It's July 7th, 10 a.m. I'd like to go ahead and call this special meeting to order. I think we've got trees on the agenda as the only item this morning, and then we'll have another meeting this afternoon at 1.30 in the chamber. So with that, I'll take a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. I motion a second to approve the agenda. Any discussion? Anyone from the public with to address the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay, thank you, commissioners. All right, so Mr. Hayes, I see we have Ms. Holtzworth, who's going to be giving us the presentation. I'll let you frame it up. Good morning. Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. I'll let Lacey take it away. This is a program updating our tree planting program and tree mitigation fund. Welcome, Lacey. Good morning. Yes, good morning. So I guess I've already been introduced, right? I'm the county arborist, and we would like to – the reason why we're here this morning is to update our tree planting program and expand the uses of tree mitigation funds. So before we jump into those core topics, I'd like to give you a review about what we've been doing for the last eight years, and then before we finish up this morning, Jessica Hong is here with Matt Williams, and they're going to give us an update on the community forest management plan. So eight years ago, I was hired by the county to develop and implement a county tree planting program, and I worked with many of you on that, several meetings, and we came up with a program that focused on planting trees where they would benefit the public. And during those meetings, you asked me and staff to go out to the different cities around the county that did not have tree planting programs. You asked us to meet with the schools and look for opportunities to plant trees on school campuses. Since that time, you know, we have interlocal agreements with five different cities that do not have tree planting programs. I think there's two more that don't have a program of their own, and we're actually working with them. So we've actually planted in every one of these cities, but just didn't have a legal agreement yet. So we've worked with the University of Florida. We have an interlocal agreement with the school board. We've planted over 200 trees at schools, over 500, hundreds of trees on sidewalks, parks, various public facilities around the county. We maintain a GIS map. Every tree we've planted is located in this GIS database. We monitor our trees. So we have trees out there that have scale infestations, and we go out and treat them, and we keep track of all this. We also keep track of any mortality that we might have. We've planted closer to 1,900 trees at this point. We average between 200 and 250 a year, although I just did the calcs. We've planted 261 trees so far this year. We are maintaining about a 90% survival rate. I have not done the calcs on that this year. We did have a rough year. So here's some before and after pictures. This is Eastside High School. Schools are tough. There's like three gates we have to get through to water and maintain these trees. They're also really poor soils. This is a business district at the intersection of I-75 and 234. You can see here just how important maintaining visibility for these businesses is, at least to them. They're very concerned about not blocking their signs. We've actually had trees removed from this site because even though we met with business owners and they later decided that they didn't really want the tree, this is the county right-of-way as well. So this is a park, Squirrel Ridge Park. We typically plant trees in the parking lot, which not that we never go out into the park, but usually there's trees out there, and our program was pretty focused on putting trees where there are not trees. So one of the things that happens when you are planting trees in public spaces is pretty soon the public wants to participate. See, let me catch up with myself. We have had numerous organizations reach out to us and ask to participate in our program, and we soon learned that this is typical of tree planting programs across the country, across the world. The public gets involved. They're inspired. This is tangible work that they really enjoy doing. And so we actually have a professor that's published papers and written chapters and books about the work that we're doing. So, yeah, it's been really positive, and we well-attended our special events. We invite special guest speakers to come and talk about tree issues. I think what we're doing is we are definitely building community, but we're also building confidence in our community that trees have, that we can live with trees and that they have value. And, yeah, so we have a small tree planting program, but I think it's got a big impact. Every event I ever go to is a crowd of people like that, and many of them are there for the first year. We do bribe them with fruit trees, but not a lot. Many of them just come because this is, you know, at first I thought it was me. I thought they wanted to come out and learn about trees. They really just enjoy each other's company. They're making friends. They're connecting with their surroundings and their environment. We've learned some lessons. So one of the things that's happening is the trees that we're losing in our county are coming off of private lands, and we're trying to mitigate that loss on public. So the math is tough, and the space is fiercely competitive. We've got utilities, multiple generations of utilities in our right-of-ways. The same pressures that we all recognize that we're all feeling, the heat, the disease, the intense storms. Well, in these stressed and difficult locations, the trees are filling them also. So we're very limited on our diversity. The soil is compacted. All the rainwater is diverted into, you know, gutters and ditches and stormwater basins. So there are some definite challenges with the way we have our program set up. So going forward, we thought if we tweaked how we, if we updated and expanded the tree planting opportunities, not to belittle the work that we've done or the challenges that we have and fighting the good fight, but if we expanded our opportunities and updated how we use tree mitigation funds, we could make the program better. This is our new truck and our new arborist assistant up here in the corner and he's really good. It might be why we planted 261 trees this year. So this is the proposed update to the operating procedures. The existing operating procedures has two priorities. Essentially, it's road segments and bike paths and walkways and the second priority