let us call the february 16th
2022
monthly meeting of the bexley tree and
public gardens commission to order and
call the roll
vice chair larry hellman is absent
sheila straub here
dave wakeman is absent
celeste williams here
jim wilson is absent
linda zubnik here
susan quinten's chair here
we have a quorum
uh alternate barb giller
barb can you unmute yourself
sorry there you go here
okay uh ellen bowden next official
here
molly o'donnell x official
and then we also have mayor ben kessler
staff consultant elena andrews city
council liaison lorien fibel is not
feeling well grant archer has covered
jordan cavallaro is unable to attend but
we have two special guests
andy bashar service director and kyle
sprague right away coordinator
so we have a quorum we can move forward
i like approval of the minutes of
january 19th 2022.
i know that we approve the minutes from
the january
meeting is there a second second
is there any discussion
a motion is made and seconded that we
approved the meeting uh the minutes of
the meeting of january 19th 2022 as
emailed all those in favor say aye aye
all those opposed same sign okay motion
carries
all right um are there any additions to
the agenda
there are no additions but there might
be some deletions depending on if mr
wilson comes or not i did say to him i
thought it was important that he be the
one that lead us through
the canopy study summary instead of us
tackling i mean you know we could tackle
it on our own but i think he has the
overall view so that's good
um
uh mr sprague and mr bashar
uh work on a different schedule than the
rest of us do so they are already past
the end of their day
and we're lucky to have them here today
um
uh kyle maybe you'd like to come forward
to the stand so we could be heard in the
microphone and if we need to get andy up
there we will you need to press the
green button
okay yeah
so uh mr sprague is the right-of-way
coronary coordinator you've been in the
job
two years is it
um i've been with the city for almost
eight years
um in the right-of-way coordinator
position in the right-of-way coordinator
position
um not quite a year yet okay coming up
on it though okay
um andy was nice enough to give me a a a
little purpose of of this position that
i'm going to read to help us frame our
questions
and uh this is a skilled position uh the
coordinator for the service department
which requires knowledge of the
right-of-way and utility lines work
assignments will vary within the
inspection area
mr sprague or the qualified candidate
exercises independent judgment and
discretion in the interpretation and
application of state laws and
this position reports to andy
so um i think kyle if you just give us a
little overview of
what you see are
you know sort of the essential elements
of your position okay and then we can um
you know walk through you know some of
the questions everybody has
and uh and try and understand better how
uh the focus of the tree commission
integrates with the work that you're
doing in the right of way okay so
basically on a on a daily basis um
my work starts with logging into our
viewpoint system which is where
contractors can register themselves to
work in the city of bexley
and then with that
that's how they apply for permits
whether it be
building permits or
food truck permits um
right-of-way permits
uh basically any permit that the city
has is done on the viewpoint system um
so with that
the
if a right-of-way permit is pulled
that gets sent to me um what i do with
it is i
go through make sure that they have all
the information that we are requesting
with that i take into consideration the
plans that they've uploaded the work
that they're trying to do
basically i take it all in and i
assess it manage it
take a look at it and decide if it's a
good fit for the city
to be
whatever it is placed in the
right-of-way
um
once it's approved through the viewpoint
system
then it's eyes on
on-site so i go out and i physically
watch these contractors
do the work that they're doing making
sure that they're doing it the way they
say they're going to do it
and then making sure that it's done to
bexley city standards
once everything is done then i go back
into viewpoint and close out everything
with that
columbia gas is a big um permit puller
all of the excavation that columbia gas
does
in the city it goes through me so i
manage their whole account
um
any contractor really that that digs in
the right of way
is who
i maintain
whether it's just communication with
them or physically eyes on site
making sure that they're getting it done
to actually standards
so how if you look at your week how much
a percentage of your time would be
dealing with a major utility like
columbia gas or spectrum att versus
working with a construction company
that's redoing a house or doing a new
build
well if there's a construction company
we're doing a house that's not me
but if anything happens in the right way
that's not you either then
no that that is incorrect if it happens
in the right-of-way whether it be a
water line being replaced or sewer line
being replaced then i go out and would
do the inspection for it okay
anything
past the right-of-way is right yeah i
know that but i meant both in the
right-of-way um
as far as time spent
right now it's a little bit slower time
for companies to be out doing
a lot of right-of-way stuff we still
have some out there doing them so i
spend my time with them making sure that
they're doing what's correct
um right now it's about 50 50 i know 50
percent of the times out in the field
50 is doing
paperwork making sure that all the
reports are logged and
filled out correctly
some questions from three commission
members
um so it if somebody comes i mean i
understand the utility thing you're
gonna deal with but like somebody's
building a house and they
need to uh
did it go first go to you to find out
where they're in
infringing or involved with the
right-of-way or does that always go to
building first that would be building
department and they would have to have a
surveyor come out and designate where
their property lines are and where the
property lines for the city for the
right-of-way start and i have a question
based on uh different codes and so les
can you turn your mic on
thanks thank you sorry about that based
on
new products that are out and and safety
measures how long does one permit
does a company or whatever how long does
that permit last did they have to renew
it so many years in some ways typically
a permit lasts for one calendar year
um i think we have granted a few
extensions here and there if it's going
to take them a little bit longer than a
year to get so you have to go through
this every year then to look at
everybody's qualifications uh on a daily
basis i go through make sure the
contractors that have pulled permits are
registered with the city
and then that they're following up so
it's not just a project that you see
you're also re-enlisting people yeah
based on how often they come back to do
business in bexley right okay oh thank
you barb and ellen if you have questions
jump in or
give us a little
ring
so that we know
so yeah so we know so i had a little um
pre-meeting with with kyle and just
asking some questions and one of my main
questions was
how is he is he a
um a person of the court so can he do
code enforcement and so kyle do you want
to just chat a little bit about
what we're talking about i don't do
anything with the codes that the city
has in place
the only thing that i would deal with
would be the
the right-of-way issues that
the construction issues in the
right-of-way
so if there's code issues that would be
code enforcement right um i can't i
don't have the authority and i can't
help with that
so one of the questions we sort of
touched on was how do you
integrate what you're doing with code
enforcement or don't you see that
there's any overlap there it's just two
separate silos i think it's just two
separate entities there i'm the
construction side of it and code
enforcement would be the
enforcer of the codes that are in place
by the city
sheila do you have some questions um
so when we have people that plant little
gardens in the tree lawn area would that
fall under your
no that's under the quote okay
well thank you for your good work
so um the
protection of the trees during
construction does that fall under you or
is that code um
grant has asked me to assist with that
um
so if i know there's construction going
on at a property
and they are going to be using the
