Trees and Parks Board - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll call this meeting to order at 4:30 June 18th, 2025. And our first is the consent agenda. Approve the minutes from Vice Chair President. All right. Comments. No public comments. All right. Uh consent agenda. We're going to look over the minutes from April 14th. You didn't get a

First, right? Yeah. That makes sense. How do we do this? I have to log in on this computer. Okay. Can we go ahead? Show hands to approve the minutes from April 14th. The eyes have it. All right. So, onto our regular agenda. Item number two, we're going to discuss and take possible action educating the public on trees and Well, I think that's a very important looking at some of the areas. I started looking up and you look up I've got some pictures here. See all those dead

negativelyffect our little city. I don't know, but also I just notic So anyway, I mean whatever we do. We've been all two years before that trees and you can see that's a good visual for So you lost that whole aspect. Oh yeah. Well, we love our trees and always have them every year.

I realiz I mean I grew up in a part of Texas where there was not a lot of trees. So my appreciation for the trees matching and listening to you and like where these trees are located. It does seem like it's on private property like the golf course if I remember right Jack Miller is the entrance to the crossro. So all that whole stretch of golfard Dead or dead or and I mean so they do they are hazards. Those trails get walked by pedestrians and golfers. Uh I mean it would be horrible if someone was under there mowing and a branch fell. I mean it's a huge Yes, sir. Yes, we've done we've done presentations at each of the days. AR. So, but you know the problem is we have

we'll have no presentation on Um and it will be attended by so we need to always make suggestions Um, we've actually had the for service and address and give pres. One of the things that I was going to mention on the public education is we did have a presc. is actually program mostly but you know our cities that something can tag on as far as care.

So we can reduce stress by providing more. Yeah, I'll be I'll be right. on your property. They are your responsibility. And how do you how does one issues and them on their own. Yeah, education. I will bring something back to this board that has been presented in the to the park but Texas said hey we would love to do you know we'll provide lunch you know people want to come and get education on stuff but again it's like some of the education is you know how to care for

your in times of stress, times of drought, and they're going to buy lunch, you know, that's a good way to get people to come, you know. So, so if we were to approach, if that was something that y'all decided you want to do and you could reach out and say, are you still interested in doing that? We have a program like and we'd like to do it four times a year. That sounds good. Of course. I mean, we would have to I think we find a presenter, maybe someone or they would probably make introductions and thank everybody for coming and you know there's always that big question mark and remember when we did the op they wanted to be there get introduced and get to know everybody. But a big part of that tree last November was, okay, here's your free tree. Now, how are you going to plant it and take care of it? And here's how you can do that, you know. So, I would fully support that. That's good. I was thinking maybe

with photos and you know examples of what you can do contact you see it And right now we're involved in a lot of research on although that's what anyway trees will be here for us and then what trees will be here for the next generations I think something like that I think I for examp program. Um, so a resim We sriv So we can provide some reimbursement to the program.

You can all do the markets. supposed and I thought whatever but you Jacob, but it is pretty serious. And so he did some work around it. Yeah. Soil trenching created these trenches. back with soil. And so the bark has almost you can with the right treatment you can do it. It's not cheap, but it's that tree is worth tens of

learn how to identify sounds like. Yes. Yes. That is the property next to ours. years action. I don't remember a lot of I think things like people take them out. Again, this is something that some of it we can get donated or some of it like if you're print for the 256 year after we do printed pieces and we want to have them available.

But printing is It's important but you know it doesn't happen without somebody doing all that and even designed out. Well, so I think excuse excuse me, Jack, back to Bill's question or my own mind. Is the appropriate thing to have these diseased trees cut? Is that the the followup once you have oak wilt? Is that once the treatments fail? Is that what's recommended by an arborist to to once you have less than 20% canopy in a tree uh you should go ahead and consider you know risk mitigation at that point that tree a hazard and a nuisance like Bill described earlier. So the treatments typically trunk injection uh you you'd wait roughly two years and at the end of that two years you would reassess. Uh the survival rate for treatments depending on how bad how early you catch oakil is between 20 and 50%. Uh pretty slow but uh if a skilled arborist is on site and catches it soon enough I mean your chances get better. I would I would I would never say anything over 50% survival rate on any u

