Yeah.

Yes.

Oh, you did.

Yeah, not married.

No, no worries.

Girlfriend.

Long relationship girlfriend.

And she's no longer part of it.

They're not together anymore.

Just fine with you.

I was thinking because you're taking photos.

I'm like, well, what if this are these like awkward photos later?

Yeah.

Some of those.

Oh, yeah.

We just kind of skip that those news in here.

I forget where do the twins line up.

You're fine.

I have actually two or prior.

Um, okay.

I have a zoom account for me.

Your oldest is because uh he's born in ninety-eight.

So he's 27.

Okay.

And we're recording.

We're ready and we're recording and set to go.

Great.

Okay.

We have course let's get going.

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to the uh Drake Retreat Committee meeting.

It's uh February third, twenty twenty-six.

Um all those in attendance are myself, David Cloward.

Logan, I'm the Harvard's New York City.

Awesome.

Matt Evans, David Swicky.

David Parker.

Brent Williams, Chris McGraw.

Michelle Koker, Laura Balker, Dylan Bloiler.

Great.

Thank you.

Um, one of the first things we had on the agenda, we kind of just did our roll call, but that's not really your introduction, Logan.

So let's introduce you to the team.

I haven't met you either yet, so I think this just a little like yourself as well.

Oh Logan Matthews, I have been in the Arbouch Interview for about five years.

Um all aspects of it, private utility and municipal.

Um I love working in trees a lot.

They're one of my passions.

So it's uh it's also part of my hobby.

So yeah.

Yeah, welcome to the team.

Okay.

Um the next item on the agenda is the approval of the previous meeting minutes from November 2025.

And anyone have any questions or concerns or motion to approve.

All right, thank you.

And as usual, we have our city updates on the agenda.

Uh Brett looks like you're first up.

We told Dylan that we'd let him always go first.

So you want to go first, you want Dylan go first.

I was just thinking since we were 16 minutes behind, maybe I could push mine either till the end or next one.

Either way, yeah, work for the committee.

Sure.

Just so we make sure we get the other items on the agenda.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Dylan, any uh project updates or anything coming we need to talk about?

Uh nothing specific that I need like input from the committee on at this point.

Um we're looking to do improvements here along pioneer from 7th to 13th.

Um very few sections we'll be adding uh curving better in sidewalk.

So I'll have to look at the master plan to see what is a requirement there.

Um, but all of the other projects that we're working on, I'm pretty sure don't have anything to do with trees.

I can read off what we're working on series, but I think that's all that you guys need to know about unless you have questions.

On the product between 7th and 13th, you said that might have trees or I might I need to look at it, yeah.

That's on what uh what street pioneer that would be this summer.

Okay.

Has there been any progress on that other street widening?

The Lone Peak Parkway.

Yeah.

Uh I think that's still set for construction next summer, but we've got the information we need for the design that's in the plan.

So awesome.

Yeah, should be set with the stuff you guys gave us.

So we appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Okay.

Any other questions for me?

So thank you guys.

Thanks for joining.

I also have work.

I need to get to you.

So thank you for having me.

Thank you, but I can introduce myself.

Nice to meet you.

Um, thanks for uh joining the meeting.

Yeah.

Um, one of the things that we uh the next thing you're getting on the agenda is something we've talked about for a long time.

Um we had some emails going back and forth about it as well.

Mary Ann, and this is basically uh I don't even know the I don't know the dates, but it's been a couple of years now.

Seems like that the city adopted new planting specs.

And something that we were pushing really hard for previously because the the challenge that we had um was it on a lot of the projects like Dylan and City were doing the widening streets, right?

And so um a lot of the trees getting planted in the park strips after that's been widened by this are just done by contractors that didn't use any specs they were necessarily following.

Yeah, road base gets pushed into the area the trees are going to be planted naturally as they're widening the street, and they would just get planted in the road base.

So we had lots of situations where we'd dig up trees that uh had died, and sure enough, they were funded in road base.

So we said, how what could we do?

We creatively you know tackled this uh problem and um so the engineering team came back to us with the spec that they said this would solve that.

Um and it was just national, you know, organization that could have provided the spec, and I'll do it these specs.

So they adopted that, and then um also that would when they did these projects, they would also have an inspector go just like anything else that they were doing on those projects, inspect it before the trees were planted.

