2019-03-14-TREE-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Lexington Tree Committee March 14, 2019 The meeting convened at 7:30 AM. Present were Gerry Paul, Anne Senning, Gloria Bloom, Nancy Sofen, Jim Wood, Jewel Kuljian, Pat Moyer, scribe. Absent: Chris Filadoro. Bob Creech attended the first portion of the meeting. Bob Creech of the Planning Board came in response to our interest in data on tree removal on private properties in town. He emphasized the need for a data search to be focused on answering the question we are interested in. Our interest was articulated as "doing what the town can do to decrease global warming via care and preservation of our trees." Bob will look at information he has; Jim will research the tree bylaw in re this matter. We considered the request from a number of town residents including a Girl Scout Troop, and several high school students, to support Lexington's becoming a"Bee City". We agreed to support this project. Gerry will write a letter of support to the Select Board. Gerry reviewed what he learned by going to the open meetings about the Cambridge Urban Forest Master Plan. This group has a website. They have data on changes in their tree canopy. Do we have such data? Nancy reviewed methods by which this data can be obtained. A consultant helped the Cambridge group. The sense was that we could benefit from similar knowledge about Lexington. Chris Filadoro sent us the list of trees planned for Spring, 2019, planting and we reviewed it. We do not know the method by which these trees were chosen, nor where they will go. There are 76 trees in all. They are/will be all bare root, coming from Schichtel's. We reviewed the Q and A sent by Gerry to Chris, attached. Some items for further discussion include: a) our hope to have the town plant large shade trees in appropriate sites b) we'd like to monitor the progress of homeowner requests for trees c) getting the trees planted by 5/1, instead of 6/1. d) Encouraging the EAB infested tree removal, and injection of town ash trees. We reiterated the need for communications between us and DPW personnel to be respectful and productive. We concluded at 9:35 AM. Respectfully submitted, Pat Moyer