Bangor Tree Board reviews urban forestry plan and community survey

[0:18] Gregory Edwards: Sarah can you hear us now yes I can hear you now can you hear me yes we can perfect here do we want to shut the doors you guys care because we carry them welcome everybody to a special workshop of the Bangor City Tree Board we're discussing the urban forestry management plan that we have been working on for a little bit specifically we're addressing the public community survey that's gonna go out February as well as the website to provide accessibility and with us to lead everything off my name is Greg I'm the chair of the tree board let's go around and introduce the tree board since there's actually people that are meeting today. Up first. Hi, I'm Annette Dodd. Karen, Mary's daughter. Dominic Rizzo. [1:20] Sophie Cameron: Benjamin Arruda, City of Angkor forestry manager. Sophie Cameron, I'm a forestry technician. [1:27] John Davis: John Davis, Director of Engineering, City of Angkor. And on Zoom we have Sarah Lilly from [1:33] Gregory Edwards: Eocene, which is the contractor we've been working with to develop the urban forestry management plan so I'm going to hand it off to Sarah to talk a little bit thanks Greg I also have Paola here she's my urban forestry associate she'll be taking notes for me today thanks for having us and I can't see the room but I'm glad there are people there joining us today yeah we got a couple of faces hooray great and I guess in a nutshell I can talk about what's been happening with the project so far so we've had several meetings I'm just bringing up my notes for my own memory I have a terrible memory but we've been working on what's been going on with Bangor's tree situation currently we've had a few meetings with the city we've conducted strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats analysis and we've gone into a little bit more detail on the day-to-day operations of what's been going on in the city we're also looking at the city's ordinances as they relate to trees and any relevant plans that also discuss tree management in the city so along with that we're kind of establishing what we have as far as bangor has and what they do in their management of trees so as Part of that, we're also looking at the tree inventory that the city has, diving into that data to see how many publicly owned trees there are and how they've been managed, in what condition they're in, and the species makeup and the size and age of them. Another thing that we're looking at to kind of flesh out entirely what Bangor has in terms of its trees is we've completed a tree canopy assessment. So that's looking at how much of the land is covered by trees, by water, by bare earth, and let me see if I can share my screen because I do have an analysis of that might be of some interest. But using that information, we're looking at not only the individual publicly managed trees, we're looking at all of the trees in the city. Okay, here we go. Sorry, Zoom is a little interesting for me. Okay, but just some very brief introductory data to tree canopy assessment. So looking at the data, we have about 51% of Bangor we found was covered by trees. This data will change a little bit. I actually had some conversations with Sophie today about the boundary of the city, so we're cropping out a portion of the river there, so this may go up just a teensy bit, but approximately 51 tree cover. So the next part in looking at this data will be breaking it out by neighborhoods, by census blocks, and kind of helping the city determine, you know, where there are trees, where there could be more trees. All right, and we're going to get into what we're discussing today. So we're also doing a public engagement campaign starting at the end of this month. So we want to know what the community wants in their trees as well. It's not just looking at the data and saying, look, this is what you have. We have to know where the community wants to go with this information. So as part of that, we're setting up a project website that'll be linked off of the forestry division website on the city's website, and I believe there are copies and everyone's been distributed a copy of what we're thinking about what will be covered in the website so far are. Is that correct? Yeah. Awesome. And I can pull that up just so that we're all on the same page. And so basically on the website we'll be talking about the project, content, our contact, timeline, and then we'll go into a little deeper depth on the separate components of the project. And then some links at the end to relevant material and a forum to allow the community to provide feedback. So I would like to go through each of these sections one by one, if that works for everyone, just to hear any feedback on, you know, what you would like changed. What would you like to see displayed on the public-facing website? Sarah, in terms of getting our feedback, just in case there's people in the audience that want to give feedback, since you have handwritten, since you have manual copies, do you want to just make notes on those copies and hand them in? Or do you want to, you know, shout out a suggestion? Yeah, either way that people feel comfortable. [7:17] John Davis: It would probably be better if they come to the podium and turn the microphone on. And [7:32] Gregory Edwards: as long as I'm Sophie or Greg you're comfortable transmitting feedback from the community. Yeah,. So yeah, if anyone, even from the tree board if you have thoughts on what you'd like to see. [7:53] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Hi there. My name is Karen. Under the project description, I think there should be an additional paragraph that using a narrative format gives the information from number 12 