uh as far as education goes that's relatively cheap. I don't know if y'all seen the new website. I barely got on there today and it looks really good. If we could get a tree information education page on the city website, I think that would be relatively cheap and we could have a lot of information. U that's constantly available. It's not a mailer where half the people throw away or it gets put in a binder and forgot about. Yeah, I mean having it I mean online we have a page for education. Okay, haven't got that. There we go. Uh so now I mean that this can't be improveable and making it known about uh I mean get the word out that we do have information and maybe that's where the mailers come in or putting it on the at the entrances of the city. Uh keeping it on the court board out here. Um and then depending on what we decide for arbor days, you know, talk about talk about it. Arbor days have little square, you know, and then make it available that way. Uh I found everything off by just there's tons of information that you can have on there and get your points and I I didn't make it that far into our website but it's it's there

and so maybe we can look at what we have on the website and like Jeff said make some adjustments or add some things make it catchy not so mundane Um, and I think that would definitely be a possible I think you know what trees do there's the and look at natives. Look at natives and u let's see gosh what was the speaker from last day what was her name but gosh so she spoke on something I I I think is probably most important and that's diversity so I mean the 70s most of the trees were well I mean this this area was nothing but oak whether it was live oak I mean everything else was cut down considered a trash now we have some diversity we have some elm and I mean the majority elves still in the juniper to this day uh continuing just diversifying the tree species in our little neighborhood that that's going to know make property values are are continuing to climb. If your property gets hit by oak, you have other trees on your property to still have some trees

and maybe this group to take more active role. trying to get more people to come. They like to get behind for sure. Yeah. Don't think about this tangible things that you can do for education. I don't know if you got an act of you know, just keep it on the agenda. Keep the discussion going. You don't have to have a motion. So, we could table this topic and just continue to add it to our next agenda going forward. Yeah. And just in the meantime, everybody go on, take a look and maybe look at other websites. So we had learn

looking at the website. I don't know. I don't know if that was covered, but maybe putting something Wood Creek is all about trees. Yeah, I can tell you that I'm basically Russell on the news. They'll get it to me. Oh, you have a monthly sounds. But again, somebody's got come up with a concept. I mean, if you sit down and say, "Okay, well, this is this is what we're thinking." little I was just thinking when writing over here if we could just do a call out to

all master gardeners or native people or people interested and if we could just maybe have a little monthly meeting of the people who want to who are interested in this these type things if that would be of interest and and I know um Linda know Becky Deon and um Claire several of them had are very concerned about the Augusta Park and so I know there are people there they just don't want the responsibility of having to do all the work and but they I'm sure would love to put input and if we could just gather that knowledge and interest and get people more interested. It'd be like an army instead of four of us trying to get these people going. So, um that might be a possibility in the even in the newsletter just run a little something, you know, we want to have a get together or something of people that are interested in those areas. So, be a source of the monthly or right they might could contribute a lot because very good and I think she's a master naturalist and then Claire is maybe a master gardener so no okay I I haven't t talked with her but we we I think utilize the resources we have. We have, like Jeff said, we have all these people that are interested in this, but it just doesn't seem to be anything bringing them together. And we don't have a focus like a one thing focusing, right? And they have resources like literature. You can get all sorts of

literature on oat or native plants if you know where to go and it's free. So, I think more wood right master Well, you know, they do their own meetings event. Yeah, just would creek. So that's one of those things. Okay. Well, just get them together. Could that be a lunch or would a be interested in a breakfast? I mean the lunch we could use the lunchon and the same thing. I was going

to say one of the action items we could have on this topic is uh we could talk to council to see if we can get this breakfast or this lunch with Aqua having them sponsor and and get the M talk to a couple master that would be interested in uh participating and presenting. Uh I feel like that's definitely So you're actually you want to keep your motion pretty open. So you say you say you know request request the council's okay going back to see if there's still interest in sponsoring you know lunch or breakfast etc education and producing something like that. Get too fairly broad. Does anybody want to make that motion? I'd like to say

I'll make a motion that we get together and invite the come to that purpose. You want to focus on supporting around. Do we have a second? Second. All right. And then you're asking. Okay. Do we have any further further discussion on education for trees in the show of hands. Okay. On the Well, do we have any more discussion on item number two? So, Jacob, I do have something to ask. So, who is going to reach out to Aqua Texas? And so, you Okay. So, all right.