right-of-way for an entry and exit point
i will make sure that the tree
protection is up
if it's not i will go to grant and say
hey this address these people are doing
the work
how do you want to address it and
usually he will say i'll take care of it
and give him a call okay
well i think that has been um much more
visible in the last six months in the
last four months
so um however you and grant are working
that out there's you know there's we we
owe you some gratitude for taking that
on
um
uh
a couple of questions i had to have to
do with the utilities like on broad
street there's this pole sticking up on
the north side and the right of way
between maybe cassidy and ardmore
that's um you know one of the you know
those ones that they stick up and
and they could be i think they could be
capped but is that something that would
fall in your area it's definitely
something that i could take a look at
okay see what utilities on there if
there is any utilities on it
um if it's vacant then we can try to get
it removed figure out who the owner of
it is that's going to be the hardest
part okay
um but that's something that we could
it's one of those white pvcs with the
orange top on it whatever it is
so i'll take a picture and send it to
you how's that that'll work okay another
question
if you're driving around and you see
something like you saw that people are
putting things into the right way that's
still
if you see that do you report that or is
that not something that would be
honestly i don't know all the codes that
go into place with that okay so i
if i see it i don't know if it's wrong
or not okay i mean anything on the tree
lawn can't be there except
trees
yeah
yeah so uh so kind of my other question
would be that um
you know in looking at
plans for let's say the terminus of the
utility line
i am sometimes disheartened when i see
you know but i what i think of the
special places like drexel circle and
the tree lawn there end up with these
you know plastic boxes on the top that
i think is where
is where the utility line ends and
they're you know two by four or three by
five
is there um is there any proactive way
that those could be looked at so they
don't end up
in an area that has you know special
special attention or meaning for us um
depending on
the
the size of the area i'm sure there
could be
corrections made
um
just for an example if there's a company
that's going to come in and borrow in a
utility line they can only usually go
500 foot with a board
shot that's what they call it's
basically how long their their rods can
expand
i'm sure you could go to the beginning
of let's just say directional circle
south
going north and hopefully that would get
you to the
northern most part of drexel circle
so you could kind of
depending on the placement you could you
could try to eliminate anything within
that
specific area
okay but that's only going to work on
certain circumstances
um
would you be willing to take a walk with
me so that i could show you some of the
areas that if it's in the ground now
it's going to be really expensive to get
it redone it's it well it is in the
ground now i mean both of them are in
the ground now but those provide
learning opportunities for us another
time i mean
the one was was bad enough and the two
you know in my my opinion is is not the
direction we want to go so if we can
learn from that perhaps there won't be a
third
yeah i mean that would be up to
um andy if he would allow that or not
okay i would have no problem with it but
okay
we'll we'll talk to him sweetly and see
he walks pretty quickly though so i got
short legs
yeah that's right that's right that
that'd be great because you know we
we learn from experience right and you
know
if we knew then what we know now neither
of them would be there i would hope yeah
i would hope other questions ellen barb
do you have any questions for kyle
no
i had um i think that
what would be helpful kyle is like
for us to be able to be like okay so
where are like the sacrosanct areas that
we're like we don't want to junk it up
so it would be like drexel circle
commonwealth the entry to jeffrey park
you know we were talking about that
utility pole right at the meeting that
we had a couple weeks ago so i think you
know havenwood
i think that just you know if you're
aware that you know the city and the
tree commission would like to keep those
as clean as possible and anything and we
we know that we can't have you know
everything you know hidden utility wise
but if there is an opportunity to sort
of say like oh we've got to go through
draxel
rather than you know letting the
engineer decide oh well this is where
i'm going to put it because this is my
500 feet and it just happens to fall
right at drexel to be like okay we'll
stop it early
and then go it even if you have to have
two boxes versus one we would rather do
that
versus you know just just so we can be
you know kind of ahead of it so i think
if you know from a design perspective
that you've got you know the tree
commission and people like me who are
like oh that's so ugly you know can we
work on that the other small thing that
i had is um the brick curbs and details
is that something
that you pay attention to at all in
terms of during the construction because
i know
we've done a bunch of details of like
how to protect the curbs and what we
need to do and all of that is that
something that you're
aware of or that you would deal with or
from a construction standpoint with the
utilities just you know to make sure
that we're protecting those where we can
um as far as the brick ass or the curb
aspect of it i believe they'd be on your
streets
okay so not so much you okay not so much
me but to that um there is a portion of
it that i would deal with
the downspouts for like
gutters okay if it's on a brick curb one
of the things i've really been enforcing
lately is the clay discharge
right
i don't like the looks of the white pipe
coming through the green whatever color
it is so i've been really sticking
people to that the clay discharge okay
at least in the brick portion of it once
it's
outside of the brick it can go back to
plastic or whatever they want to put in
there but okay i think that is one thing
that i have
i'd i'll double check to see it wasn't
the mksk one four hundred years ago so
yeah
um so andy who would be the streets then
that would check on the brick curb
supervisor okay
so sometime in the next couple weeks
could you send us his email
and we can we can do that
so any other questions for kyle and or
any quick questions for andy
i did ask andy uh before
we started if he had a list of the
streets that were going to be paved next
year because sometimes that's a good way
for us to look at the streets and add
some more trees once it's done being
repaved and he said it's not finalized
yet but he'll send it with kyle with
grant next month
okay anything else
okay
hal thank you very much for coming no
problem thank you really appreciate your
work and uh i'm glad that we've
made into your acquaintance and uh we'll
invite you back when we have some other
you know maybe more specific questions
okay and does anybody have any questions
for andy
our service director or should we
let them go finish their day
okay thank you andy for coming
appreciate you coming coming with kyle
okay so now we're going to go into her
announcements and small victories um i
wanted to just update a couple of you
uh on arbor day all april long if you
look at the second page of the agenda i
don't know if you can scroll down to
that
i started putting a list together of
some of the things that we're planning
i wanted especially to call your
attention to the april
11th book discussion that the library is
hosting by a female author who is an
arbornaut you know there are astronauts
i think there are now gastronauts
but people who are
destruct guest romedy
gastronomically interested but not
challenged interested
and so they're calling themselves
gastronauts and now we have an arbor
naught and she is dr meg lohmann is
going to be on a zoom a book discussion
april 11th the library's putting on
and then
we have a lot of other things on the
list
to making uh arbor day a celebration all
apron
so
just mark that
and then let's go back to our hugsdy
website i asked elena if she could pull
that up again because i wanted to show
you
how bexley scored
did you get that one yeah did you get
that if we can get that
we talked last time
back last time to the ranking counties
how green is your city
you go to the ranking