on the survey. In other words, what evidence-based benefits are there to public trees? And you have a whole list of them under number 12 but I think it should be on the website and but in a well I guess you could do a list format but I think it should be emphasized that this is evidence-based and here are all the things that trees do for us I [8:36] Gregory Edwards: appreciate that thank you Karen so Sarah do you want to go through and take us through this or do you want us to yeah I can go section by section and then as comments come up? Sure, yep, that sounds great. Okay, so anything else on the project description? And we can, we'll be meeting later to just finalize everything that'll be on here. Yeah, absolutely. So I love that suggestion. I thought I had was, I like, you know, to back up evidence. So listing, making a list of links to scientific studies on the benefits that trees provide that sounds good I know we have Ben as a project contact and Ben if you want to plead your case to not be the contact all right we have a project timeline here it's just a basic timeline on generally when deliverables will appear. So we have the launching of the website, the community survey, the operation plan will be, a draft of that will be available in March after it's been reviewed by the city. And I did wanna confirm this with the tree board. It's not posted yet, but the date April 8th for the next quarterly tree board meeting. Greg's looking okay. Really quick, Sarah, while he's doing that, do you want to just, for the folks in the room, give a quick overview of the difference between the management plan and the operational plan? Absolutely. So the operational plan will go more into the operations of tree management in the city. So working with Sophie and Ben and everyone at the city, we'll be looking at the different responsibilities that people at the city have, and basically creating workflows for how things are getting done. We've already identified a few areas where some things need to be strengthened as far as how they're happening in the city. And the urban forest management plan as a whole, it's informed by the community. So I think of the operational plan as more like logistics, how things are getting done. And the UFMP, the management plan is more the grand vision for how the city's trees will be managed. It goes more into the future and it incorporates the community's opinions as well. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we can get to that. [11:58] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Put it on my calendar. [12:04] Gregory Edwards: And thank you for your prompts. Not being in the room, it's hard to gauge body language, and you're all on the teeny little screen now. So yeah, that's totally fine. So in April, we anticipate hosting a community workshop. This is a more in-person way to get feedback from the community. I put this on here. You know, third week of May is Arbor Week in May in Maine. Just think that's an important thing to make note of. And in June we'll have a draft of the UFMP for review and anticipate a final delivery in July and so were we planning on having the operational plan prepared ahead of that July date for the management plan? Yes. Okay. Yep. Oh no, sorry, I see it now. Yep, March. Yes, March. Oh for sure did you find it? I did. Okay. January 21st is our next, 4 to 5 p.m. April 15th, 20 2026, 4 or 5 p.m. is the April meeting. You said 15th? April 15th. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. And July 15th. And then October 21st. Okay, great. Thanks, Greg. Everyone pulls out their individual tiny screens. All right, does anyone have any comments on the timeline? We probably should, I don't know [13:49] John Davis: it needs to be on this but probably should attend the one of the infrastructure meetings [13:56] Gregory Edwards: okay to a base council somewhere maybe once we get the draft before the final delivery though okay so we'll just find one that's somewhere maybe in June. Perfect. All right, any other comments on the timeline? Anyone from the audience? Okay, great. Yeah, I think we can move on, Sarah. All right, thank You as far as the project components, we're just talking about the different components that inform the plans. So a description of the tree inventory with a link to the current tree inventory, the tree canopy assessment, a review of the tree management program, description of the operational plan and the urban forest management plan, and then finally community involvement and why it's important. Does anyone have any comments on any of these components or descriptions? I want to add into folks here and maybe members of the tree board, but I think everyone's pretty aware of where you can find our current tree inventory, which is what will be linked, I believe, right Sarah, we're just going to link right to what we already have. You can see the inventory of Bangor street trees if you go into the forestry division web page, which is underneath kind of the larger overarching city of Bangor website, and then you'll go click on tree inventory and it'll take you to an interactive map. You can click on individual trees, see the size, see where they're located, things like that. So, yep. [16:04] Sophie Cameron: All right. You want me to come to there to talk? Yes, please. Sorry. Yeah, [16:12] John Davis: just turn on the little button there so it turns green. You just tap it. Oh. [16:22] Unidentified speaker (Bangor Land Trust): I'm on the, I'm with Bangor Land Trust. Sure. I'm a consulting forester. I've been an industrial forester. But my real question in regard to this, not to be a pain, but if I went to that map, does it show your right-of-ways? Meaning, will it tell me, because your question here is, the tree