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2023-02-02 Tree Board MinutesCITY OF EDMONDS TREE BOARD 0Summary Minutes of Regular Meeting February 2, 2023 CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Cass called the February 2 Tree Board meeting to order at 6:15 p.m. Board Members Present Janelle Cass, Chair Bill Phipps, Vice Chair (via Zoom) Chris Eck Wendy Kliment Andy Lyon Crane Stavig Kevin Fagerstrom Vacant Board Position Alternate (appointment pending) LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Board Member Lyon read the Land Acknowledgement. MINUTES: Approval of January 5, 2023 Tree Board Minutes FED Staff Present Deb Powers, Urban Forest Planner David Levitan, Planning Manager (via Zoom) Others Present Jenna Nand, Edmonds City Council Representative (via Zoom) The January 5, 2023 Tree Board minutes were approved as presented. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Introductions (New Business 1 a) was moved up to the top of the agenda. Vice Chair Phipps asked to discuss House Bill 1078 that is before the Washington State Legislature this session. There was agreement to add this under New Business as 1.c. Chair Cass asked for someone to give an update on the tree vandalism under New Business as l .d. The agenda was approved as amended. Tree Board Meeting Minutes February 2, 2023 Page 1 of 5 NEW BUSINESS Administrative a. Welcome - New Tree Board Member Kevin Fagerstrom and Planning Manager David Levitan were welcomed and introduced themselves. AUDIENCE COMMENTS Nick Coelho said his responsibilities as a member of the Snohomish County Parks Advisory Board are to get the lay of the land and see what conservation and stewardship efforts are going on in the south county. He said he was attending the meeting in order to learn and to pass on any comments from Edmonds to the Board. UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Annual/Ongoing Events a. 2022 Tree Board Presentation to the City Council — Chair Cass will do the presentation to the City Council on March 7, but other board members are encouraged to attend. Chair Cass indicated she would reach out to Larry Vogel to see if he had any pictures of Earth Day and will provide a draft of the presentation for Tree Board review at the March 3, 2023 meeting. 2. Special Events/Projects a. 2023 Work Plan — Chair Cass and Board Member Kliment pointed out that work plan projects were discussed at the January meeting and noted in the minutes, and still need to be added to the table. Chair Cass recommending having a smaller Task Group update the work plan, reformat it in an Excel spreadsheet and add a column with the relevant director so they can organize topics. Ms. Powers suggested the Board reformat the document in any suitable manner from the one that can be found on the FTP server and that Director McLaughlin will need to see anticipated costs for 2023 projects for budget approval. Board Member Kliment and Chair Cass will work together on the 2023 Work Plan. Ms. Powers encouraged the Board to focus on planning an Arbor Day event because it is required for the City to keep its Tree City USA standing. For events or projects that involve city staff or other resources, Ms. Powers explained how the Board needs to contact department directors in order to get approval first, before getting in touch with staff. She recommended consolidating questions for each department director. Councilmember Nand stated she had followed up with an email to Director Feser and did not receive a response. She felt this was part of a larger issue between City Council and the mayoral administration. She recommended just backing off and waiting on this until it can be resolved between Council President Tibbet and Mayor Nelson. She also noted that there has been concern among councilmembers about the cost of Tree City USA certification. Her understanding was that it would be budget neutral but recommended adding a note stating that fact to the City Council presentation. Tree Board Meeting Minutes February 2, 2023 Page 2 of 5 Planning Manager Levitan thought it was fine if Tree Board Members reached out to the appropriate department directors. He explained that this is a different concern than the conversations between city councilmembers and city staff. Motion made by Board Member Eck, seconded by Board Member Kliment, that the Arbor Day Celebration will be held on October 7, 2023. Motion passed unanimously. Board Member Stavig commented he is still trying to get in touch with Bess Bronstein about the tree walk. He has not heard back but will keep trying. There was some discussion about critical areas education. Chair Cass said staff is developing another layer to the interactive map currently on the website that could help show residents where tree removals are limited due to steep slopes. Ms. Powers distributed some static photos of the layer. She commented that property owner tree removal in critical areas is a topic they will be looking at with the tree code updates. The critical areas education would be very timely. b. Tree Code Amendments —Deb Powers gave a project update via PowerPoint regarding tree code amendments. She reviewed the project scope of addressing property owner tree removals and considering minor changes to the current code. She also discussed the project timeline. Chair Cass asked about public outreach plans other than the public hearings. Ms. Powers explained a consultant has been hired and has drafted a public engagement strategy. In addition to the public hearings, there will be an online survey, stakeholder meetings, and notifications to the public, all prior