Public Works & Sustainability Committee Meeting - February 18, 2026
Public Works & Sustainability Committee Meeting - February 18, 2026
The Public Works & Sustainability Committee of the Lakewood City Council met on February 18, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. in the City Hall Auditorium. The committee approved the minutes from the January 20, 2026 meeting and received the annual report from the Tree Advisory & Education Board (TAEB), followed by discussion on urban forestry initiatives, private property tree planting, and potential policy tools.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes: The minutes from the January 20, 2026 Public Works & Sustainability Committee meeting were approved by unanimous voice vote.
Discussion Items
- Tree Advisory & Education Board Annual Report: TAEB Chair Rita Stevens presented the board's annual report, highlighting three key program areas: Community Canopy (tree giveaway), Public Engagement and Awareness, and Regional Networking. Stevens reported that since 2024, the tree giveaway program has distributed 610 trees across all wards (100 in spring 2024, 200 in fall 2024, 400 in 2025). The city aims to increase canopy coverage from approximately 23% to 33% by 2035, with about half of the needed canopy growth expected on private property. New initiatives for 2026 include a pilot Tree Steward program (in partnership with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy) to help residents plant trees, and a pilot Community Arboretum at the Cove Community Center (seeking Level 1 Arbnet certification). The board also celebrated Lakewood's 50th year as a Tree City USA. Stevens noted that the city's last county-wide canopy assessment (2019) showed Lakewood had the largest percentage loss in canopy in Cuyahoga County.
- Council Comments and Questions:
- Councilman Baker expressed support for the TAEB's work and proposed exploring: (1) a program where the city uses bulk purchasing to offer residents tree planting at a set price (similar to the sidewalk program); (2) a tree preservation ordinance with incentives and deterrents for private property owners to retain healthy mature trees; and (3) planting on newly acquired I-90 excess lands. He committed to working with TAEB on these ideas.
- Councilman Evans seconded Baker's suggestions and added that a logical pilot would be on streets where the city is doing full rebuilds, offering trees to adjacent property owners at reduced cost. He also noted that the Cove Community Center arboretum effort has already helped secure grant dollars for intergenerational programming.
- Councilman Bixenstine praised the board for reaching 1,000 trees planted on private property by end of 2026 (cumulative from 2024-2026). He explained that satellite canopy assessments cannot register trees under 12-15 feet tall, so the board's planting is critical for long-term goals.
- Chair Bullock commended the expanded public education focus and suggested tracking people/households reached as a metric. He identified additional potential arboretum locations such as Celeste Park, West Clifton, and Bernice Park.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken beyond the consent calendar.
- Committee members expressed strong support for TAEB's ongoing work and committed to follow-up discussions on:
- Developing a tree preservation ordinance (led by Councilman Baker).
- Pilot programs for private property tree planting during street reconstruction (led by Councilman Evans).
- Enhancing online resources and resident education materials.
- The meeting adjourned without objection.
Meeting Transcript
Okay. Are we ready to begin? Let's call to order the meeting of the Public Works and Sustainability Committee. It is Tuesday, February 17. And the first item on the agenda is to approve the minutes from the January 20 meeting. So moved. There's a motion to approve. Is there a second? Motion has been made in a second. Any discussion, hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you. So that takes us to the tree advisory and education board annual report to the committee and to the council and the community by extension. Thank you for uh preparing the report and for being here to make the presentation really give us all a chance to focus on what turns out to be very big um topic urban forestry is not a simple or small matter. It takes a lot of work. There's a lot of layers to it, and it takes persistent um practice over time. Otherwise you you you don't see the gains. Um why don't I actually open it up to committee members or colleagues do you have any opening comments or questions? And uh Councilman Evans has been the the chair, I'm now chair this year, but Councilman Evans, you've been kind of intellectually leading the work for the past 12 months. I don't know if you have any comments you want to open with. Sure. Thanks, Chair. Um I'm just excited to see the progress today. It was it was um truly a privilege to uh be the council liaison to this board. Um do some really fun and inspiring work uh this last year. There have been a lot of great things we are about to see about, uh hear about, so looking forward to the presentation and uh I'm sure you'll enjoy your time liaisoning with this board, liaison with this board, Councilman Bullock. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments or could we uh hear from the board and its uh Chair Rita Stevens? Yes. Although try again and maybe now. All right. Well uh again, yeah, my name is Rita Stevens and I have Alison Welch here in the audience from the tree board also. So two of the five two of our current four are here. Um this is our annual update. Um Linda Grandstaff, our former chair uh spoke with you about a year ago on this. So um which is the okay. So um tonight I'd like to to cover three points. One, um, a brief background just to provide some context that can lead us effectively into talking about the key program areas that uh the tree board has chosen as priorities. And then finally to talk about what our current priorities and needs are going forward. So let's start with some background. Um first of all, the people. Uh what I've included here, or who I have included here in the pictures are um members that have been involved in um creating the content for this report. So the 2000 up through 2005, uh we had um both Matt Bixenstein as well as Linda Grant staff who are on the upper right photo with myself on the board, um, circling counterclockwise. Uh that's Mary Kennedy with Matt. Um, and then Kelly Kelleher is who our brand new appointee. And then um finally um Linda with um Alison who is with us this evening. So um I want to commend to the pickers who have uh uh gone through all the applicants that we continue to have an extremely strong set of skills and I think really well balanced for uh the tasks at hand.
openpublica.com