Environment, Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay. So let's call this meeting adjourned or open.

I just wanted to let everybody know that we do have a member of the public who has joined us today. He does not wish to speak, however. Yes. Indeed. Kathy Brodbeck. Here. Corey Rich. Here. Kate Kenziora. Here. Laura Wyatt. Matt Noon. Here. Michelle Ritt.

Right here.

Tedward Erker.

Here.

And Tierney Boxy. Here. And others present. Brian Wall. Here.

Lisa, you're muted.

Are you guys talking? Because I can't hear you.

Alright. Try it again, Matt.

How about now, Trevor?

Yep. I hear you now.

You can?

Yeah. Thanks.

Do do anything? Or

I think I think we're I think I have to stay unmuted even though it should

Okay. So let's move on to item number b, consideration of minutes. Did did anybody, have any objections to the minutes that were shared earlier this week? Or, does anyone like to make a motion to approve the minutes?

Rich motions to approve, Lilitz? Brian, that's second.

All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye.

Aye.

K. Minutes are approved. Okay. Then let's move on to, item number d. So start with our buckthorn removal project. So this is out by MATC. Brian was there. Brian, you wanna tell us about the project? No? Okay.

So there was a Boy Scout troop. OFS legacy crew was out there. I think the whole day they were out there, then we had, the MATC, Arborist students, couple of arborist professors, biology professor, and a couple other folks there. And I I shared the pictures of folks here. Sorry for the people online, I don't get to see them, but we cleared about maybe an acre and a half. What would you guess, Brian? It was a lot. It was a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I was surprised at

how and how efficient and best they were. I mean, it was impressive.

Yeah. So I would say over an acre easy, Buckthorn. There's a sea of Buckthorn out by MATC and the bike path there between, like, Bridges Golf Course and MATC. So it was a really successful project. Lunchtime, we gathered at MATC, I kinda turned it into, like, a little, like, you know, show and tell about different career paths available. So that was a fun project. It was a cold day, but successful.

Like, you had 30 people.

Did you count?

I did.

Nice. So, yeah, at least 30 people there. So

So, you were there, Matt and Brian Wall and Adam and Kathy? I was not.

Oh, okay. Madison College students. Okay. Boy Scouts.

All of us.

All of that.

Yep. Okay. Got all that then. Thanks.

Okay. And,

actually, were the urban forestry students in that photo or not?

I believe they are, but you would recognize. You might recognize a few of them. I I thought so.

Some of them, I think. Definitely a few. I know.

I don't know. I think they were still with Jeremy maybe at that time.

Oh. There there's a few that got there in the morning. That's fine. Well, maybe it seemed like some are coming later on too. Okay. I'm gonna turn it

over to Corey for item number two. Yeah. So, apparel, sent out the link, about a month ago to everybody for the or or a week or rather. For everybody. And I think at this point, we heard back from everyone.

If you haven't sent a request for items, so send what item you'd like and your size to, Matt and myself, and we will get the order placed. And then if you are not wanting any items for apparel, just send an email letting us know letting us know that that's the case. As a reminder, we'll use the apparel to, you know, represent the various events, things like that. So, great opportunity to get yourself some sweet tree board swag if, if you so desire.

Did you get my order?

Think so.

Excellent. No. It's nice. Yeah. It looks very nice.

Yeah. It's the it's who we use for our operation fresh start

Mhmm.

Gear, and we we put that stuff through the ringer usually. So I I've got years of hats that are Christmas presents that are still intact. So I

know Michelle is gonna want something.

I don't know if Kathy said this, but also good job on the vendor. Very re surprised.

Yeah. Surprised. Yeah. I noticed the it's some of the same line as another vendor. Who sounds a number association uses. I was like, oh, yeah. Do you recognize that?

Yeah.

It's

I yeah. Right. We've we've had good

luck with them. They've been reasonably priced for us.

At Operation Fresh Start,

we don't buy anything expensive. So

so who who we're waiting to hear from, what, Ted?

Edward's gotten back to me. Edward does. You did. Brian got back to me earlier today. Tierney might be the Tierney, you gotten back to us?

Mine got sent to junk email. So I was like, why did I not see this?

K. Try. Okay. Danny, could you say

that again? Sorry. The volume was real low.

Yeah. So that email apparently went to my junk email. Ah. So I would just I was like, what are they talking about?

Fair enough. Do you need do you need a resent, or were you able to find it?

I was able to find it.

Okay. Awesome.