right right there
okay now go to bexley ohio elena
way up there in the midwest okay
you can go right there right there
that's it
bexley city hall
okay our rating ranking is a b minus
we talked last time about how we can
serve with other cities but here if you
go through you'll see y where b minus
percentage of urban green space
the average health of the urban
vegetation
the urban green space per capita the
distribution of urban green space
percentage of green space covered by
grass and percentage
so
if we are going to increase our
our grade
we need to upgrade
in some of those areas
okay
yeah it's kind of interesting it's a
it's really a great website
so there's that
and then um
our march meeting is going to be on
march 23rd that date works for most
people
and
spring break will be over
our trees for bexley we had some more
money coming in ellen do you have that
figure quick
yes i do
uh at the end of last month january i
reported 33
300
and as of uh today we have thirty four
thousand eighty dollars
great and i think as we know all this
money
is uh focused on
um
updating jeffrey manchin's plant
material and landscape and then planet
geo
has a
once a month newsletter again
okay
can you see this everybody
i've been really impressed with the fact
that
planet 2 is so data driven
um you know they're doing
doing things that i hardly understand
and they're continuously updating their
information from probably drones and
satellites
this magazine is offered free monthly
and i talk with them and they will make
it available to anybody on the free
commission that wants it i will send you
the link and you sign up individually
for it so i'll send you the link but i
wanted a little preview and they said
it'd be good timing because they're just
getting ready to upload the
bexley case study
one last announcement it's too bad jim
wilson's not here but natalie just told
me that jim is a newly appointed board
member at the library and that's so
so that's good stuff
yes
yeah well we didn't know that so
okay we have no requests from residents
we have no landscape applications to
review
so
without um
too much to do i'd have to say that
maybe the mayor's report is the most
important thing we have on the docket
today
no pressure no pressure yeah actually if
you can tell a couple jokes
okay
well the last time i told jokes was when
i gave a speech and it was the worst
speech i ever gave i don't know if it
was because of the jokes the microphone
or the audience but i'm not doing jokes
anymore
i learned i learned my lesson
i learned my lesson so
we could talk about spring flowers
john offenberg said his snow drops were
up
molly do you have anything up in your
yard
you do
i noticed my penstemon was looking
really good it was really starting to
to green up
ears are up
so since we met the last time the
mayor's had a city council meeting
featuring the drexel plan
the night after our meeting he had
a meeting on the livingston avenue
corridor the night of our meeting
he
was yes the night of our meeting he was
doing or maybe it was the night of our
meeting he was doing a drexel plan
so he's he's been busy and he's been
doing a lot of plans been doing we've
been doing plans
so um
we have a we have a draft final plan for
livingston avenue which is being is
under technical review with columbus and
us
right now is about to be distributed to
the steering committee to review
um and vote on but that's very exciting
so that came out of our um
you know this this is after our final
public workshop about it and the next
step is for this to go to city council
and um
it has i mean we've talked about some of
the components of that so i wouldn't say
that there's anything entirely new in
the final draft elena although i haven't
looked through the whole thing yet so
i'm not
i mean
a little bit after the public workshop
um and we'll distribute that once it's
gone through technical review and has a
chance to
get distributed to the steering
committee as well well columbus city
council also have to look at it or is
that not at their level so
there's just some
uh we're not i'm not clear on that okay
um i i would uh
you know it's not my city it's your call
to get involved in but i would encourage
that to happen so i'll be
uh reaching out if appropriate and as
appropriate to try to encourage that but
i think you know they have different
ways that they approve of different
plants so
the way that yeah well i'm not going to
ask molly to open on that so
um any questions on livingston i know
that's kind of a vague update but it'll
the
the final
the the plan will come to council
probably in early april i would imagine
would the plan also have a timeline
yeah so
there's sort of near-term and short-term
or long-term um the timelines aren't i
don't think explicitly defined by the
plan they're more like funding based so
the short term we know that columbus has
already funded many of the short-term
items in their current budget so we'll
expect them to happen this year
that would be the striping changes on
the residential portion of livingston
and and then there are other short-term
options that were we've already started
working on i mean like with some of our
um tactical urbanist plantings and that
sort of thing and um we'll have some
some art type installations and some
other things i think that we can do
short term
long story short i don't think it's
defined as an actual number of years or
anything but i could be wrong
the more permanent changes to the
residential district uh
with medians and kind of moving
sidewalks and tree lines is like a five
to seven year
uh pr program timeline based upon the
federal funding that would be sought
for that type of project
okay think of just how old you'll be in
seven years yeah okay hey you'll be
blanking or look and we'll get there
right we know that i i do have a
question so the project is it obvious to
you that the project on fifth avenue
going up to
and cassidy going up to seventh is that
much a greater priority
for the city of columbus
i wouldn't say that and i can't
represent that but i i don't think it
has anything to do with that i think
they they sought federal funding for
that project and received it years ago
they're about to start their their
timeline shows that project launching at
the end of 23
but i mean
it was back in
2012 1917 or something so it's a long
you know it has it has to do with when
it's applied for yeah and then how long
it takes to get the type of funding they
seek
we actually don't go after the type of
funding that they
use for these corridors so i'm not that
familiar with it although
my understanding is columbus wants us to
be a party to the
the application for livingston so we're
about to go through them okay great
thank you
um
break like a bridge over alum creek at
astoria well it was about funding we
have uh applied for uh state capital
funding for the bridge at aster
um
it would be a
pedestrian bike bridge
it would have paved connection from
aster to the multi-use path on alum
creek drive on the on the west side
which would be really exciting if you
want an idea of where that lines up if
you go to elm creek drive
and the new flashing beacons crosswalk
it's pretty much where astr is so it
will be a very similar alignment
um which then in turn provides access to
hanford village park which is another
park right there across the street so
and also there's a if you if you're
there and you're actually walking if you
look and see where there's a massive
sycamore like massive it's right there
we're called sycamore bridge
why not yes we're actually pretty
excited to feature that it's a really
cool sycamore
um so hopefully that that uh comes
through we should know
march april time frame if we have the
state capital funding and if we do i
think it's a go you know it's not it's
not all the money that we're asking that
we need for it but i think it's uh it's
enough that we'll be able to put
together other pieces for that so that's
exciting it was in our alum creek park
plan it was in
the southwest baxter master plan it was
in
the rapid five
regional morpsy plan
and what's fun is if you go back to the
land use strategy so 2011 larry hellman
sketched out exactly
this bridge right where it was like i
forgot about that it went back to it was
like yep he called it that's right where
you should be in urban planning i know
who knew who knew
um cassidy and fifth avenue i think it
kind of just tipped the hand on that
it's uh it looks like a 2023 start we
are
hoping to move the wall in the fall of
23.