is facilities, buildings, parks, parking lots. We would like to expand it to include a third priority and that might be sites where we could beautify or just replace canopy or other identified ecosystems, surfaces like stormwater, nutrient uptake, things like that. Did I jump ahead? Yeah. So that's primarily the change we want to make to the program is just expand it. And the next topic is the tree mitigation fund. Currently, there's like three sentences that define how we use tree mitigation funds. And we, I imagine the planner that drafted this code imagined that we would, replace trees and conditions and locations similar to where they're coming down. And that's not how it works. Not anymore. So we have the resources to support expanding the program. This chart was included to just kind of give you an idea of how over the last eight years our program cost, which are the columns and our tree mitigation resources, which are the lines, have accumulated. So you can see the program is predictable. It's fairly consistent. And the green line is the actual revenue any given year from tree mitigation funds. and it's spikes and valleys, but it's increasing. And so there is room to expand the program. This is a paraphrasing of the resolution that's in your packet. These are the kinds of uses that we recommend the tree mitigation fund support. Obviously, the planting and establishing of trees, but also the entire operational cost of that program, including equipment and staff. These trees require long-term care. We're putting trees in public spaces, near buildings, near infrastructure, and they're going to require long-term care. The tree mitigation fund should be able to pay for those that care. Reconfiguring infrastructure. There's things that we can do with utilities, core drilling them under root plates. There's reinforcement we can add to our sidewalks and curbs. And then there's all kinds of engineering out there right now to bridge tree roots and see. Managing and acquiring easements to protect and expand trees. This is something we haven't fully fleshed out, but it should be on the table. We have experience with conservation easements. We have experience with utility easements. And I think where there's a will, we should be able to, you know, accept or acquire easements for canopy. Public outreach, I've mentioned how valuable that has been to the program so far. I think small expenditures in public outreach provide big benefits. I'm thinking of arboretums, you know, maybe at every park where we just label our trees and all of a sudden they have a name and people can learn about them. In a few minutes, Jessica's going to give an update on our community forest management plan. At some point, we're going to want to implement that plan. The cost to implement that plan should be supported by the tree mitigation fund. So, you know, there's a resolution with all these items more detailed, written, I guess. And I guess in closing, we're just hoping that the tree mitigation fund can be used to not just plant, but also protect and preserve the Alachua County's tree canopy. And with that, staff recommends that you approve updates to the tree planting program, operating procedures that include additional priorities for planting, and adopt the resolution identifying appropriate uses of tree mitigation funds that expand opportunities to plant, protect, and preserve our most beneficial high-value trees. Okay, so before we get to Ms. Hong, let's see if we've got questions, and we'll deal with this kind of first, Commissioner Prisley, and then Commissioner Hoffman. Sure. I love it. I'm so excited to see this. I think it's exactly what's needed to see us expand how we're approaching trees, you know, because I agree with you. We're like cutting down swaths of forest and we're trying to plant in the right of way, and it's just not, we're never going to get there. So I'm really excited. I was particularly excited about the easement idea and the idea of protecting existing canopy, and I actually was hoping that we could keep all the things that you can add a, I guess there's like 11 maybe. How many are there? There's up to I. So I was hoping we could add a J, and that is the opportunity to do payment for ecological services. I don't want to create that program now or ask you all to go and figure it all out right now, but I do think that in addition to just buying an easement that protects the tree in perpetuity, there's opportunity to work with private landowners to pay them to protect existing canopy on their own property and the ecosystem services that those trees are providing, and we've got great examples. There's the Florida Wildlife Corridor Program that Fish and Wildlife is running already. FDACs and USDA are running forestry programs where they're paying people to restore or implement forests on existing open range properties, and the ranges tend to be somewhere around $100 an acre or something like that, that they're paying people on an annual basis to support and maintain these ecosystem services. They vary, and I have a document from IFAS that talks about PES programs in case you're interested in reading it, but I just thought we could add that as an option. We don't have to explore it today. Staff have a lot going on. They don't need another thing to kind of build and implement at this moment, but I'd like to have it in the resolution so it's open for us to explore in the future, and with that, I'd be happy to, I'll wait for Commissioner Alfred to give her feedback, but if everyone's okay with adding that, I'd be happy to make the motion with that addition. Okay, Commissioner Alfred? Yeah, I'm totally good with that. I think that's something I've heard of before, and I think it would be a good addition. I don't know what potential problems there are with it, but that staff can figure that out. Yeah, I mean, it's not a silver bullet, but it's a tool in the toolbox. Yeah, it's a tool in the toolbox. I totally agree. Just a few questions. Would this include, like if we had a highly valued oak tree on a park property that needed to have tree surgery or something like that, would this, this would allow us to do that kind of work with this money, right? Yes, that's what I'm envisioning, that we would certainly care for our own trees and possibly have opportunities where, you know, privately owned trees that benefit the public could also be cared for. What we're trying to do is, you know, keep the trees that are so valuable healthy and thriving and alive. I know there's going to be a lot more discussion. Every project's going to be a little different. Any one of these recommendations for