Okay. And, I recommend that we spend extra money on, you know, a few extra hats or T shirts, whatever, things that we could just, like, keep on hand for future members or maybe gifts to partners is what I'm thinking. So Okay. I don't know if anyone has an objective with that, but that's my recommendation.

Corey, should I reply to the original email from you, or I I was I didn't catch the name of the person you said to possibly reach out to instead.

Well, it was just Matt and

I. Okay. Alright. I will do that after this meeting.

Excellent. Thank you.

And it sounds like Michelle will too.

Perfect. Yeah. We used to, give all new tree board members a hat way back in the day. So

Putting it at the top of my, inbox would be great. I'm inundated, the last month with hundreds and hundreds of emails every single day.

About potatoes? What about what?

Yeah. Overwhelmed.

The, apparel.

Yeah. The order form, please.

What what are you inundated with?

Budget emails.

Budget.

Yeah. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of emails.

About the budget, last I heard, there's tree board budget next year. Is that in question or in jeopardy?

I have to look that up to be sure. I have not heard that it was removed.

Is there anything that we should do to ensure that it remains in place?

Not at this point. No. But I will I will get back to us.

Do you have any reason to believe that it might, be removed?

No. I don't have any reason to believe that at all.

Okay. Thanks, Michelle. Yep. Okay. Then let's move on to item number three, border map.

This is just a project I've been working on for over ten years. It involved over 200 students where we've been converting historical tree inventory data, land cover data into a GIS. And so that's the the dataset I shared with everybody earlier this month. And, kind of the next steps for that is, to create an old growth forest map statewide. We got funding from the Bach Foundation to do this, and that's using basically the same methodology that we've used to create the Dane County old growth forest map.

So in my opinion, that's gonna be the most accurate, old growth forest map that there is in America, for a large scale. So I think it should be pretty neat, and that's gonna be finalized this year. We're just getting started on it now. Oh, nice.

Congrats. That's awesome.

Yeah. I was just asking that. Are there any, out of curiosity, any insights for Dane County in specific from that work?

I think, you know, you could read, like, a lot of publications that will tell you that, you know, there's only point zero zero one or point 01% old growth remaining in all of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, but but I think that can be, like, a little bit misleading. I think there's a lot of, like, smaller Remnant. Old growth, remnant patches that collectively actually, like, equal quite a bit more than that, you know, collectively. But maybe they're only two acres here, three acres there, four acres there. So that's, like, kind my goal is, like, identify, like, these remnant forest patches.

Like our oaks back there.

Mhmm. So in terms of the of the dataset that says you only have my old one or whatever, and how you're defining old growth, what is old growth?

Right. And, you could talk about that a lot, and we have talked about that a lot. You know? So, like, what we do is we use, like, the pre settlement pre European American or pre European arrival dataset, you know, the witness tree data. And then we use the border data, we say it's like, okay.

Those two datasets coincide into the same type of vegetation. And the border datasets of these trees are already, like, 12 to 24 inch diameter. Then we mix in the contemporary dataset. You know, it's not gonna be perfect, but it's kinda like smashing these, like, three different areas of datasets together. And, you know, with old growth that, like, depends on the species, You know, Dane County is gonna be oak, and a lot of times it's, you know, remnant.

Right? So, like, before long, you know, it's becoming more of a mesic forest and the oaks are getting shaded out. So it's only gonna be remnant, old growth forest in Dade County or Southern Wisconsin for so long, in my opinion. So I think of it. This

is fascinating.

I

wish you could all see it.

You can take a picture and email it.

But we've been working with Bob's mail, right, to help us, like, come up with those definitions. And, like, Trevor Trevor Richel Bolivar has in the past too, probably, as well. So so we got kind of like a team together to help us, like, best, like, work with this data set.

Cool. Thank you. I just know there are some people who haven't heard you say that before and may have questions, which is why I

Yeah. Mhmm. Sure.

I hope you don't think I just don't listen

here. Either way. Then I just wanna give you guys an update on the remarkable trees at Dane County. We've now had over a 100 trees that have been nominated for remarkable trees, Dane County. So as I feel like it's been a successful project. A lot of people know about it. I don't really know what we do with it next. I

I don't know if anyone's added any in, the village of Oregon. But when I'm down there, there are some amazing oak trees in people's yards. I mean, huge. When I was in there, I was I wanted to measure them, and I wanted to add them, but I wasn't able to access their property, and I wasn't, like, dressed as in our garb. Washed three clothes for that.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, if

I mean, there are

definitely more remarkable trees out there than just these 100. So keep adding, folks.