so if we move the wall
and
the project doesn't happen no yeah no
we'll know well enough if it's going to
happen and we can get that done
we can do most of the work kind of late
summer early fall and then if there's
any planting that needs to fall planting
we can do fall planting that would stay
away from their construction zone so
behind the wall sort of planting
uh in time i think with that you're
talking about the west side
yeah westside yeah east side stays yeah
correct
because we had talked one time about
bringing the
bringing it parallel to or
you know
sequentially together not having to move
the wall but it sounds like moving the
wall is the
just quiet idea wall needs to move uh
the good news is they're gonna get the
easement
that's needed for the wall to be legally
in place in the first place so hey it'll
be both moved and properly entitled so
silver linings i guess
so what was the result of your drexel
avenue meetings
our res the result of the meetings um
we had a neighbor workshop i think that
coincided with the end of the tree
commission meeting last time or i didn't
even overlapping
and
there was
a concern from the neighbors about the
idea of a bike lane option there are two
options one was bike lane one is median
and then
so we after the you know at the end of
the meeting
sort of read the room and said
and we had bike advocates there who
really want to bike lane so that wasn't
like a
clear consensus um
from the community at least as to what
to do with it so
i suggested that uh we would send a new
letter out to the residents on drexel
and
advertise that we would talk about it
more at the city next city council
meeting because i wanted city council to
have a chance to wait on it as well
so that i wasn't
solely responsible for that decision
so um
we had a meeting we probably had more
emails on this topic than i think
any other single topic i can think of in
terms of just the amount of emails which
was interesting so we had a lot of
interest from the community
a lot of uh residents on drexel
had some had other opinions about it and
then
uh bike advocates both locally and
bexley and also regionally were weighing
in on on the idea so
it was a packed house
inside here and in the lobby
but it was a really i thought a
productive and cordial meeting i think
everyone got a chance to speak their
mind
we had staff on hand
with some recommendations and ultimately
uh after conversation with council we
determined that the approach we're going
to go with was the the median uh two
suicide bump out no bike lane approach
and i have
some draft schematic here it's not a
scroll plot it's like you'd have to
actually kind of lay it out
so i'm going to just pass this around so
you guys can take a look at it don't
just yeah i'll start with molly molly
um no look at it first smell you
understand
the gist is is as we've as we i showed
you at the last meeting the two
different concepts the gist is the same
as the second or the first concept with
the
medians and places were physically able
to be put
sheltered parking
[Music]
there is a net reduction in parking on
drexel with this because it you know it
it provides better protection at the
intersections so there's more of a site
triangle and there's
um
more green space so there is a net
parking
reduction um but it is
not uh like it's not the same as the
bike lane option that had parking lost
on the west side of the street so
uh what what you when you look at it and
actually that might be a great way to do
it molly's laid this out
the number of medians that can be worked
in will make a real difference in and
calming and narrowing that street so i'm
excited about it um i think it'll be a
substantial upgrade in terms of
pedestrian safety
and it will
definitely have drivers wanting to drive
slower on on drexel i was i was just
reading a report
from
the
uh
from the smart growth america group that
does complete streets stuff
about um they do this study of
uh
traffic or pedestrian accidents and just
how they're actually increasing in the
past 10 years
and
how street construction needs to
work to
slow traffic and and discourage
pedestrian hits and what we're doing
here like
is a poster child for exactly what
they're talking about it's kind of
exciting have they done any um
sketch of what the median will look like
any profile or uh yeah we're just
thinking like astroturf
maybe in the middle
that's what elena was recommending yeah
i know i know well um it's low
maintenance yeah yeah maybe like we
thought we would have like a different
colored garden gnome on each
and each median as a goal yeah
vertical element some plastic bushes and
maybe some collection of things we can
you know stick in just styrofoam on the
bottom and you can put new exactly just
pin pin things in yeah no i mean
it's a five foot planting bed okay it's
it's actually a four foot planting about
a five foot median i think so it's six
inches of curb
so um
it would support
uh
shrubs
or understory trees probably um
so i think that is a design that needs
to happen yeah yeah
a resident today pointed out to me that
redbuds are native trees she's a
she's an advocate for native plantings
so i note that to the tree commission
i i think the thing that we'd want to um
flowering trees or not i mean it's going
to probably we probably want it to be
somewhat small ornamental because we've
got already a lot of maples down there
and everything so we don't want to have
too much kind of competition
so
well i mean or i mean it might be an
opportunity for just well maintained
low growth rubbery
especially because as it's a lot of them
are being used at pedestrian crossings
so they're almost landings i don't love
the idea of vertical elements like
elements and pedestrians in the same
spot so something to think about
a little bit of a different context in
other areas
there are a lot of medians around
columbus that just have uh shrubs i mean
yeah premier field has a lot of those
kind of mediums
so
it might be worth driving around to see
if we have a tree of any sort
particularly if it's a flowering budding
tree that
trucks will take part of it out
just like the cherry trees on fifth and
cassidy that they don't they're not
sustainable right
so question i have a good friend who
lives on drexel who
never been involved in any city things
and then tells me she goes to this
meeting and people are just
i mean they're just they don't want any
of this stuff like leave my street alone
i'm like and and they were very um upset
about the fact that
that when we planted the trees you know
some in the tree lawn and then the big
ones behind the sidewalk she said
several of her neighbors just pulled out
the trees
i'm like
i
i don't know if that's followed up on or
something i i just i can you know
send a note to grant to add and look at
it that but i was just shocked to hear
how much they
don't want anything done i'm like really
yeah i think it's um
i think change is difficult for people
yeah and i think that um
it's
difficult if you're not used to looking
at plans all the time like we are like
it's hard to kind of take that
two-dimensional aerial view and imagine
in your mind what that looks like and uh
because it was viewed it's this is
really infrastructure first then
landscape it wasn't like we were going
out and getting three-dimensional
renderings of a new condition and even
if we were
people still have a hard time attaching
to those representations so i don't
think it's
it's not unexpected to me that you would
have people that would feel like any
change is bad um
having said that those same people i
think were generally reaffirming that
they wanted a slower street
and they wanted 25 miles an hour and you
cannot get 25 miles an hour without
changes to the street so
i think
it's because if it's a federal route so
it has different rules so i think that
um when that became clear hopefully they
heard that and maybe they didn't but we
tried
so ben does this have a bike lane or not
this does not have a dedicated bike lane
right so it'll have a share row markings
which is
um
just indicating that bikes could be on
the street yeah one thing i think we're
not going to have that's in that
schematic and we're waiting for some
changes to it is the yellow markings of
the meat like the painted medians yeah
yeah
it's just too yeah it's
too infrastructurey
so we're trying to treat to have this
treated like other
secondary residential streets that don't
have any striping at all
one of the concerns from the cyclist was
that this this plan actually can
decrease the safety of cyclists because
it further narrows the street
so by not striping that median you kind
of give drivers a little more comfort
and
spiking around or driving around
cyclists
they are like parkview slaters at bike
boulevard and there's some others so
well i think that you've done amazing
work i mean people actually have been
talking about medians on that street for
a long time so there's some movement
toward
this huge victory so i'd love to have
obviously the tree commission involved
and the design piece of what goes in
the medians i'm assuming that the the
bump outs are just expanded tree line
probably but um you know any any
feedback would be great i
was going to start working with elena
and coming up with some concepts
well that's good i mean as we know the
three elements that we talk about all
the time of brick pillars wrought iron
probably pillars and wrought iron won't
work there rick could
maybe it's a narrower median so oh i was
thinking me i was thinking like bump
outs oh sure
i don't know i haven't seen him but yeah
cool yeah we're thinking about well
i'm sure that that what should i say the
the pending success did not come up
about some
pain so
congratulations for staying the course
yeah so we're just reviewing the drexel
avenue option okay so the
so mayor do you want to talk about how
the police chief search is coming i
think your emails have been
really terrific chatty but informative
[Laughter]
kill them
kill them with detail well i think
that's that's that's a great way to
communicate
i mean you you let them in and then you
give them the information so
thank you so uh yeah the
as we have a we have had um we're doing
a lot of work work reaching out to
different groups this month and
um saunders companies helping with us
with that they've had several meetings
so far with different community
stakeholder groups we have our first
general public workshop tomorrow evening
at
seven i think
or six it's on our calendar
and then um we have a daytime one next
week
at
noon or 11 30.