And I think the first time we implemented it was here on City Hall, wasn't it red?

We did the trees plant about front was the first time we did that.

Um yeah, we implemented those specs.

So we had asked uh you know the community uh development team to adopt the same spec.

This made sense, and we're not talking about residential neighborhoods, you know, where individual person you know is planning a tree, but for uh projects and developments and street street trees.

Um and the long discussion, a lot of times usually goes, well, we don't have an inspector to be able to do it, so we can't put in a code that we can't inspect.

And then we got over that hurdle and say, Well, we can and so and then we also said we got an inspector, so then now we're looked like all the roadblocks are removed or ready to implement it, but I think it was the issue uh we last discussed was it would be like three years before we'd actually be able to get it put into code, and so we were thinking, is there a way maybe we can get that faster?

Or I think Mary Ann talked about doing it like what we've done with our uh street tree guide is the guide that actually is referenced in the code but lives outside of the code, so we can update that, and maybe we could do something similar if that makes it easier.

That would be fastest to update the tree guide and include specs um on how to plant those trees.

Um, and I and I say that because um staff-wise, we just so state legislature changes code every year on us.

And there's quite a few bills already popping up this legislative session that we'll have to change code for.

So my team really for tax amendments really is just trying to stay on top of code changes.

The state legislature makes us make.

So I can't promise any time.

Not saying that we don't want to do it, but I can't promise a timeline because when the state legislature says you've got changer code and it becomes effective at the beginning of May.

So we may be able to get to it sooner.

I know our code rewrite as well.

We're we're really trying to work on it a little bit quicker than we have been.

So there is opportunity to also kind of include some changes there.

Um but I I would recommend changing the tree guide to include those planting specs because that's something you guys can do now versus waiting for us to have the bandwidth to do it.

That sounds great.

Are these specs posted anywhere?

Yes, they're on the city's website.

Um it is on the city's website.

There's multiple ways to get to it.

Go into the planning pages how I know how to get to it.

Um so it does talk about um trees, it talks about um some standards, you know.

This is the adopted tree guide, trees shouldn't be in park strips less than five feet in width.

Um trees are required to be two inch caliber.

So we've got some information from code, but then we also have the actual guide um here.

So what about the like the actual planting specs that the city is following that we're wanting to incorporate into so yeah?

So I would have them put here as well.

But maybe as simple as we're just saying that yeah, as it says that needed to follow the guide.

Yeah, one more bullet there that says they need to follow the planting spec and you attach the planting spec.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's the planting 20 minutes worth of editing there, yeah.

I'm asking about that planting spec, like that verbiage, whereas how do we find it?

Um I I don't know if it's online because it's for city projects okay versus developers, and most of what's gonna be here is gonna be for private developers, um, where when the city does their um projects, we can we can give our contractors some specs.

There is landscaping standard details here.

Um, so whether these are done or not, I don't know.

Oh well.

Okay, tree planting detail.

So yeah, okay.

So that was under engineering, yeah.

Okay, yeah, that's great.

Yeah, is that a thing you prepared?

No, this is what city follows.

I did the tree guide first thing that we looked at.

Yeah, what about the removing road-based part?

Is that yeah?

This is just that's what they want to find out, like what isn't it though, included um I don't know something.

Yeah, and I'm not sure the the standards and specs engineering has on the website.

Okay.

So Rhett or Taylor is that something that you guys have access to how do we get that information or is it just a reference?

I'm just trying to make sure I understand what we're wanting we're we're wanting to put the city specs so the city has all on the tree guide.

