HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-STAC-2017-04-12City of Ithaca Shade Tree Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes
April 12, 2017
Present: Nina Bassuk, Laurene Gilbert, Jeanne Grace, Beverly Hillman, Pamela Markham, Paul
Paradine, Monika Roth, Debra Statton, Keith Vanderhye, Kevin Vorstadt.
Beverly: the ribbon cutting for the new crabapples on Floral Avenue will be on a weekday afternoon in
mid-May, exact date to be announced.
Nina’s grant proposal has gone to eligibility.
Pamela: on Monday May 8 Pamela and her 4H group will walk to the site where topped ginkgos will be
taken out by Paul and new ones will be planted by the kids.
Forester’s Report: the trees have been ordered for Arbor Day, should be here end of April. Move the
ceremony to May 5, Friday at 1:30 pm. 2 willows will be planted between the maintenance bldg and the
small pavilion near the playground. 2 burr oaks will be planted along the trail. Jeanne will arrange for
someone to read the proclamation.
Site Plan Review proposal wasn’t circulated properly and none of us got it, nor were the code changes
announced in the paper, so instead of being considered at the April meeting of Planning and Economic
Development, it has been pushed to May 10. Could be voted on June 7.
No news from Benderson re trees in Staples parking lot. Should try to prune some rather than remove
all of them. Next week Jeanne and Kevin will go out and scope out what to do then she’ll get in touch
with Benderson.
The replacement of the Metasequoias has been deferred by the bank. Jeanne will follow up with Krin
re easement for doing maintenance on private property. Now okay to do if have agreement in NYS.
Restructuring of City committees: proposal is to take 12 current committees and put under 4 umbrella
committees. Our committee would cease to exist. Jeanne sees problem of getting super volunteers
with enough expertise to cover all areas and who will commit to 2.5 hr evening meetings once a month.
This plan would see loss of current level of expertise.
On April 19 at City Administration meeting, this idea will be reviewed. We should put together a
statement ; points to include
More work for staff, no one with interest to be super commissioner nor expertise on all topics,
loss of expertise, difficulty of getting volunteers implies certain groups of people will be ruled out, time
frame per topic is not realistic, brainstorming/creative ideas lost, no opportunities to review site plans,
superficial overlap but not really.
We can suggest a better way to do this, leave some committees that are doing good work and
have other less active committees absorbed into them. We could absorb the ConservationAdvisory
Committee. Trees are the biggest part of infrastructure of city except for asphalt. Our collaboration
with Cornell, our outreach via Citizen Pruners, Tree Walk in Stewart Park, tree tags.
Next meeting June 14, no May meeting. Minutes respectfully submitted by Debra Statton