All right, good evening, and welcome to the April 8th meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Board.

Before we begin, I'd like to explain the various ways to participate in tonight's meeting.

First, you can join us here in person in the commission room, or you can join us on Zoom.

Unfortunately, the sustainability board meeting video stream is unavailable on the commission's video page due to technical issues.

The meeting will be recorded via Zoom and updated at a later date.

So we're sorry for this inconvenience.

If you're joining us via Zoom, you can provide public comment on an agenda item by using the raise your hand feature.

We take public comment in the room first and then move online.

Lastly, this board has decided to refer to one another on a first name basis for ease of communication.

And with that, I call the April 8th meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Board to order.

Natalie, are there any changes to the agenda?

There are no changes to the agenda.

Okay.

Are there any disclosures board members would like to make on tonight's agenda?

Okay.

Would anyone like to approve the minutes from the March 11th meeting?

Please move it to a vote.

I move to approve the minutes.

Okay.

A second.

Okay, thank you.

Kessley, can you please facilitate the vote?

Jessica Boy?

Jesse.

Aye, sorry.

Isabel.

Brooke.

Aye.

Erin.

Hi.

Kendra.

Aye.

Kristen.

Aye.

Motion pass.

Okay, thank you.

Are there any FYIs anyone on the board would like to share?

I've got a commission FII, if I can hop in here.

Um I neglected to let you know last month that previous to last month, the commission voted on a resolution to create a non-voting student seat on each of our major advisory boards.

So this seat will be appointed by the commission via a recommendation from the ASMSU Student Senate.

They are building out a process now to help promote and then select students from amongst the student body that might be interested or have a degree or otherwise some kind of experience that's relevant to each of our five superboards plus the historic preservation advisory board.

And then our city commission will vote to appoint them into these seats.

So rather than being a two-year term that starts in January, it will be a one-year term that starts at the fall semester.

Um, and then we'll go the full year through the fall semester.

So the expectation is that students will attend year-round, even though they may have you know summer jobs or summer travel might take them places, but um still the same expectation of making the majority of the meetings with you know some assistance from remote attendance if if necessary.

Um and I'm just really excited about this opportunity to bring some student voices onto our advisory boards and a little bit um of a lower barrier method.

Um, and then that non-voting kind of ex officio component, I think still keeps the um the rigor and validity of our boards intact while we help uh make sure we're getting some voices that we don't often hear from.

Um so yeah, we'll have some folks from the MSU student uh campus off-life.

I'm gonna butcher their name right now, off-campus student life be reaching out to um kind of set up this process, and I'll be facilitating it with um board chairs.

And if any of you have any questions about how the program might work, definitely let me know.

Um the one other thing to say about this is MSU has a um established program called Boardroom Bobcats, where they help place MSU students on advisory boards of nonprofits across the valley.

And so um this program will be working kind of in conjunction with that existing uh programming at MSU.

So there will be support for these students to understand how a board works and how to engage effectively and hopefully provide some of that institutional knowledge as we have kind of a higher turnover one year cadence of those terms.

So yeah, I'm again really excited about it and happy to take any questions at any time if you'll have them.

Any other FYIs.

Okay, Natalie, it looks like I maybe went out of order with the minutes, but you want to do your voice.

Okay.

Good evening, members of the board.

There are just a few upcoming events that I want to bring to your attention, in part because they are official items on your work plan.

The first is the Bozeman Cleanup Day, which we shared last month and just want to remind you that there's still an opportunity to sign up and participate and or just show up on the 25th at the festival to get your cleanup materials.

And as a reminder, cleanup day, it's great to do it all all together as a community, but it's also available year-round for groups that may want to clean up on their own schedule.

So please feel free to participate and share the information with businesses and residents throughout the community.

Again, this is a long-standing tradition, and uh we're we're excited to host again this year.

So and then also the festival website is available at um Gallatin Valley Earth Day Festival.com.

It's pretty easy to find.

And there's a wide variety of events, including um there's a really interesting ecology event tonight.

Um, all of those events are recorded and available to watch at a later date.

Um please do check it out.

There's gonna be a fun run Earth Day Festival.

It will include a um talk by the City of Bozeman Water Conservation Division on water resource planning and um landscaping conservation.

So good good stuff happening.

And then the other events I wanted to bring to your attention are available at the engage boseman.net website, which is a of course a great resource.

You're always gonna find something of interest on that page.

But specifically coming up, there's an in-person community engagement event on April 13th on the neighborhood conservation overlay uh design guidelines, and then that will be quickly followed by two um historic preservation walking tours, one for the Northeast neighborhood and one for the South Central neighborhood.

So please do um check that out and learn more about this project.

Thank you.

Oh, and there's the Gallatin Valley Birthday.org.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Um now we'll ask if there's any public comment on any non-agenda items in person.

We will have space for public comment on agenda items with each, but this is for non-agenda items.

Hey there, uh my name is Mark Campanelli.

Uh, I'm a Bogart Park uh resident.

Uh I listened to the 11 March meeting.

I think that was your last meeting.

Um, and I just had a couple comments.

Um, uh we all know probably the all models are wrong, but some are useful.

Um I was a little bit concerned about the lack of input data to the ClearPath 2.0 model.

Um my first post talk I did at the National Institute of Standards and Technology doing life cycle assessment for green manufacturing and looking at uncertainty analysis for those models.

And another thing which people don't like to talk about is how uncertain the climate models are.

Um I just hope that you guys do like the proper sensitivity analysis and checks, especially given what looked like a great lack of information, um, which again, I know you just can't get your hands on it.

Um, and one other comment there would be just think about maybe not saying we're gonna reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per or by 30 gigatons or whatever it is, you know.

Maybe you just want to like look at some scenarios and say this scenario reduces it twice as much as this other scenario, both of those twice, like both of those numbers could actually be really small if you don't know what your inputs are.

I am super interested in the high performance buildings doing it economically though um there is a to quote Ross Burrow a huge sucking sound of talent going to the Yellowstone Club and Big Sky and some of those people are the smartest because they have all these like 15 zone boiler systems and they melt out snow on their driveway that's not greenhouse gas friendly by the way but like you get some of the smartest people maybe going down there and it's a premium on the work right so you got to think about that.

And again I would love to work on affordable houses where people aren't burning their money on the utility bill every month retrofits are always fun but I'm thinking about leaving Bozeman in order to get that kind of training because of that sucking sound to go work for crazy rich people.

I hope someone's gonna some employer is going to hear that someday and it's gonna come back to haunt me.

Anyways uh I'm gonna run out of time um also just evangelizing green building um with an inf assumed infinite budget you know I think you guys know this we'll get a lot of eye rolls from many in the industry not everyone but I know a lot of the young guys in my class right just kind of like oh well this is great if you have you know a ton of money um also electrification involves heat pumps which run on chemicals like R4 454 B that's a refrigerant they're getting better but that has a global warming potential of 466 methane is a GWP20 of 20 years of about 85 when a guy is like then working already 10 hours and the hotel has like shut down some rooms and like they need to get it going again there's a temptation to vent that right it is illegal right you'll lose your EPA 608 you know if anybody were to check but nobody's checking and I am wrapping up here which gets me to some of the con like you guys actually said like some of the core problems during that meeting there was a comment about affordable housing being really expensive to heat and probably it wasn't built to code like that's where you need to start you can't how are you going to jump to like some super high efficiency high performance beyond code thing when we're not even doing the codes that are on the books now and I do have some reference there's a building science group in town and another grit like training um group that I've recently gotten touched with happy to talk with you guys.

This actually is something near and dear to my heart is is affordable green like it it these things don't have to come at the cost of each other.

You can do all of them if you're really smart about it.

So anyways thank you for listening I think I ran over but I really appreciate it.