i'm really giving you guys great info 6
p.m tomorrow 11 30 on february 23rd
um and it's a registration zoom based uh
webinar
um just getting feedback from people
about kind of what they want to see in
the next police chief in the in the
future of the police department
um
and from all of that their community
survey that went on the blast we've had
a lot of results from that so far but
we're still
taking more
through next week and they're putting
together a candidate profile based upon
all the feedback received
[Music]
and hoped to post the position in march
and hope to be interviewing in april and
and then when we're down to a finalist
list of candidates
uh we'll we'll have some community
engagement piece to that as well
and the last thing is you're the parks
if you have any updates on that
we have submitted and actually we called
it a conversation piece to the community
foundation
um for year the parks and um
met today with leadership from the
community foundation just to talk about
that a little bit more and
and
and have have them here kind of where we
were with it and if there's
you know what what
how to move forward i guess with the
concept and so i think we're gonna
hopefully
see how we can move forward together on
it
several of the pieces are funded through
other sources but the community
foundation would be a pivotal
contributor to that i think
okay any questions for the mayor
okay if none i will welcome jim wilson
to our quorum
and mention that he missed the reading
of his name
and his congratulations from the tree
commission to him as a newly appointed
representative to the library board
and we did mention that the book that
the library has chosen for
arbor day month
and i'm sure you'll want to put it on
your reading
list i will check the minutes so that i
make sure that i read it
okay
i will let you know i will let you know
but congratulations it's a great great
board and my retirement plans are very
clear i know i know
well i will have to say boris has had a
long
history of being involved with the
library board and i think it's
it's a tribute to both you and the
company that they're continuing that so
congratulations
okay elena do you have anything madam
chair before before she goes into that i
need i have several child duties this
evening okay so elena is here to take
fantastic notes and and badger me about
any follow-up okay let's see if there's
anything we need to badger you about
yeah well i'm sure there is i'm sure
there is i mean the most important part
of the meeting is over so yeah well
well for you yeah i was going to say
most the i i hope that we learned
something from the work that jim and the
commission members have done on the tree
canopy assessment assignments as we've
looked at 14 other communities across
the country and jim will update us on
that great so we'll share that with you
okay thank you for being with us today
okay so miss elena
no
she hasn't she hasn't known to know okay
so i mean i think just just as a as a
small aside um
so no updates on approved you know kind
of an installed landscapes a couple of
things um that you might have heard
about that are that are coming down the
pipe
one is 81 north drexel the old
huntington mansion um that has been
tabled the last couple of um these at
meetings they need to have a variance
they didn't have a quorum they needed to
get further you know kind of legal
information on it and so the the goal is
hopefully this month that they're able
to review it and then um
even though it is a private residence it
has been kicked and by the
recommendation i think of the arb to the
tree commission for us to be able to
review
um and so that landscape will come to us
in either march or april for us to to
review so just kind of giving you a
heads up on that um and then just you
know following up on other projects um
within the community
um
i'm working on a number of small little
you know kind of design projects that
you know at some point probably during
the spring and summer are going to be
coming forward to the tree commission
for us to look at
um
small update on the we've just been
calling the 1908 plaza that is going
before um capitol university for their
board for them to review to see if it's
something that they are you know going
to be okay with going forward i think
it's in late february so you know we're
trying to kind of push that project
along um looking at um doing a trailhead
over at drexel so a lot of these have to
do with what
you know we were just talking about a
little bit of the year of the parks
we're trying to narrow down what are
some of the projects that we're pushing
forward that we can kind of pull all of
this together and then move forward and
that will be unveiling probably also
within the next couple of months we'll
be able to share kind of a little bit
more robust update with all of you on
that so there have been a lot of kind of
behind the scenes that are going on
um that is is fun but it's just i don't
have anything formally to kind of unveil
yet we'll wait for the big stage yes
okay yes all right well thank you
okay jim urban tree canopy assessment
assignments
so yeah great so i got here just in time
just in time that's right that's right
so i susan distributed um a document
that i got to her
yesterday i think it was
and i um initially you know i i had this
grant-like image of a very nice table
showing everyone's results
but that wasn't really feasible and as i
looked at the research you all had done
it didn't really fit into the table that
i was trying to impose on you so
um recognizing that this
has a lot of my judgment about what's
interesting in it what i tried to do was
go through everyone's reports and there
were a few loose ends of um
where people hadn't gotten their work
done but tried to look at
um
sort of what we learned both first of
all in terms of ordinances regarding
tree uh protection and there's frankly
there's a wealth of resources there i'm
not sure we would adopt any of those
ordinances if it were up to us
as they're written but i think we could
take pieces
of them and do some useful stuff um
in terms of um
pre-commissions i didn't see anyone that
was really
doing it better than us although there
was the i think i put in there this one
provision from um lakehorn mississippi
where they affirmatively had the right
to make recommendations or it was part
of their responsibilities
we do that anyway so i'm not sure we
want to introduce into the debate
whether we should be
but it's a possibility if we wanted in
the future i think when i first came on
we had revised our ordinance and sort of
laid out our role so it's probably
not quite time to do it again but for
future reference we could do that and
then um
and then just sort of some other ideas
um like issaquah i thought had a really
good model for a faq sheet and we from
time to time talked about putting
together
faqs that our residents could pull up on
the website that would make it
uh hopefully avoid misunderstandings
that we from time to time have with
residents and so that would be a good
model um you know the the most important
idea i thought that came out of this was
that several of the jurisdictions have
long-range plans for regarding
uh or strategic plans regarding canopy
coverage
and my own sense is that if we wanted to
have stricter ordinances we would have
to make that case to city council that
we should
be that there were values higher than
people's
um ability to do what they want on their
own private property
and so
my suggestion and i'm willing to be
part of this is that we sort of
take these learnings take some of the
strategic plans that we've seen from
other jurisdictions
and sort of put together first an
outline of what a strategic plan
might look like and then figure out what
work we have to do for that to be a
bexley strategic plan rather than
you know um
or some place in washington state where
they do have very big trees compared to
arteries um
so that is my suggestion i'm more than
happy to answer any questions about the
document recognizing that
if you got through it you had a lot of
free time on the time season senate too
i i do have a question uh could you pan
back to three right almost there we go
three other ideas
and jim you mentioned something about a
the very good model fact sheet for the
tree removal i'd like to add to that is
also um transplanting because we've had
people come here and wanting their trees
transplanted yeah and we'll have more