I think that's what it sounds like we want to implement the same yeah same thing we're always discussed where with the those that same spec that the city uses the developers would use right and if it's just like a broad national correct right the private residence would be yeah no they wouldn't be we would hope that they would yeah like there's no way to sort of look that no or no we've always been very clear from the start that that's not our goal is just to work with developers so my recommendation would be to um the resolution or you know amend the tree guide itself um to add uh specs section where whether it's the beginning or it's at the end where you're then saying this is you know you're adding other section that's saying how they should be planting trees in the park shrimp right and I'm happy to do that I'm just not sure where to find that spec I think we can just follow up with Scott Cooley and Scott and okay yeah I can just do another resolution this is the one I did if you want we move yeah we just got the web page out I know I know it's great yeah so have the actual resolution and then um we'll have you know a visual standard you know at the bottom of the okay I think that's a great idea because then everything is in one reference group have different things yeah and I did so in terms of um like supporting you guys the planning department I did look up the code um of what I could find in city code it does reference as far as planting specs all landscaping shall be installed according to sound nursery practices in a manner designed to encourage vigorous growth that's the only thing I could find but then there might be something different but I was hoping that that's vague enough to where we could um it just kind of references sound nursery practices and so now here in this document we'd be defining what that is and referencing them referring them to this yeah so maybe um like a huge code thing that has to worry about I I mean I think with the doing it the tree guide it makes it clear that the standards are for street trees as well where that's part of the public right away we do have the ability to kind of say these are the trees we want you to plant these are how we want you to plant them that kind of thing um it gets a little bit harder when we're going on private property and going on that develop okay um so having but having a standard that we can point to um I mean our our code basically says exactly what you write we we want you to follow standard practices we want you to do it correctly but we're not providing those specs we're not holding up their landscapers installing their landscaping have our uh landscape inspector go out and make sure each hole is dug correctly done kind of thing um landscaper inspector is going out and inspecting but not as they're actively digging holes and you know things like that so um but I think having a a spec we can point people to will be helpful but then having that spec for the street trees to make sure we have healthy street trees so I wasn't maybe paying close attention are you referring to the private property part of it or the the street trees on like a community on a development the we we see them as different as yeah the private so the private property part I I have no issue having specs and requirements for street trees on the in the park share they're they're part of the public right away right we want them to be healthy um obviously we want everything to be healthy on the private as well that's really up to private property maintenance to maintain their landscaping replace their landscaping that kind of thing um the the concern I have with going to the private um is kind of going back to the state legislature the more we uh require things the more likely the legislators step in and say no you can't do that um in fact we used to before we'd give occupancy on buildings um like an off new office building if they didn't have their landscaping in we'd require them to bond for the

Um the the concern I have with going to the private um is going back to the state legislature.

The more we uh require things, the more likely the legislators step in and say, No, you can't do that.

Um in fact, we used to before we give occupancy on buildings, um, like an off new office building.

If they didn't have their landscaping in, we'd require them to bond for that landscaping, the amount of cost for the landscaping, and then when the land and we give them temporary occupancy, and then once the landscaping was in, but to give them permanent occupancy and release that bond, it was for us to make sure that they actually got that in.

Um state law changed, we can't do that anymore.

So now our code says, well, we give them occupancy, whether landscaping's in or not, and they have a year from the time they get occupancy to get that landscaping in.

And if they don't, it's just a co-enforcement issue because we've given them their occupancy.

Yeah, there's there's no teeth.

Yeah, there's there's no there's no teeth.

So, but that's what the state legislature wanted to do.

So that's what we do now.

So my I think the the um planting spec has only been intended for that right-of-way, so it's not what you're defining as private property.

Okay, okay.

I just want to make sure we're all on the same page.

The reason I made that delineation there was because in terms of inspection, because the whole goal of the spec implementation on the the right the public right-of-way is that we would actually inspect it before the trees get planted.

It doesn't do any good to give them spec and then go back later and then trees already planted, there's nothing we can do.

So that's the real goal.

And that was kind of the big discussion point we had in Maryan before I think we got past that hurdle, and I think so.

This looks like a great plan.

Let's make sure we're all clear on who's going to do what then.

So do we Michelle's gonna work with engineering to find a spec?

And then we add it to this.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and then simple resolution.

I was gonna say who takes resolution new rep or just cute gym.

Okay, got it.

I'll just make sure I got it in the notes.

So we're good.

So then I don't you would resolute to add that verbiage that you have, so it I don't need to do anything more with the tree guide again or no, the tree guide will stay the same.

It'll be a new separate resolution, just amending the tree guide to include the next section.

Okay, perfect.

But in terms of actually adding it onto that tree guide, who needs to do that?

Customer or someone on your team or James.

Well, sort of the online version.

Yeah.

Linda would have to do that.

She has all that keys of power of the city, but I'm in the past, we've one, but we've been actually ones that want amending the document and then give it for that's what I was asking.

