2019-07-18-TREE-min - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Minutes of the Tree Comm. July 18, 2019 201 Bedford Street, Room 125, Lexington MA Meeting was called to order at 7:35 AM Attending: Gerry Paul, Anne Senning, Nancy Sofen, Jewel Kuljian, Gloria Bloom, and Mark Sandeen (Selectmen liaison); Absent: Chris Filadoro, Pat Moyer 1. Gloria Bloom appointed scribe and minutes from June 20 accepted. In a correction to the minutes Mark said that a Sustainable Action plan had already been approved and adopted by the Board of Selectmen. 2.-6. Chris Filadero was unable to attend. Re item 5, Gerry reported that Dave P. would like Tree Committee (TC) requests for info on such things as contracts and projects to go through him. Gerry had previously understood that all requests for info go through the town manager. Gerry also reported that meetings will be set up with Dave P. discuss ongoing issues. 7. Bylaw changes. Gerry and Nancy suggested using something other than DBH when calculating charges for cutting down bylaw trees. Increasing the charge based on area (diameter squared) would make it more expensive to cut down larger trees. We should consider prohibiting or making difficult the removal of trees bigger than a certain size (30" DBH?) It would be helpful to have info on the distribution of sizes of DBH inches cut down over the course of a year. Developers supply diameters on plot plans. We need a way to collect that info. 8. Working w/ Sustainable Lexington. Mark said to work through Todd R. the current vice chair. They would like a top level assessment of what is needed re. trees, such as a canopy assessment or a complete tree inventory including conservation land and private land not in setbacks. We should ask Dave about the budget needed to assess the canopy since we would need satellite data, not direct measurement. 9. Tree manual update. There was discussion about the three pages presented. Some thought the preface was too informal for an official town document. We need to review Sec. 5C-G, in the current manual for internal consistency and consistency with the Best Practices recommendations. E.g. questions were raised about the advice for planting under and over utility lines. Final votes on the manual were put off to next month. Not necessarily relevant to the manual itself, but also discussed, was that soil be tested for gas leaks before planting, since the gas kills the trees and they need to be replanted.