we'll probably have more of that
for a short while but i think that we
are getting smarter at
assigning a correct place placement
so if i if i remember correctly all the
cities that we reviewed have a higher
percentage tree canopy coverage than we
have
so to jim's point why is that it could
be bigger trees or bigger area
or it could be as he's suggesting you
know
regulations and ordinances
and if we want to increase it it our
coverage it does feel at least from
these examples that
our regulations and ordinances have to
address
uh additional topics
additional topics what what whatever
they might be
there yes question
of
address somewhere the the opportunities
to put more trees i mean or since we're
i mean we may just have a lot more
streets than other places some of the
you know because the two places i looked
in washington there
you know they're
they're bigger they have and again they
you know they have a more
a huge forest area so i don't know how
many opportunities we have to increase
our canopy well so our urban tree canopy
coverage
69
of our coverage is on private property
wow so it's it's two thirds i mean i
think um larry said at one time we can
come through and
and plant all the remaining spots on the
streets that we can and that would help
and we are in control of that but that's
not that's still not going to
tip the scales right in favor
yeah i didn't get the sense that that
there are people out there or
municipalities out there doing better
than us on three trees
where they have
more vigorous regulation is
not just new builds having a tree
protection plan but any kind of
construction and that would be a push
for baxley and frankly by the time we
get there maybe every available space of
coverage will be done given how much
construction is going on in bexley but
that seems like an opportunity there
seems to be
broader areas of protection of existing
trees in other municipalities
um and at the end of the day i don't
know what council will be willing to do
but my sense is
they're not going to consider doing
anything at unless we sort of make the
case for it and i wonder if um because i
think it would be a potentially really
i think hard sell to say that you can't
and any property that if you buy a house
in bexley you're not allowed to tear
down any old growth trees right i mean i
think that would be
legally
very difficult
to enforce starting now right if it had
always existed that might be one thing
because of people wanting to be like i
want to tear down i want to build new i
want to do all of this so you know but
that is definitely an option right i
mean that could be something that's like
you have to have you have to show a
definite hardship that you can't have an
architect design around this existing
tree in some way
the other thing that i wonder is if
there is a way for the city to
incentivize private people to plant
trees like do you get a tax break do you
get
an allowance i mean rather than our free
tree giveaway right which is you know 50
trees a year right is there something
that we can do at a much bigger area to
sort of say
hey if you plant an oak because you live
in north bexley and you have you know
three acres of land and your your house
can actually do it
are you able to you know based on the
size of the tree and the mature size
that it can get realistically right
do you get some kind of cash back or
something right i mean i think it's
going gonna have to be something like it
it'll have to be
some kind of incentive that the city has
that people realize oh because i think
the majority of homeowners see trees as
messy and their lawn doesn't grow
right i think that that is a lot of
people who are
not educated on trees are like i love
the tree-lined street but i don't want
it in my yard i want someone else to
deal with it because it's an insurance
issue it's this it's that and so i think
there's like an educational component
that we have to really push out to let
people know the value of trees and how
it actually increases the cost of your
home but then is there a way for people
to realize well you don't maybe need a
huge giant backyard that just has
pristine
mowed lawn plop a couple of trees in
there and then you know
something to consider maybe
well i i was going to say at least in in
my
my two cities that
for something that was a new build there
was a lot coverage you had to have so
many kind of shade trees such such shade
trees and then
also i wrote jim in arlington
if you
have a disturbance
i love this disturbance of the soil of
2500 square feet
so it's a new build it's a remodeling
it's an addition you need a landscape
plan and then the landscape plan
leverages shade trees
i mean i thought that was also
interesting because disturbance doesn't
define you know new build versus
remodeling so i thought that was
interesting and then again in arlington
if you're taking down a tree
hundred dollars
take down a tree
and
when i talked to vincent he said he just
billed someone half a million dollars
and they didn't blink an eye so he said
i'm obviously not charging enough
so so i mean so there are to your point
there are different ways that we can
look at
growing accountability
i have a question for sheila being our
realtor on our board
maybe we could incentivize the
uh
a sort of a terminology that we this
particular property is a
arboretum
star winner or something so that
it can be part of a listing for a house
rather than someone seeing it as a
negative like they it's it's not really
accounted for to begin with right now
unless you go on a map or you drive by
but if on a
on a realtor website
if it has
some
award for having a certain percentage
of canopy on their property
that would be nice that'd be interesting
yes
um
one thing that might
occur to me
when eleanor was speaking is it might be
useful at some point before we go to
council to talk to mark fishel
about what ohio law would allow us to do
and what it wouldn't because certainly
council's going to listen to his advice
and we ought to try to shape anything we
do um
to not get a negative recommendation
from our city attorney um okay so so jim
i'm sure you know this the dillon rule
the dylan rule in the state of virginia
is that
i think i'm saying this right that
municipalities
can have to
can only regulate what
is already in the state code they cannot
make up additional
and i don't know if that i mean ohio
traditionally has been a home rule state
which meant that municipalities had a
lot of discretion okay that's been
whittled away over gun control and
plastic bags
in recent years
but i think that having some guidance
from mark not maybe at the beginning but
before we would shape an
ordinance would be good the one i didn't
mean to say this the one thing that sort
of struck me
um as something that we could implement
sooner was one of these and i can find
it
had a requirement when you're creating a
parking lot for deciduous trees to be in
the parking lot um and that seems to be
me to be not a heavy
lift in terms of
convincing council or exercising our own
discretion but sort of be more vigorous
in requiring that i know that i think
one of the banks came to us and we
wanted trees and they said well then we
won't redo our parking lot but sooner or
later they're gonna have to renew their
parking lots yeah i think i thought that
was in the main street guidelines molly
that parking lots have to have a shade
tree or
or that to mitigate the hot spots
right
but worth looking into
i'd like to point out in one of my
cities they have a twenty thousand
dollar bond that a
contractor has to put on any
uh a major tree anything over 16 inches
in diameter it's not terribly major 16
inches but
that's a lot of
money so jim your
your thoughts moving forward is that um
we look at a study group that would look
at
how to put together a strategic plan or
what elements we want in a strategic
plan
yes that's my suggestion okay if you
wanted it as a motion i can do that well
i think that would be a good idea and if
we look at the um
inhabitants in that little study group
are do you think it's all tree
commission people or do you think it's a
community group
with a nucleus of tree commissioned
people or
do you have
are you
i think we need at least a couple
tree commission folks i think it might
be nice to
see if someone from parks and rec were
willing to be part of it since they do
hold a lot of our tree population um
and then yeah i mean i i
at least extending the invitation