So good evening Mary Bateson Bozeman resident to the honorable members of the sustainability board thank you for your service I'm here tonight because I'm excited to hear the presentations by Alex Nordquist and Lily McLean on the urban forestry management plan and the branch out Bozeman partnership I would also like to ask that this board advocate to the city commissions and Bozeman professional staff for maximum funding for these programs whenever possible there is such a spectacular bang for the buck for our environment when more trees are planted and our mature trees are cared for once again thank you for your service and thanks for keeping my request in mind you both for the public comment um anybody else in the room okay do we do we have anybody online uh for public comment on any non non-agenda edits no one is currently raising their hand okay okay so now we will move on to the main agenda item and the first of which is the uh forestry division update branch out Bozeman and the 2026 urban forest management plan um with um Alex Nordquest and Lily McLean there's good evening board membersley Allie Commissioner Bowdy a lot of new faces for me but I'm willing to talk at length and increase my CO2 emissions slightly uh to talk about some

There somewhere good evening board members.

Commissioner Bowdy.

A lot of new faces for me.

But I'm willing to talk at length and increase my CO2 emissions slightly to talk about sustainability anytime.

So I'm happy to be here.

My name is Lily McLean.

I'm the restoration director for the Gallatin Watershed Council, and I'm here to speak to you about the branch out Bozeman partnership today.

The PowerPoint's slightly out of order.

So we're we're starting in the middle, I think, to talk about branch out Bozeman.

And I think I'll open with just a little bit of background on the forestry division end and a quick intro of some forestry division responsibilities.

So we are um part of Parks and Rec department, myself and four full-time employees, handle park and boulevard tree maintenance across the city.

We have a rough count on our inventory system, probably about 28,500 trees in our system that we maintain, keep track of, um add new additions, delete removals.

So we maintain a pretty thorough tree inventory system.

And part of that's planting.

So every year we're doing a lot of boulevard tree planting, we're not hitting park spaces very much, looking for avenues over the years to address that sort of inequity.

Um that started with volunteer projects in the past and really stretching the capacity of what we could do in a given season, what we can do with in-house staff, volunteers come into play big time.

So an initial partnership, I think five or six years ago.

Um or two park spaces, very successful.

Let's formalize that.

Let's build it into a partnership working with Gallatin Watershed Council.

Um maybe I'm getting close to stepping over your talking points now.

Don't steal my line.

Yeah, I don't want to steal your line, but um really this has been an effort over several years to build momentum, uh, formalize this partnership and expand it.

So uh we'll get into that, I think a little bit more as we go, but I'll yield the mic to Lily to share her story.

Thanks, Alex.

Let's see, can I advance?

Okay.

Um our mission, right?

So what Alex is saying, or what we see in the the watershed world in the the work of nonprofits is how powerful our community can be to help add capacity to getting uh some really great work done on the ground.

We also see the dual benefit uh when we engage our community that an engaged community cares and they learn and um that it provides an outlet uh for people to engage, but also sort of elevates our understanding and uh sort of communal stewardship.

And so that's that's the mission of Branch Out Bozeman is to engage the greater Bozeman community, so all of our residents in the stewardship of our shared resource of this urban forest in a way that enriches the lives of both people and nature throughout its life cycle.

And we have three primary goals that is uh cleaner water, cooler summers for all.

So equity is a major component of what we're trying to do because we see that um some of our um not all neighborhoods have the same urban canopy, and often in our underserved neighborhoods, that's where we're lacking those benefits of shade, clean air, refuge.

So um urban heat island effect is a thing, and I think you could probably feel it today as you walked over when you're in that direct sunlight.

It's nice and warm, which turns unbearably hot um in the summer, but under the shade, the temperature is drastically different.

If I was going to pick one tool in the toolbox to improve the health of our watershed and water quality, it's native trees and not just native trees that are along our stream corridors, but also our urban canopy as green stormwater infrastructure.

So when we are planting canopy over impervious surfaces, it changes the stormwater game.

It slows the flow and it shades those hot asphalt services.

We're delivering water more slowly, cleaner and cooler to our streams.

So any tree we plant within the Bozeman community is benefiting the watershed, right?

Because we are we're not uh we're a manufactured ecosystem here, and so we need the help of those trees to improve our water quality.

So those are our goals.

Um we started in 2021 with a modest project on South 20th Boulevard, and since then we have engaged 781 volunteers who have given over 2,000 hours of their time.

We have planted 783 trees, and we have staked 6,900 willows.

So when you stake a willow, you just cut its arm off and you stick it in the ground.

And those guys, uh especially along our stream corridors, are those are the big um, they're the workhorse of our watershed.

So they can make a big difference.

We have planted at 15 locations along four creeks.

If you check out the map on our website, so here's our website.

Um this was really exciting to work on this together with the city.

Uh and we have a project map that you can check out.

I will spare you listing all the locations, but it is exciting.

We have worked with many different partners: Bozeman High, Gallatin High, Girl Get After It, Whole Foods, Eagle Scouts, Oboes, Sackage Via Autobond Society, Trothan Limited, the Craig's Head Institute, the National Park Service, and the Department of Environmental Quality with funding from the environmental quality, I mean DEQ, we are reimagining the streams in our urban parks to be more naturalized, and that's coming from direction that we're seeing out of the parks, the Pratt Plan, Parks and Recreation Active Transportation Plan, where our community was heard loud and clear that they value and appreciate natural spaces.

And so we're working with DEQ and the Parks and Rec department to reimagine those creeks and get trees planted along them.

And we have a voucher program.

To date, we've given out 21 free trees.

This year we're poised to distribute 79 more in partnership with Cashman Nursery.

We host riparian walks at parks around the city once a month.

And we're using this website in this partnership to drive people to existing resources for do-it-yourself, right?

With the vouchers and bringing research resources and education and outreach, we're not only empowering the city and our public spaces and our boulevards, but we're also empowering community members on in their yards in those private spaces to participate because that's a big part of our land area.

And to the we are driving folks to the Boulevard program, cost share program, and to the free mulch program because I think these are some programs that are undersung and are really cool.

So elevating all of this stuff together under this brand and elevating programs that Alex offers and that the watershed council offers.

In total, we have leveraged just about 200,000 in grants and private donations to bring to support this program, which is really, I think, really amazing.

And I think with a thriving program like this, we can just keep going.

I think the story is really compelling to continue to fundraise.

So I would invite you.

I'm going to end with inviting you all to Arbor Day.

I'm going to pass out the flyer, so please take one.

We are going to be hosting that on uh Friday, April 24th from 12 to 3.

We always have a really good time.

Um it's amazing to me when I go back through photos because we do that a lot.

The amount of smiles is a little ridiculous.

We do have a lot of fun, but when you flip through the photo album, it's every single picture, everyone is just huge smiles.

So I invite you to come be part of that.

We're at Boulder Creek and with Westbrook Park this year.

So please take a flyer.

And I'll jump in that we're we're certainly cutting into Earth Week this year.

Arbor Day is the last Friday in April each year.

So we're really back to back.

But I think you'll all agree that those are maybe some compatible holidays, and certainly makes sense to have them back to back.

But it's definitely a tight schedule.

Well, Earth Day is Wednesday, right?

I think, and then Arbor Day Friday.

So they're they're really back to back this year.

Yeah, many festival on Saturday.

Great.

Let's see.

And all of this is live.

So yeah, any questions or comments on that part of the presentation.

I think some a few things I'll add.

This is a nice graphic, you know, just a few images from the from the website.

Cleaner water, cooler summers, broader benefits.

Lily already mentioned this is sort of guiding the volunteer projects that we're pursuing each year.

In the past, we were choosing the sites.

We were picking the spots, and we don't want to do that anymore.

We want to be data-driven.

We want to be unbiased.

We want to have mapping layers that are telling us, pointing out the areas that are most in need.

So that's a major push behind this website and working with sustainability and GIS and asset management at the city to help us with some of this analysis.

And that's what we hope to have still in development, but that'll be shared on the Bob website and the forestry website are some mapping layers that we want to sort of open the floodgates and say, you know, if this area shows up as a red flag, why?

Is it based on water?

Is it based on Urban Heat Island?

Is it based on an equity issue?

Um and that will help guide future projects.

I think one other item to talk about is growing our forests.

We have these various methods.

This isn't solely focused on getting volunteers out to plant trees.

It's about getting those care items for existing trees.

