CITY OF PICKERINGTON

TREE COMMISSION

CITY HALL, 100 LOCKVILLE ROAD

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2008

REGULAR MEETING

6:00 P.M.

 

  1. ROLL CALL.  Mr. McKinley called the meeting to order at 6:02 P.M., with roll call as follows:  Mr. Goodrich, Mr. Malone, Mr. McKinley, and Ms. Shelts were present.   Edward Drobina, Gregg Ellis and Diana Fuller were also present.

 

  1. APPROVAL OF MINUTES of December 12, 2007, Regular Meeting.  Mr. Malone moved to approve; Mr. Goodrich seconded the motion.   Mr. Goodrich, Mr. Malone, Mr. McKinley and Ms. Shelts voted “Aye”.  Motion carried, 4-0.

 

  1. ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING.

After discussion, Mr. McKinley moved to change the meeting day from the second Wednesday of each month to the second Thursday of each month and keeping the time the same at 6:00; Mr. Goodrich seconded the motion.  Mr. Goodrich, Mr. Malone, Mr. McKinley and Ms. Shelts voted ‘Aye”.  Motion carried, 4-0.

 

After discussion, Mr. McKinley moved to reappoint Ms. Shelts as Vice-Chairperson for the 2008 calendar year; Mr. Goodrich seconded the motion.  Mr. Goodrich, Mr. Malone, Mr. McKinley and Ms. Shelts voted ‘Aye”.  Motion carried, 4-0.

 

After discussion, Mr. McKinley moved to reappoint himself as Chairperson for the 2008 calendar year; Mr. Malone seconded the motion.  Mr. Goodrich, Mr. Malone, Mr. McKinley and Ms. Shelts voted ‘Aye”.  Motion carried, 4-0.

 

Mr. McKinley stated since we were already talking about organization did Mr. Drobina want to go ahead and talk about the membership part?  Mr. Drobina stated that Mr. Malone had asked last month about the history behind having 5 tree commission members.  Mr. Drobina stated in June of 2003 the Safety Committee approved going from 3 to 5 members, one of which was a council member from the Safety Committee.  Mr. Drobina stated in February of 2004 the Safety Committee approved removing the council member from the Tree Commission.  Mr. Drobina stated sometime this year they decided they would change the codified and didn’t realize what they changed because right now they are back to where they originally started with 3 Tree Commission members and 1 member of Safety.  Mr. Drobina stated he talked with Christy Hammond and she stated to take this to the Rules Committee and get them to change it back to 5 members.  Mr. Goodrich stated that 3 members are not enough because you’d never have a Quorum.  Mr. McKinley stated with 4 members there would be no tiebreaker.    Mr. Drobina stated the changes they made became effective December 20, 2007.  Mr. Drobina stated he would find out when The Rules Committee meet in February and one of us would need to go to the meeting and state our case and asking them to change it back.   Mr. Drobina stated he had copies of the minutes so Mr. Malone could look them over.  Mr. Malone stated he would try to reconstruct what led up to our trying to get this for several years and thanked Mr. Drobina for getting the information.  Mr. Drobina stated Mr. Sabatino is the Chairman of the Rules Committee so if anyone wanted to call him that would be fine.

 

  1. COMMUNITY COMMENTS.  No comments. 

 

  1. REPORTS.   

A.                 Street Tree Report

Mr. Goodrich asked if there was any damage from the windstorm.  Mr. Ellis stated there were a lot of limbs and a couple of trees lying on the road.  Mr. Drobina stated that on Fanchers Street there is a low hanging limb that’s been broken off one of the trees.

 

     6.    SCHEDULED MATTERS.

                  A.        Tree Preservation Update

No comments.

 

B.                 Tree Data Base

Mr. Goodrich stated that he started working on the new quorum so we can select off by partial address and trying to do a partial search and list all the trees for a specific string.  Mr. Goodrich stated he should have that finished in the next week or so and when that is finished then he’ll make a copy of it.  Ms. Shelts asked how often we plan to update that file.  Mr. Goodrich stated it’s built so that someone in the office can take it over as far as maintenance goes.  Mr. Goodrich stated Mr. Ellis could use it and update as he goes.  Mr. Drobina stated that as he does the work Mr. Ellis will create a paper trail and give it to Diana or myself and we would enter the information into the computer.

 

C.                 Arboretum.

Mr. McKinley stated as far as the tree plaques, he sent a letter to Ohio State for some ideas of what they use and also the Ohio Dept. of Forestry to see if they could give him some ideas.  Mr. McKinley stated he hasn’t heard anything back yet.

 

                 D.          Emerald Ash Borer

Mr. McKinley asked if they would come out in the spring and do another test of the trees.  Mr. Ellis stated he hasn’t heard but assumes that they will. 