to the community i think would be a good
idea i don't know
whether we'll get interest or not but um
i guess the other group that might be
interested in this is sort of the
environmental sustainability
and you know
parks and rec and environmental
sustainability have seemed to have a lot
of clout in back sleep these days so
yeah so so some other thoughts
well if you'd like to make a motion we
could deal with that and then when we
have our
meeting with the mayor to plan our
agenda in a few weeks we can talk about
this elena and see if he would if he you
know take his pulse on it um i move that
the tree commission form a study group
for purposes of
creating a strategic plan with respect
to the canopy
in bexley
concluding
membership from
the tree commission
other interested groups in
the the city and
residents that might be interested okay
is there a second second okay is there
any discussion
okay emotions been made and second
seconded that we move forward with a
study group to look at
improving our urban tree canopy coverage
and involve the community
as the community would like to be
involved all those in favor say aye aye
aye any opposed same sign okay motion
carries
all right well we'll see if we can get
that started thanks for putting this
together i know
it may not have been labor of love it
may just been laborious but
it's it's fabulous to see what's out
there
and to see just little ideas
little ideas that that might be helpful
for instance on one of mine um i think
that you did list jim in tupelo
mississippi
they plant a tree
12 feet from a dying tree right and let
it get established for a couple years
then take down
the dying tree
so there's already some presence there
yeah i'm sorry grant's not here because
i would have been interested in his
reaction to that well he'll be here he's
you know he's recovering from covet
right or he's in the throes of coban so
he'll be here another time okay so do
you have any naming right updates you
wanted to share uh only that um i did
meet with the mayor and mark fishel i
got some comments from them i revised
the draft
but um was left with a couple questions
that this week i sent back to the mayor
and mark
that are sort of structural
frank really having to deal with
whether the policy would have
this commission and parks and rec have
sort of final authority or
have to go then up to the mayor or city
council i wasn't clear from the mayor's
comments what he was suggesting there
and so clarifying his view seemed
important
i agree okay well we'll wait to see what
what but it's close yeah okay that's
pretty good i mean i'm not even sure
it's been six months so i think that's
just like a miracle
okay new business i just listed the
goals that i was able to discern from
the minutes from the last meeting i know
linda you'd
talked about cleaning up the west side
of cassidy between broad and maryland
leveraging tree canopy information
making arbor day fun and educational for
all residents focusing on policies
on what's allowed in the right-of-way
trial lawn promoting hugsie website
improving communication with oops that
should be a r b and b zap
i don't know if i missed others but i
thought we could go through those and at
least
maybe
sign someone to look at those and see if
we can
move them forward jim it feels like
leveraging the tree canopy information
is
what the strategic plan study group
would be doing so
um
linda
looking at cassidy as i reviewed the
notes grant was saying that he felt we
should come up with a concept for that
he feels the plant material is doing
what it should be doing and i think we
are feeling that it needs to have some
organization
i was wondering if we could persuade
elena to walk with us
on cassidy in her you know hip boots
and you know
reflective material
would that be something that we could
you know kind of could wink you into
doing yeah i can i can do that because i
think that i mean
from
other than
the ivy that i saw that's kind of
growing errantly i mean the texas is
kind of doing what it needs to do and
the hawthorns are doing what they need
to do so i think if it
it would be helpful to walk it with you
both and then get a better understanding
of what it is like is it an is it an
aesthetic thing is it just
you know do we start over is it you know
i mean i think it's cleaning up okay
cleaning up and cleaning out um some of
the hawthorns need pruned there are
places where hawthorns have died and not
been replanted there are places where i
think arborvitae have outgrown their
usefulness
so i think it's a little bit of
everything okay but it did feel when we
were walking it before that it's sort of
at that point that if it's not
tended it will not
be viable for me okay okay and
and we'll see maybe the maybe you'd have
a contra view and that's fine but at
least we'll have you know another set of
yeah and it
might be something as easy as
if we walk it take pictures make a note
and just be like dead tree
missing tree stump
missing you know and so if it if it if
it's something like that that it doesn't
necessarily need or because since it's
not a massive
formal corridor we just want it to look
clean and you know kind of intentional
it might just be as simple as that and
just it's a couple of notes to be like
okay crew go and do this and so we don't
need to you know
do up any elaborate designs and
renderings like that it's just kind of
like
let's just do some basic housekeeping
okay and i think we can also try and ask
grant to time that with letters to
residents on ashborn asking telling them
that we're looking at that and if they
have ivy growing into the right of way
to trim it back or overhanging we also
found was a honeysuckle
honeysuckle overhangings okay something
maybe also a reminder often
you'll find if they have landscaping
done
and it's both full in the spring that
they get the dump of
of leaves on cassidy as opposed to in
front of their house right and then they
also get the done you know of uh
grass material so
right
okay so we'll put linda sheila
elena and i'm happy to organize if need
be
then maybe we um
maybe it would be good since we thought
some of those hawthorns were dead that
we wait until it starts greening to give
us a better idea good idea it is or not
yeah
okay
um so we've got the leverage tree canopy
making everyday fun and educational for
all residents do you think we're doing
that linda celeste sheila and i are all
on that committee so i think we're doing
okay we're kind of banging up against
the green initiative people who end up
with
another events same day
we're like oh well
yeah that's that's a challenge
um
focusing on policies on what's allowed
in the right of way in tree lawn i think
we're all still struggling with who's
overseeing that and why it's not being
more effective
i think that's probably a conversation
with the mayor i mean eleanor i don't
know if you can do address that with him
in your weekly meeting yeah
um i
i mean i i don't know why after our
ordinance about the trees and the stumps
and then the one richard sharp did why
we still have that garden in the tree
lawn
off of east of cassidy is that dale or
powell
powell there's a couple yeah and then
we've got a bench on fair avenue on the
north side and the right of way between
the tree and the curve
um and
i i can't i can't i i would be
surprised
if people have not reported that
but if it's a case of reporting
that's easy it's a case of
follow-through that's something
city does jim wilson once said something
i that i have taken to heart is that we
can make the ordinances but the city
decides what ordinances to enforce
that's a very hard lesson
i don't even remember saying that but i
was thinking that when no one shoveled
their snow yes someone just mentioned
that to me
so um if you could check on that element
let us see okay
i mine was promoting the hugsie website
and i'll continue to do that with
different little announcements and then
improving community communication with
arb and b zap ellen i think you're
working on that your own way and that's
been
helpful trying yes yeah well
that's right is there any other new
business
jim well i i remember the other idea i
had
which may not be worth pursuing but it
was sort of looking at what the cost of
maintenance is for
projects that we approve right right and
maybe that's just the sort of commitment
that when someone comes to us with a
project we ask them okay how's the cost
of maintenance built into this but it
does seem to me
in terms of the long term of the city