I was mentioning the math that I saw, the remarkable trees, link on on Reddit, which was kind of a cool thing to stumble across, posted to the, the Madison sub. So that was cool.

And the the as a posting board, tyranny type word, you guys are familiar with that. Maybe I'm saying it wrong. But, you know, I've run a lot of people run across people that I've never met before that, like, learned about it just through that or the posting board. So alright. Unless there's something else?

I I just want, like, little comment kind of tying in what Brian said, and you said, Matt, about not sharing what the next steps is is maybe just making sure that in our public events, we kind of have, like, a a plug for that that we can give out to people just to keep spreading the the word. You know? Like, for example, when we did that tree planting in Dane back earlier this year or whatever, maybe that would be an opportunity for us to, like, say, hey. You know about this thing. Just to kinda keep that on our radar.

And I don't see any harm, like, every, I don't know, four to six months pinging that listserv, something like that. I don't know if they'll consider it spam. Maybe it needs to be, like, six months or something. But, you know, they're constantly getting new members and stuff as people share out that listserv. It's pretty cool that you're Reddit famous map.

Oh, Where did that go? Not me. The website.

Might wanna bring up a project that Adam was involved with along with OFS and, maybe a few others. And they had, Madison Metropolitan School District has several construction projects this year, and many of those had, nice trees in their footprint where the construction would take place. So there was a considerable effort this year moving us, relocating several trees, to a new spot on the school property so that it would, get established and not be gone forever. And one one of them was Shabazz. And I think the egg dumpers, they have the orchard trees.

Anyway, it was quite quite an effort to save these trees.

And it kinda sounded like bouncing off of that because of Adam's involvement with his class from Madison College. Yeah. Adam also got to preview their landscaping plans, to give them some advice on, you know, what should stay, what should go. And then, they are fine. They're gonna have him review even he him in the loop on reviewing future plans as well.

This came up in a call earlier this morning, and I said it sounds like Adam's taking on more again. And Yes. So if there are things that we can do to help support him in those acts Right. I think that'd pretty awesome. Might be a good fit for for us or some of our members anyway.

These things come to him, and he can't say no. I was like, can

help with that?

Yeah.

Also the first time I've reviewed landscaping plans. So

I'll also just add that I you

know, both the, the time out at Madison College and the crew being able to help out at Schibazuer, you know, cool workforce development opportunities for crews that were made possible by, you know, by the IRA grant, which is great. That's that's true that's, you know, funded through through the IRA grant for workforce development. And, young folks had a lot of real positive things to say. We've got to, you know, use power states and stuff for the first time and need, need opportunity for them.

So Yeah. Really cool. And, you guys brought up Shabazz, it kind of reminded me of one other thing I meant to say. Recently, we I, Curf C got a grant for $5,000 from the CB Bassandy conservation fund, and that's gonna be used to support developing leaf curriculum. So then Brian put me in contact with the Stevens Point leaf group.

And the idea is to, like, take what we've learned working with these seven different schools, growing trees, establishing nurseries, and try to turn that to some curriculum that could be applied statewide. And on top of that, like, probably a good chunk of the majority of that funding will be used to support the schools and their efforts in getting them all the supplies that they need to make sure that they're successful. So I didn't wanna leave that project out too. Yeah. So I think it's just another example of, like, how that small investment from the tree board funding of, like, taking these nurseries has kinda, like, paid off, or kind of ripple.

Michelle?

I just wanna throw in there that you're bringing up very, very sweet childhood memories for me. I think it was in, like, maybe fourth grade that I was assigned to do a leaf booklet, and I remember the details of it very clearly. And I think that's the first time I officially fell in love with the specifics of trees. So yay for a project like this.

Nice. Cool. Thanks, Michelle. Alright. Get ready to move on to, e discussion items.

Yes.

I think that are probably the most important part that we need to talk about today. Mission and vision statements. So we got pretty darn close to finishing our mission and vision statement last month. So just so people here know, Lisa has the document that we're looking up shared with everybody. So everybody's looking at the same thing right now.

And, I just, I don't wanna rely on my memory. I I was kind of thinking that we, like, we got through one through four, and then we got to, like, six, and we were running out of time, but I can't remember. What do you guys think? What do you remember? Or if we if it's helpful, we can go start through, goal one and get back down to goal five.

