HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-07-18-TREE-min 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.
Other towns, such as Arlington, Weston, and Salem, have found it fiscally effective to
test for gas leaks. Buying a gas leak tester would be a budget item to bring to the Board
of Selectmen along with data from other towns.
10. New member. Several people have been contacted.
11. Applying Bylaw to public sites. Need DPW input. Will discuss with Chris next
month.
12. Tree speaker series. We need a liaison to CLC for this. Mark said a talk by Prof
Moomaw of Tufts is available on LexMedia. We should put a link to that and other
Youtube videos about trees on our website.
Other business. We discussed adding the Callery (Bradford) Pear to the list of invasive
species. It was suggested that we send a note to Dave about adding an invasives page to
the website. It exists in the manual. Kelly Santos is the webmaster, Tom Case is in
charge of IT for the town.
Meeting adjourned at 9:29
Submitted by Gloria Bloom