on the underside of the leaf. Oh. And the beetles tend to not like

Yeah. Right. With a lot

of fuzzy pubescence on them.

Mhmm.

So I think that's the thing. But we have some. We know exactly what variety they are. One day they go break know it. And we can total yeah. I mean, if we get a good outbreak this year, we could

mean Yeah.

Just us or even the public if we wanna

Note, they like century Lindens a lot.

Yeah. You're totally right. And they like little leaf a lot. Yeah. So if we wanna pull, like, eight eight Linden varieties and go on a little field trip and look at eight Lindens and see how infested each one is. Maybe we'll be like, hey. Well, that that that one that they're saying is less is less.

Is less.

Or no. It's not.

Got it. Good little study there. Yeah.

Alright. And we'll move on to the next topic. It's our newsletter. I've been kinda slacking. I haven't done my part. Does anyone else have their part? I think you have a couple of weeks.

No. I put it in my

thing to write it on Monday. So it'll be written on Monday and sent to you, I assume, the art.

So Jason's covering Arbor Day, of course, and how to plant a tree, Amy. Yeah. And then I'm writing on the spring flowering tree. So I will get that done ASAP, send it over to you guys. I believe we have to list at least the first tree walk on the we're hoping to list the the first tree walk on the in our newsletter just to jump start things. Do you have any ideas on that, Tom?

I mean, just the the seasonal perspective that on Arbor Day, there's typically some spring flowering stuff in bloom, but most leaves most trees have not really pushed leaves yet by Arbor Day. So if we were to do a tree walk before Arbor Day

I think we should wait till May, don't

you? Yeah. Yeah. Done.

Just I think we should have the date.

Oh, yeah. The date Yeah.

Is the first and the next Place and location or no? So so we should It

should be all right now.

Yes. I agree. Mhmm. Just for that first tree walk. And then, on Arbor Day, we'll decide the rest of the the tree walks.

So we're looking, like, May then?

I'm just trying to see

when it's last.

So Yeah.

It should be about 95 degrees by May. Don't

you think?

Last year's first tree walk was May 2, Friday, May 2. And show. I don't think we had it in

Yeah. We should probably avoid the twenty second because that's right before graduation.

I'm good. The first, eighth,

or fifteenth of those three Friday Friday, no problem.

If they wanna just do the eighth thing, is

that Would be the problem?

Because you're

Yeah. It's not right back up, like, back to back on day two. People will actually, like

A little bit

right back off of it.

Yeah. Want a little bit extra time for people at Arbor Day to hear about it and actually be able to do it as opposed to. Hey. You're free next Friday.

You know?

Yeah. But it's soon enough

that you don't forget about it after eight. Yeah.

Okay. So May 8 is the first.

I'll put it in my calendar soon. Thank you.

And our our location location.

What is something that's blooming, an area that's blooming nicely?

Well, look. We have such amazing diversity. Something blooming in every park. It's kinda true.

Is there anywhere we haven't

been? Last year, I think it was, like not sure.

One of them was Coal Creek.

They do Coal Creek. Coal Creek is so young that early in the season.

Yeah. I feel like we missed we were a little early for Coal Creek then.

ECC is always good that early. Crescent Park has a batch of three or four magnolias in the same corner, and they tend to bloom a little later. So crescent can be good. ECC can be good. Arapahoe, I think, is a little bit better later in the year.

What about the new wetlands area?

Wetlands could be interesting. I will

I mean, where all the cottonwoods are? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I eat well

Is there anything else out there?

Well, I think so I think

I've seen so many cottonwoods.

I think Emily is were bad. Referring to the wetlands by the by the

That was

a good place for them.

Yeah. I think she's thinking of King Open Space.

Oh, okay.

Because King Open Space Right. Right there off a county line road. Yeah. It's a 100% cottonwood, but it's four different species of cottonwood.

Okay. That's a

big deal.

The plans were one species of cottonwood. When I got to the nursery, I switched to them. There's four Oh, that's kinda cool. Species. So we got planes.

You're watering them like crazy all winter?

They're still on the contractor, but they have that's not off warranty yet. And the contractor states they've been doing a great job.

Uh-huh. So

you're talking about the other

Wetlands by recycling.

Oh, yeah. The wetlands, but what it look like there? I've never even seen it.

I haven't walked it in the past. Is there

a better time of year to do save that one for later in the season, you think?

I would just say that this particular spring, we will be coming out of the warranty period. And so I would I'm just gonna guess that, like, 50% of the trees on that project will get replaced by the contractor right before we let them be done with that project. So the trees will all be basically just just stuck in the ground.

Got it. Okay. So when I try crossing it, it's

been a while since we've done Erie Community Center.

I think that would be a good start.

Good one. So there's nine almost a thousand trees there.

And this whole year, I've this was my last year was my first year, and we didn't do it at all.