So, then Jeff, you'll get the yes or no. And then does that mean we have to wait till our next meeting to determine if it'll be lunch or breakfast, determine what we're going to do? kind of tricky. I don't know that I don't know really any of this to be informed of it because you're not requesting staff yet support the process. that money is going to go to the council first and then that doesn't mean you have to wait for the next meeting to actually take action but that's the deal around see what's out there we don't have to date that I can make phone call and I'll be happy to reach out to some of the contacts that I know in our community who know who the master gardeners and master naturalists but we do want to be sure that we do not exclude pe just people you know we want to be sure that everybody knows you're invited to come uh to participate if well you don't have to be a master gardener to come or whatever. So

all right right we was about service we have people Well, maybe one more question back to the education meeting. So, I assume we would meet at the at um the triangle park. We need to decide where would we meet. Would that be where you y'all have in mind? Where are we going to have the meeting, the education meeting? So, I think I mean I think that's open for discussion in the future, but uh I mean it could be Augusta which has a little bit more diversity out there and maybe potentially do a walk around tree plant. situation, but we have a large amount of people. The triangle may be better because it's flat and more spacious. But yeah, I don't even have a combination of things going on. We have so demonstration and it's close to Augusta Park so we could walk down Okay. Yeah.

I don't feel like anything's inappropriate at this point. So we'll take a more limits here, but that's the only one that if you have something no. Okay, that's uh since I'm on the agenda. Oh, lucky you. I I didn't know that there was an alternative. Okay. Sorry about that. So, we'll move on to item number three. Discuss and take possible action on parks master plan. I've barely took taken a glance at this and it does exist. It's very well done. years of anything. I think there

pictures And I think we need to 100% agree with you. Uh so yeah I mean I was looking through the plan uh and so what I came across was three to five or five yeah three to five year plan and the five to 10 year plan uh specifically updating that section to uh if you look at the threeear plan it's talks about what's now a atteely update the the land that the city has and what's on that land. And to expand on that, I have a maintenance plan. Well, I don't have mainting a maintenance plan. You know, the the trash is going to need to be taken out. U the the mulch in the playground's going to have to be replaced as it um small things like that. Maybe uh equipment's going to wear out. So I don't know that we have a timeline on equipment wearing out and it does wear out

like WD40 the smalling for the They'll start'll start they need to get water to it first before they have water concrete Then we'll have to close for a good part of summer, but it'll go up pretty fast. Electricity. Cool. I'm excited. That's uh that's an update for the for the park. So, right take a look at what's there and just start making the updates. Um then then you'll need to decide at some point. Okay. Do you want you know redesign you know as master plan which I would encourage work but it could be something say okay well we want to do that but do it really

council for the money they say yeah then If they say no, then it's like okay. So the master plan years ago, it just so happened [Music] that he was the brain behind that. I don't know that he could be coerced, you know, come back and do a consulting update on his baby, but that's possible. But to me, it's worth a little extra little expense to do it easily access. The reality probably right? Oh, absolutely. I mean using like using AI to come up with uh an update template and then fill in the blank or even have AI

mostly create the plan. I don't hate this template of the master plan. We have an index. Okay. We have an index with a mission statement and uh it goes it labels everything from why we do this a survey to five plan up to a 10 year plan. I like that. U that gives us goals to work toward and speaking on that what to work toward I think a portion of this master plan would be uh funding for future I mean having some kind of income uh or or some kind of that we can do trails later on to continue the longer scope of the I don't know if that's should be part of it or should be a separate I don't know why not I don't know how for grants. Grants always are always good. We are we are have been working not city but a group of Wood Creek residents have been trying to create a 501c3 friends of which we need

more than just arts But we'll be'll be contin sort of like interesting. Yeah. So I guess I mean grants are great having a 501c3. Uh is there any any any way that we could allocate income taxes to go into your budget. It is. Okay. We raise taxes. Okay. So, we get property tax in. You ask for money. We say, "Okay, we're going to take some of that property money, give it to the tree board." But so that budget is retroactive as if we get a new one every year. Is there any way we roll roll over our and then create a large purchase the city. Yeah, exactly. The city the city rolls it entire budget over. Okay. Um there are certain funds that are like capital improvement funds. So you could have like a parts fund that

you said, "Okay, we want to budget, you know, $50,000 this year to go into a parks and get the council to get the council to do that and it would go into capital improvements." So that can be that can be held on but and then you come back next year and add next So the way that we used to pick our roads is we just had more money come in spent every year and we took parts of that money that we didn't spend and set it aside and then fix. So you can you can do you can do something but but if you don't spend all your budget your requested budget then it just Now that mean you can't come back say the next year. We weren't able to accomplish what we were going to do with that. So we want to ask for it again and get it again. So you carry it over that way. Okay. But it doesn't answer my question. Anyone else? Oh no, ma'am. I brought that up uh as as like a portion of this item. So we are still talking about the parks master plan and the structure of it. Jacob, is it appropriate to talk about one particular park? I had some information I wanted to share about Augusta Park. No. Okay.

