e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e the hour of 6:30 having come and gone I will call to order I will call to order the common council meeting of June 4th 2024 and ask the clerk to please call the role president figuro Cole here president figuro Cole is present otter Goen djan otter Goen djan is present Alder yuger present Alder yuger is present Alder Harrington m Al Harrington mckenny is present Al Knox present Al Knox is present Al Vladimir burus Al Vladimir burus is present Al Madison here Al Madison is present order Martinez Rutherford present order Martinez Rutherford is present order mayad May is present Ot rumel Ot rumel is present OT tishler here OT tishler is present OT rier here OT rier is present OT viir here OT viir is present OT W yes OT weier is present otter Bennett yes a Bennett is present OT Conlin OT Curry alter Curry is present vice president Duncan here vice president Duncan is present otter Evers here otter Evers is present otter field Al field field here Al field is present order conin pres order conin is present Madame mayor we have Forum thank you as usual I'll remind us that we're here to conduct the business of the people of Madison and I'd ask that we do that in a kind and respectful way and that in particular we refrain from using any profanity in our remarks whether that's staff council members or members of the public um and perhaps tonight I will remind us as well to pay attention to protocol um and not get distracted by side conversations um our first item as we do on a quarterly basis is a presentation um uh from a poet and so I'd like to for item one which is legistar 83 658 invite Elijah Bean to the podium to share a poem with us good evening [Music] everybody uh I'm here on behalf of Stephen ESP Dawson he's a current poet laurate of Madison Wisconsin um uh my name is Elijah bean I am uh the Ronald Wallace poetry fellow at W Madison where I am teaching poetry in fiction and uh tonight I offer you a poem that's in the spirit of trying and it's titled practice [Music] forever I hope you're nice enough to be mean to me not seem to be seamlessly merging your kindness with your honesty because friends don't let friends suck in public that's why you'll be perfect from your porch to the Moon because I won't leave anything out you'll get it straight from me consistently undiluted no ice no knife with which to stab you just two fists and all 10 fingers they say a friend will be your palm reader when you're trying to save face they'll tell you why the world is blunt if you're going to kill it then you'd better have a point or be willing to justify at Point Blank Range the quality of dope that you're producing and inducing and then do seem to know what it is you're doing knowledge is control I only keep the company of generals and Heretics I'll have nothing less than their steady expansion in the likeness of sound waves the mechanics of their progress will never get a day off they'll show up sick or sick with it or carrying their practice beaten bodies to puppet shops to be fitted with brand new heartstrings after having the originals torn out during a lucid dream that had them all practicing in their sleep or until total body failure rendered them limp and incapable but soon overridden by their heart's choice to keep going keep growing gge your loins for an internal battle between strength and will taking place at a Crossroads where death and failure are your only two options I'll meet you there to die with you to perish with purpose because before we fail before we allow circumstance to deem us unfit to Pilot the crafts we have chosen to sail to the shores of Victory we will die if only to get death out of the way so that we may practice improve refine forever thank [Applause] you thank you so much we appreciate you thank you for sharing those words with us our next item is a presentation by streets urban forestry engineering and parks on managing trees in urban Green Space and we have representatives of a number of different agencies here uh you can pick your side yeah um and we'll start with our uh Public Works manager and Street super intendent Charlie romines thank you mayor uh evening everybody uh good to be here uh it has been I think year since I presented anything in person in front of council so bear with me if I flub it uh my name is Charlie romines I am the streets in urban forestry superintendent um with me in order of appearance is Sarah Lerner she's landscape architect with our engineering division City Forester uh Ian Brown been with us just about a year and Eric NEP from the parks division um so uh public trees in Green Space within the city of Madison I'm just going to cover a couple points here go ahead and advance so um many of you may not know that for ever in a day um urban forestry was housed within the parks division as was I for almost my first seven years with the city of Madison in January of 18 um I moved over to become the street superintendent and in January of 2020 Forestry followed why I've been asking myself that a lot the last couple weeks uh go ahead and forward the slide uh two two main reasons uh there were um there were Financial uh benefits for doing that and there's a lot of operational benefits to do that to this and I'll touch on those very very quickly so um a lot of people don't know that for the way it had worked forever was that if a resident uh took care of a tree brought it out to the curb the streets division uh chipped and hauled that brush but if an arborist the City Arborist did the same thing we took our highly trained and skilled arborists and we put stump grubbers and brush trucks in their hands and thought well it makes a lot more sense if the people we have that already do that work just do that work and keeps keep our arborist arboring so essentially what we've been able to do is um do just that our arborists no longer Drive brush trucks they no longer chip the brush that is done by the streets division uh staff throughout the year and one of the biggest uh operational efficiencies that has brought to pass is we were on a uh cycle prune like every tree every RightWay tree in the city gets was getting pruned once every 20 to 22 years uh we're now down to about 10 11 years so that's just a small example of the power of having the streets Division and park or forestry uh together um and then we've brought on Public Works laborers these are full-time year- round um laborers they do a lot of the same tasks that our seasonal laborers do but they these are full-time positions um with a lot of great opportunities for people to grow that's not the purpose of tonight but what that has done is financially we've taken a quarter million dollars off the general fund which I know is especially relevant these days um and put it on to the urban forestry special charge very appropriately so with a lot of wonderful benefits to the urban Forest which I touched on one but for the sake of time we'll leave that there for now um but but it's been a big win um and our arborists who are all wonderful but you can't get them all to agree the sky is blue will tell you that this has been a big win um for our forestry section next slide please um and then the second uh thing I wanted to go on uh talk about real briefly Beyond just the uh annual kind of benefits from a financial standpoint is oper uh the storm that we had 2 weeks ago if we hadn't made the change the city would have managed it uh Parks uh and Forestry and parks would have managed streets would have helped it would be okay um but having forestry in the streets division means that we uh have been for almost four years now working together as a unit where we have brush truck drivers and chippers that already know the arborists we know the choreography of a storm work Zone and what that has allowed us to do I don't know if all of you know we have less than 30 people in the city who run chainsaw uh right now that's that's about 23 arborists we have four trainees who got here just in time for spring planting and we have two people out in workman's comp they're doing all the chainsawing um from over 1,70 tree calls we're two weeks in and what some people including M genum said is in some regards the worst storm since 1976 we've had no worker injuries the residents of the city have been help haven't had significant injury and I don't want to say the storm wasn't a big deal and we didn't have constituents that were upset but by and large I think from a public works standpoint the fact it seems almost like a non-event is a credit to this change and people like Ian Brown who's been with us a year City Forester I want to say specifically Craig clinky um he is a forestry operation supervisor I don't think he went home for 36 hours the first 36 hours and Dean call very similar the forestry uh forers um the heavy lifting they did in the first 36 hours and continuing since then has been really incredible it's behind the scenes and often those are the type of people who get forgotten the fact that we work with them on a day-to-day basis we've we've embedded streets division crews in with those arborist we've kept the crews moving we have saved probably 2,000 hours conservatively by hauling brush from uh our residents rways into Parks thank you Eric and shipping it there and making it available for free for our residents to come get that's uh a massive Savings in time that's some uh probably close to we're getting close to probably 3,000 gallons less of diesel fuel burnt those are things that would have been extremely hard to do without the cooperation that we have and the advantage of having forestry with the streets division now and then the the interworking relationships we have within the Public Works division so um those are hard to quantify but I think in events like this you you can see the benefit of having a strong and at 9:00 at night on that Tuesday night we were all in and we were running the city streets calling out down trees down limbs Road blockages houses or trees on houses forestries never had that information so fast they're typically Running Blind for the first 12 to 24 hours getting calls constantly coming in now the calls still came in but often times they knew they knew it already now that's the first time we've done it we will get better at it um it went it was good it will be better but again those are just some of the benefits I thought it was topical just to to mention that a little bit oh okay all right uh so um