to the public hearings. The public engagement strategy should be available to the Planning Board by the end of February. Because of the Planning Board's meeting calendar, in lieu of joint meetings with them, the consultant will be working specifically with the Tree Board as a stakeholder group. Board Member Stavig spoke to the importance of having some kind of visibility to the public with the community outreach strategy before it is too late in the process. Board Member Fagerstrom asked about the process for Board Members providing feedback on the tree code. Ms. Powers indicated he could email comments to her, but recommended he first take a look at everything that's been on the table so far and the red line markups on the minor code amendments. Vice Chair Phipps recommended sharing comments with the Tree Board as a whole in addition to Ms. Powers. Vice Chair Phipps recommended that the Tree Board have a discussion about how they feel about property owner tree removals. He recommended having a study group to look at this. There was discussion around the ability to have a study group meeting, as long as there are three or fewer members present. Board Member Lyon asked what the canopy coverage goal should be for Edmonds. Ms. Powers replied that it should be a stated policy goal that is in the Comprehensive Plan, but it is not. They are adding a canopy cover policy goal to the docket for the 2024 Comp Plan Update. Currently Tree Board Meeting Minutes February 2, 2023 Page 3 of 5 they have "no net loss" as a goal but that is really hard to measure. There was discussion around the best sequence to do updates. Planning Manager Levitan gave some context to the reason they are doing the code amendments and the Comp Plan updates in the order they are. C. Street Tree Plan — Vice Chair Phipps raised this topic for discussion. Planning Manager Levitan reviewed some background on the Street Tree Plan, the project status and that Director McLaughlin is now the project manager for the Street Tree Plan. Vice Chair Phipps recalled that (prior Tree Board Members) Gail and Barbara spent a lot of time working on a list of appropriate street trees and submitted it to Deborah Dill a few years ago. He will reach out to Deborah Dill to find out the status of that list. He also recommended having Director McLaughlin join them at a Tree Board meeting for an update on the Street Tree Plan. He would like to know more about budgeting for street trees and implementation of a street tree plan. Mr. Levitan indicated he would check with Director McLaughlin about discussing the vision, scope, and schedule once the project gets going. Ms. Powers noted that there is a tree list aimed for the public that is linked from the Tree Board web page which has some trees that are no longer appropriate. She recommended that the Tree Board review that. Board Member Stavig indicated he would look at that. NEW BUSINESS Administrative (continued) b. 2023 Tree Board Budget — Ms. Powers stated the Tree Board Budget was expected to be $2000 for 2023. Ms. Powers noted that Director McLaughlin was interested in getting a finalized work plan with anticipated costs prior to approval of the budget. C. House Bill 1078 Discussion — Vice Chair Phipps brought up the proposed tree banking bill currently in the Washington State Legislature. There was some discussion among the Board about challenges of tree banks in general. Ms. Powers explained that in theory the concept already exists with the Tree Fund. She will forward more information to the Board on this. d. Tree Removal/Vandalism — Chair Cass referred to an article in the paper in January about trees that were cut down by Shell Creek behind Holy Rosary church. Ms. Powers thought this could have been done as part of work to remove invasive species from naturalized areas. She recommended getting more information before jumping to conclusions. Councilmember Nand noted that according to Joe Scordino, whatever the intention was of the person/people who did this, they did it in such a poor fashion that it caused a lot of damage by making it more likely to have erosion and by crushing the saplings of native species that had been planted there. She invited the Tree Board to make a comment or statement on this. Tree Board Meeting Minutes February 2, 2023 Page 4 of 5 Board Member Fagerstrom noted that from the pictures he saw it appeared to be out and out vandalism because it was done so poorly and was not cleaned up whatsoever. Police were contacted and are conducting an investigation. TREE BOARD CHAIR, MEMBER COMMENTS Councilmember Nand stated that she and Councilmember Chen are working on a resolution to create a kind of sponsor spotlight with local media sources for city boards and commissions to do outreach about their activities, open positions, volunteer engagement, etc. Board Member Stavig asked for an excused absence for the June meeting since he will be gone. Vice Chair Phipps thanked everyone for a good meeting tonight. He welcomed Board Member Fagerstrom and Planning Manager Levitan. He thanked everyone involved with getting the Zoom portion up and running. He appreciated being able to participate remotely. Board Member Fagerstrom said he was glad to be on the Board and is looking forward to being in person next month. Ms. Powers distributed copies of the goals section from the Urban Forest Management Plan. Some of these might translate to the work plan. She also provided revisions to the draft Tree Board Handbook. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 8:08 p.m. Next meeting: March 2 Tree Board Meeting Minutes February 2, 2023 Page 5 of 5