It sounds to me like sort of discuss here to keep working on review that you can check off the list. So those are things you You know, the original master plan and then other things that were in the master plan that have not been accomplished. Um, and so you would want to what plans you might have for you know making progress on those goals or maybe some some things that were in the original master plan that you impossible to achieve and you want to remove. So the first thing to do would be to just take a look at the plan and make those edits and adjustments. bring that back to council and say, "Hey, you requested progress. Here's where we go." And then say, "Well, what do all they're looking for? and we're looking for you know you come back to them with what what you have you know your assessment of the current master plan and what a new master plan would need to have in it and then

that would be what I I mean an action we can take on here. We've assessed the current master master parts plan and decided that it needs to be brought. No need to brought council. You don't have anything yet to bring but you do need to you do need to determine among yourselves you know what the next step Okay. I'm not super What has been done? I think that's a I think that's a good idea. I typically find time uh as long as I know within two weeks. Uh that if y'all are okay with that, do we need to make a motion to create a special meeting? No, you don't have um it wouldn't hurt. I mean, you don't have to date really.

So, yeah. So, so you could you could you could say, you know, move to a series of meetings at each of the parts with the board in attendance. No action to be taken durable but it just says you know the court is going to function to do this and this and this no action and then that clears you from having to make discussion kind of like a workshop. So, so you can set a motion in place to to plan for a meeting within the next weeks, you know, with follow. Okay. I mean, anyone want to make that motion or discuss uh potential dates. That's what I was doing. Uh I'll make the motion that we do that proceed with meeting at each of the parks starting with Augusta Park and in um maybe the second week of July and the board would meet. No actions to be taken just to evaluate

and determine the needs and potential improvements. It's part of the part plan. eyes. Uh, do we have any further discussion parks master plan? Okay, we're going to move on to item number four. Discuss and take possible action for newly planted trees in various places around the neighborhood. Uh so far including CY I believe we have three desert willow and then in the camp CJ is a cedar el they moved it they moved it where the new construction is going to go. Wow. So they breaking and it's like we had to go last Uh for the first year, for the first year, typically supplemental watering

until establishment. Um we found out with the willow, the desert willow at the triangle, deer cages are also preferred. So they may not have liked it, but they definitely trampled it. Yeah. It's It's making a recovery. It's got leaves on it. Um uh it's doing okay now has a deer cage around it. I believe the desert will at Augusta Park also has a deer and it's probably a lot better. Okay. Um, as far as well, I mean, what what a newly planted tree needs is mulch, irres I think that I think that Becky has been sort of she doesn't want to keep doing that forever. That's one of those. So, so that's part of the part maintenance that we need to come up with whether it's whether it's volunteer

contract figure how that's going to work. They would need to go and make sure those plant had like eight in the last two months. But it should be part of this group's planning process to say that okay, you know,body will I' just like I take I take buckets of my air conditioning condensate over a little planter me.

But yeah, so I think Jeff mentioned earlier uh somebody like we have employed by Oh, Sean. Sean Sean like he goes around he changes trash bags at the parks. Uh I think he like resets resets like the ball or Yeah. Yeah. He's he he tries to keep up with some of the maintenance over there. He'll go over with the weed and not some of the nice stuff around the bunch of native plants what they are and so he'll go he's been to go and carefully around those what was talking about in terms of budget is plan for longterm maint. contracted volunte. Yes, ma'am. Since Sean was already visiting these locations, it wouldn't be too much to add on putting a water from the rainwater for running those out there. Yeah, that's just a that's just a question of instruction to get Jim Jim has

really so you go to Jim and say hey listen we will and let it go for a little know I go by parks all the time and we need a volunteer to go some water. We just need we need a plan. So So the problem is if I'm going over there doing it, Becky's going over there doing it. We don't know each other's doing it and comes over and it opposite ways each other doing it with it. Uh how could we streamline this communication between Well, I got the impression from talking with Becky that they no longer she nor Claire no longer want that responsibility. So, I don't think we're going to have we've got Jeff left. But also are she well she didn't have the responsibility for doing maint she's designing it getting it and they maintain But what are those bags? Uh gator uh those are gator bags. So when I plant a tree, uh as long as it's strong enough to hold because it's 15