amending how we use tree mitigation fund will need oversight and we may need to weigh the, what, all the expenses that we have, you know, all the different uses of that fund and prioritize them. One of the things that is coming up is this community forest management plan and I think that is going to be a great way to flush out these priorities and how we might implement different kinds of programs and prioritize them. I just did not want to go any longer without having this addressed. I agree. My next question sort of falls along that same vein. So we still have pine trees in our community that are being attacked by the pine beetles. Would this, for instance, include addressing those trees on private property if we were looking at, you know, for the good of the community kind of things? I mean, I'm just thinking about slippery slopes. Exactly. There are a lot slippery slopes and I'm... And I think that would be great because I think people do, there are many people out there that have property that, you know, are in that situation and maybe... We're getting phone calls daily. I would rather not suggest that this fund be used to remove trees. Okay. I just wanted to... I think that's a... A different fund. Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to see... So that is the problem and I know and, you know, that's just one recommendation but I would encourage that this be used to preserve, protect, and care for trees that are... The argument would be that one tree that is infected could infect a whole lot more trees and that was why I was asking but then, you know, you could get into citrus greening and like 5 million other things and I just wanted to make sure that we were... We had clear boundaries. Okay. And then my second question, when you talk about trees to benefit the environment, are we, you know, thinking to Mark Sarsenberg and... I always say his name wrong. That is what I'm saying. Yeah. Are you looking also at, like, trees that would be hosts to particular wildlife or particular insects or pollinators? Yeah. Most trees are beneficial to lots of different species but certainly understory is, you know, not as easy to protect in developments so it might be something where we could include understory species in some of our conservation lands or in places that might be appropriate for, you know... Yeah, that's what I wanted to hear. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Commissioner Wheeler. I'll ask questions and I'll come back to you, Commissioner. The squirrel ridge trees, they grew pretty good. Did they do that in eight years? And those are sycamores. They grew. Okay. They are a really wonderful urban tree used extensively throughout South America and Southern Europe for urban settings. They do get really large on... I don't use them very often but that would seem like an appropriate place to put them. Interesting. And one of the things that I've learned is that the faster a tree grows in these environments, the more respect and the protection it gets from parked cars or whatever. I like the idea of the easement too. If we are purchasing that easement, does that make us then responsible for any damage that those trees might cause one way or another? Would that give us the liability of the tree? I'm going to defer to Andy. She's got more experience with easements. Just curious. It hasn't been fleshed out completely. It's just something that we've always talked about needing more space for our street trees. I can say in our agricultural easements, the property ownership and what's happening on the property is still in the owner's hands. The management of that property is still in their hands. It's just that we have an agreement on how that's going to be managed in the long term and that it's never going to disappear. I would think that the liability would stay. We don't take liability for a farm operation on our ag as minutes. I wouldn't imagine that we would take liability. The trees can be lethal. Andy, do you want to add to that? Yeah, Mr. Chair, just simply, I guess, in easements to date, the liability issues we've addressed have primarily been associated with existing hazards like hazardous waste or contamination sites on easements that depending on their nature the county could bear responsibility for in entering into an easement. We haven't addressed, to Commissioner Pritzia's point, issues of ongoing management generating liability, but that's something we would need to look into with the county attorney's office. I've got a couple of trees that are leaning over in neighbors' yards. The tree fell. Right, exactly. The other question, neighborhood forest, that's something I sent you, Mr. Chair. I think, that they were doing in Japan, and it seems to be a movement in this country, too, where large pieces, I think you hit on that, too, the open space within an owner's yard could be planted into trees like an urban forest. So that's kind of the community outreach and the educational programs that we've been championing so far has been encouraging people to live with trees. you know, so we have experts come out and talk about tree structure and tree disease and root quality and diversity. So I think the city does do some planting on private property. You know, I think we have a... Our parks, you know, we've got to want to make sure that there is cover, you know, for the kids and we're putting canopies over the top of all of that, too. But I think this movement, and it is a movement nationwide, neighborhood forest. And so it was something that I thought that, you know, we're talking about community gardens, we could also talk about community forests where kids have the opportunity, you know, to interact with the forest environment. again, when we start working on this, getting into the details of this urban, or this community forest management plan, these are going to be... That's what it sounds like. Those are going to be great topics to talk about and see what the interest is. Okay, I got a couple questions and I'll go back to Commissioner Frizia. So first of all, I really like the reconfigured infrastructure to accommodate high value trees. I mean, we're really doing that on the northern part of Parker Road as we speak and getting that kind of into the ethos as we plan for infrastructure. I also really like this part about public outreach and education programs in our existing parks. I think there's a real opportunity there, especially for folks that kind of visit those parks and kind of care for those trees as they go. A question, on your second recommendation, replacement trees may be satisfied by a fee-in-lieu payment. So I have a little