anyhow um I'll leave it at that if you if you have any questions about that now or later I'm happy to talk about it but um you never want to see these types of events in a city but from an operation standpoint these are the kinds of things we get um excited about when St show up do their job um and serve the residents well so with that I will turn it over to Sarah learner from engineering and we'll take questions for everybody at the end Sarah great thank you so as Charlie mentioned my name is Sarah learner I'm a landscape architect with the city of Madison engineering division so if you want to go to the next slide so I'm here to talk about storm water utility land that is Al part of our larger public Green Space it is for usually a specific purpose to manage storm water services these are usually related to development require requirements to meet our ordinances um so a little bit different than some of our other public spaces starting in the 1990s engineering division started requiring separate dedication to meet ordinance and storm water requirements compared to Parkland dedications so prior to that there was a little bit of a mixture of both areas there were some dual dedication but since the 1990s now we have separate storm water utility land and then separate Park land that is required to be dedicated by developers want to go to the next so here's a little bit of history on how we get our land so we primarily get storm water utility land through uh subdivision dedication for storm water requirements or through land acquisition this is an example of one of our more recent within the past 10 years dedication so this is a parcel uh the dotted black line that is the entire parcel is a storm water utility outlot within it we have separate wet ponds infiltration basins Greenways all of this is in order to meet specific storm water requirements some of our properties are maybe just one larger Pond like Cardinal Glenn adjacent to Cardinal Glenn park that is just one wet Pond and then some of our properties are like this kind of little Matrix of basins Greenways and ponds in order to meet our storm water ordinance requirements um so most of our land is for infiltration sediment and pollution capture flood control or storm water conveyance so then the other way we typically acquire land is through acquisition um with one recent project that I'm going to talk about in the next few slides you want to go to the next one all right so this is a little bit of our composition of property we have about 1,500 acres of land and I would not take that verbatim because it is very complex based on historical dedications back when Madison was first developing they didn't develop storm water Land versus Parkland and so we have Greenways and Parks we have vice versa We have basically every type of configuration you can imagine but we have, 1500 Acres that are owned under the assessor's office if you were to look that up by storm water utility and these are primarily kind of these nature based solutions that are infiltration basins Greenways Retention Ponds wet detention ponds dry detention ponds a few rain Gardens but most of our rain Gardens are on other public property and then we have Greenways which is a little bit less of our total acreage compared to ponds and these range from storm water conveyance dry ditches like Robin Greenway which I'll show you in a second as well as intermittent streams like uh Door Creek or maybe portions of Stark weather Creek or panito creek next slide so as I mentioned we are still part of that larger public open space system all of our lands are open to the public and while our primary goal is storm water management we do provide also lots of other benefits similar to other open spes we promote pollinator habitat and biodiversity all of our new ponds and bio retention and infiltration areas are required to be restored with native plants we promote Urban canopy efforts we've just Ian will talk about our efforts on joint collaboration with dealing with spongy moth and a lot of our areas are also used for public Green Space and Recreation so this is a slide of Robin Greenway a recent construction reconstruction in a Greenway project this was taken a few days ago uh this first year after construction is complete you can see that the access path along this Greenway also serves as kind of a neighborhood recreational path next slide so a lot of our property is adjacent to park property and it's very often there's no easy way for the public to understand when you're on storm water versus Park property and that's a good thing because it kind of can enhance that experience and lower Badger M Creek ponds is a great example of where both agencies got together and created this larger open space that combines storm water services as well as public Recreation and Parks this property was recently acquired these ponds on the storm water utility land were constructed last year all that area in is that teal that was um graded so last year and then the ecological restoration Wetland restoration is happening this year with plants native plants native seed trees being planted the path the recreational path through the properties of engineering and park properties is being constructed this year so here's an example where we have a land acquisition it was acquired for regional flood purposes but also as part of Park expansion and we kind of expand combine these areas as part of the larger open space system next slide and last but not least I'm just going to do a plug we are currently writing our storm water vegetation management plan um we're nearing the end of the planning phase where we've already had our public meetings um so if you're interested in more I posted the website on the screen and now I'll turn it over to I think Ian is next okay good evening uh my name is Ian Brown I'm the city Forester I've been here for a year and a hot minute I literally started about this time last year um so just in time to join for kind of the the storm of generations but um the bread and butter of what we do and nested within the streets division uh the forestry urban forestry team manages our Terrace trees so you can think of these primarily is the trees between the sidewalk and the curb and we have about 100,000 of these so these are the trees that most of our visitors residents constituents are interacting with on a daily basis these are the ones that we're seeing the majority of our storm water benefit from because they're overhanging impervious surface um shading the business area so people loiter and spend money and these are the things these are the areas that are our primary focus as the urban forestry team so we do tree planting maintenance removals when necessary we do not remove healthy trees uh only when they're hazardous and need to come down for Public Safety um unfortunately we've been doing a lot of that with the storm we do get involved in tree protection as well so if you think about any type that anytime that there's a development either a new development where they're conver converting agriculture to residential housing or in a downtown space where there is potential tree impact our team is involved in reviewing those plans and helping to spec those spaces and those sites to support canopy both now and into the future so we have a role both in planting and supporting young trees helping grow them to maturity as well as preserving supporting and being the voice for the mature trees because it took decades for them to actually get to that space so um and then the LA the last piece really is emergency response so I have a little bit about that excuse me in the future next please so why do we go through this effort um I think most in the room as well as most of the constituents here in this community they really wean into and embrace the urban canopy benefits and it goes much further than just hey trees are nice and they're beautiful there's a lot of storm water benefit there's a lot of energy benefits associated with them um I mentioned it from a business perspective you're going to have people that are going to lier in commercial areas because there's tree canopy as opposed to you know baking on the sidewalk you're having property values that are increased anywhere from 5 to 15% with Urban canopy they're in front of them and so those are things that really start to impact the community there's health benefits too you know if you can see Urban Green Space if you can see and interact with those types of areas people have better health outcomes both in prevention as well as in recovery and so the the work that we do has a large impact that really flows through the life life of everyone that either lives in recreates in or comes to visit the city here in Madison next please so how do we start uh you get a big tree by planting a little tree and then cultivating it for decades so you start with planting little trees um we do plant anywhere from 2 to 3,000 trees a year um since 20 um 19 that was the last year that we were doing preemptive Ash removals in the wake of uh managing our as um epidemic um we have been planting about a th000 trees more per year than we have been removing and that's something that we would look to continue as well now planting a little tree planting a tree this size is not the same as removing a tree of this size and so um that's where we really have to do our due diligence to really preserve and support the mature canopy that we have now when we're planting trees we are also working off of a planting selection list that we present to the habitat seip subcommittee we have 72 unique species and so we are invested in not only supporting canopy as a whole but trying to support a diverse canopy so that when we have another host specific pest we've had Elms and Dutch Elms disease major impacts from that replanted a lot of asht trees now we have Emerald ashore all our ash trees are going down so what can we do in the future so that if we have some other host specific pest or fungus disease whatever that we're going to lose one tree on the Block rather than whole trees on the Block so this is something that we're looking forward to um and trying really to plan now that does look different so if you have a whole block that's honey locust if we have to remove a tree I can pretty much guarantee you we're going to plant something that's different than honey locust um so it is a different aesthetic that's not bad that's just different and so it's an