gallons of water. So if that sloshes, it could definitely fall make a tree fall over or break it. Something small like a red bud. But larger trees like cedar elms and oaks that planted. We use these gator bags. So, they're slow release bags um that water the tree throughout a 24hour period and it's 15 gallons. Uh the research on it like the evaporation rates very minimal. So, if you just go drench a tree with a bucket of water, 20% of that if you do it in the middle of the day is going the uh another percentage of that going to leech leech down like a road go down and so you're stuck with not the maximum watering capacity. Uh so these watering bags yeah slowly release water into the soil around the trunk of the tree. Typically I only leave them on for one year. Uh more often than not, the customers decide to keep the bags and continue because it's an easy way to water that way. Uh you put a hose at the top and fill it up or however you want to fill it up and then it takes, you know, 24 hours for it to completely drain out. And that's the best way for water to percolate through the soil. Jacob, can you tell when water needs to be added to the bag? Like, can someone feel of it, look at it, tell when it needs more water? Because that might

solve the problem of overwatering. If we had multiple people watering, then they could just say, "Hey, the bags doesn't need water." So, so is it easy? I don't know. And then uh as far as does a tree need water, my favorite way to do it is get your finger and get it down to that second knuckle into the soil. And if it feels dry, then it definitely needs water and it's a couple inches down. It's dry a couple inches down. But if you get your finger in there and it's wet and you pull it out, of soil on there. You're good for another day, two days on heritage trees that have been planted decade ago or several decades ago. They're drought tolerant and it's not the same situation, lot deeper roots. So on newly planted trees, I guess I like to do the finger test and when I when I'm giving watering suggestions to customers that are considering new new plants, uh you can expect roughly 50 gallons a week per tree on any size. I mean within like these Oh no. And I mean as the trees get smaller they need less and less typically the average tree planting I do between 2 in and 4 in like that big.

So, make sure that's in if you're if you're purchasing water and you're considering planting a new tree, consider the uh the fine how much the water is going to cost to water that tree for a whole year. 50 per week for 12 months 52 week. So, so should should we ask the council to buy a couple of not because they're thin little branches I think Jeff, one thing we do need to ask that Linda mentioned is they need a hose at Augusta Park, a 50ft hose, big diameter. The one they have, she said, is so small that it's not not what they need. So, she asked me to mention that and I didn't know if this is appropriate time, but we do need that. Uh, That's a low enough. [Music] Okay. Well, it would need to reach down to the tree. Is that willow or

wilbur? It's Wilbur. Yeah, it needs to be long enough to reach Wilbur. And of course, all of this water is gravity fed, so it comes out very slowly. It's not like having a pump. So, um, anyway, and you need a big diameter instead of a little tiny ones you whatever. I don't know. Do they come in inches or four inch? What? How do you measure hoses? I'm not I don't know how. Okay. But anyway, the big a bigger one than what they have. So Jeff, can you mention that to Jim or do one of us? Okay. I think when we first started, but I don't know if she still Well, is there a hose there because doesn't our water tank sit lower than the tree? So, is it going to run to the tree? Is it Oh, it does. Okay. Uh yeah, I can definitely donate a

back here. We got already start. Okay. I imagine there's probably a key that's probably locked up, right? I would imagine we'll talk to Jim about water. Uh, not Just the two. Yes. Yeah. So, one of the arbor days we didn't we decided not to do a planting um because we were in such drought restrictions. It just that time. So, we skipped one,

but yeah, we have two two desert willows. It's a good start. And I plan to or I think we should plan to plant hundreds and hundreds of maybe Not just as one other thing that was brought to my attention about the Triangle Park, as you come up from Brook Hollow and stop at the stop sign, the undergrowth of the bushes obscures your vision. So, you can't tell if a car is going to stop. And you may have noticed, Bill, I don't know, but it the it's not the trees, it's the underbrush. And that needs pruning, shaping, or something to get it lower than the stop sign. And I noticed like you can see that a car's coming, but then you lose sight of it, and you don't know if it's stopping at the four-way stop. So, I think that might be something someone needs to address. Sure. But they should take care of that. I mean, one of the biggest things in my opinion is a view of sight. I mean, right. I I I'm a strong believer trees don't need to obstruct the view of traffic in any way. That includes under what you're talking about. Maybe they're catching mountain hollow side and we I did not notice it last year at all. It's just like in the last year this has grown. So, but but actually Okay.