concern because with the live oaks, we've actually eliminated that fee-in-lieu. Are you suggesting we bring that back for live oaks that are greater than 45 inches or is that not what you're saying? Mr. Chair, so for that policy, if you are removing a tree, if you are permitted to remove a tree, then you are available to pay the fee-in-lieu. But in those cases, you're not permitted to remove those trees unless the board gets brought to the board. Just the trees that you're permitted? Yes. Yeah, so that's clear in the resolution, that specific point? That's clear in the land development code. In the land development code. Okay, great. So then I'm in favor of all your recommendations. To Commissioner Parizia's point, I like the document she just gave us. I like the statement you said, though, Lacey, which was privately on trees that benefit the public. And then, so that's where the, you know, where the details go in the document, Commissioner Parizia provided on clearly defined provider benefits they provide must be measurable or tied to specific land management practices. And then it goes into the goals with regards to enhancing water quality and quantity management, removing nutrients in specific areas where the private land could benefit the public, enhancing habitats for various species contribute to biodiversity. So I think if, when you add that, if staff works with the managing agencies of the State Department to kind of leverage dollars, if we end up doing that, I think there's a real opportunity there of enhancing locally a state program that's kind of already been vetted through, through IFAS. And then the last thing I wanted to ask you about is I attended a couple of, well, a lot of your tree planting sessions and a couple of times I remembered you talking about the importance of mulch and how we have this real opportunity for the public to obtain mulch instead of us paying a provider to take our mulch. Can you speak to that? Is that something we should add as far as some direction here? So prior to, I want to say this year or last year, we had to remove, when we removed debris or limbed up trees in our right-of-way, we took them to a yard and it was burned. And that's no longer happening. So I was very concerned with that process of just, you know, taking, they definitely provided mulch for our program, for sure. And I get asked about where can I get some of that every time I do one of these tree planting events? Gadsden is providing that now. And so we did have that conversation and I think what we're seeing is that Gadsden now takes all of our debris and mulches it. They don't provide it for free. You can get free mulch from La Vida Brown. It's not necessarily the same quality as what I'm using or what you can get from Gadsden. But I remember saying that and I think I spoke out of turn because it was something that I was very concerned about for I mean, I could see a real benefit to every time we do a tree planting event, actually advertising that mulch will be provided for those that attend to bring home as part of the education process. Well, right now I'm having trouble finding the mulch for our program because so much of that is going to it's just so convenient and it requires less staff and to take all of our tree debris that comes out of our right of way to Gadsden and they turn it into mulch and make it available. Gadsden does make it available to the public? Yeah. At a price. So they sell. It's cheap. I would say that as a person who does a lot of this, the moving of the mulch to the place we're having the event and then the moving of the mulch into somebody's vehicle and then the moving of the mulch out of that vehicle onto their property and then from their spot on the property to the trees is a lot of effort and I think that with Gadsden their prices are really pretty competitive and they have delivery so you can just get it. I mean, if you want to go and get it, you can go and get it and then it's really cheap but you know, you can pay them and they'll bring a truckload of it to your house for relatively cheap so I mean, from my perspective, I get it what you're saying but they can get free mulch at LaVita Brown but it feels like the quality of what this is and the amount of work it would take, it might be a lot. This is kind of the public education component we've been talking about. Lots of questions about where to get mulch and where to get trees and how to, you know, figure out what are quality trees. There is so much opportunity to educate people to understand trees and yeah, so that's what we've been trying to do and the mulch is just letting them know that they can collect mulch out of their own yard. Yeah, I mean, it really hit me that you're taking mulch from your local provider as opposed to mulch that's coming in from somewhere else. It's like eating local strawberries, it's like eating blueberries, it's using local mulch, it all makes sense and I like to eat those, preserve first, protect and then enhance. It's kind of like our affordable housing, like we've got to preserve our housing stock first so I like the direction we're going. Okay, Commissioner Prisian and Commissioner Halford, then we'll look for a motion. Yeah, I guess I just, I wanted to speak first to the, sort of your idea of the urban forest and what you were talking about with the IFAS document that I shared and it's just the IFAS PES. I gave it to Andy, everyone has it now so there's an extra, you can have one. But essentially just this idea of, and there's a bunch of different versions of how PES programs work so I think we'd have to think about it but some of it could just be cost sharing with existing landowners for them, like educating them, not us planting the trees, but educating them and coming up with a plan and then cost sharing on them establishing a tree forest on their property and then managing that, paying them on an annual basis for, sometimes it's up to five years, sometimes they're in perpetuity, it depends on the program, for managing those forests and taking care of them and sometimes it's actually an individual tree, you know, it's really, it can be all over the board or the understory canopy in a space that normally they would clear out. So we could really be creative with it and I think you're right, I think you hit right on the money, it's like as long as we can, you know, identify what it is we're paying for, like is it the quality of the tree canopy, is it the biodiversity, is it the nutrient uptake and the water, the stormwater management which could help us with some of our BMP, like, you know, our TMDLs and things like that as well so we could get a