How can we repurpose fallen trees is a great consideration?

You know, if I'll brag about our big chip truck right now.

Well, we can chip a 15-inch trunk.

Gone.

We don't want to do that every time, right?

So the efficiency of our workload.

Um, my crew accomplishes quite a bit in any given year.

When we tackle removals, um, it's a highly technical part of the job.

We want to get in and out safely and be done quickly and efficiently.

So the easiest thing we can do is chip an entire tree.

But that's not always the best thing, you know, if we can repurpose those chips, if we can leave logs.

Um there is one private arborist company in town that'll take our wood.

Um, folks are hungry for bowl turning cuts.

Folks are hungry for firewood.

Um, anything we can do other than process uh 50, 60, 100-year-old tree into wood chips and send it to the convenience site where it's still getting composted and uh and a green waste element there.

Anything's better than just sending it off.

So the complete life cycle is an approach with this program, you know.

So it's not just planting trees uh for volunteer efforts, but that is certainly a fun part.

Thank you.

I do have a question based on that.

Um someone who took the city up on the the zeerscaping sort of turf removal, it was uh a little hard to find the wood chips to then fill in.

So I don't know if that there's an opportunity to think about that life cycle.

Uh we used the free mulch piles here and there, but they were maybe gone by the time we got there.

And um we did end up uh contracting an arborist to bring some wood chips.

But I just wonder if that could there could be some cleaner lines made or if that's even an option for people interested in that.

Throwing it out there.

Yeah, I think our free mulch program has been a challenge um since its inception.

Probably three or four years now, we've been uh simply diverting some of our wood chips.

So when trees are processed through our chipper, they go into a large chip truck.

It's a connected trailered unit.

So if we are heading up to solid waste convenience site to dump our chips, we actually save time dumping chips at the fairgrounds.

And that's the only pile we have currently.

And on any given weekend, especially when it's nice and warm now, people will attack that pile of chips.

And um, we're certainly not going to pursue increased tree removals to uh keep the keep the pile maintained, but it also comes from our pruning work too.

It's a really good example of I think just a quick and easy innovative idea that we added to our services that's hard to keep up with.

And um it's certainly on us to explore with our urban forest management plan how we can expand that option.

Um private industry is certainly an avenue as well.

Private arborist companies in town typically have to uh pay to dump their wood chips or find free sites.

Um, you know, it's not uncommon.

There are services across the country or like even apps to like find a private arborist in town that'll dump their wood chips in your driveway for free as an example.

So those things exist, but we absolutely want to promote wood chips as a natural material mulch versus rock and other um what I'd call non-organics that will help um add retain soil moisture, um be habitat for beneficial fungi and bacteria, so on so forth.

And I think Brooke, just to emphasize what Alex is saying, I think there's a lot of opportunity there.

So I think ideas are welcome because we hear that and recognize that those mulch piles are in high demand.

So definitely been on our list to yeah, grow that component.

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks for the presentation.

I was also curious about that point number five of repurposing.

And I'm wondering um, how do people find out about the um pre-wood chipped trees?

My husband owns a furniture company and they do a lot of, you know, use a ton of wood, and that's something they'd be interested in.

But is that something that's a service for the public or somebody to contact if they're interested.

It's open for discussion.

I would say it's a challenge when um we're working in the public realm.

So if we pause, say for example, we pause a removal and leave wood that's out in the boulevard or blocking sidewalk or street, that's a challenge.

We also don't have capacity to store at our facility.

Um it's very informal right now.

And I think the easiest answer, the shortest answer is we're exploring options.

And I know, for example, I've heard in billings that they stockpile some of their salvage timber, urban timber, and then they do an auction.

That sounds a little complicated, maybe legally.

Um, but we'd explore options, I think.

Um we'd know we want to do it, and certainly people call like that, wood workers call, and um I think it's an example of what's what's the easiest solution for all parties because it's it's tasking for us to hold things and then have a private individual come to, you know, say for example, make a profit off of that.

Is that okay?

Um yeah, it's it's a work in progress.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Um, I just had a thought looking at the website and then also um the last slide that you shared, um mostly because I really appreciate the connection to the urban heat island, and I've done extreme heat work for many years now.

And I think drawing the explicit connection between how the like forestry work that you're doing connects with other things that the city can be doing that are more infrastructure related, not necessarily using our natural resources, is really helpful for people to understand just how the work you do fits into the city's broader agenda of protecting people from you know rising temperatures and um ultimately just safeguarding public health.

So would recommend just thinking, and I'm sure you guys have, but at least publicly figuring out how to convey how that fits into this bigger picture Bozeman piece that we are all needing to wrap our heads around and address.

Any other questions?

Go ahead.

Um Thank you.

I think this is a great partnership and makes so much sense and is definitely needed.

Um couple questions.

It looks like on some of the information that we were sent that there's very few trees that are pruned each year.

Is that a um staffing issue?

I'm just thinking about trying to keep trees alive so you don't they don't have to be chipped.

Um, and maybe more maintenance of the trees would be useful for that.

I'd like yeah so I think you're the forester.

Sure.

Yeah.

So I'm just curious if it's like a uh um manpower issue.

Yeah.

Sure.

I think um I can address that a little more succinctly in the second half.

Um when we're done talking about Bob here, I'll get into our management plan and I have some some visuals there that are helpful.

And uh a quick answer.

I mean, our our bread and butter work is planting, pruning, and removals, and we track all of that work pretty accurately every year.

So um I think we're pretty effective at our pruning work, and I can expand on that a bit later in the presentation.

Okay, great.

I think most of my other questions are probably tied to your part of the presentation, so I'll stop.

I can jump in here.

Um, yeah, thank you for the presentation.

I'm really excited about the partnership.

I uh am thinking about both the focus on resiliency, planting a variety of different types of trees, and I know you mentioned a few of them.

Um willows are the only one I remember in this moment.

But one of the um climate plan goals is to uh have um regenerative green space, food systems, and natural environment.

And to that food systems point, I'm just curious if you have been planting any fruit trees or intend to plant fruit trees, especially in you know, centralized park areas.

Just yeah, and I'll let you speak to this, um, Alex, but along our streams, typically not, um, unless it's a native, you know, fruit-bearing species, um, you know, like our um mountain ash, right.

I get I'm an engineer and I'm learning my plants plants as I go, and I love it, but it's definitely a second language to me.

Um, but that's not what you mean.

Um so along our streams, no.

Um, in our boulevards, no.

And I'll let Alex speak to that.

Um, Alex is very picky about what goes in his boulevards.

Not just me.

Yeah.

Um I would the vouchers um we're looking for primarily looking for canopy in that coverage, but I don't see we need Addie here to tell us what we're allowed to do in park spaces.

So I think that's a really good consideration.

Um that I will note down.

And I think a few other points on that topic.

It's certainly a public appetite to have, you know, no pun intended.

So you meant that.

I didn't.

I really didn't, no.

Um people want to see that, right?

People want to see food forests very, I think it's very on trend.

Um we have a few examples in town that are a bit small scale.

And I would just be very cautious in our approach.

Um specifically thinking about orchard styled fruit trees, plums, apples, um, apricots, and things like that.

There's a ton of work behind that, especially at a production scale.

It would have to be dedicated um steady volunteer effort.

And I think just to walk through what I've learned from previous conferences and webinars and things like that, um, orchard environment is completely different.

So annually, um an apple orchard might prune off 75% of the branches on a tree and 90% of the fruit every single year.

And you know, when an apple is pollinated and it's this big, they cut off 90% of them.

They cull the product, the crop.

Because over time, as they grow, if you don't touch that tree, it'll split apart under the weight of the fruit.

Um that also happens at Flathead Lake, right?

If you don't prune the cherries in a good year, a bumper crop, they'll tear themselves apart.

So careful selection and planning of the right type of species, and then if we counter orchard-style trees with something like a chokecherry, not much ever goes wrong with the chokecherry.

But if you've ever eaten the fruit right off the tree, that's maybe not the traditional snack that you're thinking of.

It is very traditional.

Well, it is traditional, sure.

But um I think a forager would say edible in choice is the terminology.