Once once council approves that I can give their make sure she just get it up in great okay.

Awesome.

Awesome.

That was a huge breakthrough.

Yeah, thank you, Jen.

Thank you.

Thanks, Rhett.

Um next thing we had on the agenda was the too many street sycamore status.

Um Louise, we put that on the agenda again because I know that uh it's tied to the next item to the steps of proposed street tree removal guideline.

Because I understand in December in the city council meeting, there was a proposal put forward of potentially using a spec that would if it if I understood it correctly, because I it's hard to hear the notes exactly online.

Michelle and I listened to it.

If the street with the sidewalk is lifted by the tree, then we'll look at that.

I assume they'll try to uh do what they can to uh grind the sidewalk and save the tree if that's the case.

And the homeowner wants that as well, make sure we don't have any liability.

Well, if it later raises the tree the sidewalk again, or then there they were proposal of having a spec that would say if the tree was um in inches was greater than the sidewalk is in feet.

I mean, sorry, the the park strip is in feet, but that would be the guide to remove the tree.

And that seems problematic because if you go like into Fred mentioned in his neighborhood in that meeting, that is all of this stuff would be upstacked.

So I went over to Fred's neighborhood as well and actually looked measured like the first trees and on the west side.

I think it's a 10-foot uh park strip, and the first three trees were all 20 inches, and it looked like there hadn't been any guide any grinding on those uh sidewalk there, and one maybe looked like it maybe need a little bit on the east side.

The first that there were nine foot side uh park strips, and the first tree was you know 21 inches, and it had been the sidewalk had been grinded down already before, looked like it was fine.

Um next two trees were kind of the same.

So if there was any issue before, we would rip out those trees if that was the spec.

It seems like you have a we're trying to avoid trees going into having too big a trees and really tiny park strips, right?

We have less than five foot, we say don't put it in there at all.

Do you have a six foot?

You shouldn't be putting in a tree that's gonna grow, you know, 20 inches, but to pull out the trees that are 20 inches of sycamores, you know, in Fred's neighborhood because it's a 10 foot wide park strip, that doesn't sound like the math works on my understanding.

So we're you'd have to have a 20 foot wide park strip.

That's that's just not realistic.

We don't want to cut trees down, do we?

That's that's our goal, right?

Right.

Well, no rationale is that it protects the sidewalk, but some species don't.

So maybe I misunderstood first the discussion, Taylor in that meeting, but or red if you were there, but it where was that measurement taken from how did you take that measurement on the tree?

Well, I mean, is it diameter, not circumference diameter?

Yeah, that's good.

At what height?

That was about like I did like about two feet up.

Okay, just curious.

I look to see if other cities have a similar thing.

Um, because I think that the other cities have dealt with this a lot longer than Draper has, and Salt Lake City probably is the one, of course, that's dealt with this the longest and the most experienced in that.

They don't have a spec like that that's what's supplied.

Um has one, but it's only just for these small park strips, saying if you have a five foot park strip, then you can't have you know a tree that circumference that's greater than five inches.

Yeah, but that was the goal to try to just control small ones.

So it looks like Sandy doesn't have a spec like that either.

Um yeah, is I don't know that there's anything like actually a guideline for tree removal, or is it just what public works kind of does off of experience and when the tree has created a safety or health hazard does the sidewalks also which is a right they typically remove the tree to eliminate the so I think what we're trying to do is to avoid happening like the Timini Road situation again and whatever the disconnect was with marking all those trees, like was that ever defined and then do we have something to make sure it doesn't happen again?

Right, it wasn't it wasn't clear in the in the conversation whether or not the contractor because whoever was speaking in in the meeting did say it was a contractor who got really aggressive and marking the trees.

I know there was discussion about whether it was a contractor or city employee, but whoever the engineer was speaking in the meeting said it was a contractor.

I'm not sure if they try were trying to apply that spec, or we just want I I'm just suggesting that we don't implement a spec like that, and we use common sense where the if it looks like the sidewalk is being lifted, we look at the type of tree.

We look at the history of what's been happening, has ever been grinded down, you know.

And the combination of the engineer, you know, and our arterist looks at it and says, What should be the right thing to do?

And the resident.

And maybe that's a key thing now that we have an arborist.

