HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-01-10-TREE-min
Lexington Tree Committee Minutes of January 10, 2008
1. Gerry Paul was appointed scribe. The minutes of December 13, 2007 were approved
as amended. Present were: John Frey, Jeanne Krieger, Dave Pinsonneault, Anne Senning,
Jim Wood, Susan Solomon, Nell Walker and Gerry Paul.
2. a) Dave Pinsonneault reported on Tree Bylaw activity: 541 sites/430 closed; 1542
trees to be planted/1103 planted; 647 trees to be removed/488 removed.
Dave gave an update on bylaw issues associated with the site being developed by
Richard Jette
b) Relative to possible Warrant articles:
-The committee agreed that we would not propose any clarification language to
the bylaw relative to setbacks.
-It was the consensus of the committee that fees should not be viewed as
mitigations.
-Jeanne will get us information on current building fees and explore where fees
collected in conjunction with the bylaw could be applied.
-We will move forward with the proposed Warrant article for additional tree
funding because it appears likely that this funding will not be in the proposed
budget for next year. Gerry will arrange for a presentation to the Appropriations
Committee.
c) Dave will communicate with Karen to finalize the locations for the Tree City USA
signs and distribute to the Committee.
d) The draft annual report of the Tree Committee was approved.
3. Jim Wood explained that he is pursuing the acquisition of 25-35 Chestnut trees --
Japanese, Chinese, European, American Chestnut and American Chestnut Hybrid
(American Chestnut backcrossed with Chinese Chestnut) -- which may be donated by the
American Chestnut Society if they are planted in a visible public location. Jim has been
exploring the possible planting of these trees on Conservation Land and needs the vote of
the Tree Committee supporting this before making a request to the Conservation
Commission. The consensus was that Jim should pursue this opportunity. We agreed to
defer the vote pending Jim providing more information and Nell vetting the American
Chestnut Society (possibly through the University of Connecticut).
4. Anne Senning reported that the CPA proposal for Belfry hill as been accepted by the
Community Preservation Committee under the Historic Restoration category.
5. We now have the published version of the Tree Manual and Bylaw in electronic form
after recovering them from a damaged computer disk. John will check with Marcus if
we, in fact, have the latest version of the bylaw.
6. Gerry reported that there was no Friends of Trees activity last month.
7. John, Jane, Nell and Anne will meet with the donor of Commemorative Tree #5 to
discuss possible locations and species. Locations under consideration are the Common
and Buckman Tavern grounds.
8. Anne reported that one of last year's inventory interns is interested in working for us
this summer but has other opportunities one of which he will probably take. Anne will
apply for another DCR grant this summer for 2 interns.
9. For this year's Town annual report we agreed that we will propose using the Tree
Committee stationary logo as background for the Tree Committee report. If a photo is
required for the report we will use last year's photo of the committee.
10. There was a short discussion concerning the Web site. Gerry will see if we can get
any Web development expertise through the Friends of Trees.
11. The current balance in the Tree fund is $2,224.45.