 

E.            City Beautification Campaign.

Ms. Shelts states we need to get some energy behind some of that.  Ms. Shelts stated she has seen more litter than ever and she has been here for 15 years and it just seems to be getting worse.  Ms. Shelts stated she has seen a lot more Adopt-A-Highway signs going up but she is still seeing a lot of litter.  Mr. Goodrich asked if it is occurring in one section of town more than another.  Ms. Shelts stated a whole stretch of Diley Rd. looks pretty bad and there is times she has been in the Parks and felt like the Parks could use a few more receptacles.  Ms. Shelts stated another thing that is happening is houses that are vacant they keep putting mailings and papers at these vacant houses.  Mr. McKinley stated that would have to be up to the subdivision committees.  Mr. Drobina stated if anything it would probably fall under Code Enforcement.  Mr. McKinley stated as far as the City Beautification Plan he has talked with Mr. Pawlowski and they are trying to get together with the Code Enforcement Officer to plan another clean-up day for this year.  Ms. Shelts stated that would have to happen more than once a year and maybe there is a possibility that more receptacles could be placed as a deterrent to littering.  Mr. McKinley stated that it would be up to the Parks Dept. to add more receptacles.  Mr. Drobina stated that he would talk to Steve Carr about that.  Mr. McKinley stated he would try to nail down 2 dates for this year.

 

F.            Arbor Day.

Mr. McKinley asked whether we want to keep the celebration at night or change it to the daytime.  Mr. Goodrich asked if we felt we would get more participation if we had it during the day.  Ms. Shelts stated she didn’t because most people would be at work.  Ms. Shelts stated she sent an email to the scout leader to see if he could get the scout troop out there networking.  Mr. McKinley stated he sent a couple letters to the elementary schools to see if they would be interested in coming out during the day and the response was not very good.  Mr. McKinley continued that if we have it during the day we wouldn’t have either the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts there because they would be in school.  Mr. Shelts stated classrooms could do a project, artwork or something like that and we could display them in different areas.  Ms. Shelts asked where were some places the artwork could be displayed?  Mr. Drobina stated most artwork from the kids is displayed here at City Hall in the council chambers.  Mr. Drobina stated he would ask the Acting City Manager for permission to put the artwork up. 

 

Mr. McKinley asked if anyone had suggestions on whom to honor on Arbor Day this year.  Ms. Shelts stated there were 2 teachers that died from Central High School in the past year that they could choose.  Mr. Malone stated we had one Tree Commission Member, Carol Carter, who just resigned and we had another member, Johnna Hurley, who resigned as well.  Mr. Malone stated we have honored Tree Commission Members who have left in the past.  Ms. Shelts stated we have awhile to think about it.  Mr. McKinley stated we would table it until next month and hold the vote then. 

 

Mr. Goodrich asked who was working on getting a Boy Scout troop to do the flag ceremony.  Mr. McKinley stated that Ms. Shelts sent an email to the same troop as last year and if she doesn’t hear back from them we would need to pursue other avenues.  Mr. Drobina stated he talked with the Mayor about Arbor Day so he could put it on his calendar. 

 

  1. COMMUNICATION.  Ms. Shelts asked why there are Memberships listed on the Urban Forestry budget.  Mr. McKinley stated they are professional organizations that Mr. Ellis belongs too.  Ms. Shelts asked where the part is that developers go around and measure the trees and decide what they are going to plant.  Mr. Drobina stated we have an ordinance on that and he would find it for her.

 

  1. OTHER BUSINESS.  Mr. Drobina stated the Diley Road Project was bid.  George Igel Company was the low bidder and there will be a pre-construction meeting on the 24th.  Mr. Drobina stated and they plan on starting work in early February with all the lines and storm sewer lines so he just wanted to let them know in case they would need to change there way of travel.  Mr. Drobina stated they would be working on that road for the next couple of years.  Mr. McKinley stated that he knows on the original bid there was nothing on there for the replacement of trees or anything like that or landscaping.  Mr. Drobina stated there is still not and that is something the city will have to do after the fact.  Mr. Malone asked if ODOT still has that fund they use for planting trees and a beautification program.  Mr. Drobina stated he didn’t know if they still had that or not.  Mr. Drobina stated he would call ODOT and find out.  Ms. Shelts asked if the part of Diley that is completed is in Canal Winchester.  Mr. Drobina stated it was.  Ms. Shelts stated that their arborist was at one of the symposiums they went to and has offered to let us see what landscaping he did in case we wanted to make it look like that.

 

    9.    ADJOURNMENT

            Their being nothing further, Mr. Malone moved to adjourn, Mr. Goodrich seconded the motion.  Mr. Goodrich, Mr. Malone, Mr. McKinley and Ms. Shelts voted “Aye.”  Motion carried, 4-0.  The Tree Commission adjourned at 6:31 P.M. on January 9, 2008.

 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

 

________________________________

Diana Fuller, Administrative Assistant

 

_____________________________________

Ed Drobina, Service Manager