And you know, certainly that type of fruit is used for jams and jellies and other, you know, it's not eaten right off the tree.

So careful selection and/or uh a maintenance plan.

We are planting choke cherry along the streams.

For sure, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Any other questions on branch out Bozeman?

Can I jump in with just one other question?

I'm thinking about other large open space areas within the city limits that have waterways on them.

Golf courses are obvious.

Um even some of the um schools.

Are there any partnerships there or incentives for some of those landowners to be doing the right thing near their creeks?

Yeah, so we do have a partnership with Bozeman High School and um have planted along that reach of Mandeville Creek that is uh runs right along North 11th and by the tennis courts.

So that's um a no-mo zone has been established with the maintenance crew there, and we've um replanted quite a few native species.

We're we're space limited, um, but we've done some work there and we go back and maintain that annually with volunteers.

Um we did work a little bit with Gallagher High School last year.

I think definitely an opportunity to grow that partnership.

As a watershed council, we can't do our work without landowners, and that's why we're very excited about our partnership with the city of Bozeman, because that represents a very large landowner, land manager.

And then as soon as we start to get into privately owned land, every landowner is um special and unique and golf courses, absolutely that would be a really great uh partnership.

And I think um that's the challenge that we sort of embark on every day as the watershed council is reaching landowners, bringing education and outreach um to them, and um HOAs is another example, and we have some um we do work with some HOAs across the the city, but we can always do better.

But I do I covet those streams and those golf courses.

Yeah.

If you know anybody, let me know.

Any other questions on the branch out Bozeman topic?

Thank you.

Okay, so we'll go into topic two, and I think just for everyone in the room, one presentation, two topics, we'll certainly have time for public comment on either uh at the end.

So I think branch out Bozeman is one example of just a facet of the work we cover under the forestry division, not just the tree maintenance for stuff we're responsible for.

We show up in front of folks' homes, we're planting trees, we're doing work on a personalized level.

So there's always an education component and opportunity when we pull up to somebody's house and work on their boulevard trees.

We also have an obligation to communicate to the public at large and offer education and outreach.

That's part of Branch Out Bozeman.

And we work heavily with other city departments and divisions all the time.

This all kind of folds into the work, and it demands a master plan.

So that's what we're talking about with an urban forest management plan.

Um this is kind of an industry standard term.

Uh we have a current plan from 2016, and I'll talk a little bit about that and sort of why we're looking at a new plan.

Um first off, we're we're covering the gamut of our operations and responsibilities.

Um it's a big master planning document, and we're we're digging into some of the details of our work.

So we had a question about some of the pruning.

Um I was bragging about our tree inventory system, those fall under that sort of tree infrastructure category where we're asking for an evaluation of our tree infrastructure across the city.

Um we want to know if our staffing levels are adequate from an outside perspective.

We want our consultant to tell us if you know does this compare to other communities in a good or bad way?

Do we need to start planning for increases?

How's our budget?

How's our uh contracting?

How is our community outreach?

Do we need to ramp up or are we adequate, or do we need inventive ideas?

And you know, just really reaching across the board with other city departments and the public to forge this plan together, I think.

Um we do have a chosen consultant and a little bit of background that that RFP process took place developing in October, November, choosing a consultant in December of last year.

Uh so that's DGNA, which is kind of civil uh municipal consulting with Planet Geo that is a specific company for tree inventory and GIS systems, and they work on management plans, urban forest management plans across the country.

This process will take the remainder of 2026 to get us to the finish line.

So broken down, I guess we're retracing the existing plan.

2016 plan does reside on the forestry division website if you want to dig into it.

But we have three main categories in the existing plan, and they're all important, but I will say we're not asking the new plan to be a mimic.

We're not just trying to refresh the chapters, right?

Um, but it it did go through tree infrastructure and sort of just analyze and pick apart our urban forest, and mainly focusing on the trees that we maintain on city properties.

You know, what are the species diversities?

Um, how are we how are we conducting our work?

How's it split between planting, pruning, and removal work, things like that.

Uh, talking about our management, our staffing, um 2016 recommended hiring a city forester.

I came in in 2017, so I'm particularly fond of that recommendation.

Um I'm happy to be here.

Community engagement, you know, ideas for just like that.

Should we reach out to golf courses?

Should we work with the schools, things like that?

There were kind of seven essential elements boiled down in the existing plan, and I'll get to that on a later slide.

And then it also accompanied uh with an emerald ash borer course of action plan and the 10-second description of that.

The vast majority of our trees are green ash across the city.

There is a pest.

If you're not familiar with emerald ash borer, it's moving across the country.

Um it's pretty destructive, and it's a classic example of over reliance or a monoculture.

Um, thus the case for species diversity.

Charts, graphs, um, you know, pretty pictures.

And what I liked about the existing plan most is it gave us pathways, but it still allowed for our staff expertise and discretion.

Say, for example, if we were given three paths as recommendations for a particular subject, we still have our own expertise and discussions with staff to say, well, they gave us three options.

We really think option B is the best path for us to move forward in the next 10 years.

And then we'll revisit with a 2026 plan.

So that's where we are today.

And that's where I think a new plan is helpful to give us options.

So certain things that are no longer relevant in the 2016 plan.

On the left, the species diversity pie chart versus our current chart on the right.

But there are a lot more slices on the right image.

The left image is horribly inaccurate.

It's nowhere near 47.

And we have, again, highly accurate tree inventory system helps us build and maintain that type of data, which turns directly into our management and how we guide our staff to work throughout the city.

This chart as well is horribly outdated.

We typically plant nowadays over 300 trees a year.

We do remove several several hundred, which varies with extreme weather events, but we prune in the thousands annually.

This is just a bit misleading.

So to have accurate current analysis is gonna craft a better management plan.

So this data is irrelevant, are irrelevant.

A 13 year pruning rotation would be horrible, and we're nowhere near that.

We share with city commission every year, we share with budget.

It's a little complex, but this is essentially saying we want a seven-year cycle.

Industry standards are to have a municipal forestry program that can maintain on a five to seven year cycle.

Most operations across the country have no hope of even getting close.

So we thought, let's aim for the high end.

Maybe five-year cycle is too aggressive.

Let's go with seven.

And this seven-year cycle reflects our pruning, our planting, our removals, and then any time we just make an inspection, a visual assessment on a tree.

It doesn't necessarily guide the coming year.

It's more a reflection of what we did in the past.

If you see the dotted line there, that is achieving the seven-year maintenance for that year's portion.

So year over year, uh, across four different activities, we're above our target goal of a seven-year maintenance cycle.

So it's not just pruning, but green is a big chunk every year.

Um and so pruning is a substantial portion of our work.

And I would say it's really a matter of between the pruning and reactionary removals.

Um we want assessment from our consultant, right?

We can show them these numbers, and we can say across the profile of some 28,000 or 29,000 trees, we're printing this many a year, and we're removing this many per year.

Do you guys think that's a good number from your professional outside assessment?

Or do we need to make some adjustments?

And that's exactly why an outside consultant is so beneficial.

We, for example, don't want to write our own management plan.

We want outside perspective.

So this is an example from the existing plan.

I mentioned earlier, these are kind of the main goals, right?

And it's it's just phrased that way in the current plan, seven essential elements.

And when we approached a new plan for 2026, discussions with staff were kind of oh my gosh, well, we we just do this.

This is what this is the job, you know.

So we really don't feel like these essential elements are relevant.

Um they're kind of just baked into our work.

So if anything, I'd say the two highlighted are never complete, right?

They're always ongoing.

Uh we can always do better for community outreach and how we interact with the public, and we can always make efforts to improve the proactive aspect of our work.

These are maybe just some examples that we could envision internally.

Again, we're not asking the new consultant to give us essential elements.

They can call them goals, they can call them outcomes, objectives, whatever we want.

Um, but I think these are examples.

You know, um species diversity, we're pushing every year to plant with a wider palette of trees, but we are extremely limited with a number of factors: climate, availability, uh, cost.

So it's a very challenging but necessary aspect of our work to increase species diversity.

