APPRO-2024-37 : Requesting an appropriation from Free Cash in the amount of $39,720 (Thirty Nine Thousand Seven Hundred Twenty Dollars) to Public Works Accounts (#475) as set forth herein and for tree planting throughout the City

Transcript (~12 min @ 31:06)

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▶ 31:04 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Next. Um, so would both of you and, uh, it's appropriation 2024 dash 37 requesting an appropriation from free cash in the amount of $39,720, uh, to Public Works account number 4 75 as set forth herein, uh, and for tree planting throughout the city.

▶ 31:30 Speaker 5: Yes. Yes. Um, so our annual tree planting request has been a little bit, uh, less than $70,000, but this year with the limited free cash available, we've put in a request for 39,720, um, which was just what was available to us. Uh, it costs us about $550 per tree to plant. And so this amount gives us about 70 trees. Um, we are fairly caught up with trees right now thanks to, um, the council, the prior council, um, approving some higher dollar value, um, tree planting programs. And so, uh, we're pretty well caught up and 70 trees should keep us fairly well caught up. It, it doesn't quite get us to, our goal is always to plant at least as many trees as we're removing. Um, and it doesn't quite get us there, but it does at least, uh, get us through the work orders that we have open right now.

▶ 32:30 Speaker 2: Counselor Williams, If you had a

▶ 32:34 Ryan Williams: full budget line item for your total amount of trees you think the city needs each year, what would it be? Stole your question,

▶ 32:43 Speaker 5: It would be roughly 70,000 to keep pace with removals and it would be, you know, maybe we would say 80, 90,000, maybe even a hundred thousand if we wanted to aggressively plant on top of that. Yeah.

▶ 32:56 Ryan Williams: Okay. Um, and I have, I have two other questions for you. Um, how often do you update the species list of trees?

▶ 33:04 Speaker 5: So we've updated it a couple times in the last probably three years in the time that Vonnie's been here. Um, we had a couple of residents approach her with requests to be sure we were planting more native species. We used to have the Cleveland pear on our list, which is now considered a, um, invasive species. So we took that one off. Um, but we are very interested in planting as many native species as we can. We certainly have limitations though in terms of we need smaller species when we're underwire, which tend to be some of the more ornamentals, which aren't necessarily native. But as long as they're not detrimental in any way, they're not, you know, spreading wildly or anything, then those are typically okay. Um, we need salt tolerant species, which can be very difficult. Um, I'm not sure if anyone remembers, but outside Shaws, we planted trees twice and watched them die within two years. And then finally we just took them out and now we've just paved where the trees were, which is kind of sad. Um, and we need trees that can thrive in sometimes a grass strip that's only 18 inches wide, um, and doesn't tend to have a root system that uplifts adjacent sidewalks on the roads. So there's a lot of considerations. Um, and then we have also a lot of opinions by of, um, folks about, you know, I don't want anything that drops fruit and I don't want something that blocks this or that. And so it's a balancing act, but, uh, we've, we think we have a pretty good list right now.

▶ 34:30 Ryan Williams: Hmm. Um, that's very good to hear. Thank you. Um, one thing that I have noticed, I know you, we did a lot of trees like last year, year before, which is fantastic. Um, and up at the Hoover School, I, I talked to Jim about this, some of the trees still have the original ties on them, and so the trunks are starting to grow over the ties and they're cutting into the ties. And I think this is just because we went from a kind of a very passive tree planting program to a very aggressive tree planting program. So I think having, you know, an aggressive tree planting program necessitates having an aggressive process for follow up to make sure that, you know, there's somebody identified that will go out and fill the gator bags that will go out and check, um, as part of the spring cleanup at the schools and other public properties that the straps are off, that the, you know, lines are off and the stakes are off and things like that just to care for the trees.

▶ 35:21 Speaker 5: Yeah. We are putting more of that on our contractor now. We used to try to save money and do more of it in house, but I will say I don't think we did the greatest job keeping up on it. It was always well intentioned, but it was one of the first things to slip when other things took priority. So we are actually having the contractor handle the maintenance for the first three months watering the gator bags. And then, um, I I agree we need to do a better job taking the stakes off.

▶ 35:46 Ryan Williams: I think that's great to have a contractor do it. That's ideal. So I appreciate that. That's it for me. Thank you.

▶ 35:52 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you counselor. Uh, thank you. Yeah,

▶ 35:55 Cal Finocchiaro: I was just curious, are these, they're all over the city. They're not just on sidewalks like residential sidewalks. You, they're at schools and where else are you planting them?

▶ 36:02 Speaker 5: They're on any city property. Okay. So, and actually even occasionally they're on private property. If we have a street that we've just paved and we wanna do some beautification and there's no grass strip on the street, then we allow what we call a setback tree. The resident will sign a right of entry form that allows us to plant the tree on their property and we plant it and then they assume ownership of the tree and we just do it like, sort of just back from the curb or whatnot. And, um, it's, it's not very frequent that we do that, but it is something we're open to. But

▶ 36:32 Cal Finocchiaro: These are at schools as well. And any public

▶ 36:34 Speaker 5: Property? Any public property, yeah. Parks, all schools.