opportunity for us to educate diversity is good um the resilience of the community and the canopy are good when we have that integration weaving in and out of all of our neighborhoods so we're doing that within uh our tree selection process as well and then we will preferentially plant large canopy species so you know for instance a Japanese tree lilac or a crab apple they're beautiful they have flowers They're ornamental trees but you can plant those things till you're blue in the face and it actually won't move the needle on community canopy there is no crab apple that will ever grow over a building we need to plant Big Trees if we're going to have Urban canopy that grows over either sidewalks streets houses any of those and so if we're trying to move the needle towards a community canopy coverage goal we need to plant Big Trees again big trees they start small and we wait um but we are really looking at trying to put a big tree in every place that we possibly can fit it and then furthermore we're working with engineer the engineering team to spec and improve the soil specification s so below grade we're doing things that would allow those large canopy species to actually reach maturity because if you don't give them the necessary soil requirements that they need it doesn't matter what you plant they still won't grow so we are trying to work across these um divisional boundaries to really try and support the future canopy of Madison to the best that we can okay next please so once you plant them what do you do well you have to maintain them and how do we do that we have a computerized Street tree inventory every Green Dot on the map is his tree site so we actually just updated this um this year and we have a public facing side to this that we'll be going live on um in the near future uh probably months not years but there will be an opportunity for residents to actually interact with what is the tree outside my house um and so this is this is a software that we are using right now to run our um our field operations we table this for storm response because it's a little bit clunky it's a lot of clicks to do for a single tree but right now as we're doing kind of the cleanup phase we are absolutely going back to this so a tree removal gets put in here it creates a work record our field crews are using iPads in the field to manage their work electronically and track their work electronically so this is a way that we can not only track what we're doing but be more efficient and transparent with the work that we're actually doing um throughout the community um Charlie mentioned our pruning cycle so young trees similar to the association I usually give is like kids are a puppy you do have to invest a bit more with them when they're young and so we actually do we call structural pruning but young tree pruning we do more frequently to try and set those trees up for success in the future that's establishing their uh structural lateral branches so we can actually help train the tree in the way that it's going to grow um clear the sidewalk clear the street so we don't have ongoing impacts with either buses cars pedestrians and their face um those are all things that we have to be aware of much more so than a tree that might be planted in someone's private property mature trees on the other hand once they're established and their canopy is above the area that we need to clear um they don't need as much attention so we don't have to go back to those mature trees more than you know maybe once every 10 years reducing those pring Cycles is always ideal 10 years is definitely not bad so um we're trying to strike a balance there of investing more time and energy on the little trees where it really really matters maybe a little less energy on the mature trees where it doesn't matter as much but still try and have an efficient systematic pruning cycle um we do attempt to reach out to all of you as alers as well when we do what we call District pruning we send you a map and say hey our crews are going to be in there and so there is a greater impact to the neighborhood when we have all of our staff there but they're once they're there once every 10 years maybe once every 5 years so we'll try and be as quick and light of a footprint as possible but there is potentially an impact for your residence uh when we are there um I mentioned the tree protection piece so you can think of these as basically forestry eyes on engineering plans so when we have plans that are drafted we have forestry staff that are looking at how many trees are impacted are there ways that we can adjust the plans or make requests of the developer to move a driveway move a sidewalk move an access move the building back things like that where we can actually Advocate to either save the trees that are there or if we can't what can we do to improve the SES in the future so that we can either have a bigger better planting space um maybe tearing out paved area where we can put in green space u porous space we have suspended Terrace Solutions that's a general generic term for things like silver cells or green blue cells those are trade names similar to Kleenex and facial tissue but those are things that actually develop uh plantable space below grade that those trees can actually grow in and so even in a heavily paved area like State Street you can actually grow canopy trees to maturity but you really do have to have those types of below ground infrastructure in place to be able to do that okay next please um we we have been doing a lot of storm response uh as Charlie indicated um I I think just so you have kind of a a scale on this in a in a typical storm we might get 30 to 40 calls a bigger storm we might have 100 calls a pretty bad storm we might have 150 calls we have nearly 1100 calls that we've been following up on the 270 calls that Charlie referenced those are our highest priority emergency situations like literally a tree laying on a house or blocking the road completely um we had staff in from Tuesday night continuously until Saturday morning um clearly they do have to go home but they were running 12-hour shifts and doing everything that they could with that being said we have a staff of essentially 30 chainsaw folks so when when we have a blizzard um you can potentially call more Cavalry uh more people that could potentially man plow trucks um staff plow trucks the challenge that we have with arbic culture is Storm response is literally the most dangerous thing that we do there can be wires and trees and there were wires and trees you can have trees and branches that are under either compression or tension you were not present when that got put in place and so you don't know exactly how those things are going to release and so we do there's not really an opportunity to just say throw more labor at it you need to have the most trained staff um helping with those situations and so we work through as fast as we could but when there's a list of 270 really bad things someone's going to be number one and someone's going to be 269 and we're going to work as quick as we can and that's just how it is but we tried to be transparent with all of the residents to let them know yes you're on the list we are coming I can't give you you a time frame um but know that we know about you and we are coming to try and help um what I have a picture of here is actually our most specialized piece of equipment the staff called it the KGB it's a knuckle boom crane that actually has a grapple head attachment um so if you've seen uh traditional fell buncher heads from a forestry perspective where you're doing like um tree removal in a rural setting it actually has a an arm hydraulic arm that would grab the tree and then it has a chainsaw underneath so what you can see there is the the yellow head has Forks that can grab the tree and keep it attached and then a a cutter head underneath and so what we can do in this type of situation where you have a large tree that fails on a house you can actually grab the tree cut the branch and lift it off the house without doing additional damage and in this case the resident had actually reached out and said oh my gosh I'm so impressed because we had new windows put in the tree was right over my windows and it didn't damage the windows so um this is probably our most expensive piece of equipment that we have but it's bread and butter is these types of storm situations and so it can not only cut and lift but it can also be used as a rigging point it's a 10-ton crane and so having this type of piece or having this equipment available for our staff to use was really essential we have one so again this was going to the hairiest of the hairy um and really trying to do whatever we could to put this piece of equ equ to the best use wherever we had it next please um I'll try and wrap up quick here so we also deal with Pest Management I mentioned Emerald ashbo we're navigating a spongy moth Spike if you have if you don't know what spongy moth is that's the new name for gypsy moth if you've heard of gypsy moth so they are a defoliating critter they work in about 10year population Cycles we happen to be in a boom um having the wet spring this year should help we won't know for sure until probably June or July but we are taking active management strategies around how do we manage these localized High populations and so that's a joint effort not only between forestry but Parks they have trees engineering as Sarah mentioned they have trees as well and so we've combined our forces both for um surveying for uh funding for Staffing and for messaging too so we've been trying to send all of our all of our constituent relations and information through uh a web page that's City spongy moth informational page with a bunch of links um to like U extension State DNR um and other industry experts to really try and help the residents get as much information as possible um in this case we actually have one of our seasonal staff that's injecting an oak um we injected some parks Oaks so large Oaks that were not in The kosha Greener area that we had sprayed those big um mature Oaks are the ones that we really want to save and protect and so we did inject 135 o Oaks that were not in the spray area to make sure that they do have a level of protection from both spongy moth and two-line Chestnut Bora which is a uh secondary pest that can parasitize and kill uh stress trees same family as e EAB and we actually use the same product okay next