Uh we did specifically ask the consultant to help us with canopy cover goals, and that is a citywide measure across property lines, across maintenance jurisdictions.

Show us the canopy, assess the canopy of tree coverage throughout city limits, and give us some guidance for the next 10 years on how we can improve and preserve that canopy.

Um, another example, I won't cut them cover them all, but most of our work is focused on boulevard trees.

Should we dedicate more time to our park spaces?

You know, and and that final bullet at the bottom would be a great example.

Um, from an outside perspective of professional consultants, do you recommend we have four people?

And those four people get summer help, so we double up to eight in the summer.

We get two chip trucks out, two bucket trucks, um, a planting truck and trailer.

Uh parks crew would be another bucket truck and chip truck at a minimum, and probably three full-time employees.

So that guidance, you know, comes with staffing projections and budgetary concerns a little bit on the scope of the current plan, which is in development.

We're asking about that tree infrastructure.

We're asking for analysis on our staffing and equipment levels.

We certainly want to find better ways to work with planning and development.

Um that's across the board, you know, how we're accepting new trees that come in with development, how existing trees are impacted by construction projects, um, just making sure that we're getting all the alerts we need from planning, from building inspection, from various other departments uh that impact our operation and not just our operation, but trees on private property as well.

Asking for ideas on community engagement, um, how we can work on items like branch out Bozeman and really ratchet that up.

Again, keep that momentum that we have there, uh, how we inform and educate and just looking for creative ideas there.

And then we're still talking about Emerald Ashbore.

We're still prepping for that, and we've made, I think, huge strides in the last decade.

We want a fresh assessment of how we're dealing with that and how our ashtries are looking against that threat, but also other items.

Uh extreme weather is a significant portion of our work.

We bank on May or October, giving us a storm event that's really gonna cut into our proactive schedule.

So we end up pivoting most years due to weather.

Talking about the community engagement for this, um we've got fresh updates this week.

So this PowerPoint's outdated already.

The community engagement plan is up for this plan on engaged Bozeman.

Um we'll have a series of public meetings.

We will have work sessions with the urban parks and forestry board, and we'll have final presentation to city commission.

due to weather talking about the community engagement for this um we've got fresh updates this week so this powerpoints outdated already the community engagement plan is up for this plan on engaged Bozeman um we'll have a series of public meetings we will have work sessions with the urban parks and forestry board and we'll have final presentation to city commission all of these pathways for input it's welcome to have public comment in that process we'll also have public survey period that's open and announced on social media and we'll have a public comment period closer to the end before we get to that um final synthesis and and presentation to city commission so throughout the coming months there's I think ample opportunity for for any level of public comment and you know that's that's getting added to the pot with all of the city departments with different boards and my staff as well back to the timeline we're we're talking about the rest of the year um so in the background I mentioned the RFP we put that out for consultants nationwide we've selected uh in November and and December and now we're we're in that community engagement portion we're we're hosting the public meetings and all of that the work sessions and everything are are scheduled they're on that engaged Bozeman uh site with the full schedule out there again that'll go along with public surveys and a comment period and then the last couple of months of the year is really just the inner workings with the consultant you know finishing what's a pretty lengthy planning document you know and making sure that everything uh that needs to be incorporated has been so how can you all help I think check out engaged Bozeman dig into the schedule certainly welcome to join us for any of the public work sessions uh two are in person and two are virtual more than welcome to join our board work sessions if you're looking for a a lot of fun you know and uh share your ideas you know again as I opened um I might crack a joke here and there but uh really take sustainability pretty seriously and I know the trees are just one component of of uh that realm so I'm happy to be here and hear ideas and we've already had I think great back and forth with the Branch Out Bozeman topic so you already plugged Arbor Day great um Arbor Day is coming up and we have other planting events with branch out Bozeman throughout the summer and the website is ready so that's outdated too okay we covered both uh oh I didn't mean to do that I can never figure out this mouse I'm close but any questions we we have the slide we can all read that um Kristen we can start with you and go this way yeah in one of the slides it shows year over year sort of the percentage of removed implanted trees is about the same is that been intentional or just sort of the way it's it's worked out I would say it's not intentional and I think to explain a few different facets of that look at FY23 that was not a great year.

And we did have some severe weather for a couple of years two Octobers back to back that were early frost before trees shut down their leaves and produce fall color we removed over a thousand trees and it it kind of split the fiscal year with the calendar year but oftentimes we have no choice but to react to events like that.

Another factor that comes into play is we are aggressively reducing green ash to prepare for Emerald Ash bore um but that has come up and that observation is exactly what I talk through with my staff.

So it looks like we're about one to one on planting versus removals.

And it's a fairly common metric or performance objective across municipal operations to say, you know, do we want to make a declaration that we have a goal to plant more than we remove each year?

Maybe we do.

And maybe if we're forced to remove more than we plant in a given year, we need to come up with strategies and resources to pivot the following year to counteract.

But largely this is just observations of the work that we have to do.

And we push the planting as much as we can, and we're certainly at capacity with staff.

So is that where the metric like canopy cover comes in?

Is that a preferred metric to sort of like removal versus planted trees?

I think they're both valuable, but what is misleading is saying we're gonna plant a thousand trees in the next few years because conditions change day to day.

So if you set a goal of a planting number, it's it's opening the door for failure.

And that's very common across the country, across the world.

People just set a target and they for whatever reason they don't hit it.

It's much more compelling, and I think more of a modern uh performance measure or whatever you want to call it, to have a canopy goal.

The canopy goal implies successful maintenance.

Um if we say we're gonna plant a thousand trees, it needs to be showing up on satellite imagery.

And so canopy coverage goals, you won't hit them without having robust maintenance plans.

And um that that is certainly why we're pursuing a canopy goal versus you know if if we set a recommendation, you know, well, you only plant one percent, plant three percent after this.

Like, well, more compelling to look at all these metrics and see planting versus removal and other year over year changes with canopy coverage.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks so much for the information.

Um I noticed in your goals for the management plan that there wasn't anything about equity or looking at the distribution of um residents and incomes and canopy cover and having that inform your planting plan.

So I was curious because I know that was talked about with branch out Bozeman.

Um, is that are you assuming that's covered in the partnership, or is that a piece of your work and your priority at all?

Well, I think it could fall into a couple items here.

Maybe a stretch to say staffing and equipment, but I think with planning and development and community engagement, that's part of it.

And I can tell you that the biggest thing we're missing today in terms of tree equity uh is rental properties.

If we do any work near rental properties, uh there's just kind of a detachment, right?

It's well, that's the boulevard space.

Whatever.

I don't care.

There's five of us in this house near campus, and we park our Tacomas on the front lawn.

That sort of thing, we've we're probably pretty safe bet that they're not gonna participate in our tree planting program, or they're not gonna contact their landlord to reach out to us.

So we know that's kind of the a main source of inequity is we don't have good engagement with rental properties.

So I would say it broadly falls into that category.

Thank you.

Um this is really cool to see a new plan being developed, especially with all the progress that you've made.

Um I guess I just had a couple of questions.

I am not a plant person or know anything about trees.

I saw, so yeah, please correct me where I'm wrong.

It seemed like by canopy cover, do you mean mostly deciduous trees?

It looked like in your list it's mostly deciduous trees.

So I was wondering if is there an effort to plant conifers?

Because they would seem to be not as susceptible to some of these weather events that you're talking about.

So canopy cover, we specifically have Kesley might help me with the terms here, but land cover data sets are leaf on imagery.

Did I get it?

So planes fly over specifically in the summertime to catch both deciduous trees and conifers.

And having that summertime, all the leaves are out across all species.

That's when we want to build that data year over year.

And it won't be flown every single year.

I think we're looking at a keeping a frequency of every three years that's going to take place in the summer.

And that gives us both.

So that's kind of what we want to communicate.

And there's certainly avenues to increase our use of conifers or evergreen trees, right?

And Lily mentioned earlier.

Evergreens are one example we don't allow in boulevards, but there's tons of potential for our park spaces.

And everybody plants a spruce, and that's almost, you know, the vast majority of evergreens in town.