We could say that he's the person that goes out and assesses the tree for health.

Then they will have a third-party arborist assess a consulting arborist so that it's not on the city making that call.

Okay.

Right.

So that's not something that was done on Timmy, but is something that you guys may have to do.

They're still working on stuff with Timmy.

Okay.

Um, they did uh the third party arbitration.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, okay.

So is the policy that any time a sidewalk needs to be grounded uh uh grinded down that the tree is supposed to be removed so that it doesn't happen again?

Um necessarily it's again, it's gonna depend on the type of tree, right?

You grind the sidewalk down.

You can only go so far on the grind before you lose your actual content of the sidewalk.

And then when they do have to replace the sidewalk, they're going to root prune the tree because they can't pour a sidewalk with tree roots in there.

So then the issue is the liability of if we have to remove the sidewalk and cut the roots of this tree, and it's a nice beautiful tree, and you don't want to take it down, then who's liable for that?

So I know they're working on a release that would have the resident sign that says, Hey, we understand that this is dangerous and we will accept full liability if the tree falls over in the future, or if the tree dies, or if the tree dies, that would all be on the resident that said even though you guys say we should take it out, we want to keep it just to try to remove some of the liability from the city.

And as a resident, I've already received that message from Scott Cooley, city manager that came a couple of weeks ago when there's a was an agreement to sign indemnifying the city.

So we've already gotten that.

Okay, I thought it was an excellent compromise.

I yeah, I have any issue with that uh, you know, indemnification form and application.

The only thing I am concerned about is applying that spec.

So if you if you're not educated as a homeowner and someone comes to you and says, Hey, this root tree should be taken out because it raised the sidewalk and it's you know, it's uh uh it's 20 inches and an eight and then a 10 foot park strip.

So really we should that is not meeting the restriction as a homeowner, you're gonna go, oh geez, I guess you better take it out.

I don't want to, you know, take on that liability when that spec, I think is the issue that I have.

I I'm just trying to kill that little that spec and everything else in terms of the combination of the third party arborist.

Um, you know, in our engineering team or whoever and the homeowner works together to come with the correct resolution.

I think the key thing that stands out for me is who is determining whether or not that tree needs to come out, and is it someone in public works or engineering that's just measuring the diameter and compared to the size of the park strip and going, oh, this doesn't match, we need to take it out.

I think it's important to actually have an arborist who's educated and knowledgeable about the tree itself to make that decision, like you said, Taylor, bringing in a third party, but I also think coming.

Yeah, I also don't know that's yeah, that's really key because we don't want an engineer or someone else deciding to cut roots.

We want the arbitrary.

Right, the arborist has to be a part of that.

Um that's how it was good.

So the ones that were city says our professional opinion was this third-party arborist, is this tree should come out, however, we understand for your yard and whatever you would like to keep it if you do, you don't need to sign this document.

If it falls on a car or falls and hit somebody or a branch, sure hit somebody or whatever half of the tree, right?

We would take it out to avoid that liability.

If you want to keep it and take that risk, you sign this legal document, now you're accepting right.

So you said you had a third-party arborist to find all of the trees that were marked to be taken out, and that's what they worked with them and the engineers to make sure it would work for the sidewalks, but then once they had to cut the roots for the sidewalks, if the tree's leaning, if the tree's already unhealthy, and I mean most of those trees have anthrapnose in them anyways, yeah.

Then you stress them out by cutting the roots.

Right, it's bad combo.

They get the recommendation from the consulting arborists, okay, after they've made the engineering decisions necessary for the sidewalk.

Okay, and then if they say yes, this one needs to go, then they go to the resident, you say, Yeah, it needs to go and discuss it with them and figure it out.

But cutting the roots, I assume, is only after we've already just determined you can't grind the sidewalk anymore.

It's gonna be too thin, you can have to do that, right?

Yeah, because most of the trees that were marked in Timiny, if you saw once you went up there to like sometimes you know, an eighth of an inch, quarter of an inch, you know, raising the sidewalk.

Or the goal need to cut any tree, yeah.

We need to cut any uh roots for that.

Part of the goal with it too is they have a five-year cycle.

So they're supposed to hit each area of the city once every five years.

Okay.

So if you just grind down the sidewalk, you're back again next year, you're back again the next year, you're back again the next year, and it's a huge waste of manpower.