please um this slide I'm not going to read it all um is basically laying out the seasonal schedule of what we did from a combined perspective from spongy moth um we identified the spongy moth outbreak last year and Engineering forestry and park started working together we've been having regular meetings between that team since last summer and so what this kind of works through is the seasonal schedule of what did we do when and how did we message it these are a bunch of different tools in the toolbox there is not one thing that is going to take this sucker out um but what we're trying to do is really just try and help the trees that we have make it through this outbreak cycle the trees that we care about are big they've made it through this cycle before we're just trying to help make sure that in the current climate where we're navigating climate change drought I mean ironically I'm saying drought but um last summer it definitely drought stress was a part of it um trying to help those big mature trees make it for the next cycle too so um there is not one thing that we use it's a number of different things as well as participation and partnership with the residents in the neighborhoods that um this is an issue okay I think that's the last one for me okay thank you uh yeah they mostly know who I am um good afternoon evening it's evening at this point sorry we're about halfway done I'm kidding um Eric n Park superintendent here to talk a little B about Madison Parks we're not going to talk about everything we do um but we certainly have a core part of the green resilient part part of things trees um we think we have the most trees we've never counted them all and we probably never will uh but if you could start with the next slide for me please this is our beautiful Green City and a lot of that is under our management But as Sarah mentioned earlier a lot of it's under engineering's management some of it's under collaborative management some of it we're not sure who owns but we know the city does um and so we take care of it together uh but the the park system is is great if you didn't know the parks owns about 13.9 14% of the of the city um collectively across large municipalities across the country it's right about median Point um of green green acreage um next slide please this is just a little bit of touch the color here doesn't come through quite as clear but the system though does a lot of things so um we don't have a kind of a unitary purpose for our Parks we have a variety of purposes in all of our Parks but we have conservation Parks we have you know Community Parks neighborhood parks we have mini Parks we have special facilities we have a cemetery we actually have three cemeteries at this point because we keep annexing more of them uh but only one is operational that we're we're responsible for uh that's Forest Hill but we have golf golf course facilities as well so all in it's about 5,000 acres under our direct management um a lot of trees and a lot of green infrastructure a lot of natural areas uh next slide please this is one we've we've recently in the last decade I guess I've been with Parks back when I think when Charlie started the some of the work that really led to uh what we now call our ecology team we've always had conservation Parks think Cherokee Marsh Owen Park Edna Taylor ol and tural right very highly intentional conservation and active Land Management to preserve those ecosystems historically in the general Park World um there was more like mod Turf trees and then stuff that got ignored um bluntly but we've really tried to engage that ecological restoration Natural Area Management in all of our parks and with that across the general and Conservation Park categories we're now a little bit more under managed Natural Area than we are under mode Turf uh this doesn't include golf cemeteries or other special facilities but within those those big buckets if you've you know often if you ever wonder do we mow more land or would we actively maintain natural prairies and wood Lots it's the latter of those two um next slide please uh so some work I'm just going to try to tie the topic tonight to some of our work plan highlights we got you know a big 10 things we really focused on and I think I can tie these together in a in a logical way to to touch so advancable sustainable and resilient Land Management obviously pretty relevant to what we're talking about but stepping from that we go from the land itself self to also then the people and how people use that land how people engage with that land right in golf you might bristle at what the heck we're going to talk about golf tonight but we'll get to it but golf is actually a real part of Land Management we can change the way we've thought about it for a long time and do a lot more in a Greener resilient way uh building a division-wide volunteer program um this is also really impactful and important uh we talk about general fund costs I've got a good way to get a lot of Land Management done just we need to coordinate those volunteers they're passionate dedicated there are thousands of them in the city all of them are smarter than me and that's awesome that's also a low bar but but uh and the last one expanding effort support nature everywhere which is really focus on kids but it's for everyone nearby nature and accessible one of the facts you should also know is for a city our size and density level we're really phenomenal in access to Parks um 95% uh I think next year's calculation will be 96% of our residents are within a 10-minute walk of a public park uh that is phenomenal for a city of our density you know San Francisco's 100% I saw Phil last week at the nature every conference he brags about all the time but I mean he's got 800,000 people in a city half our size it's a little easier to to build that in uh but we should be really proud of it it's we're at the top top end of a medium density City next slide please uh so sustainable and resilient Land Management we're continuing the ecology team and in conservation expanding the natural areas that we're actually uh actively managing throughout the Empire Park system using a variety of integrated um methods to maintain them everybody loves the goats people ask if we can just get more goats uh we we have a limit there's an upper limit on goats availability um and there's also an upper limit on Goat selectivity so right they have a really good role in early stage Land Management in later stage Land Management if you didn't know like they eat cone flowers too they don't care like so if you have good stuff they're just going to eat it all so we really send them in to do the dirty work to start it off um then eventually we end up you and prescrib burns across the system engineering Sarah's done a heck of a job collaborating with us with contractors just taking an all hands on deck how do we get the most burning done this is super impactful for our the seed bank and the ecosystem to kind of regenerate uh we I won't talk a ton about how many trees we plant every year because it varies but you know 250 to 300 but we do a lot of other things like we buy trees we buy wood Lots on the North side a couple years ago we bought a thousand trees right of maturity that's pretty cool um but we also do things let Oaks naturally regenerate if you go to ol Park none of those Oaks those baby Oaks we didn't plant any of them right what we did is got the bad stuff out of the way the Buckthorn the honeysuckle all those evil things you hear us talk about why we do that you get them out of the way those Oaks that Ian talked about will naturally regenerate and those those Oaks that are regenerating the genetic material they come from has obviously been very successful in that location for a very long time and even in the age of climate change we think the most resilient Oak we can plant is the oak that came from where it's at uh so that's pretty cool we also continue to convert to EV equipment uh we have some quite a few electric vehicles we have a we're 80ish per of the things we do we now have an electric component of hand tool that we use it for uh there's some of the big even including chainsaws we use some but there's still gas powered out there because some of the power and and cost we continue to work to maximize that work and um we plant trees oh I forgot I forgot to hi the mayor the ra of the mayor planting the beautiful trees out in front of our uh building and a prairie but next slide please and we'll kind of try to go a little quicker so Advance the golf program transformation what I said earlier is golf you might not think of as a natural area thing but if you go uh to all of our courses Odana there's a beautiful pollinator Garden shout out to Marcel uh next to the next to the um volunteer next to the parking lot best milkweed patch in the city go check out the butterflies it's pretty amazing uh but the Glenn we increased our natural areas on that little 36 acre golf park by 1700% right so we can do these kind of things and not have just the mode Turf everywhere approach um which is awesome and I think it really highlights Oak Savannah there and I'm really hopeful to see those baby Oaks regenerate at the Glenn as well next slide please uh so we want to really focus and we are continuing to focus on building that volunteer program I talked about one of the wise that you might be interested which is cost savings but another one is connection connection to each other connection to land connection to the city connection to City civic pride I've never met people more passionate than from the people who give their time to OBT Gardens Warner Park Rec Center all kinds of things Owen park right we have friends everywhere who care a lot and we really want to put a a focal point on that so we're working on some software that's Citywide actually shared with other agencies Senior Center Library and others should be really impactful I I believe here you see uh some volunteers on the right side that you did pay to be there those are firefighter trainees uh but we took it as free labor and it was great uh so next slide please and I think last slide please yes expanding support of nature everywhere so what this is I just want to make sure you're highlighted about there's a Conference held hosted at monce they did a phenomenal job of hosting it last week I know some of you attended and thank you for doing that the mayor gave an excellent uh ini initial speech that really rallied