on my property or in the town right-of-way? [16:42] Gregory Edwards: So all of the trees included in that map are going to be publicly owned. We measured out right-of-ways. [16:47] Unidentified speaker (Bangor Land Trust): But it doesn't show them, but you know that they're all... [16:50] Gregory Edwards: If they're included in that map they are publicly owned trees. If you want to see the actual right of ways, the city does have a parcel viewer, Ben, where is that located, that is through [17:00] Unidentified speaker (Bangor Land Trust): the I believe tax. Okay, no, I've seen that. I'm not, I know I'm not a resident, I'm just, but I wanted to ask about that because I've been sent on jobs far away, some cities have them linked together, and then you'll go all the way down there and suddenly it's either a private tree or down. Yeah, if you go on there and you see a tree, it is yours. Okay. I was thinking of that when people start answering that question, is that in my tree or not? [17:23] Sophie Cameron: That's something we can certainly look at adding. It could be something simple as just adding a link, linking the two together. Okay, thank you. Thank you. [17:33] John Davis: Sarah, do you want to click on that link to kind of show on the next screen? Oh, we already did that one. [17:38] Gregory Edwards: Yeah, so that's our tree inventory. And red is trees that have been, were previously in the inventory and have been removed. And green are active trees that we actively manage. We have a question. [18:01] Alan Hunter: Yes, my name is Alan Hunter, I'm a retired forester here, I live in Bangor. I had a question about the tree inventory, and I noticed that the collected data was limited to just the height, the diameter, and dislocation. Will there be any more data collected on those individual trees, such as health? [18:28] Sophie Cameron: Yeah, so on the back end in creating this data set we wanted to provide a good overview of the data that we captured, but each individual tree received an assessment of I believe 10 or 12 different questions and then received a health score, zero being dead or missing, and then five being extremely healthy. And then that data set of questions ranged from root interference on sidewalks, on private property, right of way issues, is the tree too low over traffic, is the tree infringing upon utilities, is the tree infringing upon a private residence or private property. Property. So those are some of the back end questions. The way we did the inventory was complicated. It's a GIS technological data set. So it lives in two separate environments from the points to the assessment. So migrating those into one functional and viewable platform form is quite difficult, but we can certainly explore that and look at providing that data, and you're more than welcome as a resident if you find a tree and you want to know more, you're more than welcome to give me a call and I have access to that back end information. [20:07] Alan Hunter: Well, the information though that's in the tree inventory is going to be used to develop any future plans for, yes, yep, and so there was a health assessment. [20:19] John Davis: And it was like on a one to ten scale, zero through four, zero through four, where four is an [20:26] Gregory Edwards: excellent tree and zero is a tree that's already died, so we can weed out the zeros. We're in the process of weeding out the zeros right now. Very good, thank you. Absolutely, and if you zoom in on the tree inventory, you can do the property lines, which are the right-of-way. Yeah. We do have a layer that is red lines that we could overlay on this that would make it a little more clear. [20:58] Sophie Cameron: And just to clarify, this inventory only covers principally planted Esplanade, park, and city-owned property trees. If you live on a wooded section of Bangor and have a tree within the right-of-way, that is still a city responsibility to maintain. However, we did not inventory individual forested sections of like Essex Street. [21:25] Gregory Edwards: Prentice Woods has been inventoried, but that is not reflected on this. That was a traditional timber cruise as opposed to an individual. Yeah, that would have taken a very long time. Okay, questions, thoughts on this piece before we move on to there? Do you want to move on to the survey? Can I pose a question to both the tree board and the folks in the room? So for the community involvement piece, we've been playing around with not interactive elements but the possibility of like opting in to get updates on things. Is that something that we would feel we would want in terms of announcements of things that are going to happen or that side of things? Sure. I don't know what the city's capability looks like. Yeah. Well, so this is going to be an outside web page that's then linked in to the city's web page. So there's a possibility that we can have communications or like a news feature as a part of it. Sure. [22:44] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Did you do for see regular updates like that, like how we were like, this is what we're [22:52] Gregory Edwards: going to be like survey, Sarah, remember we were discussing like survey reminders or announcements of when the community, a workshop is going to be and things like that. It wouldn't be incredibly frequent. [23:06] Karen S. Marysdaughter: If it's not that frequent, why not use the city's current notification system? You [23:12] Gregory Edwards: reach more people that way. We've been told that is for use in terms of emergencies [23:19] Karen S. Marysdaughter: like it gives community connector updates, for example, it gives update occasionally, there's like a press release sort of thing that I've seen. I'm on that list. Yeah, my