double bang for our buck with those resources potentially if we can negotiate with the water management district for our total, our like, nutrient loading and our basin management action plan. So it seems like it's a worthwhile program, thank you for being willing to introduce it. I did, I guess on the infrastructure side, I know that stuff can be really expensive and I guess I just, I want to be, like I'm open to the idea that we're going to use this for like root barriers or shifting, you know, infrastructure to protect high value trees but what I don't want to get into is we need to move this road five feet and it's going to cost us a million dollars and now the tree mitigation fund is going to pay that million dollars because there happens to be a live oak in the way. You know what I mean? Like I would hate for us to deplete these resources for all these amazing things that you're talking about for some infrastructure that needs to kind of happen anyway for a project. So I guess I just want to make sure as we move into like implementing this that we have pretty strong like boundaries around what infrastructure we're paying for and why. And how much it's going to cost and how much, right? Perhaps there's a there's a upward limit of how much like percentage of. Yeah, I don't want to pay for it. That's an absolute effect normally if we do this on the front end planning the road where the two staffs, the public works arborists and all the other. Right. Is there time that we're paying for with? Yeah, I mean. But if they plan it on the front end, then it shouldn't cost an extra million. Right. You know, it's like it's like same exact thing we require developers to do. And I don't mean to butt in but same thing we require developers to do. You start with the natural infrastructure when you plan your development. It's the same thing with public works. One of the things that was in her presentation was the idea of like moving and moving like utilities in a right of way. You know what I mean? Like I mean, you could get into some pretty expensive things. You lose all our mitigation funds. Yeah. I don't want to do that. I'm in for like, you know, maybe supporting the base of a sidewalk in a place where there's a tree that we really want to plant or giving a root box or something like that in an urban area so that we can put more tree canopy for shade. I just don't want to get into like crazy expensive projects just so that we can put some more trees in the right of way or something like that. You know, that was my only concern. And I know you all have probably the same concern. So. Absolutely. I think we're going to have to have oversight. We're going to have to evaluate each one of these opportunities as they arrive. Every project is going to be different. They have been so far and they will continue to be whether or not the trees worth that much to, you know, spend. So I think there's still a lot of work ahead of us. It just opens up the possibility and clarifies that this is a possibility if we amend. Does the tree mitigation fund projects currently go to EPAC or to anything like that or do they just, they just are sort of like an internal? Growth manager. They're sitting in growth management. Right now the tree mitigation fund is just used to plant and main, have a plant purchase and maintain trees. Gotcha. So it doesn't, because it doesn't have all this expensive. Like I said, there's like two sentences that define how we can use those funds. Right. And that's one of the things that I felt like really needed to be brought to your attention. Yeah. I mean, eight years ago we didn't have, we weren't planting trees and we've basically hired Latham. I'm never forget, Mike Barrett was like, can we start planting trees? Like we've been talking about planting trees and we hadn't been planting any trees. So this is kind of the iteration and expansion of I think the idea of previous commissions before me even of what, what are we going to do with tree mitigation? Well, I guess I would just hope that, I guess I would, I would love to be able to add to that we involve our environmental protection advisory board as we're, APAC, as we're looking at these programs and as we're thinking about expanding these programs or defining the details of these programs that we could get, bring them to EPAC for any advice or you know, input that they might have just so that we make sure that the public is having, you know, like our community advisory board is supposed to be talking about the environment as a chance to weigh in on. Well, it's creating a work program. Yeah. And having an advisory board. All right, let's, do you want to do a motion or do we want to go? I have one more thought process that I'd like to go through. So, is there a possibility, and this is probably a question for legal, is there a possibility that any of these funds could be used to prioritize enhanced canopy and affordable housing developments or workforce housing developments or developments where there's a strong affordable component? is that, you know, something that we could use these tree mitigation funds for? Because, you know, those are the kind of things that in many affordable housing developments, you know, they meet the minimum standards because that's all they can afford to do. And I'm just curious if that's something that could be included. I think you're outside of my realm of expertise. Does anybody else? So at its base, your expenditures need to have a public purpose. Right. You need to make sure that you can find that connection between planting trees on these potentially private affordable housing developments and the public purpose, the benefit to the public as a whole. So the benefit for the public for the whole might be energy efficiency, for instance, because, you know, that's something that the second question I was going to ask is like trees for habitat for humanity or rebuilding together to build shade trees into their developments for because that could actually significantly lower air conditioning load once the tree reaches a certain height, things like that. So I, you know, that does that create a larger public purpose because of energy conservation and or does it not? You know, I don't know. And there is generally a lot of difference. Or shade trees for kids that are walking to school through a neighborhood. I mean, I think there's... Where we're using our infrastructure surtax, it's clearly a public purpose project. Right. So being able to enhance either paying them to enhance their restoration or their protection of canopy in those projects so that they don't cut down as much or... That too. Otherwise, like planting could be a way to, like, tie it directly. It's because that's workforce development. That's housing that we're building specifically to attract and maintain workforce here in the community. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point right there. So anyway, I didn't know if that's something that we could work into the motion as something for staff to consider. I can do that. Sometimes the free tree giveaways. I know GRU used to really promote and provide trees that they felt would benefit, you know, the city. They were usually smaller statured trees and they just handed them out. And I've worked with GRU over the years. They're not doing that program anymore, but they are very interested in, you know, opportunities to help low-income families reduce their energy cost. And maybe there's some way we can work with the different power companies to make a program available. I think, again, with the public... Personally, though, I think it's most important when the neighborhood is being planned to put the chairs in the right place, that they don't interfere with utilities, that they provide, you know, the planning for a shaded walk for kids to go to school or for future energy conservation or lower of heat island effect for the whole city. I mean, you know, there's a lot to that or just to support wildlife in a neighborhood for everyone's benefit. I don't know. I just think it's worth... I think it's worth looking into. That's all I wanted to... Is it something we could do during the development, site plan development of those kinds of programs, projects? Mr. Chair, that's what I was just going to speak to is, you know, obviously it depends to terms of if it's in the county project, unincorporated area project or inside one of the cities. You know, our standards, things like we require tree planting along pedestrian paths in every development. You know, we require 30% canopy, you know, in 20 years. So in a lot of cases, our minimum standards are pretty good standards for any development. And I agree with that, yeah. Right now the resolution says, you know, you can plant on private property directly impacting public spaces. So that's the standard we have in the current document. That's good. You may have to expand the word spaces to some other things in this document, but... Well, Commissioner Wheeler, then we'll go back... Just a quick question, going back to the mulch idea. I take limbs regularly out to LaVita Brown, and I'm always amazed by the mounds of mulch that are there. Please tell me how is that mulch used better than, or not as good as what you're using for your trees? I mean, what is making it standard? It usually has garbage in it, like plastic and debris. It's very coarse, so you're talking about big chunks of mulch. And you have to load it yourself, so it's hard to move. But I have used it. You know, when I did landscape design, I would use it as a base course. It can be used. I think this is another opportunity where people just don't know that it's there. And certainly, if we got the word out that this was free and available, and all you had to do is bring your own shovel and bag, and I think it would be used more. They told me when I was out there, though, that on a slow day, they would load it for you. So, you know, if you happen to catch it right, they would load it for you, too. I just didn't want it to be sitting. I mean, what happens to it then if it's not being used in the community? It's this pile, so it's burning itself, right? It combusts? I'm not sure what happens to it. I know that lots of people do use it. Okay. All right. I just know there's a lot of it. It sure looks pretty. Mr. President, you got a motion for us? Yeah. So my motion was going to be staff's recommendation with the addition of I under appropriate uses to include cost share or payment for ecological service programs that support trees and their ecosystem services. And then I was going to also add that we include a review by our Environmental Protection Advisory Committee for programs as they become developed. and then also that we work with growth management and community support services to expand or enhance tree canopy on affordable housing projects. If that works. If that's right. As appropriate. Does that work? Second. Second. Second. Yeah. A motion, two seconds. I mean, I think we have ship fund developments. We have partnerships with the Alaska County Housing Authority. We have our permanent supportive projects that we're doing. And we have a significant amount of affordable housing funds that we're about to start to deploy. Yep. That has opportunities for in the planning phase. Like you said. Right. Like if they're going to do the 30% and we can get 40% if we buy a canopy by their playground or I don't know. Or if we have more variety in the canopy. We have, you know, like just not, you know, 30 of the cheapest trees or whatever. I think it's, I think it's an opportunity to really enhance the environment. Yeah. That's why it's not paying for something they were going to have to do anyway. We work with the Alaska County Housing Authority and the Gainesville Housing Authority when they're outside of the city limits often to plant trees. So the new budget end and we've planted over 30 trees out there. It would make sense to factor that in with the weatherization programs that we've got because everybody's talking about weatherization and cooling, you know, as one of those from the yard rather than necessarily inside. I guess I said growth management and community support services like also add our environmental protection department. They're already in there, but like working with the, yeah, our weatherization program. If there's opportunities with those households to get a tree on the south side of their house or something while we're already out there. Good use for those poplars. All right. So we've got a motion and a second. Thank you for the presentation. Any further discussion from this board? All right. Any public discussion to the motion? Here or there, sir? Why don't you come up here, Mr. Connish. That'd be great. That way we can make sure you're recognized and recorded. Mr. Chair, Kim Connish, I'm a member of the reality-based community like most citizens of Alachua County. You have planted 1,800 trees since 2019. I'd like to know what the cost per tree is, but I think it would be an embarrassment, sir. See these scarred hands? I've planted 28,000 longleaf since 2019, and sir, you have 17 members of your staff harassing me for two years, trampling my civil rights, trampling my constitutional rights. That man right there is withholding a 911 