people to get people connected to Nature right everyone has that right uh to have that opportunity even in an urban setting and I think we do that pretty well in our city we can do better this is not like a new program for the parks Division I want to be clear we're not expand we don't have a coordinator anything like that what we're doing is trying to coordinate Tanya zast or Ober Gardens director is working with a collaborative group from public health uh multiple City agencies and a lot of nonprofits really trying to expand access make sure we're connecting kids to programs connecting the schools to like Leupold Nature Center and another like some Innovative programs there that's the kind of stuff we're focused on and I want youall to know about that because I think it is um the most important thing we can do to protect our Parks I think a 100 years from now is make sure our kids care about them um but anyway I think that's all I have is I don't have any more slides do I I didn't make the slides I do not thank you and we can all answer any questions you have thank you [Applause] all questions Alder miad uh first I want to start off by uh thanking you guys for all the work that you do uh Greg clinky as actually my nextdoor neighbor so I really appreciate all the work now see um so one of the questions I had was um do we have any programs out there for people that are homeowners um to be able to get help from the department and for example you know there if a tree is dead and it falls on a property um that's not an act of God you know so the person could be sued right but if there's homes in our in our in our city that actually have trees that wouldn't be removed that are dead is there any programs out there for people that needing to get that tree removed or on their own property or is this just the I'm just wondering if there's any programs out there for people that are underserved communities my district is mostly residential so just wondering sure so the we currently don't have uh programs to go on to private that to deal with private property um that would take significant re thinking of how we do uh forestry in the city of Madison but right now there's no programs for that although we are thinking through how we might try and help people um plant trees on their property um but that's a whole other thing right now but that that's something we're working through but as far as um trees that have been have come down unless it's a RightWay tree if it's a public tree then we take care of it if it's a private tree falling on a private property then that's currently not something the city handles all right thank you thank you Alder wder field for director n um forgive my ignorance on the topic but I didn't know that the city owns cemeteries can you talk about why we own cemeteries or if there's a policy reason that we've acquired some well we can um we can go back to the beginning Orton Orton Park was a cemetery uh the first city park was a first Cemetery um then we at that point it was a service that was provided to the community I think at the point in 1800s frankly the city chose to do it because the city hosted people who were not religious and affiliated with a church uh which was not all that common at the time so cities of a certain size would do that they'd get in the cemetery business to give folks that opportunity Orton Park was originally the cemetery the city decided to Plat a bigger one actually where the GL The Glenn Golf Park the whole big Triangle Well the trapezoid what know is it a parallelogram I don't remember I failed geometry uh but um the um that whole parcel was bought for a cemetery we exume bodies from Morton Park and we took them there and we've been in the forest H Cemetery business ever since ever since so we do that the other two we have one is a completely closed historic cemetery on the far west side town of Middleton it just town of Middleton owned it when the city annexed in it became Municipal property I if you know other people who want these like we are it's totally negoti negotiable uh now the other one next to lafalot high school town of Blooming Grove we don't own that one yet the third one we do own is even further out but next to high school that's an operating Cemetery so that will become city property so that's one of those concerns where because maintaining a cemetery takes one amount of work operating Cemetery takes a whole another level right but the I think the policy reason why probably stems from the 1800s and the the university probably attracted people who were not as Affiliated to a church and religious institution which was the historic place you were buried that'd be my best guess thank you for that thank you Alder aler you uh two questions one has uh this might be for Ian has Oak quilt become much of a problem in the city yet I see there's some large areas you can see around the general region that already have been fairly devastated by oakal oakal is here um and actually the the oak prevalence across Madison means that it's something that we definitely do have to watch for um most of the Oaks are the white oak variety so it does not move quite as fast um there are Treatment Solutions um that you can inject into the trunks of trees that's an individual stem treatment uh so you know that's not going to treat you know a whole Natural Area worth of Oaks but uh yeah I think you know sanitation is part of it you know really trying to emphasize and get the the word out about you know appropriate pruning you can't control storm damage um but yes it is something that we are aware of monitor uh to AIT extent for um there are oakw Pockets that I'm aware of within the community so yes it is here thank you and the other quick question I guess this should be for Charlie uh could you just talk a little bit about how you what's the process the algorithm the method uh uh for prioritizing how to respond to something like this recent storm with hundreds over thousand and perhaps calls coming in sure if I screw it up Ian you can jump in but um the first thing it really is finding out where the damage is right it's it's not like a a snow event where you kind of know it's 4 Ines and it might be 5 and a half on one side of town and four on the other but so often these storms happen in the evening right either at or after Sunset and um I will tell you without fail uh even this storm around 56 in the morning we had finished our go through which had never been done before but we knew around 6:37 the phones were going to blow up as residents wake up they start right and it's all new to them and so the first thing is figuring out what we have and how widespread it is um and we're getting better um at that from there it is uh if the best way I can describe it is we're going to look at blockages of our salt routes right our main thorough faires in the city roads that lead to hospitals Schools Police all that um and then we're going to look at trees on houses um particularly if there's um damage to the house or ongoing damage that could occur and then we're looking at blockages of residential streets or or partial um blockages uh a comp a confounding factor to that is a lot of times in this storm was by far the most that I had come across in my 13 years working with forestry is when those trees are on the power lines we have to wait for mg& to come and clear that portion of the tree that's out of the power line and then we will come and get the rest and so for us that's one of the things we're going to try to figure out if there's a way we can coordinate a little bit better with mg on rather than us having to go there or send someone there like have they got it yet nope have they got it yet nope um no when it has been pulled gotten out of the power line so we only have to go there once um but that's kind of that's the the first thing and that's why as Ian mentioned we were running crews around the clock and from that Tuesday night through Saturday uh we weren't going to stop until uh we had all those high priority emergency which was trees on house full roads blocked uh those types of things done and thankfully our Arbor staff really answered the Bell um and taking care of that but those those are the your highest priorities I've never seen 270 of those come through on an event to speak nothing of the 900 or so other calls that have come in but that's that's where we're going first thank you yep thank you aler do you want to add something please I I'll add one more quick thing just so so you understand your residents understand as well so when we're we're navigating all those High prior highest priority emergency calls we are going to leave stuff behind so once the street is clear they're basically stacking that brush on the curb and we're moving on we did have a number of uh requests on that how come you got my neighbor's tree and not mine when are you coming back for the brush now we're getting the calls of the brush is still there when can I mow my grass say we're coming but basically as soon as we can clear the public safety issue um if it's laying on the house that's both a damage thing as well as an egress thing so if we can make that situation safe and stable we are moving on and it's not that we're done we're just coming back later but we have someone else with a tree on their house um ironically things like trees on cars relatively low priority in those types of things because taking the tree off the car doesn't unckle the car but taking the tree off the house does prevent further damage and so we're trying to prioritize our limited staff time in all the highest impact areas that we possibly can so things look different and I I understand that um and we were trying to have that conversation with the residents as well of yes we're coming but my short answer was kind of if we haven't been there be appreciative because that means someone else had it way worse than you we are coming I'm sorry but we'll be there thank you I just want to take a a moment to just highlight a couple of things that you've heard tonight from from forestry and streets and and the Innovations in their response to this most recent storm the fact that they called in the supervisors put them in vehicles and had them out on the streets before the storm was even over you remember we were all sitting here right and they were already out driving the streets to see where the trees were down and where the dangerous areas are so that they could triage in the manner