I'm kind of, like, just reading it quick so I can write it in this. Sure.

And you shared the link too with those folks too so they can look at their own?

I did not. But I can do that.

Then they can edit it too if they want.

Okay.

I thought that I had sent

You could just put it in the chat. Right?

Oh, yeah. I I I sent the link by email, but I I was looking for what I did last month because I did it. Yeah. Mhmm. So But you had asked, like, how far we got. And so I was

down the goal six. Right? Think did. Yeah.

Yep. That's what I'm seeing. I just looked at the, Lisa, up at the top by the little, like, user icons to the left of the share button, if you hit the little clock button, it'll show you, like, previous versions, and it looks like there's edits all the way through objective.

Yeah. It looks like the, you know,

their goals have already been incorporated into six. Yeah. It's great.

So we're just looking for input on on six at this point?

I think we're looking for input on anything and see if anybody would like any revisions before we, decide to get to a vote.

I have a question about, number six, objective one, establish an annual work plan. That's good. Including defining roles and division of labor for board members. Is that within the work plan or just in general? Because I guess what I was kind of hoping to see was that members would take on roles kind of not necessarily attached to the work plan itself, but just like, hey.

You know, man, you don't have to always do in fact, you know, you don't have to do the postings or the things. Like, somebody else could have that that role. So you're not doing everything as far as administration along with Alisa. So that to me would be outside of the annual work plan necessarily. So I see them kind of separate. I think

We debated over that last time too.

Plan. The work plan as well. Like, hey. I'm in charge of doing the career outreach or something. Sure.

So maybe, put a period. Yeah. Establish an annual work plan period. Establish roles defining division of labor, maybe. Or sure.

Yeah. Yeah. That works.

Or should it just be mean, it's not a separate A separate objective.

Separate objective.

Yeah. I think I think the establishment plan period. Next objective. Define roles and divisional data for blood numbers.

Establish or define? Define. Doesn't maybe matter all that much.

Okay.

You're ready. Then I have one for same goal, objective two, develop recruitment strategies and materials. I think that's great. I'm not sure if that also would incorporate succession planning. There should be something in there on how to

Advocate through. Yep. Only by two.

The only crew around here is keeping them in.

You know? You know? Sort of.

Or should that go under established roles and division of labor for board members including succession planning?

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense to me. Mhmm.

I think that's a really good point.

I have made it so. Thank you, camel. Whoever Camel is.

This is the first time I'm seeing these goals, reworked goals and objectives, and I I like them a lot. I think they're a really good update. Just one kind of general comment, and I don't think this is something that has to change. It's just something I'm noticing that's different is that our goals our our our objectives last time were way more specific, and here, they're a little bit more vague, more general, which I don't think is a problem. But I was kind of wondering if that was a deliberate thought. Is that just because we don't have, like, a specific thing we're shooting for? Or I don't know.

Yeah. I think when we were talking about this, there

Can you hear Kathy?

Yes.

Okay. There are several things that might fit into one of these goals, and and it that seemed clear early on. So rather than make it long and drawn out, it was just was a little more general. I'm kind of wondering if we should assign target dates to some of these things? Like, when will we have this ready?

I don't this is just me personally. I don't think target dates are in the vision and the goals. I think that should be part of the annual work plan.

Okay. Got it. Yes. I like that idea. Well,

it might be good for us to not necessarily on this page, but to set a,

a due date for

her annual work plan. Sure.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Cool. I like that. Yeah. That works. Because we didn't have an annual work plan before. So now we'll if we'll have one, then I I think that would be great.

We have had them in the past. We tended to not look at them very often and then find out that, oh, we were supposed to do this. That's right.

Well, Lisa, that's really that's really, important that you bring that up. So, it's something that we should probably just kinda keep on hand at the meetings.

To make sure we stay on track.

Yeah. Maybe that's, like, kind of a you have those standing sort of things. It's like standing thing.

Oh, add Work plan. Add to our, standing, like, discussion items.

Yeah. But just make sure that things are achievable. You know? Yeah. It's, like, something that we all have accomplished. Yeah. Right.

Do we have the capacity and should be looking at it quarterly to see if we're on prem? Maybe not every time.

But

I think quarterly is

a good Quarterly, we we check-in. Things could change. It's not pract but don't wanna you don't wanna never look at it. That's for sure.

Okay. Add annual work plan to standing discussion items to be discussed quarterly or reviewed quarterly. Is that what I just heard?

Yes.

