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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-09-16-TREE-min Lexington Town Tree Committee Lexington, Massachusetts, September 16, 2004 (Extraordinary meeting) Minutes of the Meeting Meeting opened at 7:30 a.m. Attendance: John Frey, Jim Jones, Anne Senning, Nell Walker, Jim Wood, and Karen Longeteig. This extraordinary meeting was scheduled to go over some of our requirements for the upcoming Tree Inventory. 1. Scribe: Karen Longeteig was appointed to take the minutes in her turn in the alphabetical rotation. 2. Minutes of the previous meetings were postponed until next regular meeting. 3. The Agenda, distributed by Chairman Frey, was reviewed and a couple of items added. 4. (4a.) Tree Inventory plans: There is an upcoming meeting with Sherri Brokaw of Community rd Forest Partnership on September 23. Anne will confirm the location and inform the rest by e-mail and telephone. There was a good deal of discussion as to our requirements for data fields in the software. However, the precise requests we need to ask at this time of Sherri and of Connie Rawson, our MIS director, are these: A. Load the street map of Lexington into our computers. B. In order to do the above, acquire and load the “ArcGIS 9” operating platform which turns CAD files into GIS files. Notes and reports on the Inventory: Dave Pinsonneault has ordered one hand-held computer, an IPAC. o Connie is approaching engineering and other departments for money for the ArcGIS 9, which o costs $3000, as this is a system which will be used in the future by all Town Departments. We are told that Peter Kerasotis (Engineering Dept.) has finished the mapping of the streets of o Lexington (in CAD). Our Memorandum of Understanding notes that the Maintenance Module will be worked out over o the winter, so for now we can concentrate on the “description” part of the Inventory. It may be easier to leave intact the GIS Tree Table Attributes than to attempt to greatly modify o them. However, we felt that one field definitely needed an addition to it: The Tree Location field should also have B = Berm, and T = Treeway. o (4b) For the fund-raising request from the Selectmen’s Fund for Lexington, we decided that only John Frey and Jim Woods should attend. 5. Draft Article for CLC Newsletter: Nell Walker distributed a draft which was approved. 6. Location of Tree Poem: John asked someone to run down a transcript of a remarkable poem on trees that he heard on NPR. Karen said she would. 7. Other Business: Grants and Trust Funds: Jim Wood said that the Tree Committee needs an enhanced scope of action by securing our own funds. There has been no line-item funding for trees by the Town in three or four years. Jim has spoken to former Town Counsel Norman Cohen; they noted that the Lexington Education Foundation and the Cary Library Trust are both non-profit corporations. Norm advised us against taking this route, but suggested that we could draft a proposal for a Fund that would be managed under the Town’s Trust Fund account, but with spending controlled by the Tree Committee. This way we could spend on an Inventory, watering, fertilizing, etc., and not just on buying trees to plant. A model to follow would be the Norm Cohen Scholarship Fund, or other funds listed in Town Annual Report. After setting up the Trust, we could solicit funding through a town-wide mailing with the tax bills. Jim has asked for another couple of examples from trustee David Williams, and then he will draft a letter for the Committee’s discussion. This would be submitted to the Selectmen. 8. Memorial Tree Brochure: The final proof has come out of the printer and Chairman Frey or his designee can now take it to the Selectmen for funding the printing. 9. Getting Started: The committee expressed general impatience with the necessary but very slow process of getting the software and hardware lined up to conduct the inventory, as we see the prime identification season, with tree leaves on, evaporating with the progression of the Autumn. In a burst of enthusiasm, we agreed to try to begin an inventory MANUALLY, using all the same data fields as in the software. The data could be entered into the software this winter. To begin, Karen pointed out that we would need some Tree ID training, to hold the interest of the volunteers who have already signed up. We set dates for both a daytime and an evening training: Wednesday Sept. 29th at 7:30 pm, and Tuesday October 5th at 9:30 am. Karen will be in contact with other members of the tree committee about how this training will be carried out. Karen will also put the GIS Tree data into a form that can be reproduced cheaply on 8 ½ x 11 paper and held to a clipboard. 10. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 9:25 am. Respectfully submitted, Karen Longeteig Secretary pro-tem Next regular meeting on October 14th, 2004, at 7:30 a.m. in Room 111, Town Office Building.