that Ian just talked about um and get to the most important things first that's something that they've never done before right it's and that's the good thinking on the part of Char and his staff that I have to say streets in particular but Citywide our staff are always thinking about how to be more efficient and provide better service and this is an excellent example of that so thank you both for thinking that [Applause] through Alder viver so we as Alders and sometimes it goes out into the Press um our constantly I'm going to just say it bered for uh taking out trees not prioritizing trees not understanding the tree canopy importance not understanding the effects of heat islands and yet you've presented us an absolutely comprehensive perspective on how the city as a whole is prioritizing trees is prioritizing our Green Space my question is where is the disconnect why do people people have this bizarre notion that we don't care about trees I can't take credit for this Eric said who wants to say forest for the trees um I think that and I'll keep it short in case Ian wants to but when you talk about people in their connection to the trees a lot of times they see it as their tree um I can tell you that um one thing I really learned during our EAB response right for a city staff for forestry we're looking at the city is a whole or a neighborhood as a whole and for residents often times they're talking about their tree um in their yard or the tree in front of where they work or right the their favorite part tree and so for them it's a very personal connection that is staff that you have to remember but it's hard to manage to that and so I think a lot of times people get caught up on you're removing the trees that shade the thing I care about the most and they have that right I think anytime we have a tendency as people when we have a personal connection with something sometimes we're not super rational about that thing we're very connected to and so I think that's that's the best I can come up with in 13 years and working with the Forester that that's my tree and I care about that tree and we're trying to manage all the trees if you will thank you Alder Alder Bennett well Alder V took the question out of my mouth um but I do have other questions um but actually to that extend cuz you give like maybe like just a very high level like one two minute pitch about like what is the process what that you guys go through when a tree is being proposed to be taken down and like you know mitigating measures to make sure that we're not take just taking out trees Willy andilly uh globally I'll say I'm lazy I'd rather not um like we'd rather have the tree stay right so if if we are prescribing a removal for the tree it's because it's reached and breached thresholds that exceed our management for Public Safety so you know especially in a storm like this there there sometimes becomes an irrational fear of I saw a tree across the street fail what about the tree in front of my house can you remove it what if it falls on my house or my car the likelihood of those things happening of tree failing and hitting car or tree failing and hitting person you know the occupancy there is generally statistically it's very very low um but what what our professional standard is we're trying to manage the trees and make sure that we're equitably addressing the 100,000 trees that we manage um in my years within the industry I have found you have people in all neighborhoods of all economic backgrounds that love trees um income is not a defining characteristic of whether you love trees or not and so that's part of why I'm in this field in in this industry is um on the municipal side we serve all constituents in every neighborhood and they all have trees in front of their homes or down the block in the Parks and so that's what we're doing but we do manage 100,000 trees for the public safety and so there is a threshold to reach there it's different you our our standard is different because we're inspecting them you know once every 5 years once every 10 years than a tree that might be in your yard that you could inspect it every morning while you're having your weed e so um there is a different threshold there but we are trying to manage the Public's trees for Public Safety and retaining them in any way that we possibly can yeah that makes sense um stay oh please thank you but like in like more of a specific sense like I remember with the ryal park Imagination Center there were folks that were not fully supportive of that because like it would take down five fully mature trees and like in instances like that where we are proposing a development a mature healthy trees how do we make sure that we're not that you know I mean it now when I see like it's five trees out of like I don't know how many trees you said 2,000 trees it doesn't seem like a lot but I'm wondering how do we kind of triage new development with I think there there's definitely a balance to be struck and having a transparent conversation about what considerations are there what priorities are in place um even the point so maybe there were five that were removed but there might have been other ones that were saved and so pointing out the um I'll use Jim's term engineering gymnastics that sometimes happen to try and have things um retained where they you know if you follow a straight line that they might not be um retaining trees cost money I would argue that losing trees also cost money planting new trees cost money um but the community Embraces it and it's important to have just the livability and viability long term to be able to have those mature trees so so um I don't know in that specific case but what what I would hope um and I mean we're actively having this conversation around Salt Creek too which isn't forestry land it's engineering land but having the conversation about like we live in a developed Urban space there are needs here that are different than the back 40 in the Northwoods and so trying to help have Al to your point have a an open conversation about we live here there's 270,000 people that live here and so nothing here is natural it's it's all highly Disturbed we are trying to effectively professionally manage it and sometimes management requires removing things sometimes management requires planting things sometimes management requires engineering gymnastics to save things um but letting people know that these decisions are not made willy-nilly they're made by professionals that are deeply invested in what we do um educated and I'm not saying that I have all the answers but I do want to get the input from residents on what we can do and sometimes we can find an agreement and sometimes we can't um actually uh Alder rumel I had met with a constituent on on site about a tree that they loved and were deeply disappointed to lose and when I pointed out like the points of failure and the things that would never get better um it would only go smash we we came to a point of understanding and um left that conversation with not only losing the tree but happy to get the new one and embracing the new life that they could see grow in that same space yeah thank you um I just want to add one quick thing uh so in the 13 years I've been involved with forestry we've come a very long long way to protecting mature trees um whether it uh is a project out of Jim's shop from engineering Tom's shop and Transportation uh the mayor since she's been on board has been very clear we will not take down trees without giving them full um consideration so while people may disagree with the decisions and the trade-offs that have to be made we do not remove uh trees in this city without giving it full consideration and you may disagree your constituents May disagree with how things get weighted out but it is never willy-nilly it is not uh it is it is well thought through um and that has come a long way um in in the 13 years and so I just wanted to make sure that's uh well understood feel like it's not understood for a lot of folks I get I get it I have three more questions so sorry be with me um first one actually is to what you were saying um about like access to resources I know like not every single area has hours to spend fighting for you know fighting against a bike path cuz it will tear down eight trees for example but um I'm wondering in areas that are under resource and under privilege what are the measures that you like taking or are there any active measures to ensure Equity of tree canopies across all areas of the shitty city is and what I understand what you're saying um my My Hope and intent would be that our forestry specialist so that's the title that's working on those types of projects they would be advocating in all neighborhoods equally and so there too when we're talking about having you know specific attention paid to a particular resident or additional time spent on a particular project we I've had that conversation with individuals before of like they're concerned about to Charlie's point the tree in front of their house I'm managing the other 100,000 across the whole city and I'm trying to be equal with my time and attention serving all constituents whether they ask for service or not because the trees are there so um we that's the task of our professional staff um sometimes the squeaky wheel does need a little bit more attention but we are trying to be diligent about whether you ask not that you're getting as Equitable a service as we can potentially deliver and can you Ian or or Charlie can you talk about some of the recent planting efforts um of Terrace trees in um areas that have been left left out previously sure um so traditionally uh forestry has planted trees um when we have um an we can assess an adjacent property and for a long time what that meant in certain um areas of the city they did not get Terrace trees unless they knew enough to reach out to us and then wanted to pay uh the assessment to put the tree in which depending on the year could be anywhere from a couple hundred dollar to now $400 and some dollars and so what you had was a you can probably imagine the parts of the city that were not getting um Street trees um put in and so so boy I think in the last two or 3 years um what we were what we started doing was uh to to basically understand that if we can't move past the assessment these these blocks these neighborhoods these residents are just never going to get trees and so we were we took some of the the