But who's gonna write the word? That's you know? That's gonna come down on me, then that's, like, one more thing.

Well, that's that's something we should discuss about defining those roles. Maybe we do the roles first and then figure out who should be responsible for that.

I would I would be down for our upcoming meeting next month to be focused on goal six, collectively. So Yeah. We start up top with, defining roles and division of labor. And then once we've got that, we start breaking into the annual work plan collectively, at least brainstorming out what we want to be on that. I I think that'll probably eat up the

The whole meeting. Whole meeting, if

not, an additional meeting after.

Yep. Agreed.

And I think it'll be good to kinda set the stage. If we're gonna do the annual report too, we could, like, review our last one. And Mhmm. Is that a good starting point and it kinda to help us figure out how

we want the next one to Right. Perhaps with the annual report, maybe we could have a non quorum meeting sub noncommittee, whatever you wanna call it.

No walking room.

Yeah. Exactly. Maybe maybe that could be a project for a I can put a few people we could work out. The one that Matt created last year, take that off of Matt's plate for sure. But maybe we can get some of the accomplishments, like, bulleted down, you know, in notes next time, and then a group of three can kinda hash out the specifics as a back of it.

Sometimes I get confused. Like, Lisa, how much are you able to, like, help out with something? Is this, like, part of your goal? Like, I I don't really understand.

I I could certainly do some of that.

You know, I think just, like, to come up with a list of, like, all activities we've done, all the letters of support, you know, that would help. Yeah. Do you have pictures?

Oh, so is that something that you you wanted to

Well, it's just

have for the annual report?

Yeah. We can Okay. Talk about that next month. Or Sure. If we're gonna, like, formally agree. Do you think we should meet before? My thought is while while we're all together, we can take, you know,

you know, five, ten minutes to discuss. Like, go kinda go over and be like, alright. What did we do last year? Let's get these ideas folded out in rough, you know, rough format also, like, personal accomplishments. Yeah. We had that section last year where we had some recognitions of, individual members. Yes. Yes. So, yeah, if you've got things that you would like to bring forward, you know, no time to be humble.

No. So we must have because the big the big awards are given in February. So we we should know if any of our projects or people are getting any of them. So

okay. Did did we decide also when we submit the annual report to the county board? We must have submitted it. I I think March. Was it March? Okay. I

think it's always, like, beginning of the year, but that's okay.

But if you're wanting the awards,

Yeah. Which is February.

In February. So that's our

So who's getting an award?

I I know that I will be writing something up for the Arbor Day event on steroids.

Yep. Cool.

In particular.

Mhmm.

Because that was kind of outstanding because far more days ago. Mhmm. Not likely to be repeated.

Don't think so.

I don't know. Tweaked maybe. Tweaked maybe. It's

You mean with the 300 kids?

Yep. That was And the thing I I most remember was the noise.

Oh, yes.

The incredible honking, glowing water. We

were in the wrong spot.

Yeah. I I was up in the woods. So

I heard I heard people had a hard time hearing you. Yeah. But because of of that, we were right by it.

You probably couldn't hear anything by the end of

So glad I didn't have Cranking those down. Anyway, we'll see.

And maybe we maybe it's worth discussing when we put that out. Like, if there's a time that's strategically best to, you know, to get that in front

of people. Yeah. You know? We should

To me, it makes sense to do it, you know, in advance, but not too far in advance of when, like, county budgets are being discussed, things like that.

That's September.

That's when they go for, like, approval. Right?

But isn't it, Michelle, isn't it, like, August, September when that happens? The whole budget process? Yeah. Well, we just finished about a

week and a half ago, and we're already talking about next year now. But August is when things really, really start to heat up. We know a whole lot of details in October. And then usually early November like, is the the month that we, have all the, like, the budget amendment meetings. And then generally, roughly, like, the August is when we start voting on the budget. But yeah. So it it really starts in August, but we can, you know, start to plan way before then.

Just just a thought. Maybe it makes sense to look at doing that and, you know, releasing this in June or, you know,

May or June to give

ourselves a little space from that, but also have it close enough that if we have any asks, it's a relatively fresh document that we can take and utilize for that ask.

That makes sense. Michelle, so we made that annual report last year. We sent it out to all the supervisors. But, like, I never, like, heard anything back, like, how it's perceived, if people read it. I don't know if you, like, heard anything back from people that you work with. Or

No. I have I have

not received any specific feedback at all, but we can incorporate that into the next time. You mean, we can, I don't know, we can, you know, creatively put in a method for, feedback, like, you know, for instance, you know, comment back on your favorite part of our report and you enter the raffle to win a tree board hat?