understanding [23:29] Gregory Edwards: of it is that would not be the appropriate outlet for this sort of situation, but [23:38] Karen S. Marysdaughter: we can do our own. So I suspect the opt-in would be small because there aren't going to be that many people. So you're not going to necessarily reach a broader audience. [23:46] Gregory Edwards: We do, obviously. I think we're going to continue like we did for this free board announcement. We're going to continue to have them put out social media posts with things. Yeah, I know. Isn't it nice? Nice little picture of trees. But we are going to have them continue doing that. So we're hoping to ramp up engagement a little bit that way. But we also are open to exploring other ideas. Is like I know Greg has a lot of connections through his volunteer organizations and getting folks involved that way. We reached out to the land trust folks which was good but yeah. [24:23] Karen S. Marysdaughter: On the links I'm wondering if there should be something about invasives or native species in the [24:34] Gregory Edwards: The links or yeah we have that existing on the forestry division web page newly added so that lives there along with like a tree pests and disease thing. I think for this web page is like less informational and more purely about this project but yeah I mean we can also have a separate discussion at another time about stuff that we can add to the forestry division webpage because that you know always happy to put things there. Okay. [Karen S. Marysdaughter: I] Did want to share that we also want to invite community feedback via the webpage so having the survey info on there with the link to the survey which will be virtual. Ideally it would be great if people could upload pictures of trees and potentially tell a little story or why they enjoy trees in the community. And also providing a comment box for input and feedback. Anything else? Yeah, I think we're ready. All right. On to survey time. Well, thank you for your comments so far. And just for a timeline with this, we are hoping to have the website up and ready by the end of the month, and so how you'll access it is through the Forestry Division webpage. There'll just be a subpage that you click on, and it takes you to what the eocene team builds so yeah that's the forestry division page. Thank you Sarah. Yeah so just in where that blue bar is on the left you'll go and find it there. Yep. All right survey getting the hang of zoom. All right so the survey we're really hoping to hear what the community thinks about trees. So as an introduction just the goal of what the survey is hoping to accomplish and also a time expectation just so people know what they're getting into time wise and then it's broken up into three different sections. One is experience with trees, one is management of trees, and the third is some demographic information. So starting with experience of trees we're Looking into, you know, how people, how important people think trees are, what their neighborhood looks like, and what they'd like it to look like. I'm not going to read every single question, but maybe if someone says, hey, number five, can we talk about that a little bit? That would be great. There's also questions on how closely people live to a park or green space or natural area, and how often they're visited. Some open-ended questions on the benefits and drawbacks of trees. I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest drawback is leaves. That's typically what it is, but it's good to know, you know, maybe people don't like a certain type of tree, or if there's a lot of infrastructure problems with trees, so it's important to know. Number 16, Sarah. Yeah, where it says the visual diversity of trees on my street, do we feel like we could change that language a little bit to be less ambiguous? Yes, and I guess can you give me your definition of visual diversity? Sure, so I was thinking, you know, not a monoculture of trees, not just a straight line of spruce or of Norway maple, but diverse, you know, heights, canopy, be spread, flowering, evergreen, deciduous, but yeah, we can talk about how. I just think that might come off a little confusing. Agreed, Sarah. On question 12, did you intend for people to rank every single thing on here, or to pick five to rank? The idea was to rank all of them. Okay, that makes the most sense. I just had like a thought in my head that somebody might just rank one through five for like five items, just because it's similar to other questions like that. They're like, pick your, you know, top five of these issues. You [30:10] Karen S. Marysdaughter: could just say something, rank each one of these, just put that language in there. That hopefully would clarify it. [30:19] Gregory Edwards: Thank you. Number [30:30] Unidentified speaker (Public commenter): 14, I'm just wondering if there's three options for the treatment. Among these are not cared for, adequately cared for, and well cared for. For some reason, I'm just wondering if there should be four options. Something between not cared for and adequately? Yeah. You're shaking your head too. I had that same comment. [30:51] Gregory Edwards: Inadequately cared for. Right. [30:53] Unidentified speaker (Public commenter): I mean, I really feel there should be another option for that. [30:58] Gregory Edwards: Yeah. Yeah, you [31:05] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Might need to clarify that to people, even understand and realize that there is some care happening or some care is available. I mean, I know our trees got pruned a little bit recently, but we happened to be home when that happened, and if we hadn't been and we didn't pay a lot of attention to our trees, we might not have even known it. [31:24] Gregory