So when they contracted this out, one of the reasons so many trees were listed, was they were trying to avoid having to grind anything so that they could just be done and not have to come back for five years.

So I think that's what they've made an adoption on some of that and said, Look, we can some of these don't have to get fully replaced.

Right.

We can do this as just an increase of manpower, come back year after year, and then eventually it will, you know, maybe five, six years down the road, they'll hit that point where it's a now we have to dig this up, we've got to reprint the tree and go from there, but it'll it's just a excess of use of manpower, and then it's only delaying the inevitable, but it still keeps it for longer.

Yeah, in some cases, especially with moving narrow ones, but I think David, from when you can speak to this.

Uh, I'm gonna I heard from still that said mine is grinded down and hasn't changed, and that was seven years ago.

So it wouldn't be something they need to come back every year.

In my opinion, no.

Um, like you're saying, there was a lot of implementations that have been successful.

I think the sidewalk depends depends on the tree, depends on where the roots are at.

Of course, each one's gonna be a little different because yeah, just depends on how it's racing the sidewalk.

It seems to depend on the grid of the sidewalk as well, a little bit, yeah.

And how bad it's a two-inch buckle, they can't grind it.

Exactly.

Yeah, well, those those were the main ones.

That's that's the point.

I'm just saying this is common sense.

Uh to be reasonable, you it's you don't put in a hard fast policy because if we do, we'll end up making mistakes.

But if we go and say this street, I mean that uh sidewalk being buckled that much versus this much is a whole different thing.

We're probably gonna have to remove you know the root out on that tree that's buckled that much.

So is that then we can have the arbor say that tree probably not gonna make it?

It's just a it's an evaluation has to be done.

I'm just worried about putting in these hard and fast, you know, specs to be applied that you have a contract of them that yes, marks 34 trees to get taken out of clarifying you're wanting the inch to feet um calculation removed.

I do.

Is there any reason?

Is that actually been adopted yet or voted on my knowledge is no anything in code or city policy and okay?

I just kind of speaking that, and I'm not sure if it was Scott, he was asking about whether or not we could they could do a vote on it.

Scott or Robert, but maybe the best thing this committee can do is draft a recommendation.

That's a good idea.

Then they evaluate it, you know, take it into account, use it if possible, or they say thanks, but the spec we need to follow.

Right, and it could just be a starting point.

So we'll we'll draft something that suggestions on how to approach it.

One more question.

Yeah, did I hear correctly that residents would have access to the third-party arbitrary?

Sure, okay.

I think that would be helpful.

I'm sure it's for sure costly, but as a resident, if an expert comes to me and says you you're about to lose 30 percent of your root mass, your tree's gonna die.

I would I would take that seriously.

Absolutely.

Well, presumably when the city says to somebody you need to sign this in democracy um form because we think it's unsafe.

The city would provide the resident with whatever evidence the city is determined, makes it so that the city doesn't want to um retain that liability any longer.

You should be able to see that third party arbitration results, so that should be included in your decision.

You can run that resolution past the arburst as well, yes, yes, yeah, okay.

And perhaps a part of this too is um developing uh a more tangible tree management program, like tree inventory.

We don't really have we've talked about that before.

I know, doing like a tree inventory system or tree management to help keep track of the urban forest, right?

We have it's in the planning, but we don't really start it too much yet.

We're starting to work on one using our GIS department.

Oh okay.

They started safe required and our percent already so that go in one behind on trying to get caught up, yeah.

Certainly, okay.

Is that where you track like which um street trees are city liability and which ones are now indemnified by the property owner?

So it could be included, I would imagine.

So far we've been working on city maintained properties, like our parkships that we mow re irrigate.

We haven't done much of anything with parkships that are not maintained by the city.

Okay.

Okay.

Do we do we need to help with that?

Is that something we can yeah?

I um I've talked with um people at the landscaping expo that uh do the tree management systems, and they've mentioned that in some schools they actually have the tree committee volunteers participate, not in things that are you know arborist level information, but maybe it's just a matter of counting trees or defining like this this street has a tree, you know, five trees on this side.

Whatever we can do to help provide information to add to your system that you're creating, I think that would be a great use of volunteer support, you know, to be involved in that.