So we bred them. Yeah.

There there are ways. And then we can also do things like I mean, it'd be it it's not impossible, but it would be, you know, a little challenging, but I could put in a request for us to present at a county board meeting. But very realistically, we could get in to present to one of the standing committees, you know, like personnel and finance or Mhmm. But you know, or the inner board. You know, we could do things like that as well to solicit much more direct feedback.

I remember when EAB first became a thing that we did a a presentation, myself, I think, Ed Bartell, to the county board.

And I think that'd be a great part of the annual work part if that's something we wanna pursue when we decide on. Do you does everybody feel like we're prepared to vote and adopt these new mission vision statements at this point, or do you think this is something that we're all gonna go back to one more time? I'm prepared to vote on it. I like them. This

last, thing, which is kind of like a parking lot.

Oh, yeah. Where

it says six new other balls.

I think those got those

got added in on the previous page.

Gotcha.

I think at this point, we basically just just tear it off, and we've got more pager.

Pay no attention to that page. Yeah. Well, I'll say Broadbeck makes a motion that we approve. Rich vision statement.

Rich seconds motion to approve. All in favor approving, adopting the new vision and mission statement, say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed?

Perfect. So we are gonna adopt the new mission and vision statement. Motion passes. Well, talk to, like, what Corey was talking about. Corey, were you saying you think somebody should or, like, a a select group of members should meet prior to, like, your next December meeting to kinda, like, prepopulate, like, a work plan or, like, an outline for some of this? Or do you think For

the annual report specifically or for just work plan?

Yeah. Maybe I don't know what comes first. Right?

Like, maybe work plan comes first. I was thinking we

My priority, I think, is going through the, like, goal six objective and effective, I guess now objective two, would that work? Like, that move to. Defining roles.

Defining roles, division of labor. Like, I think if we do that, we've got a much better shot of executing any work plan that we then establish, and and we can see what's realistic for us to complete as a group.

You've you've taken on, like, a monumental amount of work, over the time that you've been at the helm here, and I wanna make sure that we're not continuing to just pile on with whatever ideas we have. Yeah. But I actually don't. So that's that's my suggestion, but I'm open to what others think on that.

Yeah.

Well

Gonna take next meeting and possibly into January. We're gonna work fine, like, the accomplishments that I I'm happy to work on that, but but we'll set that stuff. We haven't thought of next month.

And maybe maybe we can set aside as a discussion item for next month, kinda like throwing stuff, you know, at the wall to see what sticks as far as we're planning, like, getting some ideas out there. And then, if we've got roles, adequately defined, then maybe we can have a small group break off to Mhmm. Organize those and bring them back to the the next meeting. Mhmm.

Yeah. One thing we did not follow-up on was doing a career fair thing.

I'll be throwing that idea out. Okay.

Yeah. And then so we got here. 2026, I think, on the treatment goals. You know? I think it seems like it's kind of a consensus. Yeah. We might be our, like, number one focus, some type of, like, workforce development, career presentation or get together, show and tell. I feel like between, like, our network, we have, like, pretty diverse group of folks that we could bring together, like, some.

Of shifting. I agree. I think, we could pretty easily make a big dent in goal three and goal five as far as, you know, supporting forestry careers and opportunities. And if we, get some folks to do some educational components to the you know, to that event, I think it would be really cool and useful for young folks. Not just young folks, but useful for folks that are looking to break into the industry or are interested in learning more. So

I'd like to invite the Sanchez scholars to that, for sure. Hi, Kathy.

So backing it up just a

little bit, I was a little confused, or concerned, and and it's kinda what I brought up with the signing of the roles here in and you brought up up there. I think there's two different sections of assigning roles. There's, like, the annual work plan and people who are interested in doing certain things are gonna put their names by that. Yep. We're gonna need that annual work plan first before we can assign the roles or choose those roles. And then I think there's the division of Matt's position basically and all the administrative duties that he does, but those are Mhmm. So

Good point.

Matt had asked about meeting and maybe brainstorming some annual work plan ideas, and you wanted to divide roles first, which roles would you talk about?

Mats roles. Okay. Mats various role. I was wanting to make sure that we have, like, the administrative bones of the tree board strong before then we start looking to accomplish,

the lead tasks. Gotcha.