capital funds from the urban task force monies and we planted I think we're around several hundred trees now in those sites that had been blank for ever I mean since those neighborhoods were built or annexed to the city um and predated the assessment um situation so um that is something that we've moved into um and continue to work towards to make sure we are planting trees in parts of the city that didn't get them before because they either didn't know to ask um or we just had a policy that was beholden to an assessment that some people just weren't going to be able to afford and so that's probably one of the things I'm most proud that we spent some of those Capital dollars for to buy those trees that we wouldn't otherwise have and although I think that's an example of how forestry IND streets has tried to take an equity lens to the urban canopy and make sure that um that we not we're not putting barriers between neighborhoods and getting canopy trees that's exactly what I was asking thank you um okay question two I previously said on urbanis Des commission I know that commission like oversees like the kind of landscaping process and you know we have numerous conversation about like whether there should be trees or potted plants which is a conversation that goes so far over my head I can't even tell you how but um I'm wondering like kind of on the back end of like approving a development like what is work that's being done you know to ensure trees or potted plants or whatever are there and like should there be more connection on the front end with you all you know to avoid disruption are you talking about private development approvals yes um yeah so nobody up here um reviews those and nobody reviews them on the back end either like we don't that'd be a zoning or a building inspection enforcement none of you touch that right the trees to a new site way the right the right away I thought you're talking about like on private like on well in the public right yes we take this all the time the way she was describing time about parking lots and stuff uh actually Alder Rivier has a development at the old MC site downtown that um I think is addressing exactly what you're asking um you know there's uh 18t green Terrace and there are a couple of ash trees that would be impacted by the new development there um as a tradeoff for that um they are replanting one of those sites um also doing silver cells in numerous sites around other parts of the property as well as installing um green open Terrace where there's currently Paving so we are losing to mature trees from that site that's painful um we're leveraging on the back end additional planting and soil capabilities to grow out mature canopy in a greater way in the future I mean we're talking 40 years but the city will be here in 40 years so we're trying to acknowledge the development that is beneficial to the city to happen there but also be a partner with the development and planning to have the for s to say we ultimately want to have canopy in that site in the future about like parking lots private plans no like you know new developments so it it is perhaps a an an interesting question given that we are in the process of updating our Urban design standards um to ask the question of how those might impact trees on private property in the future I don't think that's a conversation that has been had yet but the question is timely because we are in that process we're on the same brain today uh yeah that was kind of what I was getting at um so yeah thank you and my last question is probably for you actually and it's what if any um work does the city do to you know put in place mitigating efforts for storm water pollution on construction sites I finally get a question well Jim wolf is also here he's the city engineer so I'll I'll attempt to go through this um but then Jim can correct me because I'm more on the landscape side but we have a rosion control permit process for every project that's under construction and then we have staff that inspect that that's part of the permitting process that includes silt sock Sil fence we inspected after rainfall events the required to is part of the approval process for the permit um so that's that's largely the whole erosion control permit program which is a separate program within engineering division gotcha okay cool thank you thank you Alder Alder Ral thank you mayor and thanks um for this great presentation how timely it is to hear from you after there our storm and did you did you say Charlie how many trees we lost or Ian uh unfortunately we're still calculating so basically we're through the emergency and highest priority stuff um at this point in our cleanup we are still assessing the trees that we're revisiting those sites of whether they can be structurally pruned and retained or if they need to be removed for Public Safety so I don't have an answer on that right now but we certainly will follow up to this body and the mayor when we do thank you and and sort of in the early part of the presentation we talked a lot about the canop the importance of canopy trees and canopy coverage and I recall from the complete green streets process which was before I was elected that we set a goal I think was 40% canopy coverage could someone talk about what is that like every neighborhood or just an average or how are we how are we measuring that uh my understanding is that's a city-wide average um so you know that's that is a very high bar um my understanding is there is not a single Community within um the state of Wisconsin that meets 40% right now now having a high bar is also not bad um help us push our standards and 40% is definitely better than wherever we are right now which is closer to 23% but when you figure we're basically trying to double the canopy um I I've described it to to Charlie and some others this way of like what we're doing on the street is I view that as modeling what we would like to have residents do too so um planting the street trees seeing a mature honey Locus for example seeing a mature celpa seeing a mature swamp white oak if someone wants to know like what does one look like we can show them what that looks like and they can put that in their yard um really the majority of the property across the city is privately owned and you know that's not everyone that gets to decide but collectively they do and so we would love to really Embrace that partnership and help to further the canopy that's happening on private property and leverage that with what we're doing on public property to really move the needle towards that 4 % total goal and kind of the last area I want to talk about is the plan review which it sounds like you don't this group doesn't necessarily agree um involved with but I think maybe Ian you do so it seems like you know the plan commission got a rep a conversation about like the fire department and what they need versus a tree and what a tree needs and then it seems like the fire department wins over the tree and there's all different kinds of conflict so you know when you think about um these infield projects or new green fi projects how do we approach like the fire and balancing um having more trees which is an imperative yes so I think what you're referencing is like having emergency access for uh a fire crew that would be responding to a fire in the building um they do have standards and requirements for clearance uh to to be able to get their equipment in um I don't want a tree to ever put someone's life in danger in that way so you know the tree is not going to win um but are there opportunities either on that development or maybe others that we could try and still um prescribe or support Green Space or plantable space that might not be in that exact spot and those are having conversations with developers [Music] um not only with your support but with engineering um you know even like brt Transportation team like we are having active conversations about what what can we do within the scope of the project within the footprint of the space that we have to try and save the trees in those cases or if we can't where can we put a new tree so maybe it's not there because they need fire access but maybe around the corner cuz then we're going to still have mature canopy in a downtown space um that's that's really what I'm I'm trying to do the the challenge is always there uh because you know for instance if you replace a one or two story residential structure and you replace it with four to six-story multistory multi-use I'm not going to be able to plant a tree that's going to grow over that so we might permanently lose that canopy space um where can we put canopy um to still try and move the needle towards that 40% coal so it it's an ongoing conversation but it's really project by project and I'll the r one thing I add the urban forestry task force which has probably four or five years pass now had 40 some recommendations they came out a couple of them address that and I can say that um planning both working with Dan moli and Heather Stout did enhance language for both uh for private developments new and redevelopments to better protect and encourage planting of of trees so some work has been done compared to 8 10 12 years ago to to better protect and encourage protection and replanting of trees on private developments thank you Charlie and I think it's going to come back with a review the first year review of the complete green streets and I'm not quite sure yet how that's going to get reviewed but the width of the Street Terrace can change depending on the street it's on Major Street versus an interior so I think those conversations are going to um come come around again um I don't think we're ever going to be done talking about trees and Madison so and I guess the final thing is the mayor pointed out like the equity issues and it just seems like there you know like and was mentioned the Saw Creek like we're always going to have to balance their multimodal approaches and our Urban places with trees and it's sort of a hard it's a hard decision to have to make some time so thank you all for being here tonight thank you Alder Alder Conlin uh thank you mayor um thank you guys for this lovely presentation this was very informative um I just want to ask is there a reason why or how come we don't ever think about planting fruit trees at the parks um as a matter of fact we do oh well can you tell me more and lighten me please you need a you need a volunteer group