Edwards: I think too, I wonder how we encounter the versus what we do question in this, because I don't know if it would show up in a big way, but I have a feeling that there would somehow appear in the survey someone talking about how half of their tree is now missing, and unfortunately there's nothing we can do about that, so that's like a just a thought to put out there with the survey. I mean, there's there's proactive stuff, yes. Yeah, no, there's proactive things to do, but once it's been, yeah, exactly, cut in half, there's not much we can do about it. [32:08] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Well, the cared for, I mean, I might look at my trees and say half of them are dying. That may not have anything to do with any care that had been expended on those trees. It might be due to something else entirely, so if you're looking at the care aspect here, then I think there needs to be some more clarification. Well, what a second [32:29] Gregory Edwards: question, going back to the idea of health, what a second question be appropriate where like my trees appear healthy, unhealthy, you know, at will, right? Or instead of care, if they're actively being harmed by human activity, yeah, that V and I spent to know if people are noticing. So like two additional questions about health and then another about like my trees have been damaged, yes or no, or something like that. Something like that? Yeah, and maybe they're all combined into a question that can capture all of that. Yeah, just because we don't want to make it too long, but I do see trees that are damaged either by snowplows or by private activity or by whatever, that it would be nice to mention that in the survey. Sure, I think it depends on what [33:19] Karen S. Marysdaughter: information you're trying to capture, so in terms of if you're measuring care versus whether the peer tree appears healthy or not, is there some aspect of care or people's perception of care that you want to capture, or are you really looking at how healthy do my the trees on my street up here? I'm not sure what you had in mind. That's a good point, I mean, I do see Greg's point [33:48] Gregory Edwards: of wanting to capture like the idea of damage from people. I have to think about that a little bit. Sarah do you have thoughts? Yeah I'm just writing them down because I think you want to know how trees are being damaged as well, not just generally. Yeah there's damaged trees out there but [34:19] Karen S. Marysdaughter: this section is on the management of trees, so care is part of the management. Yeah the question is what are you trying to get from the public about care? You know, are trees on my street being cared for? Do I know what kind of care have I noticed happening? I don't know. Yeah again it depends on what you want to capture for information, but that would get it, but I do like what Greg was suggesting. Yeah maybe [34:57] Gregory Edwards: something like that, just a yes no, are they being cared, and then a list of what sort of care you've observed. The trees of my street are not cared for inadequately cared for, adequately cared for, and then additional options, well cared, well cared for our trees on my street, this is an alternate question. Yeah okay what sort of care have you observed? Yeah I think that's good and then I don't know if we want to lump together health and damage, but whether or not you've noticed damaged trees and what sort of damages have you observed yeah I think that would be helpful. Yeah I think a lot of people I've heard saying that the trees look bad, like in places, but they don't necessarily, yeah I don't know what they're [36:07] Karen S. Marysdaughter: talking about exactly well like i've talked about at the local school where they're weed whacking all around the base of the tree and damaging the bark all around the base of every tree there's a good example that's a good example steve [36:34] Steve Norton: Norton. I'm I'm Steve Norton, I'm part of the Banker Land Trust group. Just in when thinking about the idea of damage, I would think that maybe a survey is not place that you would want to be hearing about this. Perhaps you would just put a statement that says if there's active damage to a city tree call us at this number or something. I mean that doesn't seem to me to be like a survey kind of issue, just a thought [37:17] Gregory Edwards: I think in my opinion, it would be valuable for bringing awareness in a new way to things that we don't. It's like maybe three sets of eyes, you know, that can go in around the city and people may be meaning to call and they don't call and I think like this is just another way to capture kind of an aspect of that is my is my feeling about it. Yeah I do think we want the data I think if there's active damage going on, you know maybe on the survey we're like if you see active damage, like if this is an emergency call Public Works. Yeah because we don't want to You know, hear about something terrible way out of the back. I do think you have a good point though. In terms of like response to specific damage, this would be more like if there's a large problem, yes, if there's a problem that we don't know about, yeah, well. [38:18] Karen S. Marysdaughter: I mean, this is all going into a management plan. If you found out that private plows were regularly damaging trees in neighborhoods, yeah, that might be something addressed in a management plan, yeah, or. [38:36] Gregory Edwards: Weed whackers, it's on the radar, yeah. If you could, thank you. I think we would also want to just clarify, you know, these are, these are the publicly owned trees that were, yes, yeah. [38:58] Alan Hunter: It seems like we're in the discussions here, we're sort of hitting around something