They're all spruce.

Where's the pines?

Where's the firs?

You know, there's a lot of opportunity to diversify that.

Um and then I guess also, do you when you choose trees?

It you're trying to keep the diversity of species.

Is there a way?

Do you already do this where you kind of pick tree species that are is there a tree that's easier to maintain?

I'm thinking of like willows are great, but we had them in our backyard and they were a monster to maintain.

So do you kind of pick is that anywhere in your decision making?

The maintenance part.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

So there is no perfect tree, right?

And the perfect tree is is diversity of palate.

Um just in so many aspects, right?

Willows have a growth habit that certainly would not be uh desirable for boulevard tree.

It'd be great in a park space that's away from structures and things like that.

And each and every tree has its pros and cons.

And then I would say we work off observation.

You know, we work off what we know works.

Um I'll share my little tidbit, and this is not my credit, it's my staff's credit.

I went to the Ohio State University, obligated to say that.

So I am an Ohio buckeye.

We have planted Ohio buckeye aggressively in town over the last several years.

It's not a native tree, it's an introduced species.

It's not invasive, but it's not native.

We've never removed one.

We've never had storm damage.

They have fantastic red fall color, and they do better than they actually grow in Ohio.

So the crew loves them, right?

And I think we've planted enough of those over the last few years.

Um, so I'm trying to be unbiased, and we move on and diversify, you know, subtle changes with what we can purchase and plant each year, but um variety across the board.

When I show the pie chart, the pie chart on the right is more current.

It's still not good enough.

We still have big slices.

We want lots of little slices.

Thank you.

And my question is honestly related to both presentations.

I've been, I guess I appreciate how you are trying to maximize and use your resources wisely between forestry and parks and all of that.

And I'm just trying to understand better how community gardens fit into all of that, how you conceptualize them in relation to all of like the updated forest management plans and whether there's any sort of interplay between thinking about the two of them.

Yeah, I think for community gardens, that's under parks and rec.

So forestry, we're working on boulevard trees across the city and anything in park spaces.

So generally, community gardens are they they take a lot of maintenance, so they usually go to a specific user group or individuals.

And so I think to increase any potential for community gardens, we just we need outside resources.

We need to come up with some sort of better planning for that.

I know it's maybe quite a bit more drama than we might all imagine to get individual plots approved each year.

There might be some infighting, especially at Langer.

That's just what I've heard.

But you know, those are really great for you know the public demand of offering this kind of equitable resource, but they're they're definitely very intensive projects.

And I just think we we would need we would need more resources to kind of ratchet ratchet that up.

Um I don't know if I assume that you don't have this answer offhand, but can you just give us a sense of the level of resource investment that you would need to really invest in community gardens in a way that you think would be compatible to your other work on like this urban forests?

Yeah, yeah.

I I think without speaking for any of my coworkers in Parks and Rec, I think it's fair to say we would need administrative help and we would need sort of maintenance proofs.

Maybe that's contractors to sort of monitor the gardens, work directly with uh participants, um, you know, handle the tree pruning because it's very specific and time intensive.

So those are kind of examples of things we can't do when it's uh our own admin and our own forestry staff and our own parks maintenance staff kind of spread thin.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I guess during your presentation, I've been thinking about the change of the size of Bozeman's city limits from 2016 to now when the last plan was done.

Um so it definitely is needed as our footprint has grown so much as a city, and I would imagine the number of total trees then compared to the expectation of total trees now is quite different.

And I hope that as part of this planning, it's considered how that compares with the total number of staff that might be needed at this time and kind of being open to needing significantly more staff in order to manage the significantly larger um footprint of Bozeman.

Um I have just a question that might be um way off base here, but I'm thinking about mature tree impacts and wondering now if there's anything that prevents uh mature tree impacts um or requires a replanting.

And I'm guessing that you don't, but do you get to comment on or anybody from your department get to comment on development plans as it relates to the trees?

And do you think that's something that's an opportunity in the future if it's not happening now?

Yeah, I think it's I would say it's it's pretty limited currently.

So I do attend development review for items on private property, we can sort of simply offer recommendations.

Um and there's not with the current code language, you know, we don't have too much that's either uh requirement or an incentive.

And uh there are landscaping standards that's more of the planning and community developments realm.

And just to answer generally and briefly, I'll comment on a few things on private property that are recommendations, and then there are various other uh considerations that are outside of my expertise, and then I'm largely looking at boulevard and park additions.

So if you build a car wash, we review the site plan and uh making sure that you have your new boulevards, boulevard trees in place and that they're the appropriate spacing and clear from street lights and hydrants and things like that.

Um, but there's certainly opportunity to expand on that.

And again, to the outside perspective, we want to hear from consultants what's working in other states, what's working in other communities to uh address that issue and give us suggestions.

Great.

Uh the only other thing that I was thinking about is there's obvious differences between the new and old areas of town as it relates to canopy cover, particularly.

Um it seems like there maybe is it might be useful to have two different types of metrics for like young tree areas versus older tree areas that might be more compelling or scientifically relevant just given the way trees grow and their increase in canopy cover over time.

So it like to your point of saying we're gonna plant X number of trees over a certain period of time, that's maybe useful for certain parts of town and other parts of town that really doesn't mean anything or have nearly as big of an impact as just keeping the larger trees healthy.

Um and then the last thing I'll say is I think having an annual percentage um increase goal and citywide tree canopy cover would make sense if we are looking to um the climate shifting and knowing that this is one of the um areas where we have the most opportunity for improvement.

Improvement for um heat index is what I meant for that.

Yeah, I think I think what I can say to that is the canopy cover.

What I like about that measure is it's it's just the data telling us things and it's unbiased.

So it could compliment us or it could punch us in the mouth, right?

And um what that shows is the measure of not only our work, but every other impact across the community, right?

If if it's accurate enough, it'll show folks cutting down trees in their backyard to add a garage.

Um it'll show new development and whether that's additive or deleting canopy.

And that'll change over time.

So we have what I call teenage neighborhoods, and maybe Brentwood, Harvest Creek are examples, if folks are familiar.

In those areas, we've gone through and pruned all the boulevard trees to raise up street and sidewalk clearance.

It's the last time we'll do that from the ground.

Next time we go in there, we'll need the bucket trucks.

So those trees have grown substantially year over year, and now they they measure larger on that canopy.

So that will change over time.

Commissioner Bodie, did you have a comment or anything?

I don't have questions in this moment, but thank you for asking.

All right, anybody else any questions before we move on.

All right, thank you so much, Alex.

Really appreciate it.

And Lily.

Um, and now is the time for public comment on this agenda item.

Thanks, everybody in the room.

Hello to the board.

Uh a pleasure to be here.

Uh I have several comments that are unrelated.

Uh quickly on the fruit trees.

Um, oh, I'm Jim Walseth.

I'm at 603 West Babcock.

Also live in Seattle where I'm the president of the Friends of Pipers Orchard.

It's a large public orchard.

I know all about trying to get uh food from fruit trees in the city into the hands of people who want it.

And so I'm just gonna make myself available, um, easy to find.

Um, and I'll stop there with that.

Um secondly, on the branch out Bozeman.

Um, you know, anyone who's involved in this, I'm sure it's all volunteers and all the smiles on their faces, it's gonna be very easy to make people happy by supporting this.

Um, but I must say when you look at the numbers, these things always look like a tiny pilot program.

It's like, isn't this nice?

And so I would just encourage you if you can to make these programs larger and grow them because you know they're really um as much as the people are enjoying them, the impact is quite small as far as a percentage of like trees and things like that.

So um it's time to move out of the pilot program and make it big and have a bigger impact.

Um third thing, um, to the forest management plan, um, our house on West Babcock has uh two large uh boulevard trees, and um they store a lot of carbon and they're great.

Um but on our own property, we have 15 trees, also multiple ashes, huge maples, all these things.

So on our property, the largest canopy uh provider is our trees, our private trees.

And I think if the city looks at canopy as a holistic issue, it could be that helping private owners maintain and grow and keep their trees might be the most effective way financially and every other way to increase the canopy.