address where I can't even use my property. You have to understand that the first sustained wind of 60 miles an hour is going to take down most of the big roads. It will happen. I can't tell you when. It's happened before, and it's going to happen again. Another thing is that it's just not a matter of planting trees. It's a matter of managing tracts of land to create the values you're looking for. All the land owned by the Henderson family, and it's a lot of it, and that's what I got, and that's when I learned to do what I'm doing, they clear-cut and they left it alone. So it's scrub, oak, there's garbage. But if you do what I did, even in Post Springs Park, targeted killing of trees, burning, reinvigoration of the native understory, which is sitting there. As Andy knows, I have 138 different plant, tree, and shrub species on 19 acres. You'll never buy the land because you're partisan hacks, and I won't sell it to you. But if you could encourage people with the scrub, oak, to understand, they've got sassafras in there. They've got pawpaws. They've got wiregrass. It's there. It's there already. So it's not a matter of planting trees. It's a matter of fostering what was lost by the extermination of the Indians, their clear-cutting of the pine trees, and the suppression of wildfire. Now, the biggest benefit is the right to farm law. The magistrate has requests for recognition of a whole litany of statutory protections of the abuses you're subjecting to. Anybody could declare a one-acre timber farm, farm without any interference from you, build an agricultural support structure, build an agricultural building, and you can't do anything about it. This is the tool to turn things around in our county and not to basically pee on people that are doing the right thing. Thank you. Thank you, Josh. Okay, anyone else? To the motion. Is it good? All right. Okay, let's bring it back to the board. Any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. The motion's unanimous. Lacey, thank you for getting us to where we are. You have done an immense amount of work over the last eight years, and it's very much appreciated. Okay. All right. Let's move on to Ms. Hong. Community Forest Management Plan update. Can you pass by? Good morning. Jessica Hong, Senior Planner and EPD. I'm here to give you a brief update on the Community Forest Management Plan, which is one of the objectives under the Climate Action Plan. We have received, or we're a recipient of a Florida Forest Service Technical Assistant Program grant, and that will allow us to get some tree inventory sampling, and they will provide us an urban forest management plan at the end. The tree inventory, they will sample around 5,000 trees, which will give us a snapshot. It's not very many trees, but it will give us a snapshot of what we have, age, sorry, not age, size, species, and condition. Tell me throughout the whole, how does that? It will be within unincorporated Alachua County. We're still ironing out exactly where that would provide us the most information in terms of what questions we want to answer, but again, it's not very many. But we're looking at county-owned land also, so it's redways, we're looking at county-owned parks, and right now we're working amongst all the different departments, growth management, public works, all the arborists, and landscape architects. So the next step will be staff will return with an update including grant deliverables, what we will be inventory, or what we will have inventoried, and a process for engaging stakeholders to continue the community forest management plan. So can you give me a sense of the timing of when that will happen and when we can expect that to be potentially complete by? It's not set in stone yet, but the consultants, legacy arborist services, they plan to do the inventory in the fall, and then a loose deadline of having the urban forest management plan drafted in the spring of 2027. So within the next year, we could probably provide you an update. And where is the city on that, on their process? The city has now, they're ending their tree inventory process that started in 2024, and the data hasn't completely come out on that yet, but soon. All right, Commissioner Prezio? Yeah, there's, I'm working on a project that's completely unrelated to this in my UF job, but it really, like, kind of comes to light when we're talking about this. And I'm wondering if there's been any discussions at all with the consultants or with the city or with anybody about the idea of citizen science being a part of this project. I mean, I think, obviously, tree inventory sampling is really hard to do by one person or a team of people in a short period of time. But if we are doing tree education or educating people about species, about genus, or we get tree ID apps, there's a lot of easy tech tools out there now that could really help the community help us by inventoring their own trees and their own neighborhoods and contributing to the tree inventory. And it may not be for our first stab at this urban forest management plan, but I would love to see how we could incorporate citizen science and participatory, you know, work in our urban forest management plan, because I think that's going to really get people excited and engaged and hopefully help them protect the trees that they have in their own areas and be more excited about that. So I don't know if that's already been discussed, or if not, if that's something we can include. I have explored that option because we're limited by public land, so having citizens partake in this would help with inventorying private lands. It didn't really continue, but it would take some time to either build the infrastructure because people have to know how to measure their trees correctly, and it would take a lot of input and staff time. But definitely not off the table, I think. Maybe something in the future. Well, I know there's a lot of interest from IFAS and the Museum of Natural History in incorporating citizen science-type projects. Like the museum is working on it for butterflies and possibly for bats in collaboration with IFAS for some projects. So there may be some, and they're slowly developing tools that they can use in extension and in research around citizen science. So it might be that. You're saying citizen science? Citizen science. So essentially you engage the residents of your community. You give them information and a training that can be online or in person, and then in the tech, they usually have an app, and then they put their stuff in the app, and then it helps upload to a broader database. Anyway, maybe IFAS would be a partner, or it would