05/01/2017

Notes from May 1st AL Tree Team meeting

Notes from the Arbor Lodge Tree Team meeting, May 1st - next meeting June 5th, 6pm, Lucky Lab

*  1st, we talked about the Young Street Tree Pruning event set for May 13th, starting at Arbor Lodge Park.  This starts at 8:45, meet at the Park near Dekum and the west baseball diamond.

*  2nd, we announced the Park Tree Inventory for Arbor Lodge Park is set for Sept 16th, mark your calendars.  This will help us develop a walking tour of the Park naming the Trees.  

*  we discussed the Omaha Blocks - trees and grass cutting issues.  a) trees - good news, the City Urban Forestry staff will continue to inoculate the Elm Trees in the Omaha Blocks, b)  getting the grass cut in this Tree Park is the responsibility of PBOT.  They have not been cutting with regularity.  ALNA will write a letter to PBOT asking for their planned schedule.  Also, Jen Cairo just confirmed that this summer the YCC Tree Crew will help by pulling weeds around these trees and spreading bark mulch.  Maintenance after that will be the responsibility of neighbors or the AL Tree team.

*  Celebration for Cindy - our newest Heritage Tree - is still pending.  We will schedule it when the plaque for Cindy is ready for installation and when UF staff can schedule it.

*  our larger discussion centered around planting more trees in Arbor Lodge, specifically in the area between Concord Street and I 5, and Lombard and Ainsworth.  

We need to do research to prepare a grant application.  We are looking for help in researching these areas:

1.  Air Quality in Arbor Lodge - we believe that it isn't good and Trees could help improve it, DEQ and Neighbors for Clean Air could be resources.   Does anyone want to volunteer to research this?

2.  Health overlay - maybe the US Forest Service has this info - again, does anyone want to research this?

3.  Tommy is interested in Portland Maps.  We need to learn about this section of our neighborhood, what properties are rentals, landlord info, demographics if possible too.  We will ask Nate to help Tommy learn about how to use Portland maps.  We welcome anyone else interested in helping on this too.

4.  We will develop a letter to go to landlord property owners once we've developed a strong grant application listing our plan in detail

We hope to plant trees in this area - Concord to I 5 -  Ainsworth to Lombard.  We will use the Urban Forestry tree list.  We will also try to work with Friends of Trees and ask if we can join their planting times in Arbor Lodge for this project. 

5.  We hope to recruit an arborists or landscape planner to help us get a wholesale price for trees

Next, we talked about meeting regularly to work on this idea of planting trees and developing a strong grant.  Our next meeting is set for Monday, June 5th 6pm at the Lucky Lab.  All interested folks are welcome.  We will be inviting the Overlook Tree Team to join us and individuals who are Tree Stewards from Piedmont also.  The goal is for all three Tree Teams to thrive.