Because I agree with you. Like, I think once, you know, once we can define some of the like, take the case, take a step off, and that's play and make it a make it a sustainable position for when, you know, man's no longer at the helm. Yeah. I think that that's that's a big priority, and I know

that that's been, you know, a big burden on you is carrying carrying all of us on your back. So

but I Yeah. Oh, just a kind of a thought or question to Matt is, I I I think I agree a 100%. And I think figuring out what those roles are or, like, administrative functions that you're performing and then, like, just getting those listed out so that then we can do that. Like, is this just like, what are those tasks that we need to take on? You know? Because I'm not I guess I'm not sure exactly what all of those are.

Yeah. For me, it would help to, like, you know, brainstorm with someone, like, what all those roles are because I feel like we could create new roles as well or you know? Yeah. Kinda try to, like, future proof it too, to, like, divide them up by as much as possible maybe, if that makes sense. But, like, just, like, off the top of my head, it's kinda hard for me to, like Sure. You know, like, identify these are the five things that, you know, need to rebuild. Or

Yeah.

I think, Matt, it may be helpful for you to instead of trying to assign or to come up with roles in your head, just start listing all the stuff you do, and then we can or somebody, like, second brainstorm and like, okay. This seems more like this would all be of one role. This would be another role. But I think that'd be a a way to start that, because you're right. It just kinda daunting and nebulous at once.

Right. Yeah. I mean Overwhelming perhaps. Corey was asking me, like, how much time? I'm like, I'm not sure. Like, I mean, I do have, like, a lot of process, like, you know, like, things I do for the tree board that I just need to

Maybe over the next month, like, anytime anything's tree board, specific board adjacent, just, like,

you know, make note of it, and they can take a

look at all those tasks and figure out how to, like, subdivide them and make them sustainable.

Sounds like a a new Google Doc. Seems like Google Docs are kinda working for Yeah. People. I know some people have issues with that, but, seems like it's working for most people. Alright. About to say something.

But I apologize. Just got a text above my son, like, not being where he's supposed to be, so I was distracted for

a second.

So your action item before the next meeting for yourself is to do that list. Yeah. And then you were talking about something, and I missed that. Was there something else in that?

No. No. That's that's it.

Would you like, Matt, some members to sit down and try to come up with some stuff for an annual plan before next meeting so that we could talk about role distribution as the primary thing next meeting and then annual work plan if we get to it?

You're talking about sit down to talk about the annual accomplishments or the annual work plan? Work plan. The work plan. Or I mean, I know it's, like, the holiday, but, I mean, I do, like, just give it three more, like, keep moving forward. Right? And, you know, before

A year?

Before we need to be a a spring, you know, that's a.

And I don't think to your point too, like, to try to get the administrative structure down before you're adding a whole bunch of things. There are things that we already know we want to do. Sure. Talk about some of them. So just getting those big things on there. There might be some little things that filter in a bit, but I think there are some big things regardless of what our administration looks like that

we probably want to be involved with.

Fair enough. Just having those earmarked. I don't think we're gonna have, like,

a and annual work plan ready to go December. Yeah. How do we wanna go about doing that? And do we want to we wanna have a a small subcommittee that, kind of throws some ideas out and then

brings it to the group, or do we wanna have,

you know, everybody send your ideas over by, you know, next week? Or

I can also send the ones that we had in the past in case there's anything that we might glean from them, as potential.

If it's not too big of an ask, that would be helpful.

I should have it in my files. Yeah.

I wouldn't spend a super ton of

time on it, but you do, sure. Yeah. I could see that would be beneficial. It wasn't gonna be, like, you know, maybe meet once between the December meeting and then once before January. Maybe we could have it worked out by then. I already have time to copy everyone.

Yeah. I'll I'll sign up for that one.

Yeah. I'd be happy to do that.

What do we have to keep it under? The time? No. We have

to keep it under a certain amount of people.

Well, you and I don't count. I know. I don't know.

Yeah. Have to list the people.

We almost had walking corn earlier today. Yeah. I didn't think

about that. We didn't

we didn't. We didn't. Yes.

Oh, under four. Yeah. That's right.

I'd be happy to join, if possible, but, you don't schedule around. Anybody online who wanted to?

I'm open to helping.

Is that Michelle?

That is Michelle.

She's like, anything but a budget. As long as we're not talking budget, I am there.

Yeah. And if, since you brought it up, I did sneak an email off, and we are, we did maintain our $4,000 budget for next Side note.