So I think and this is an engagement issue.

So this is maybe the city should I looking at the tree inventory, it's very clear, it's very sharply defined that all the trees in the inventory are on city property or city responsibility.

There's big gaps in the big obvious gaps where it's like um, well, that's not our our area.

But I think if the goal is to have uh a much larger tree can be or even a little bit larger tree canopy, um then I think the the private trees should be considered as part of the solution.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Daniel Cardi, Bozeman resident.

Um I sent in some written comments this morning.

I hope you got them.

I'm also a member of the Bo Bozeman Tree Coalition.

Those written comments came in today as well.

Um, and I want to thank Alex and Lily for their presentations.

Um I really like the fact that the Bob program has really strong vision and mission statements.

I would hope that it could add um achievable objectives, not only in number of trees planted, but maybe track of those from year to year, the number that survived and how they're um contributing to the percent tree canopy cover.

Um as far as the urban forest management plan, I think we need to pay particular attention to definitions.

So forest management is certainly different than the practice of silviculture, which is really subordinate to forest management.

So forest management is all about ecology and non-consumptive ecosystem services provided to this community as a whole.

That could become part of the urban forest management plan.

Um vision statement.

And um I think that really needs to be added in there because Bozeman's plans are aspirational.

So they need big goals right up front, and then we can step down from there to achievable objectives.

And um, I think that's all I got.

So thank you.

Thank you for that.

Any other public comment.

A brief comment.

Uh Natsuki Nakamura, I am a member of the economic vitality board that's just speaking as an individual.

Um, I'm really excited about this whole conversation.

I think it's really great that this is in front of the sustainability board.

Um, also excited for the data that might come out of um the canopy cover.

So really excited that this angle is being offered.

Um, I think some of my concerns, especially with Alex's point of that, those only four staff members um kind of focus on this.

I have some concerns that just echo some of the previous comments that like a lot of the canopy is in the private hands, and if if there's not staff capacity or support to be involved with that development process and actually having some ability to um preserve those trees or incentivize preserving those trees, then I think we're just gonna make a lot of backwards progress, even with all of the good work that's going to the boulevard trees.

Um, in terms of the equity piece, I think that's a super important point that has come in of a little bit in front of my board, but I think it's good that you guys are talking about as well.

Um I'm a renter in midtown, and I've seen that we've lost a lot of private trees um in midtown, you know, and some of it's in exchange for affordable housing, some of it's an exchange for you know concert venues and things that are as midtown is considered a blighted neighborhood.

You know, we're trying to revitalize this neighborhood, add commercial spaces and some of the loss that maybe we aren't able to fully quantify of some of those really nice mature trees.

So I'm just wanted to provide the perspective as a midtowner.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Hi again, uh Mark Campanoli, I'm a Bogart Park neighbor.

Uh Midtown has a really beautiful, I think it's a Norwegian maple, which I tried to plant and it died after four years.

I was so pissed.

Anyways, I plant something a little more native.

Um Bozeman Creek uh vision plan engagements going on, uh, a lot of discussion.

Some of my neighbors I found out have been in the creek clearing it out with you know fallen fallen trees.

Um all the flood models pretty much assume all the conveyances are not plugged up with trees.

And people are pretty concerned about those trees.

Um I I'm just in the early process of figuring out if like whose responsibility they are, what if it's like the creek is kind of privately owned.

But anyways, setting all that aside, I think I want to just want to make sure we're everybody's talking to each other about how we might uh minimize flooding and that kind of event.

And my neighbor, it's definitely on the radar of all my neighbors.

So I'm the ink rep for Bogart Park as well.

So I try to survey the neighbors and stuff.

Sorry, I wasn't really planning to speak on this one.

The second one, and I always just like planting the stake in the ground.

The trees along church on Bogar Park have been maintained, I think, a lot better in the last couple years.

So thank you for that.

In previous years, I would not want my kids walking under those during a windstorm.

We had like person killer sized branches breaking off.

And it could be a little bit scary.

And I am still paranoid that somebody's gonna get hurt, complete random act of God, right?

And then the tr the city will just overreact and come in and go nuts.

So I'm just gonna say I I'm I'm I've just seen some things, and I'm like, this could really still happen.

I'm not convinced it won't happen.

So we're gonna put that stake in the ground, so hopefully it never happens.

Uh that's it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for that.

I'm not sure.

Okay.

Hello.

Um, thank you for your work.

I really learned a lot from your questions.

I'm Elizabeth Darrow, formerly in the historic preservation advisory board.

Um I live at 603 West Babcock, and I wanted to promote I did send public comments to all of you today this morning, but it's also about the Heritage Tree program that we, Linda Simones and I and the board um a couple of years ago submitted to be part of the city recommendations and the heritage tree program as I wrote about it to you today, is not just about saving the most beautiful trees and you know particular properties.

It really has to do with mature canopy, but also the cultural importance of the um uh environment, which is a new thing in historic preservation, expanding out of you know, big old mansions for very uh select groups of people, it extends into the culture, the ephemeral culture, and the lived culture from the natural world.

And so I'm really excited.

I'm hoping that when you look at our proposal, and um I want to commend Alex because he helped us when we first presented that.

He looked into our proposal about that, the Heritage Tree Program.

Also he helped us save for many years our old maple as a street tree, and I really appreciate that.

It really meant a lot to us.

It passed away a couple years ago in these extreme weather, and he came and sought it up with his crew.

But um, so looking at our public comment, I hope you'll consider what I mentioned in that, which is citizen science, I think is a major part of public engagement, certainly lacking in a lot of specific ways here, certainly in historic preservation, but also I'd really like to have that conversation.

And we also submitted this app, I see tree, which was developed in Seattle by Jim and a friend in the tech world that um among its many possibilities about measuring um its carbon containment in trees that also can look at private trees.

It's not part of the tree inventory that happens now.

You can use it to look at private trees.

So look at that and appreciate your work.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Are there any more Tesla, are there any online?

No one is currently raising their hand.

Okay, thank you.

Um and then I understand we only have 20 minutes and we have two more action items.

Do we take a minute for board discussion after the public comment now?

Or is that added in my notes as a question mark?

Um this was described as a special presentation.

So QA is appropriate.

There's no need for additional discussion.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay, so then we are on to thank you, everyone, for your public comment.

Um and thank you for your presentation, Alex and Lily.

Um we're on to the next action item, which is the Gallatin Valley Beyond Plastics poster making contest recognition.

And Terry Cartero will present.

As Terry's walking up, um, I will just want to acknowledge the work that Beyond Plastics has done to bring this opportunity to the sustainability board and the community.

And I I know that they put a lot of hours into um advertising this event and collecting submittals and making this just a possibility for us.

So thank you, Terry, for your continued long-standing work related to Earth Day and the this effort to raise awareness around single-use plastics.

But okay.

Thank you, Natalie.

And thank you, sustainability board and commissioner.

Again, my name is Terry Quatrero, and yes, we haven't got given up the fight to try to reduce and eliminate single use plastics.

And it's becoming more and more of a health issue.

And I won't go into that.

But for this poster contest, because the ordinance on the plastic issue, which was passed by 63% of the voters, there's still an opportunity in that ordinance to follow through on what it said, which was the real reason for this poster contest.

And that is to remind people when they get out of their cars at a retail store, primarily grocery store, that they remember to bring in their reusable bag.

And so that's the theme of this contest.

And it was targeted for fourth and fifth graders because they're at an age where they're very interested, they're learning all about the environment, they're very passionate, and they haven't yet gotten involved in a lot more subjects like middle school and high school, which we've count tried to use before, but they're pretty busy.

So we had a very nice uh turnout.

We had 98 posters submitted from five different schools in the area in the county and the city.

Um the theme again was to have a poster that could be put outside a store that reminds people to bring in their reusable bag.

The submissions that are on the table, um, my cohorts from Beyond Plastic, which is a national organization of which we're an affiliate, um, selected from the 98.

We reduced it to six, it was gonna be five, but you know how that goes.

We can't decide.

So we went to six, and of those six, we narrowed it down to three.