Wasn't that the one? It was you and me. And who else? Somebody oh, what's her name they used to take the notes?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. She's a

I'm old and I do Yeah. She's You know, the lady that was here Jan.

Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan.

Jan. Jan and her husband and you and me. Yeah. We were the ones that and it was soccer players and freezing. Yeah. It was miserable. But we looked at the bald cyberses and went, oh, let's go home.

So it's think it needs a duo. That's a hard it's a

duo. A good duo. It's duo.

Was a duo for sure.

I hate it. And I love the strawberry. Yeah. But I the first tree walk that you went on was there, and you were telling us the difference between oh, what's the I how

was her

name, Jay? Big seed. Oh, like that? Well,

no. Coffee. The coffee coffee. The coffee versus honey loaf seed.

Yeah. That's fun. And then there I was standing in front of this enormous beautiful maple tree, and I'm new to tree. Fuck. And, like, that's a gorgeous tree, and you you feel like, god, it's dead. I'm taking that out. It's like I was like, it's stone cold, And it's gone today. It's nothing.

Sometimes I can be a little blunt. Sorry. It

probably was, like, very undernourished. It probably I

it looked beautiful to me, but what I know.

Yeah. But, yeah, one of those maple. Yeah. Now now it can take an injury you're talking about. So

It's days are not still. Oh god. Do

we do we wanna identify at least a second date or even a third? I don't know how many. May slash June. And then we can figure out from Arbor Day where where we want the next one to be.

Is is Columbine work? I don't think one was done there. But

Columbine's a good a Columbine so that I'm

In this

through the ridge with this with the rink.

No. I have never done one at Columbine. Columbine's an interesting park. It has funky soil. And, historically, it has had irrigation issues. And I think with those historic irrigation issues and the funky soil have made it hard to grow trees there, but there are some that have thrived there, and I think that's significant. A lot of bald cypress there. Terry's calling that place Cypress Hill.

That's awesome.

So are we talking to you to, like, do a June date, establish that so that we have it prepared in the tree in this next newsletter, I mean? Is that Well,

and even if we don't publish it, but just

if Just have it in packets. Packets.

What about the dog park? Yeah.

I'm always game for anything, and I I I mean, I like you guys steering it as much as as you can because I I really could do it anywhere at any point in time.

Looks like we've done Lehigh Park,

or if we it was a long time ago.

We did do Lehigh one. A long time ago. Been there for a bit.

Like

because then you were there.

It's my first one there.

Yeah. And then

It was before I was on the

Were you there with your dog?

No. Where is Oh, yeah. Park.

Actually, that was Yep.

Yeah. It's in Erie Commons neighborhood.

You know.

Is there a particular park that's good at a particular

You know where his office is? The

Oh, yeah.

The spring and starts

about very south side of Erie Commons neighborhood.

Ask that. You know, again,

who knows what June is gonna look like? So kinda seeing five inches somewhere around. So yeah. So

if we do decide to have an in the evening at the dog park, when would be a good month for that? Would that be a good, month for like, should we have it in June, or do we typically have them in July? I don't remember.

Too hot. Too hot. Month? July season?

Or That was a hotter. I

didn't know.

It's hotter. It's

This year, god only knows. Let's stay inside for July and August.

That's the plan. Because May,

June, September.

June. Let's skip July and August.

Yeah. That's friendly. Yeah. Yeah.

But June is I mean, June would be an interesting late one because it'll be light.

Yeah. Yeah.

It'd be light. Yeah. Yeah. You get the lightest Interesting. Longest day.

Wanna do it on a Friday, though.

We could do it on the longest day. What's the longest day?

Twenty ninth. Twenty first. What was that? That's gonna be Sunday. Sunday night? Sunday evening?

It's Father's Day, June 25.

Yeah. That weekend's probably not it because it's also a holiday on Friday. So long weekend plus Father's Day. I don't know. Just you know, the turnout might be

You could do the week. Muted.

Do do it the week before. Yeah. Are you guys thinking the weekend, or you wanna do the week weekday?

I happen to be on call through the tenth through the following week, Wednesday in June. So

Is it ideal to do it during while you're on call?

It's very unlikely for me to, like, plan a vacation.

Okay. Got it. Alright. So what about, like, Thursday, the eleventh or something like that? The evening of the eleventh? K?

Where did we decide? June 11?

Yeah. That June kinda thing or 06:00?

Yeah. I would think so. Yeah. Six sounds fair, though. And that's the dog park. I've been

Dog park.

Oh, cool. We get to bring our dogs.

So bring my cats.

It's good to live where they Yeah.

Because we

had parks in one of

the cats that took the dogs to carry them. You know?

Yeah. Nothing will go wrong. Yeah.

That's right. That's how I remember it as. 7 Sons Park.

We can get to meet my pet dogs. And see And brain and three pounds. God.