So I don't know if that's an option.

Um or if the system that you're using is something that would be conducive to that.

I'd love to hear more about it, I guess is what I'm saying.

Cool.

And it's they've taken Google Earth images, recent ones and overlaid it with former, you know, our 10-year-old tree inventory that a volunteer put together for us.

They started making adaptations and saying, like, all right, this one's actually been removed, this one's not here anymore.

But we've added layers in it for when our arborist is on site, we can make a note in the tree and say, This is what I did, this is the disease I found.

These are the issues that I've done to try to mitigate that so that we could start tracking kind of one of uh what works, what doesn't work, as well as how much money, how much time are we putting into trying to mitigate this one versus okay?

Now it's worth we can take this one out and replace it because it's going to be too costly to try to keep it that kind of stuff in it.

Right.

So it sounds like you guys are developing your own tree inventory management system versus bringing in like an already produced one.

Yeah, it's somewhat produced already through as we the map system.

I think that's something we could utilize, maybe give us some time with the arborist, figure out exactly what the needs are, but I think that's a great use of tree committee role of volunteers or something like that.

Okay.

And I are you feeling like that system that you guys are developing is sufficient, or do you think having an actual tree management inventory program could be more efficient for your workforce?

This one fits our career budget.

So I think it's a pretty good one.

I don't know every tree program out there, but I think this one is you pretty much what most of them do.

Okay.

Um we already own the rights to it.

Okay, or our GIS team can do some really cool things with with the program.

And um have created a lot of uh customized maps for the different park ones, okay.

So we can get the information that we we want for each of the tree parks.

So yeah, I know I've brought up in the past it's it's hard.

We have the 10,000 dollar budget every year, and it's been hard to allocate that to planting trees.

Um, and I've uh brought up the suggestion of us putting our budget towards an actual tree inventory management program, something a little higher end that specifically has tools that you guys could use, and I'm just bringing that up for discussion.

Is that something that is uh desirable to look into further, you know, to to help?

Seems like it would help in this case with too many road situations where it's just a matter of that ongoing tree management, tree maintenance checking on the trees and I think the better inventory, the better management, the proactive approach to things is gonna solve a lot of these problems and take the workload off of you guys because I know it's you know in the past been a kind of catching up game versus a proactive preventative game.

And I'm just suggesting to the tree committee if if we can put our budget towards some a program that would really help turn things around in your department, in addition to the arborist now, especially with having him here to kind of take that on.

I think that would be a great support for the city.

I don't know.

That's great.

Like now that we have somebody able to use it because they said it's a great program and it's already in a house.

Um it's just it's gonna take some time to get it updated because it hasn't been updated a decade.

Okay.

So it's uh we're gonna try to work out the keeps within and figure it out with city maintained properties before we do anything with trees that are maintained by the residents.

That's a lot harder to track.

We don't know what they've done, what treatments they've done on their trees, anything like that.

So it's a lot harder to track what's on park trips in front of and maintain by the residents.

Well so to be clear on the notes or the actions, what what should I say is the action on this one?

Um, I guess I just brought up the suggestion of using tree committee funds potentially towards a designated tree inventory program, but because I know they're expensive.

But the question is whether or not that is going to be um the benefits of that would be enough to warrant the extra cost compared to what you guys are working with now, right?

Is like what you're working with right now, Taylor.

You said, well, this fits our budget, but is it really getting our urban forestry program to the level that we want it for the size of our city, or is it just this is what we've got within our budget?

But if tree committee could you know put money into getting a program that really works efficiently for the city, is that cost versus benefit something that's worth looking into?

It might be reflecting into we just haven't used this one enough yet to know if it's it's gonna meet everything okay.

So far, we think it will be everything that we need.

We just haven't used it enough at this point to save it.

To determine it is okay.

This one gives us ABC and D that we're lacking in and be able to say, well, it's worth $10,000 a year to get these things that we don't have.

Okay.

Right now, the program we have is sort of things we won't always use it a little bit more.

It'd be the same if we bought a brand new 10,000 dollar system, still needs a time to get to know what so does it make sense to look into if like I would love to look into the tree programs that are out there and provide you with like, hey, here's this, this is the cost, this is what they offer, and maybe in knowing what your program offers at this point in time, we could do a comparison to see if it's worth it versus getting into it, you know, a year or two down the line.

