Ridgewood Shade Tree Comission Meeting Minutes 20170711

Ridgewood Shade Tree Commission

Meeting Minutes

July 11, 2017

Minutes: Andrew Lowry

Attendees: Andrew, Monica, Bron, Mike, Tim, Carolyn, Ian, Manish, Dan

This provides a brief summary of the decisions reached and the issues discussed at the above meeting

Governance

A quorum was present.

Minutes from June 13, 2017 were approved.

It was requested that the STC minutes be forwarded to Dylan Hansen for posting on the Village website.

Minutes from one month will be approved at the next month’s meeting, and then posted.

Dan Cramblitt was introduced by Tim. Dan will have responsibility for Parks/Trees and Tim will work with him through December 2017.

Priorities for 2017 Planting

• Areas C&D are the primary areas for this fall.
• STC agreed to budget $15,000 for CBD planting with the remaining $40,000 of the capital budget for trees split evenly between areas C&D.
• Parks and Rec Dept. will circulate bidding specs for regular street shade tree planting. Members can make suggestions for additional requirements.
• STC sub-group will develop draft spec’s for CBD tree well reconstruction and planting. Tim needs the specs by 7-21-2017 so they can be included with the entire fall shade tree bid.Adopt-a-Tree
•  
•  

• Tim reported we had received requests for 15 trees. One or two more may be included.
• If trees end up costing more than the $350 quoted to residents the extra will be paid from the Parks and Rec. line item budget. We don’t anticipate more than an additional $50 per tree.Downtown Tree Wells
•  
•  

• Manish reviewed the presentation developed by the CBD sub-group.
• He will circulate an electronic copy to STC members.
• We would like to share the presentation with the Village broadly starting with:
  • CBD advisory committee - Councilman Hache is contact person
  • Chamber of Commerce - Mike to make contact
• The objective of the meetings is to increase involvement of the business owners in the CBD tree planting and care process. Here is what we are doing – what can we work on together to make the project successful? Tree OrdinanceThe ordinance needs to be revised and re-introduced in a work session and then voted on in August. There were technical problems with its previous approval.Tree Nursery
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

• Bron reported that the Girl Scout project was not going to go forward.
• An automatic drip watering system has been set up at the recycling center.
• There was a discussion as to how long trees should be grown in nursery soil before they should be replanted.
• Our use of the whips has been reported to the NJ Tree Foundation.Misc.
•  
•  

• We agreed to participate in the Good Life Ridgewood program Oct. 1, 2017.
• A presentation on the STC’s work so far was made to the LWV in June.  
• Let me know if I missed anything important.