here, and it kind of dawned on me that when I looked at the goal for the survey, I know this is stepping back pretty far from where we are, but I was wondering if there's a scheme to this as a positive thing. It's like, is there any way, is there a schema that shows how each question is going to lead to certain actions or planning. In other words, if having trees in my community or neighborhood is important, you know, what's going to be done with that data? How will it be, how to be used, and you know what specifically does that address? I call that a schema for lack of a better word, because it would help me understand how these questions are going to connect to the management plan. You know, they're probably grouped or categorized, you know, this is a group of them that's going to address certain parts of urban tree management, so my question, I. [40:25] Gregory Edwards: guess is there a schema Sarah it may be helpful for you to talk about how this survey was developed Sure, yeah, there was a lot that went into this survey. It was based off of a survey that was done for the state of Florida, so my supervisor Rich Howard, he works with the University of Florida a lot of the time with Dr. Andrew Koser, and they had developed a survey to gauge the mentality around trees in Florida, and we've adapted the questions to be more nationally approachable, and yes, I like the idea of a schema. That is something that we do on the back end, we take this information and we analyze it. And say, you know, this percentage of the population is supportive of more tree planning, or this neighborhood in particular is, they report longer walks to their local green space, for example. So we tease apart the data and look at the numbers and just gauge and create recommendations on what the community wants. But I do like the idea of a schema. I think that's something that could be put into place here to make a more direct relationship between the questions that are being asked and the answers that we're providing. On [42:01] Karen S. Marysdaughter: those lines, so the question of number 22, how much would you be willing to pay additional property taxes, and I struggle with that one because I, if I knew that this extra twenty dollars was going to go specifically to trees, I would say, Sure, sign me up. But of course, that's not how our funding system works. So is this again, the goal of this question is just to see if people are willing to put their money where their mouth is, or what? Because even if I said yes, it's not going to happen that way. It's not gonna, I'm not going to get to earmark part of my taxes for trees. Is it just justification then for it to go to the budgeting process and say look, this many people in the community are willing to spend more money, so you [42:56] Gregory Edwards: should up our budget, that is the ultimate goal, yes, to say look, there's more support for funding trees more, and hopefully help Ben and Sophie's budget in the future. I [43:11] Karen S. Marysdaughter: I, it's a little misleading, I guess it makes it sound like maybe there's an earmarking process which there isn't, but And so I don't know if there's a different way to word it that might get at the same information. And maybe I'm just fussy that way. [43:27] Gregory Edwards: I agree with you, Karen. I think assigning it to property taxes is maybe the problem. Maybe we just take property taxes out and say how much more would you pay every year or something that, cause I do see your point that it's not like you're choosing where your taxes go. [43:48] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Although I wouldn't be opposed to that either, outside the scope of this meeting. [43:55] John Davis: Would a better question be, you know, are you in favor of increasing the annual budget for [44:01] Karen S. Marysdaughter: so-and-so, maybe that's more realistic question, and maybe say even if this means your property taxes go up, yeah, you know that, I don't, because it, because it could, it could make our property [44:17] Gregory Edwards: taxes go up, but I find it weird that there's so many options for dollar amounts, but I think it would make a really good metric on the back end to be like, you know, people support a three percent increase in the mill rate to pay for, you know, healthy trees, so I understand why it's so specific, but it does feel odd as a question, I would Like to take a minute to reflect on 23 now that we're over here. Sure, I think this question outside of the realm of the survey, maybe we can save this for last if needed. I think it creates a really good dialogue for people at this table and in this room of what we would like to see for tree programming and things that we could, you know, not that I don't expect everyone to fill out the survey because that would be great, but I think it is also a good conversation to have with the tree board. Specifically of kind of what programming you would see pushed forward in this plan, I had a thought on, because Bangor has so many forested parks and this plan in theory covers those as well, but the questions we're asking are very specifically about street trees. And so I was thinking about it with the question like, where's my nearest green space? Technically it's Chapin Park, but I spent more time at City Forest because I want to go out and be in the forest. So I'm wondering if we want to adapt some of these questions to take into account that people in the city might experience city-owned trees more in a forested park than they might in their, in our neighborhood, or if we want to keep it targeted on street trees. We have an audience member. [46:37] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Yeah, that's a good point, because my nearest green space I go to