That's a really

Thank you, Michelle.

It was a tight one this year.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was very not fun.

Yes. I imagine.

Long live the trees.

So that's Michelle, Brian, Lisa, and myself for the, real quick.

And You you can count me in too.

So we

have Wait a minute. Do we have Yeah.

How many do we get? You mean because I'm I'm open to attending. I'm open to sitting out, whatever whatever needs to happen. I mean, I'm not a tree expert, so I do defer to the group.

I think let's see. We've got currently eight member.

Let's just, like, add all four of the people to the invite, and then Exactly. Somebody's not gonna make it. You know?

That's good. That's a

great point. And it's an out too if someone doesn't wanna make it.

And it's only voting members. Cheryl,

can sit over there and a copy. Yeah.

Alright.

We're not sneaking walking forum. Stop it, you people. I tell everybody on the board how proud I am of Treeboard for following all these transparency legalities.

No comment.

I think she'd actually ask the tree board, like, go and walk and talk.

Or Michelle FaceTime while we're doing it.

No. Like, if if county board members even, like, meet socially, you know, for, like, some something or other, you mean, like, a celebration for, like, an art festival or a flag raising or something like that, we have to post it even, you know, to kidding. Oh my god. Yeah. No. We have to post that kind of stuff to let people know that there may be a quorum of people there, but no business will be discussed, and then you literally can't talk about anything that the flag raised. So it's serious business, people.

Yeah. I guess.

Daily email that says that. Yeah. Serious business.

Okay. Yes. We will make sure that we follow the letter of the law.

As far as setting up a time to do this, I can I can learn finally how Doodle works and send out a bowl or if anybody is adapted?

I can do Doodle.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Or one to me. I don't know.

Remember, is that that super virusy buggy one?

Doodle? Doodle's one that both kinda

that was the one that

Oh, that Kathleen had issues with. That shocked me because I've used doodles

It was a it wasn't

doodle. It wasn't doodle.

Was it a when to me?

Because we were using new ones. Some of the it doesn't matter. I've done it the wrong thing.

Yeah. That way.

Don't go away. Why do you

guys need all this? Well,

they don't have to pull up my calendar.

So let me see you Sunday.

Yeah. And and when did you want to meet?

Two weeks from or two weeks from now.

I I would say let's see, like The

December then.

Or the second. Yeah.

First week.

Yeah. I only say, like, we just send out because it's holidays. It's probably busy. Like, I'd send abroad.

Yeah. Alright. Are you

the next few weeks. It's kind of a nightmare.

So, like, daytimes, evenings, both?

Just options. Yeah. Morning.

Okay. Better for y'all? Usually. Yeah.

Okay. Otherwise, I've gotta Kids. Yeah. Otherwise, otherwise, I gotta break the

news for my kid.

Oh, that won't do. Yes. We will make it during the day. Does that, mess things up for you, Michelle?

You're looking at a woman that no longer teaches.

That's what I thought, but I didn't wanna see.

Because I've got lots more flexibility now.

With retirement.

Well, I'm I'm jealous, but I'm so happy for you.

You should be. It's completely, totally awesome. I highly recommend retirement for everybody. Highest recommendation.

Keep that in mind.

I need the help, Gator.

Yeah. Right. Cares about that.

Kiss will need to be there. Yeah.

So the week, it looks like yeah. So the first two weeks of December, basically, because our meeting is the sixth.

Okay. I will, let's

see here. Could meet even Monday or before the

meeting. Yeah. Sure.

We're not gonna be scheduled.

Alright. Well, I know this has to go in, like, four minutes. Right? So let's move on to, g, future meetings, items, dates. Brian just mentioned December 16. Next meeting. Public comment on items not on the agenda or none. Such other business is allowed by law.

I I got an item not on the agenda sort of, or it's just a delayed thought. Can the people like, instead of I hate doodle polls and things like that. Can the can the people who are interested in meeting again, can we just hang on the meeting for an extra three minutes and pick a date while we're all here and it doesn't require 7,000 frustrating emails?

Sure.

Yeah. Yes. As long as everybody's got their calendar available.

Thank you. That's all I have.

K. It's the first time anybody's ever used that.

That particular Now

I know how you can use it. Thanks, Michelle. Other items as allowed by law, there are none. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? Rich, motions to adjourn the meeting?

Britt seconds.

All in favor of adjourning the meeting? Say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Meeting is adjourned. Thanks, everybody.