Anything else on item number Okay. Um, no action was taken. We're going to move on to item number five. Discuss and take possible action on an areas of Wood Creek for wildcaping that encourage insects, birds, beast, butterflies. I love that. You have any figures? Well, I spoke with the mayor's wife and we want wild flowersowers down on the creek by the park, the the children's park. So, but I looked at that today and and I was thinking in terms of per permaculture or how we could stop the water flows. I think we need more native grasses and things lining that bank. And of course there's somebody who's poured concrete which defeats the purpose of slowing the water. So um I was just looking at that but that would be a beautiful place if we could find some flowers who owns it. So we couldn't even do anything to the Okay. Uhhuh. Well another question. Did that flood when during our rain? Do you It did not get up into the restroom. Okay, that's good to know. I was wondering about that. Well, so to build on that, uh Cheryl Mills a few years ago did a wildflower seed stump for all the kids. And so I think they did it at Triangle, gave kids a handful of seeds and they just kind of pl them into the ground the

beds of of the tribe. What ended up happening was I believe they got voted down. So a little little further communication with our landscapers. Uh I think that could be another good event to attract insects, butterflies, and bird. Um, you know, your proposal from the desk. Oh, now all right. Well, uh, all of my interest began when, uh, Jeff sent out the information about Becky being concerned that there was no upkeep of Augusta Park other than just volunteers. And she and Claire Palmer were not going to be able to assume that responsibility anymore. So, I went over and looked at it, spoke with Becky, looked at how it was designed and everything. And um in the meantime, I had met a young man who is uh Jonah um who has a certificate in permaculture, and I took him over because he was doing some work in our gardens. And um his idea was to have something that was more ecologically compatible to what we want. Something that would draw people in, maybe have more little walking pads throughout the garden and wild flowers and things of

that nature. So, he uh did a little proposal and I sent it to Jeff and he is willing to come and do maintenance work, but would also have a long-term goal if we wanted to move into a new direction for that park. And so, how much more can I say? Do you have What we're trying to do with the Monarch Way station and the rain that's all forinator can grow from there. But any like any has changes to the park does have but that's something that say review the plan and say we'd really like to see this happen with it then right I remember you sort of sketched down one of the things to slow that water from. Yeah. [Music] Well, it was really quite a lot of damage. the water, the culbert going under the road

and empties into Becky's yard and she has a rain garden there. But anyway, the water got so high that it backed up, flooded the road, washed our mulch over across the road and up into all these rocks that a previous landscaper had put. So, the water was backing up. So what he was proposing is to stop all of that gushing of water by placement of certain swells, certain rock really low maintenance like you can use cedar post, you could use our existing rocks that we have. And then toward the bottom closer to the cupboard is to have more of a rain garden that would be a catchment pool for that. But his envision is to have trails meandering around through all of the little park area, maybe some places for people to sit, things to bring people to the parks. I mean, I've been over there numerous times and nobody's ever there. Nobody's using the the the little games that we have um that I've seen. So, do y'all go? Well, great. But anyway, but that was a proposal. So he he designed this, presented it to me today. I mean, it is it is awesome. So I can send each of y'all a copy if you're interested and see what you think. But it this would be long term, but in order to do this, because he wants to do this, he's willing to come just at an hourly rate. Let us see his work. see if the improvements maybe work for a week and then we could determine if we basically said that it's really amazing you know Judy will have to bring it to the board will have to bring it to

council for budget approval you know before we can really do anything but that's what okay but the the what's happening now I went over after the rain and all of that water had gushed down. Instead of going where the landscape aritect had put the rock, it just looked like it just diverted around it. So, and I don't know when we had that work done or what the cost was, but um if go by and and just look so you'll get an idea of what how it's designed. [Music] Don't want to take any council meeting. That's the only thing he's looked at. But um my goodness, I he could do all of our parks. Um it's It's impressive. And he's coming, he's not a landscaper. He is coming at this from a permaculture working with what we have trying to restore the soil, make uh all of these things that would attract the pollinators and everything. So, So I mean you can you could you can pass a motion on

that request council approval to move forward with this guy on the 20 hour part of it. The first come it's going to happen anytime soon on it now. ask that proposal agenda. Uh yeah, I mean I'm okay with doing a trial of 20 hours and in that 20 hours I think the parks board, parks and trees board can review what you have there. Take it as well. What's going to happen? What's going to happen? City council proposal take a look at it. Oh, and say this, this makes sense and we're willing to invest, you know, 20 hours, you know, under the direction. That's something it's not a lot of money. So, that's what they're going to look at and look at his overall plan, not just the 20 hours investment.

Okay. But Jeff, can you show the plan at the council meeting like so that Oh, so they can actually see all this? Okay. Motion to request that the city council review stone cipher is t o n e s Laura's something permaculture. Uhhuh. Permaculture. And that would include erosion control and basically planting the water by stopping it and let catching it. Redirect redirect. Is it okay for me to make the motion since I'm in contact with him? Okay. All right. So, I would like to make a motion that um we uh consider Jonah Stone Ciphers uh volunteer to do 20 hours of work uh in a week at $25 an hour and then take a look. No. Okay.