Yes. Under the pound. Gosh.

He's a

hundred forty five. Three pounds. Okay. Good. Next. So we got a couple of them. Let's move on. I see.

We've our agenda item g. I'm pretty sure it's G

is done. Oh. Both mine have been taken at both locations.

F f is the tree walk one. G is the tree rescue one. Yes. The tree walks. So it okay. Done and covered. Got it. Okay.

On the newsletter, just communications isn't expecting anything until early April.

Okay.

They they live off of this calendar.

Okay.

That one. And so won't even reach out to me and say, hey.

Where's the stuff? Okay. Sounds good.

April 1. So you get it to me around April 1, and we'll be fine.

Surprised you guys on April fools.

Tom, did you hear anything about changing the format of it?

Format of The newsletter.

Because I had asked about putting it on Notify Me.

Oh. Wait.

Well And that apparently, the format isn't the same.

Yeah. I don't I haven't heard anything of that. You did you talk to Ashley or Gabby about that?

I, I think it made it to Gabby. Okay. Yeah.

I saw Gabby an hour or so ago, but, she didn't mention it. Okay. I'll leave it in their hands so they can change it to whatever format. It it'd still be, like, an email format, still like a PDF format, but then they would wanna tweak it to something else so that it can go unnotifying?

I think so. I think it has to be tweaked somehow, but I thought that that Trubor put so much effort into it that it should go on to notify me there's enough back issues. There's

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I agree.

Alright. No. It's landing the future.

So, like, if you get, like, the the sustainability newsletter updates on happenings around town, updates on the open Lockport. Singletrack.

Who's in charge of that here?

I could probably stand up

there. Oh, that would be.

Yeah. I saw that.

Okay. So next is Planting the Future, and Jason gave me a list of the schools that are interested. So I guess I'm gonna be asking you guys who's available for these. So we have Caitlin Massey, second grade metal arc. She found us on the newsletter, and Jason is suggesting March 25 from 12:30 to two, and this is for three classes totaling 69 students. So the options are March 25 or April 1.

March 25. So

I can't do Wednesday.

Let's see.

And that's both those are both Wednesdays. I can't do Wednesdays.

Oops. Sorry. What were the dates?

So March 25 or April 1.

I can and you said from 12:30. I can do March 25 or April April 1 because I'm off by 11:00 those days. You're available on either date. Mhmm. What was ten?

At 12:30 to two.

Mhmm. Thirty.

April 1, you said. Right? Yes. 12:22. Okay.

So and I have here that do the first. The first?

I could do the first if

Oh, I'm not here. The last week. Was at last week tomorrow.

Yeah. I could do the first.

The first? Let's do the first then. It sounds like But

I could also do that Monday. So what if you have I mean, if you got three, right, that's all you need.

Is this including Jason's

Let's see how many you get for Monday.

Nine kids.

The 20 for the next school. Bodies there for sure. See what I'm saying? Yeah. That's better for me, actually, Monday.

I have to pick

Was Monday on her

I got my kid that day at that time.

Monday. Available.

So

We're the only two options for that school. Monday. Wait. Better for her. There's, like, four schools

that are

I think that's what

I There's, like, five there's, like, five schools that are that are interested, so it's possible that, like Three people is enough. Pair pair, like, to a couple schools in one day. Because the

teachers are there to help.

It's interesting.

I mean, the teachers keep them herded. Gotcha. And you just kinda

you know? I just I know I haven't done it yet.

I don't

know that Taylor's done it yet. You need somebody who's done it. Yeah.

I believe he's done it. He only knows how to do it.

You have low stress.

You have kids. Yeah. Dinosaurs are

I mean Yeah. You got posters. You lay out the posters. You got the they fill the dirt. You've done it. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. When you fill the dirt

On April 1, we're looking at doing it, then you make it

Elementary schoolers are notoriously easy to manage.

Yeah. I mean, it's just right at the Fill the dirt. I mean, and there's no you don't have to It's large. Exactly right. You just have to get the seed into the pot That's with the dirt in it.

Take it by the

And you don't even have to water it. Didn't we tell them?

Oh, yeah. The teachers water

it because it was gonna make a mess.

Oh, we don't deal with water.

So that'll you're on your own there. April

two.

For the record, I will not be able to make that one, but it sounds like you have plenty of coverage. So

Okay. So next, we have Soaring Heights.

Which is is that where is that?

It's up there next to the high school. Right. Mhmm.

Okay. I don't think I've ever been there, but I can do that one.

And we have 25 students, and Jason listed any day the week of March 23, either 09:30 to 10:55 or two to three.

So Which what do you what do you wanna do? You're gonna do it? Well

Look. I I'm curious to hear what they all four of them are.

Oh, but there's more? There's more.

Mhmm.

Yeah. There's four. So You can lay them out

on us.

Yeah. That's your that's