periodically, but I go to lots of green spaces lots of times, various ones, throughout the city, so, yeah. [46:50] Jim Contino: My name's Jim Contino. I thought I'd throw my two cents in. I'm a resident of Bangor and a lover of trees, so I agree with your point that what's lacking for me on the survey is that it's really only about the street trees, and I commend the city of Bangor for wanting to take care of its street trees. They're very important, and if that's the only part of the scope that you want to tackle at this point in time, then great, but I know if I got this survey as a lover of trees I'd be disappointed if I wasn't invited to have a, to say what my thoughts are and my concerns are around some of the forest preserves, you know. You know, whether it be the park that you go to or the one I go to, the Browns Woods, or the one Alan goes to, the Prentice Woods. I think they are an important component of the urban forestry landscape. And I think we got some significant issues in some of those forested stands. I know you know that. And I've seen some of the work that probably you, Jeff, are heading up. And I don't know whether or not you want to have that be a part of this scope or not. But I suggest that it probably should. [48:03] Unidentified speaker (Public commenter): Would 15 kind of give you at least the option of adding any information that's really not being discussed? [48:13] Gregory Edwards: I think that gives an option. I think it's also worth adding, and I was gonna say this anyway, but I'll just put it in here. I think it's worth adding an additional comment section. I know that becomes a lot for you to go through on your end, Sarah, but anything that Ben and I can have is valuable to us. And I will say for the scope of this whole project, the forested areas are included, but it is notably absent from this survey. And I think partially there are already and in progress active forest management plans for those pieces of property that will kind of get umbrellaed under all of this. So there are decisions there already, but in terms of how people interface with them that would be great data for us to have. [49:05] Sophie Cameron: Yeah and then that could be a notation yeah where we just state that several of the forest properties already have existing forest management plans and management objectives and these objectives are mostly for the park injuries outside of those forested properties I don't there's nothing preventing us from taking feedback certainly for those forested properties but I think it would be worth a mention the state that those properties they already have active management and any questions would That be part of the website? [49:56] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Just a brief explanation you know and you could even list the different ones you have links to. [50:02] Gregory Edwards: Those plans yes yeah that was a thought I had today I realized that they're not linked in the parks and rec profile so every city forest has a profile through the parks and rec department but I realized the plans are not included in there it's just the trail maps and information about you know when they're open and closed and things like that so on our end we can be better at disseminating that information to you all yeah and we're in a good place to do that too because a couple of them are Getting reworked right now I Really appreciate the feedback on including more forested area questions. I think this was meant to be kind of a broad overview of city managed trees, and I think Bangor is unique in that you do have wonderful forested areas. So that might be something we can focus on, you know, reformatting it, maybe separating street tree, forest trees a little bit. [51:00] Jack McKay: My name is Jack McKay. I live in Bangor and love trees, love being around trees. And I don't know if you're at some point in this having a question where people can put in their name and email if they're interested in more information or to do something actually very smart and you know towards that end because I you know having people volunteer can be a hazard like there's an expectation if I say I'm going to volunteer that somebody calls them back so if you can put an escape hatch in of like we only have so much staff and we can only do so much so that it's you know sort Of thought through and it's you're dealing with expectations that to some degree you're raising and towards that end if there's like for instance for me I'm really interested in the piece of woods between Valley Avenue and behind Mount Hope like that's a you know and if there are other like I'll be game to go in and picking that up and you know reporting somehow if there's some you know a problem with the trees I'd do that I'd love to do that with other people that'd be kind of nice but that's Kind of a really like there probably aren't many people really interested in that my land borders it so it's like chop down there and stuff like that so if there's a question where it's like, is there a particular place that you would like to do something and then is there almost like a, you know, a ready made list of activities that you could do? That wouldn't be a hassle for you guys. Like, it's never a problem if someone picks up trash or it's never a problem if somebody fills out a report back and that's okay. And obviously, if I go out there with my snips and start proving, that's a problem, you know, or my chainsaw. But so that's a point and I guess while I'm up there I don't like question 31 maybe that's class but class-based I don't know what you get out of it but that kind of feels a little and the other note is on the map I don't see a number for where I live I'm right between 16 and 1 so there's a little red [52:56] Gregory Edwards: Red area up in there, yes, so that's, you know, sorry, that is a part of 21. You can't see it, but we can make that clear. I think the lines just got too wide and cut it off and look like a separate polygon. Oh, thank you. Are you talking about on the west side of the river here? Yeah, it's all a part of 21, but because the lines are too thick, you can't tell. Yeah, that one was a hard one to draw. Yeah, we can work on that. Let's go back to number questions seven and eight. [53:33] Karen S. Marysdaughter: I think you could just easily, I think it's five and seven, how many minutes does it take to walk, but number eight, how frequently do you visit or recreate in city parks, green spaces, or natural areas, and rather than this park right, did you get that, sir? Yeah, so I'm trying to remember [53:55] Gregory Edwards: the last time we let's read it in my newest part, but I went to the City Forest this weekend, so instead of this park, how often do you recreate in City Parks? Yeah, oh, [54:16] Alan Hunter: I was trying to go through the survey and be a van Gogh resident, and I noticed I was going to have to use my telegrammetry skills to figure out where I lived, and I realized that most people don't have those skills, and I even had trouble finding where I was on the map because of the scale. So being such an important piece of the question, I would suggest that you make a nap at a bigger scale, because I honestly, I, he's about the only thing I can pick out there is some part of Husson University they recognize, and I do see the line that represents Essex, but it's hard to figure out where I would live, so it'd be hard for me to participate in the question. That's all, thanks. Thank you, that's great [55:09] Gregory Edwards: feedback, Sarah. I can do some work on the map front. Yeah, if you have ideas, yeah, because I already have the shape file like loaded up and ready to go, so nice, it's [55:33] John Davis: a survey that I mean it's going to be a link that you click on, I mean it's not meant to be handwritten and submitted in, or is it? That is [55:45] Gregory Edwards: as of right now, we only intended it to be released at the community development or community event we're going to do, where we would ask everyone that attends that to fill it out in person and we would collect it there, and then it will also be available digitally through the web page, and then that's where kind of the periodic announcements would be of like, hey, did you do our survey, can you do our survey, will you please do our survey, if it is available digitally would [56:17] Sophie Cameron: it'd be too much of an ass to have that interactive built as a layer similar to our tax maps where you zoom in or search i live on hudson avenue zoom to hudson avenue and then that is my neighborhood 17. and i think that's doable as a web map yeah so that way if you're taking the survey virtually you could be able to search that 's a good idea sarah is would that be [56:51] Gregory Edwards: possible with your, I don't know what interface you guys are using. So usually we use Microsoft Forms, and unfortunately it is not a feature on Microsoft Forms. We have definitely tried to do that before, but that's something we can talk about separately if we want to migrate it from Microsoft Forms to a different format and [57:15] Karen S. Marysdaughter: can this if it's if it digital can Banger Land Trust put it out to their list, can Banker Beautiful put it out to their list [57:25] Gregory Edwards: and that was the hope with all of this that we were gonna figure out with before the end of the month. So just timeline of this month, what's gonna happen, Sarah's gonna go back and make whatever adjustments are appropriate, her team will continue to work on website development stuff like that. We'll have it ready for kind of a final once over by our next quarterly meeting, which is the 21st. Hopefully we'll all do, everyone at this table will do kind of a final glance through of it, and then make any necessary edits and release it by the 30th of January. And I was assuming in the next meeting we would talk about Bangor Beautiful and any other folks that we think we can have send things out in that way. I know Health and someone mentioned having, was that you having Health and Wellness also do [58:23] Karen S. Marysdaughter: Livable Communities, yeah, pin object Climate Action, although they cover a bigger area. But yeah, maybe Maddie couldn't turn into the bank. Okay, [58:35] Gregory Edwards: we're got 3 min left. It's I think we're, anyone has any last comments, we could take them, but I think we covered everything. that any general thoughts, I guess, right, yeah, I mean if also if you have general thoughts you could email them to Sarah or Sophie or Ben, just because, you know, yeah, I don't like running [59:12] Karen S. Marysdaughter: over on time, nor should you, but I'm very happy that other people came, whoever did the outreach. Good work. [59:21] Gregory Edwards: Yeah, thank you for joining. Your comments are so valuable. Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for coming. gonna turn us 2 min early. thank you Sarah, yeah, thank you everyone, thank you, I'll send over my notes to the tree board Great, thank you, thank you, have a good afternoon. Oh, was there just one? Yeah, I think that was Sarah saying she couldn't hear us earlier. I'm probably gonna shoot you an email, and the four of us will just sit down and see [1:00:16] Sophie Cameron: if we can retool. Yeah, and the only thing we just don't want to do is have to be too long. [1:00:24] Gregory Edwards: Yeah, because I'd love to have all the questions. I guess if we want to collect comments, yeah, I guess I can even Hi, nice to meet you, Sophie, yes.