Okay. So, we'd like for the council to review the proposal for the Augusta Park design and begin the initial phase. Did that cover everything? Is that okay? I see a show. Okay. Any further discussion on item number five about the birds and the birds, the bees, and the butterflies. Okay, we're going to move on to item number six. Uh we're going to be a workshop on trees and parks, possibly a mission statement and continu. Y what should our mission see? I don't know. How do we put our toes in the water?

preselle of our community of our trees. I don't hate it. I mean chat sounds like sounds really articles. Interesting. So you know more involved. [Music] Yeah. I mean like something I want to dig out is make sure we take care of specifically the oak. The mission statement should be a little bit more broad. So I like where it's going. Oh yeah. So it says that there's one in the index and you go to page two and it's not

you I should say remember I don't know There's efficiency. I Well, I mean, as long as we're rolling the ball up or down the middle, we can So what you what you've just done is say okay so you know we need to look at the mission statement because the mission statement we're operating only deal with parts include you know GBT and say as an example here's a starting when you work

and you have some of this stuff already available then you're just then you're just prompt it right it's Pretty handy little tool. I was just out I mean what do you all think we should nail something down We can table it and as we start to progress on the the master plan we can workshop that and the next meeting from now. Uh we'll just we'll have it reappear on the agenda going forward as We need to concentrate on going forward with it'll be like work on master parks plan and miss

I was just looking treeboard handbook. There might be some ideas in here. Do do y'all have a copy of this? I have for some reason I had two copies. If someone would like to have this it was in my binder. Did everybody get I have one. It's not a park. Yeah. So that's what again you sort of sort of need to look at you what's this missing well I mean those related Yeah. Yes. Should be I mean, that's the way I see it. Yes. But if I can make a suggestion, this is something that the and I met the other day and sort of went through And it's like, you know what? It's crazy

because first of all, you got a parts and a trees binder and they were all put together by somebody that was on the city to sort of throw together based on whatever she thought was. And so my suggestion is to appoint a subcommittee all two people to take a copy of each the parts of the trees go through them together toss out the irrelevant stuff and put the red stuff together you want to keep. There's there's the back of a trees and then say you know what's what's missing what would be helpful at that and then bring it back to a full committee workshop with that information said this is what we decided we need to keep these are some of the things we think maybe needed what do you think and then work it together so you come up with one binder that really suit your needs. So you need information about day information about the original parts you need combine these two functions and it's like really it's up to the y and the other various committees to kind of do their own based on what their needs are. I mean, we got plenty of

saying this could have been this binder could have been a little easier. Yeah. So, but but to try to do it as committee as a whole is just going to take a lot of your time. A couple of you get together and say, "You want this? No, I don't either." You know, then then you're making the full board is is giving permission to subcommittee to make decisions on their behalf as far as what doesn't make sense. doesn't make it sense but content if there's better content that would be something like that one or two people can do That's a motion. Make a motion. You can't make a motion. But somebody Well, I will volunteer. However, I have a wedding. I'm tied up till July 7th, so it needs to be a little later for me. We've got Okay, I'll be happy to help the wedding. Okay, we'll table it till July. uh or after

uh one thing I just want to say after looking over the tree uh board handbook, we want to be sure that we understand those four standards that and the requirements to be of a tree board to be a tree city I suppose and just be sure we're addressing those and I think we are but you know I had a little concern when we combined the parks and we talked about changing the name to parks and tree board and I just want to be sure we don't lose focus what the tree board is that okay so USA required that the city have a The tree board can be the city. The tree board can be just a group of people that are designated the tree. We designated a a committee to be the tree, but the trees and parks board serves as the tree. Just as the city council serves as the board of justice, we're required to have a board of justice. We a few people adjustments. So you can you can have a body to serve as another body. So we were okay. To your point, do you review the things that make you a city on a regular basis? Absolutely. Absolutely. When it's time to fill out the

application again, you have to show that you won't be. Okay. Well, all right. Let me ask one more thing just off the record. So, we talked about music venues. When are we going to discuss that? Does that come under any item on our agenda when we talked about the music in the park and so Oh, okay. Okay. 625 workshop for the budget for the 2025 2026 fiscal year. So whatever come out of the workshop and anything that you ask if you take action on the on the budget. So basically you can come out of the workout program. You got dollar figures for your per work on Wednesday