be a less expensive contract, and they might be interested in something that they could do that they get some research benefit out of. So maybe talking to the forestry department and or. Or Legacy could add that as part of their proposal that they incorporate this type of process, you know, where they're actually working with UF or UF-IFAS as part of it. They're doing the 5,000 surveys, plus they're getting input from the public. Exactly. And I think the nice thing about these types of projects is they tend to kind of be ongoing, so they create, like, energy around the idea of protecting our trees long term, right? So it's not like it just stops. It becomes just like a living database that people can continue to contribute to. Kind of like iNaturalist, if you play with iNaturalist, one of those things like you can scan a thing, and then all of a sudden it's part of this database. Like, oh, my gosh, that bird was seen in Alachua County. It's never been in Alachua County before. And then, you know, people continue to build the body, the public body of knowledge. It's sort of like, I love it. A big part of that right now is the expansion of so many different invasive species with insects and things like that, and tracking where, you know, lanternflies or whatever have shown up. So that could be a part of it, too. Okay, sorry. You're on your first slide. Sorry to interrupt. No, that's the only slide I have, honestly. Okay. I guess I would just ask that we consider including a citizen science or participatory component as we build the urban forest management plan so that our community can participate and use it as an education tool that supports what Lacey is doing with her tree planting and education program. And that's the motion along with staff's recommendation. Second. I'll show a second. I just, you know, to add to that, I know of a woman who's got one of those, one of the trees that's biggest in the state, you know, changing a tree, thank you. And maybe what we could do is ask people who have these trees on their property if they can invite us out to see what their tree is so that it could maybe give them an idea of the age of their tree and the health of their tree and then you would absolutely know where those trees are. You know, if you could have citizens call in and say, I've got this great tree, would you guys come look at it and tell us about it? You know, that might be a way to engage. Or we'd go out and say, you have a great tree. Yeah, exactly. But then you would know where they are. You know, I mean, with that, you're talking about an inventory. Yeah. That would be a way to have citizens be involved. I think, and you wouldn't have to worry about the measurement being properly done or not. But it's, again, staffing issues, I know, and having people who, if you could train people then maybe who could go out to do those things for you. Yeah, exactly. And that's what these citizen science programs. And a lot of times, you know, in other instances where we've done this, kind of like the master, I mean, the master gardener program is a really robust example because that's like months of training. But you can do similar programs that are much shorter. Like they come for a little weekend, you know, two mornings on a weekend and they learn the basics of tree ecology. They get some training on how to do deep, you know, breast diameter and tree identification. They have a little tree ID card and how to use the app. And then you set them loose. Cool. Yeah, I wanted to get you out there to see that tree because. Is that a big tree? It's amazing. Yeah, I really, I really like empowering our citizens and including them in this decentralized process to build this knowledge base. It also helps build, like you said, the cultural ethos of folks paying attention to the trees and the trees that they own and a little pride of ownership, you know, that they're a part of this tree survey of Alachua County that not a lot of counties have that knowledge and it's kind of in our logo, right? We're culture and nature and meat. So I think it's really good. I like the motion block. Any further discussion from this board on the motion? Any public discussion on the motion? Okay, back to the board. Anything else? All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. Jessica, senior, tell me your title again. Senior planner. Yeah, you are. That's all. We appreciate all your work. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I know this is your most hated part of your job, but you did a great job. All right, Mr. Hayes, anything else on this item? Nope? All right. We'll move us to public comment. Anyone from the public wish to address this board on anything not on the agenda? Okay, we'll be back at 1.30 in case you think of something. Commission comment? You have anything, Mary Helen? No, I'm just so excited to see that Lacey's still doing this. Thank you. My little boys, you know, I saw a picture of the two little guys up there. Peyton's still even the biggest fan. You've got a lot of fans around this county, Lacey. You sure do. You got anything? I do not. You got anything? Just that I just wanted to get an update on when the Sheriff's Office is coming back to do another programming and kind of jail update and if we can just get some update on when they're coming back and then sort of what the conversation is around upcoming their food contract and their health care contracts that are going to be up for renewal and how we might speed in those. Can we get an update of that at the 1.30, Jeff? Mr. Chair, I will find out. We're on the 14th if you don't get it by then, but yeah, soon. I'd like to know. Well, we can just ask between now and we know. Anything else? I do have a request. Could we ask our staff with legal to provide this board with kind of a written update of Mr. Connish's dispute and where we are that he referred to every meeting? Thank you. So at least we're caught up. I know there's probably a movie Target, but if we could just get an email and summary to us, does anybody object to that? No, that'd be great. Yeah, but we just got told we're peeing on him. Yeah, I know there's, I understand his frustrations or I understand that he has frustrations, but I would just like to know kind of where we are if y'all could maybe take a minute and give us a little update. That would be helpful. And if there's nothing else, we will call this meeting adjourn. We'll see you at 1.30 in the same time. I'm going to give you one more. I didn't hand it out, but I'm going to give it to the clerk too. It's just another article on PES. Oh, nice. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.