So on the table you'll see the six, and the ones closest to you with ABC next to them are the three that you get to choose from.

And um the one selected, um I've discussed this with Natalie, and I'm I'm sure you know as a board, we'll be promoted through the city social media and website, and we're trying to get as much attention as we can.

Um, the comments from the teachers and the participants in the program from what I hear were very positive.

They spent a lot of thought and time.

Uh, the posters are very artistic, and some the artistic ones unfortunately weren't on message, so it that's kind of hard to explain, but um it's a learning experience, isn't it?

Uh so you get to select from ABNC over there, and I'm anxiously awaiting that.

And once that is done, we would go right into notifying everyone.

But I leave in about six or seven hours from now to go to California for five days.

My granddaughter's wedding.

So I'm kind of like crunched for things.

So we will it select tonight.

You will select tonight, and we'll keep a record of that and proceed sometime next week, at the end of next week, maybe, and make a photo event out of it, and um that will be in my opportunity to notify those that are selected.

Um the prizes were for the six, will uh receive a coupon for a family-sized pizza.

The um class of the the chosen uh poster gets a pizza day, and they're all excited about that.

They were talking talking about what kind of pizza they wanted, and which so it's gonna be a little complicated.

And then also the school of the poster that was chosen will get a hundred dollars towards their um food debt.

So um I'm I'm excited that there were that many students really concerned about it's very altruistic, except for the pizza.

So I don't know how how do you want to do you want me to hold them up?

Do you want me to pull the table closer?

How do you want to if um everyone is careful?

Do you think we could pass the top three around?

They're not gonna fall apart.

Maybe you can um hold up the the other submittals as well.

Okay, and gonna be decided I'll I'll come over and get some.

Okay.

And while Terry's doing that, um my suggestion for voting is that we approach it as rank choice vote.

So each board member will go around and your top choice would be three points.

Your second choice, two, and your third choice, one, and then we can then quickly tally the results and hope that there's no tie.

Um volunteers.

Nice.

So um Tzuki is holding the three of the six that were um not chosen.

Um they're very artistic again, or on message, but the three um Mary and I are holding the A B C.

She has C, but they're not attached, so we have paper.

I will I'll start over here with A.

Not ask up the A and the B in the meeting.

Okay, I know it's a long meeting, so I don't intend to take too much time.

Thank you.

Thank you for participating in this.

It really means a lot to have the city um pay attention to what was voted on.

Thank you.

There's another way I can tell.

And I think everybody can see it if I put it right out here with A to B.

And then that way you've got a close upload, and then you'll get the right A to Close B exactly.

Um that's the attempt reaction.

Yeah, yeah, that's that's the nature of asking to do it and not be over there.

There's no time limit, but I'm sure you all want to go home soon.

What if you have so the process here would be to poll, which is an informal vote, then we would identify the top preferred poster submittal.

Um, and then we would make a motion and vote.

So in this circumstance, I wonder if it would be appropriate to take public comment first before we do the informal polling.

Okay, if the board has any questions, now would be the time to ask, but it's before the public comment.

Yeah, before public comments.

Any questions from the board?

Okay.

Any public comment in the room?

Good luck with this.

And thank you.

Public comment online.

Okay.

All right.

So now we're ready for voting.

And if you want to do it, like I don't think you're it's it would be comfortable to say I like A or A.

I mean, I don't know how you plan on doing it, but maybe a secret ballot might be the best way.

We will we're unable to do a C ballot was the initial proposal.

If it was a classroom, you know how that is.

So do you want us to just kind of start in one direction and list in the order that we would rank top to bottom?

Yes.

And do you mind if I call on you?

So it's of course that would be great.

My uh spreadsheet here.

All right, so I I do have Brooke.

Um, could you go first?

Sure.

I had A, C, and then B.

A is the top.

B is, yeah.

They're all great.

I was forced to choose.

Aaron.

Okay, I had A, B, C.

Kristen.

I also had A, B, C.

But I liked them all.

They're the top three out of 90.

Eight.

98.

Um Isabel.

A C Bendra.

C A B.

And Jessica.

E A B Commissioner Bodie, could you review my results?

My skills as a data analyst have never been called to the stand before.

I I've confirmed that the formulas and the sheet are in fact working correctly.

I can't remember if people said exactly those those orders.

Um, but I trust that you put them in there properly.

Um would you like to identify the preferred the middle?

Yeah, so it looks like poster A received the most points with 16.

Um, closely followed by poster C with 12 points, and poster B received eight points.

Um I think for the proper Roberts rules, given that point order, we should probably have somebody make a motion for poster A to be the winning poster, and then we'll we'll do a round of yay or nay votes on that.

I move to uh promote poster A is the the winning poster of the reusable bag competition.

I'll second that.

I can facilitate the vote.

Thank you.

Jessica.

Aye.

Isabel?

Aye, Brooke.

Aye.

Erin?

Aye.

Kendra?

Aye.

Kristen, aye.

Motion passed.

Thank you, Terry, for bringing that to us.

That was fun.

And what a great opportunity for our kids in our community.

So thank you very much for this.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you for help being to facilitate the message.

Thank you to Natalie as well for helping with the logistics.

I absolutely credit it for that.

It had to be perfect.

Did you want to know what school it was from?

Sure.

It was from the fourth grade.

And it was Monfortan school.

Oh.

I have to notify the people yet, and that'll happen later.

Yeah after the web broadcast this any further than what we've already done.

Okay.

Keep it.

Carrie, um a thought is that if you do want a more like formal awarding of it, the sustainability of the Earth Day Fair would be a good place for that to happen.

And I I think normally sustainability board members do attend at the cleanup station.

Maybe check with the fourth grade class and see if anybody wants to come and shake a hand or something.

The idea was to post all 98 somewhere on the walls of the affair grounds with permission.

So that it would draw a lot of interest, and that's that's a good idea.

I'm leaving that final decision to Ann Reddy, who's obviously in charge of the whole thing.

And we'll see how we can make it all come to purpose.

But thank you for your part in this.

It really meant a lot.

Have the city have this connection.

Thank you.

Thank you again for bringing it to us.

Really appreciate that.

Um our last action item of the evening and last agenda item is um the adoption of the 2026-2027 sustainability advisory board work plan.

Okay.

Uming the time, and we we have tried to stay within our our two-hour allotted um period.

Is there interest in deferring this until the next meeting?

Or would we prefer to move forward?

I've I checked in with city management, and there's not an immediate urgent deadline to adopt the work plans.

So what what would be the pleasure of the board?

How much time do we expect that would take?

The presentation is very, very short.

I would just highlight those items that have changed.

And then it would be open to public comment and discussion.

And then choose to leave it open for a future meeting.

Natalie, will this set back any of the planned items on future sustainability board agendas, or is there room for this next month?

I I can say with confidence there's room next month.

We did pack this meeting a little bit more than usual to accommodate some of the requests, which were well worth it.

You all feel comfortable taking public comment and then making this on the agenda for the May meeting.

Okay, then why don't we do that?

Okay, yeah.

Thank you.

Um is there any public comment in the room on our proposed work plan?

Okay, any online.

None currently.

Okay.

So then we thank you.

We will revisit this in the May uh meeting and allow have more time if in case of discussion or anything like that.

Thank you.

Um further discussion among the board?

Anything before we adjourn?

Um, can I just clarify one thing about the Earth Day Festival?

Commissioner Bodhi, you said that sometimes the sustainability board members are at a table there.

Are there opportunities to support the Earth Day Festival from this board, or is that more of just sort of show up and participate?

Great question.

There has been um occasions where we've invited the the board to help distribute bags.

Um I think what we found is it's pretty well covered by the Solid Waste Division and sustainability staff.

However, um organizing a group to clean up coming out to participate is um certainly always welcome.

And just um showing up to see what the events are all about and giving us feedback.

That's that's valuable too.

But no, we don't we're not organizing volunteers for this event unless there's a strong interest in doing so.

Sorry for the confusion there.

Yeah, that that was stale old news from past years, evidently.

Okay, and with that, this meeting is adjourned.