present some of those numbers for consideration as the budget. We're not setting the budget. Okay, we'll budget park,000. So, we'll just put that necessarily and you may come back and say it, but you have a starting point. Otherwise, what council does council says, "Well, they spent $4,000 last year." So, they need input from you as to what your goals are and how you can achieve those goals. And so far, you talked about a master plan that could cost money. Talked about permaculture, you know, that cost some money. You've got ongoing maintenance of all the parts that's so you've already sort of got down. Well, I will mention as far as the music venue and I think Jeff also had made some contacts. All I have done is I contacted a couple of possible musicians, just checked into their interest, whether they're not would come, maybe what the charges would be. Um, but I feel like if we're going to really pursue that, then of course we would have to think about how often we want to do this, the dates,

who the contact person would be. Um, just organizing it. I did find one lady that lives here in our neighborhood and Joyce Web. Do you know Joyce? Uh, she was playing for the PI. social and it was so good. So I did reach out to her and she was very very interested would be willing to call. Okay, so we want to do this once a month, you know, and maybe on $400, you know, or whatever. But don't don't worry too much about individuals just frequency and just general but who would we not need a contact person that's going to reach out to these people? How do we eventually get staff has to pay? So if you say okay we're going to have the first one and she charges $200, but we have to have Joyce's W9 so that we can pay her. So there is some administrative besides just money.

All right. Uh, well, I talking about budgeting. I like typically like go off the previous year and I'm trying to figure out the parks budget for last year. It looks like it was 32 or 35 or right around 3500 which is similar to The tree was I think the tree board last year was those together. We're at 7,000. Now, do we want to like for the music and others? Okay. So, you had So, you were at $7,800,000. But remember those included the cost of the events that will be in the community. Oh yeah. So they they will they will manage the spectacular they would have the administration. So you all plan Arbor Day and work with community relations carried out and it comes out. Well, what we're trying to do is put all that sort of money in one one bucket and then so so when you say okay we have 7,800

3,800. So that's what you started with and that's not Not a bad number, but look at look at Okay, so you've got these things. We've got a proposal in place now for 20 hours times, you know, 25 bucks, you know, you know, that's that's easy math. You got yoga, you know, $40 a week. get 52 weeks out of it probably. But if you do continue to do that program, then that's pretty easy. Mough regular maintenance, which is probably a weekly or bi-weekly thing. And whe or somebody else, but somebody needs to come by and do some Yeah. And you talked about maintenance on the equipment equipment. Yeah. Mulch. Uh so I remember you saying this in a tree board meeting. It's easier to ask for a higher budget than it to ask for more money. So, let's shoot them a high number and if that gets approved, we don't have to use all that. We'll use what we have to and that'll give us a pinpoint budget for next year because this is our first tree and parks

no events for so if we could fall between five and 7,000 I think like we don't have to use it all. We have the money to do it. Uh, so I originally was at seven. We're not the events comes out of a different like for music. If you do if you do a a musical event a month for 12 months and it's 400 bucks per month that's 48 bucks a month that's00 you look at proposal 500 bucks you know started but probably 5,000 more you know to get anything done for the year so that that whole you know permaculture you know design whatever the parks maint If we have to replace that mulch in the park which is needs to be expensive that's

ask Here's the deal. If you go to the council without numbers, there's going to be if you go in and say, "Okay, so based on based on, you know, 50 weeks at 40 bucks, based at 12 months at 400 bucks, based at on this um and and you've got, you know, legitimate numbers, then there's no I mean last year the um the tree board started up 1,500 bucks and the parks board at 10,000 and then tree board was approved for 3,800 and parks got shut down you know so the council just arbitrary decisions based on making budgets And they say, "Well, so when does this have to be put in?" I mean when you need um you know I you know I could go to the I could go to the council on Wednesday and say based on what you know we talked about in workshop for you know these programs you know we're looking at you know let's go ahead that's

like I you know, part maint Yeah. So, you're saying Wednesday the 9th is the next That's next budget work. Oh, really? Yes. I mean, I like 10, but So, so when you come out of the workshop and you do a do action for the budget um then you can simply say you know move to request that based on programs we'd like to accomplish the city council $10,000 and then I'll present it and I'll tell them these are the things that's come back and

okay uh we're going to exit the workshop. at 638. Move into discussion of the budget in a workshop. come out of the workshop. We were done committee formally appointed sub attorney was here but so it's like that's fine but in this case you're making direct request. Then you come out of work and then you're motion to 2025. I'll second that.

Show of hands eyes have it. I like them. Okay y'all, that is our new meeting. Jared 641 I mean you didn't have the discussion that's okay you can we talked about this you can you can talk so we talked about things that you need to have you know workshop on this but that's you've already sort of covered that in your discussions and second I don't think I worry about that. I cracked my screen. Yeah. So, don't don't uh I won't question. So, Jeff, we wait until we hear back from the budget committee. No. Okay.