20221108 - Ridgewood Shade Tree Commission Meeting Minutes

Ridgewood Shade Tree Commission

Meeting Minutes

November 8, 2022

Opening

The regular meeting of the Ridgewood Shade Tree Commission was called to order at 7:35PM. The meeting was held in the Village Hall Garden room.

Present

Andrew Lowry, Declan Madden, Ian, Mahmoud Hamza, Maria Damasco, Nancy Brennan-Hill, Pamela Perron, Yamini Chinni

Organizational Tasks:

Minutes from Oct 2022 approved

Current STC membership comprised of 7 regular + 2 alternates. Voting was conducted to see if alternates should continue or do all the members become regular.  Based on the results of the voting it was decided that all the members will become regular members.

Current STC membership tenure varies from 1 year to 5 years. Voting was conducted to see if 3 years tenure for all members should be the way forward and it was agreed upon by the majority of the STC

There will be 2-3 vacancies by the end of 2022

NJ guidelines state that meeting minutes should be posted on the town website. This helps in getting aid.

Fall Planting:

Existing tree removals to begin from Nov 9^th, 2022

Email was sent out regarding the CBD tree removal along with posters in the downtown area.

The planting effort will entail, first removing the existing trees (including stumps) , fill mulch and new soil and then planting new trees

Every newly planted tree will get deer protection as well as a gator bag in the Spring. For residential trees after-care letters will be put as door hangers for the nearby home owner.

Budgetary discussions:

The intent is to contract out the watering for trees in CBD in Spring. As long as this expense is part of  the capital budget it can be pushed for use in the next year.

It was proposed that the remaining budget from this year be used to do a tree inventory. There was a discussion if the budget for this would need to go to the CFO as it will be re-purposed from the original intent. It was advised that generic language was used and hence it may not require the CFO review.

It was suggested that Dina Kat be paid a stipend to work on the grants for STC. Cynthia may also be interested and will be invited to the next STC meeting.

Misc:

Initial Tree Canopy plan (10 year tree plan) has been created and will be reviewed when Carolyn and Adam are present. About 500 trees per year will make a difference to the canopy. 

A meeting needs to be set up to come up with the estimates for fulfilling the Tree Canopy plan.

Declan mentioned about a dashboard that shows where the trees are being planted. STC members were interested in viewing the dashboard and Andrew to forward the email with access details

Yamini and Ian to work on setting up a drive for better organization of files for the STC