2013-09-12-TREE-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Lexington Tree Committee Town of Lexington, Massachusetts 201 Bedford Street, Samuel Hadley Public Services Building, Room 125 Minutes, Meeting of September 12, 2013 Attendees: John Frey (Chairman), Gerry Paul, Jewel Kuljian, Karen Longeteig, Jim Wood and Chris Filadoro, (Superintendant of Public Grounds). Absent: Anne Senning, Nell Walker, Deb Mauger (Selectman's liaison). Gerry Paul took his turn as scribe. 1. Minutes of the August 8, 2013 meeting were approved as amended. 2. Tree Warden's agenda items: a) Tree removal activity — 956 sites /745 closed; 11532 inches removed; 3638 trees to be planted /2252 planted. b) Chris receiving 9 applications for the arborist position and will be interviewing 6 of them. c) There was support for a suggestion to consolidate the nursery into a smaller number of rows (about 3). d) There was a discussion of alternatives for the irrigation system — possibly overhead irrigation and deeper placement of the pipes. Chris will explore possible options with an irrigation contractor and report back to the committee. e) There was a discussion of whether a tree spade would more efficient for digging trees in the nursery. After Chris explained his reasoning, we agreed that the current method of using shovels was better. 3. We postponed a discussion of the need for more watering of trees until next meeting 4. Jewel Kuljian presented a method to track fall tree planting by species which we will adopt. We postponed a discussion of a "new way to identify trees for planting" until Anne is present and can explain the idea. A meeting was scheduled to do detailed planning for fall planting: Tues. September 17 at 8:00 am at the DPW building. 5. Lexington Toyota tree replacement - Jim provided us with copies of John Bartenstein's letter which does an excellent job of explaining the issue. Donna Bosco of 409 Mass. Ave. (across from the Toyota dealership) explained her and her neighbors concerns. We told her we were also concerned and plan to present at the Zoning Board of Appeals hearing for the site. We asked her to contact us if we can be of further help. 6. Gerry Paul previewed the presentation he will make to the Appropriations Committee on Sept. 12 concerning the treatment of tree planting as the investment in a Town Asset. 7. Karen Longeteig explained that Scholar trees have pollen which kills bees. We voted to not plant Scholar Trees until more information is available. 8. Jim Wood reported that the HDC approved the Lexington 300 anniversary tree marker at their Sept. 5 meeting and the BOS approved the marker at their Sept. 9 meeting. Jim expects the marker to be installed in about 3 weeks. 9. Karen reported that the New England Wildflower Society awarded their award for public landscaping to the Lexington High School Landscaping Committee. Next regular meeting: October 10, 7:30 a.m. at DPW