important that we can pay for what we
create
i agree and then how do and if we
if we pay forward if we have a
maintenance budget where does that money
go
right
that's the other thing i don't know
eleanor when you design a plan let's say
you're designing a landscape and it
costs a hundred thousand dollars do you
ever talk to the client that a hundred
thousand dollar plan is going to cost
you ten percent of that a year to
maintain or twenty percent no no because
it's you know that's one of the things
where the
there are different levels of
maintenance and so um so if like for a
commercial property if you were you know
having like say you know
the honda plant or something right
you might have areas where they call
kind of like an a b or a c level or they
call it a one two or three or depending
and where it's like okay you might have
zero tolerance for snow you wanna have
you know it mowed twice a week you want
it weeded you want it mulched as soon as
possible and all of this and then you
might have different levels that go down
so um i think that
it's it'd be very difficult to sort of
say
hey if it costs this much your
maintenance of this is going to be this
much because it depends on how much you
maintain it right so how how perfectly
do you trim things how often do you
clean it how often do you weed it how
often do you mulch it
you know i think that is
i don't and i don't know if the city
does this or not this would be an andy
question um
if the city does have certain zones
where they're like okay well we spend
more time and attention to drexel circle
than we do cassidy
right because that's high visibility we
are out there and we're planting our
bulbs and our pansies and we're doing
all of this
versus you know
cassidy we're like that's fine you know
it'll be okay so i mean we can talk to
them and i think that you know people
talked about it but that i've i've not i
mean molly i don't know if you've come
across that ever but i've never had like
someone say if you install this you're
you can anticipate an increase in
maintenance
but i'm also never on the maintenance
release side
right so it might exist and i just don't
know about it well you know
[Music]
of course it used to be money make money
would make it better but now it's
staffing i mean you know people have
money but they don't have a staff
yeah
it's a job
but i think it is um
yeah so another question elena would be
if um
this is just an informational question
if you're building a building of a
million dollars what percentage
should be um you know segregated to the
landscape plan 50
50
i couldn't i couldn't agree more and
then another 50 for maintenance right
yeah no i mean that's that's something
that's tough is if if you are doing a
million dollar landscape i would say
that at a minimum
you want to have probably you know 100
000 so you know say 10 of your budget
usually what i have found so far is the
landscape
i most contractors if they're just
working on the house they're like
20 grand here's your landscape that's
going to be fine
that covers very very little
20 grand might cover and teeny little
plants right and so i would say the
majority of time i come in to a design
process
and you know they have this beautiful
2.3 million dollar home and they have
50k
for
the outdoor environment that they have 8
000 pictures on pinterest of a roof
structure and a fireplace and a gas fire
pit and a pool and a water feature in
this and i'm like that is a 500 000
investment in your landscape so
i would
the the it's the landscape industry i
think is getting better about advocating
themselves in terms of design and
understanding that like you need to look
at this at the front end and it's not
something to sort of say because a
contractor for a lot of these like new
build communities and stuff right
like you know where they're just doing
house after house they will do a three
foot concrete sidewalk that kind of
curves up to your front door and a
couple of boxwoods
maybe some arbs you know maybe some
taxes and probably like a river birch
because it's fancy but they'll plant it
two feet from the foundation of your
home
and that's your landscape package and so
a lot of times people just say okay i'm
gonna do this and they have then just
spent fifteen thousand dollars to do
this work that is just kind of just crap
and it all needs to come out and get
redone
so um you know i i would say personally
ten
okay i think realistically i mean i
think we've never asked that question
but sometimes when we see commercial
builds come forward i keep saying i keep
thinking you know i'm not sure i can ask
this in front of them but it would be a
good barometer to have in my back pocket
yeah you know you got a million dollar
building you got three arms and two
taxes and a flower pot you know
yeah so we now know 10
i did think of you when i saw the
ordinance that required not only a
landscaping plan but an irrigation plan
hallelujah
okay
um so if there aren't any other new
goals lorienne is not feeling up to her
normal perky wonderful self so we
haven't don't have a city council report
and unless there's anything from barb
and ellen in florida
i think we could be adjourned barb and
ellen do you have anything more to say
we've lost you kind of there
nope nope i have nothing more to say
okay uh now i i i well i will have to
say um
what about relooking del mar and maybe
the time to do that would be in 2023
when they moved the wall basically at
that corner
i think that's
del mar and cassidy
that we include
that yeah i mean it is it is sad we've
lost
hemlocks we've lost a lot of i think uh
euanomous
we've got a lot of uh invasive vines
growing through there
and i think the mayor maybe that would
be a time too he did talk about
improving the street as you know the
streets it's higher than the
uh soil on either side so it's always
wet there and he talked about maybe a
curbing it it would be great it came
together one time right so it just seems
like i'm just throwing it out now
because you know we're always looking
future and particularly since you know
it's already been kind of in 2023 moving
that wall well to me it just seemed like
wouldn't that be a wonderful time to
just continue that whole project on down
del mar
right right okay other than that it was
a great meeting
quickly
yeah yeah yeah i was going to say it
must be that the big talkers aren't here
mary did you hear that no
ah so any anything else
i know just one thought
yes
um
when we're talking about doing the
medians down drexel
i think we should evaluate the medians
on broad street
um
the difficulty we've had of people you
know running into things i know it's a
faster
you know more traffic
faster speed limit higher speed limit
but
i think the lighting is not terribly
effective on
on broad street myself
um i think maybe we should look at that
and in view of the fact that we're going
to be putting
you know um
medians in another area i think we ought
to you know i just think we ought to
look at it and maybe could do compare
maybe get some good ideas
okay okay
one more thing
is the uh saint charles or the sessions
village is that median complaining down
to that
the light is not in there it's still not
okay
i do agree with barb i think from
uh parkview west to nelson that area may
need to be looked at i at different
times i think it does
seem to be dark
yeah well right now the um
what is it the winter creepers growing
over the uh
yeah the the lights
and so that that doesn't help plus the
speed on broad street in my opinion has
become rather extraordinary
oh yeah there's no doubt about that no
doubt about that and so i do think i do
think it's two different animals broad
street and drexel drexel's an internal i
think it is too but i just think that
yeah
i just remember
yeah you're not wrong barb yeah i'll
just we can learn maybe street lights on
every median and
on broad street
that personally susan that's what i
think yeah okay it wouldn't have to be
the same you know it'd have to be lower
um more
i don't know what it because the design
would have to just be perfect
so that it wouldn't be
um
you know abrasive almost when you're
seeing it too light
yeah would i i don't think that that is
a bad idea
okay okay
well with those uh gentle hints and
suggestions um i adjourn the meeting and
we'll look for you on march 23rd four
o'clock
post spring break
oh
thank you everybody
thank you
take care
so how long was your video conference
jim three hours
till 4 30.