▶ 36:41 Maya Jamaleddine: Perfect. Any other question?

▶ 36:44 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, counselor Stewart and then counselor. Great.

▶ 36:48 Speaker 4: Thank you Mayor Chair.

▶ 36:53 Robb Stewart: So thank you to Const Williams to address one of my concerns that, that I've had about the trees in terms of maintaining. When you plant in the middle of the summer and you don't water them, they die. And there's been a couple that, um, within my word at least that didn't make it. So, and that's frustrating to see when we approve money, uh, to do some beautification and you go and do the initial planting, but then the, the money gets wasted. So I appreciate that you're trying to figure that out. Um, the second, and you touched upon this a little bit, is to pick trees that don't grow into the, the, uh, the lines. Mm-Hmm. At the telephone lines, but there are a lot of trees that are growing into the, the telephone lines that I find is there. It was a little bit shortsighted and it wasn't really strategic in thinking of what's gonna happen five to 10 years from now that now we have a whole maintenance problem that we have to deal with. So I would encourage, uh, working with the contractor to understand what, if you have a location that is going to be underneath a wire, that a, it's either, you know, one of these or ornamental trees that you talk about that won't severely impact that over time or reconsider, um, the location based on the fact that they're gonna grow right into the tree. Um, so, uh, that, that, that is, uh, because then, uh, you know, I, some people I would assume you'd have to get out there with a cutter and remove the branches and set up and the whole bit. I mean, that's just more cost. So, um, I would ask you to consider that as well.

▶ 38:36 Speaker 5: Yeah. There are a lot of older trees that are definitely growing up and through the wires. I would say anything we've planted in the last five years, probably even six years, has been, we have short species and tall species, and we don't plant the tall species under the, under the wires. We refer to 'em as under wire trees. We label them as such in the spreadsheet we give the contractor. And so he's instructed to only plant the short trees in those locations. Um, and we don't plant in the summer, we only do a fall and a spring planting round, but sometimes it's still very hot in the fall or it's still very hot in the late spring. And so, um, but we do, they are under warranty for a year. And the contractor we have now and the prior contractor have been very good. When we identify one within the first year, they will come out and swap it out. So certainly if you see something newly planted and then you see it dead, the sooner somebody lets us know the better because we usually can get a free replacement

▶ 39:30 Robb Stewart: Clocks ticking. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah, the, the, I I think about, uh, some of the streets that were recently repaved within the last 10 years, and then they come in and they put trees in, um, you know, they're already significantly impacting the wires right now, so. Okay. Um, and I can give you examples if you want offline. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair.

▶ 39:52 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you, counselor Vandiver.

▶ 39:54 Kimberly Vandiver: Um, thank you. Um, so two questions. The, the first one, similar to the, the sidewalks, I was curious if this is something, you know, if a resident wanted to plant their own tree just to do it on their schedule or to choose their species or something like that. Is something, is that something they could talk to you about? Yes.

▶ 40:10 Speaker 5: So we've done that, actually, we just did it a couple weeks ago on Howard Street. Um, if a resident does not wanna wait, you know, if it's a year or two to get a tree, we do recommend if it's a tree that's been removed, we recommend they don't replant in the same location for a year because the roots from the old tree can impact the growth of the new tree. So that's part of why it actually is good to wait for a year. But, um, if a resident either has a new location or a location that it's been over a year and they just never put in a work order, but they do want a tree, um, we do allow them to purchase the tree themselves and then we typically plant it in-house. That's what we did on Howard Street a few weeks ago, and they are, they have to pick trees from our list.

▶ 40:54 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay, great. And, um, for the trees that are, that are in the wires right now, um, in front of residences, is there a recommended course of action for any of those homeowners as far as you know, should they be trying to get those removed or replaced or should they be maintaining in a certain way or letting people know if the trees are in the wires or like what's the preferred course of action?

▶ 41:17 Speaker 5: National Grid actually takes care of that. So they go around the whole city and trim every year. Um, the trees that they feel are in the wires in a potentially dangerous way, um, that's where you end up with the trees that look like this. Um, and so if there's a tree of concern, if some, so we, as a policy, we do not trim trees that are really mixed in with the wires. It's dangerous and we're not equipped to do that work. So when we get a report from somebody that something needs to be trimmed that's in the wires, we report it to National Grid. Um, so if a resident has a concern, they've just, they can just put in a tree assessment and note that it's in the wires and we'll come out and take a look. And if we think it needs to be on the National Grid list, we'll put it on there.

▶ 41:59 Speaker 4: Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

▶ 42:02 Maya Jamaleddine: Any other question? What is the will of the committee?

▶ 42:09 Speaker 4: I would like to make a motion to recommend to the full counsel.

▶ 42:14 Maya Jamaleddine: Second. Second. We have a motion to recommend made by Vice Chair Williams, seconded by, uh, councilor Ro on discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk,

▶ 42:23 Speaker 1: Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gpe? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Van Nicaro? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Motion passes unanimously.