It's like, well, yeah, this one's good enough for us right now.

But at this point, we put a year or two of work building the system.

So now we just transfer all that and do it all over again to a new program.

We're we've gone past that.

I'm trying to kind of like get in in the beginning and see if that program truly is sufficient, or we can help provide something that might be more beneficial for you guys.

Any other tree committee wanted to allocate you or whoever to do it certainly listen to the different programs that are out there?

I don't know.

Does anyone else have thoughts?

I would just say let's find out what they're currently using so you can do kind of a an assessment of what was doing out there since maybe next meeting we could do a quick comparison, you know, pull it up online and kind of go through what this program does, uh we're hoping to use it that we can have it.

So we'll never see I was going to say we're already at the top of the hour.

What do you want to do on the presentation of the water element?

How long that takes Jen.

I can try to go through it fairly quickly.

I mean it's up to you guys I have the time to stay a little bit longer.

I don't know if you guys do um so I'm happy to come back next month if you'd rather push it or I can try to go for shooting yeah it's up to you guys.

I so I have a 915 so I'll step out but I'll uh I was gonna say I would rather push it next month if you're okay joining next time because I don't think it's gonna you know impact any of our current plans or whatever um is there anything that we need to talk about in terms of coordination for tree talks localscapes or anything this month in February everything's set up um localscape class is scheduled March 18th tree talk is March 25th last time we had it at the library it's booked that night but I talked to Kelly and City Council chambers are open so we can do March 25th the Wednesday we would hope for it'll just be here at City Council Chambers again.

So I'm gonna get all that info over to Alex so it can be posted online.

Sorry for the tweet tree talks and locals we'll have registration links um yeah so yeah good to see you I have a question that might go into the burden address in the tree pot we could spot your own record shouldn't we be watering our trees yes specifically the the evergreens or newly planted trees yeah it's really fun taking that hose out yes uh yeah so yeah so the answer short answer yes the the deciduous ones that are established for three years or more not such a big deal I mean it would they could all use it but primarily focus on the evergreens and newly especially newly planted trees the other thing I was gonna um suggest is that maybe we do a little we tried this a little bit before but take a little field trip around the city to look at potential planting projects before we come to the meeting so that we can actually have a really good discussion and ideally if we can even have Logan you know join us and we do something and go around pick out projects because we need to be ready to yeah have those put into plan next month.

The Arbor Day celebration ceremony um I think we had talked about bringing up what Bryn had suggested with the America 250 is that what it's called um doing a significant planting is kind of also part of that maybe we can combine that with Arbor Day I'm totally speeding through this but the Arbor Day ceremony um and we talked about maybe planting one of those elm trees which I think are significant in that America 250 program planting one of those elm trees near the um the veteran is it a veteran memorial that's at Draper City Park that was just installed the gold star the gold star um there was just kind of some unofficial talk about that so something to put on the table I guess we can visit it at the next meeting but we're starting to think about that because before we know it it'll be April we're already in February that's what I'm saying I think yeah I think we can't come breaks late to next meeting only to have kind of ideas if that's what we want to do it.

Yeah so which means we need to have kind of some subcommittee meetings so um I'm gonna just run through the quick action items as I see them and tell me you guys agree or or amend them so I think Rhett you're gonna provide the city street planting spec and um it'd be great if we could actually know where to find it or see it or whatever and then we'll you'll put forward a resolution to have it added to the street guard right yes and then the committee will put together a subcommittee to to write a proposed processing criteria you know that we would like the city to consider for you know the trees lifting the sidewalks how we've handed that um and then I think we should do a little field trip deal included where we go around the city and come come prepared web proposals for both plantings next month.

And then I think we should do a little field trip, deal with Logan included, where we go around the city and come come prepared with proposals for both plantings.

Excellent.

Okay.

Okay.

I would rather have me go with that and log in view of the field.

Really?

Okay.

Yeah, because you have more experience and knowledge, familiarity with the different areas.

Okay.

Anything else?

Great.

Okay.

So move forward.

Um Jocelyn has been doing draper forward articles and uh she'll just keep going.

Yeah, I'll I'll keep in touch with her, I guess.

So do that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Do we have a motion to adjourn?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you all.