5 32 on Wednesday March 18th.

We'll get the meeting started for the tree advisory tree tree preservation and advisory board.

So the first item uh we have the 15 minute public comment period.

Anyone online okay thanks.

All right, so we'll move on to the I guess uh roll call.

So

it looks like in attendance here we have Eric Harley and myself, Tim.

So we do have quorum.

So

we'll move on to the approval of the minutes.

And there are no minutes in the packet.

So we'll move on to unfinished business, which does not look like there's any items under unfinished business.

So we'll move on to new business and appointments.

I think that's we will have to defer that to the next meeting.

Um we do have someone for the tree commission, however, that needs to be um appointed by council.

That person was due to their name was due to be put forward before council at the last council meeting.

However, uh, we couldn't have the council meeting due to several illnesses.

Um so we will that's on the item for the agenda for the next council meeting.

Hopefully, they will uh ratify that, and then we will have a new board member um next meeting to appoint.

Sounds good.

So we'll move on to the next item, the gateway project.

Um good evening.

There's a memo on my packet there.

This is a project that you guys have seen before, and you've had input in um with the design consultant on several occasions in terms of you know what types of planting we should have.

Uh, I think you had some approval of the the signage as well.

Just to recall, there's four different entrance ways into the city.

Well, there's more than four, but we chose four key entrance ways, and that's where we had the design consultant specialize on.

Um at this time we'd really like to move forward with one of these locations.

Uh we got bids back for the signs and for the plantings to install them.

And it's more money that we have at this stage.

Uh, but what I'm really looking for is for the board hopefully to make a recommendation of where we should install at least one of these projects in the spring.

We have money, you know, for more than one, but I think we should install one and hopefully get some bang for our buck and hopefully get some buy-im from the council and from the public and say, well, this looks really great, and then in the fall we can install another one and then repeat that the next spring and fall.

Um so I think one of the one of the quotes we got, Holly, was for installation and then maintenance of it, and the maintenance of it was pretty hefty.

Now I don't have that bit in front of me, but I think what I'd like to do is just you know get one in the ground, and then we can see how we can manage.

Can we do it in-house to to manage it in terms of irrigation, weeding, all of those types of things, or is it really out of our our scope?

And do we need to you know use a contract and then build that into the the cost of the maintenance into our operational costs each year?

So what I'd really like to do is have a recommendation tonight from the board, you know, discuss it, and then we can then move forward, and then it doesn't really come back on me or Chris or saying, well, hey, that's what the parks guy decided.

We you know, we want some buy-in, so I think there's pros and cons.

Do we go after the biggest one?

Do we go after the smallest one?

Um, the most high visible is is out on route one.

Um is that what we should be doing, or do we bite off one in town which is not so high profile, and hopefully we can sort of know what we're getting into it, you know, six months from now.

So, okay, well, here's the good and the bad, and you know, apply that to moving forward.

So just open for a sort of a formal uh informal discussion, hopefully leading to a suggestion of what the board thinks that we could or where we should we should specialize.

And with that, I'll stop talking.

I had um you did address one of the questions kind of because I wanted to make sure that there was a plan in place for maintenance afterwards because we know what happened um at the one at the water treatment area there where it was installed and everybody walked away and there was no plan, and two years later it was kind of a disaster.

So to that point, that's definitely what we don't want to see occur.

Um in my defense, that was a public works project, which was rapidly put in without any consultation with the parks department.

Um there was not a lot of um foresight given to maintenance.

So we do not want to repeat that.

Um, and I can assure you we won't won't repeat that.

So again, that's why I just want to break off what we can manage.

Um

you

know, there's some several steps involved in killing the the wire grass that's out there.

You know, it's gonna take um significant amount of work to prep it to you know get rid of that, excavate it, bring in the right type of topsoil, um, to make sure that we're planting at the appropriate time so we're not planting in the middle of summer, all those types of things.

Um, you know, we did get the new water truck holly.

I think in my opinion, I'd be stirring towards moving on one of the smaller ones just to see you know what's actually involved in it, um, more so than going out on Route One and you know, having that sort of coming back and biting us in the behind.

Not that it would, but you know, just potentially.

I I would prefer that we sort of start something smaller and just break off to know what we're we're really getting involved in and more manageable, but not trying to sway anyone's in any one direction.