um that will sign up to maintain it why don't we historically do it because it's a hot mess um and you're going to have a be problem and all kinds of things if you just let them unfettered uh if you want to check it out go to the pray Marine dog park in County Park and check out the apples in the middle of the summer uh unmaintained fruit trees are really not good for Park uh but maintained we love and we have opened that door over the last decade uh there's a variety of ways you can plant fruit and nut trees and parks uh berry bushes or berry bushes Edibles edible landscape edible landscape actually Sarah could could talk all about it which Sarah used to be in Parks everybody here used to be in parks at some point like this is bad for me this is not looking good I'm now I'm now looking like this doesn't look good at all uh but no happy to talk to anybody who's interested but we really need that kind of commitment because the historic fear was it just kind of creates a hot mess and bluntly it does uh if you don't maintain it but if you maintain it it's an awesome addition to a park we're very the the permitting process is way simplified to when it first started uh the mayor actually had a lot to do with that um so we're very open to that uh in many locations so and we've got to have at least 150 parks that we we know we can take one in so our small planting so yeah have somebody reach out to Parks we're happy to do it okay thank we just need somebody to help maintain it okay as far as treat tree sites for things like apples and low growing trees this goes back to we want to plant large canopy species so I would say plant the Apple in your front yard that's private property and we're going to plant a large canopy tree in the Terra space cuz we're trying to maximize those Community canopy benefits an apple tree will never help us move the needle far enough okay all right thank you so much and Alder this is a thing that I spent years of my life working on when I was on the council and then subsequently when I was on the food policy Council and um there is just there's a there is an easy process for individuals um or groups who want to plant and maintain edible Landscapes on city property not just Parks um could be uh water utility land could be engineering land um there's a process for that as they said there's a maintenance requirement as part of that but it's I think it's a great opportunity for people who want to create edible Landscapes also if you are looking to create edible Landscapes on private property anything on your side of the sidewalk is fair game uh but the Terrace is also fair game we have some rules around vision and maintenance and not putting structures and things like that but there's uh a whole website with all this information about how to do edible landscapes in the city and um we could uh uh I could ask our new Communications manager to make sure that that website gets out to the council thank you thank you Alder yep Alder Harrington mckenny thank you Madame mayor I forgot that I was in the que um um one of the things that I I I want to make sure that we speak into the room and um Ian would you I had a very interesting conversation with Ian and so um I'm glad to see uh a woman on the team up there but uh please share with us uh because um several meetings ago there was a grant proposal that came before us um and the mayor tried to help us to understand why it was important so um this looks like predominantly a white de male dominated field what are we doing to break that cycle could you just share with us I'll lead with an ology I was present for that meeting and dropped off right before the F got called so I apologize um we're we are looking at additional ways to try and improve and support alternate career Pathways into arbic culture so if you look at the field it is predominantly male it is predominantly white um most of the staff um in a number of organizations they've gone to school for this two or four year degrees and so what you do by recruiting they have a very valid education but at the same time what you do in recruiting in that way is you selectively filter unintentionally people that can afford to take off the four years worth of Lifetime um pay the tuition and go to school having a 4-year degree is not necessarily a requirement of being an arborist and so we're working on trying to um identify alternate and support alternate career Pathways into arbic culture specifically here in the South Central Region uh we actually just submitted a Federal Grant application yesterday to support arborist apprenticeship that's a conversation that we've initiated was initiated prior to my arrival and I've been really pushing hard on that um as well um but that is basically to help try and lower barriers to entries for people that would want to be from the community work outside and then we would take them under our wing and get them paid related training at MATC they would get on the job learning um here with our staff they would be a fully gainfully employed City employee earning benefits and so if you think about the type of lifechanging opportunity that presents to an individual family you could have a parent that is working two or three jobs to put food on the table and a roof over the head for their their child and now you allow them to work an eight hour shift with benefits and now they can go to their Widow League Baseball game they can have a family dinner together they have the steady paycheck that we are looking for as far as far as providing Family Security and they continue to invest and work in the community here um I think those are really generational impacts that we have the opportunity to try and pursue so um we are pursuing a grant opportunity to really um I I don't call it a pilot that would be an initiation of a program that we would see potentially working and um going on long term our partners for that Grant application were both operation fresh start and Madison Area Technical College and then we would be the employer of record to bring on two new staff um so we are hopeful um I think we have a very strong application on that but that that is something that we will remain invested and continue to um look at opportunities for how we can do that Reach people particularly people of color or uh disadvantaged economic background here within the community and let them know there are family sustaining jobs here in the community you don't have to travel you don't have to go to you know um leave and go do full-time school you can absolutely get a job here and support your family for the long term in a green job too so this is something that especially the the younger Generations are really embracing it's more about how do they give back how do they feel good about the work that they do as opposed to how much money am I making um we we need it to be a family sustaining wage um with benefits so that they can do what we need them to do but those are absolutely directions that we're looking at going um if we're successful I'd love to come back and just share some more about our our Direction and vision for that type of a program thank you oh um yes Charlie prompted me too um we we have dipped our toe into the water of alternate recruitment as well so we historically have uh hired exclusively fully trained professional arborists um casting that net is yielding few candidates um certainly no candidates of color no candidates of not that are not male and so um this last year we actually recast the net and added the arborist trainee title so that's someone who has exposure and experience in the field but they aren't a fully trained arborist so if they have a lot of potential they have a lot of passion we felt why should we tell them no go work someplace else come back later this is our opportunity to say yes please join our organization we will help you get the other 25% there and we have four of those that are currently on staff so we are committed to our our goal is basically to train them up within a year and uh one of them actually is an operation Fresh Start graduate um previously worked with Dan County Parks as well and so um I think that there are opportunities and we're working on trying to do that in the immediate term and the future to try and get um additional staff from the area to work here with our team and to improve um the overall Service delivery that we we can can do not only for the trees but also for the community thank you thank you Alder Alder ladimer bur yes thank you so much mayor um a lot of questions I was going to ask my colleagues already asked so I just will make it brief um thank you guys for briefing us um the public probably wonders why we're going on about trees um but they don't realize that we don't get this briefing and you guys do a ton of work and I appreciate um that you do the work and you answer uh uh some of the questions other people may find to be Petty but are important to the environmentalists especially as we um we uh are have a Creed uh to be a green City so I am just going to limit my question um to Sarah but I wish I could ask uh Eric to actually talk about the Legacy that I learned one time talking to him about um how we built on the I think it's John Nolan Legacy of being you know nature something nature nature Le something anyway I just spent about three hours with this gentleman and um wow they do a lot of work and so that will lead me to my comment and then I will go to a question um Charlie when you talk about all the work that you guys have done and taking care of the city and 30 people I wonder as we go into budget season how are we going to keep these herculine task uh with with what you're asking of people to do so uh we recognize that we respect that uh you you know when I first talked to you and learned that you guys took care of 100,000 trees nothing else needs to be said Sarah would you just please tell us for the Lay Lay Lay person's point of view why storm water is important for our very existence oh gosh I feel like Jim would be good about answering that um I'll just let him as city engineer I feel like he's got something profound to say I don't know if I have anything profound to say um but so storm water is important for a lot of reasons especially in Madison as we're surrounded by water um we've got the Chain of Lakes here we've got a number of streams when we're building out our city and our Urban environment when it rains like it has recently all that water needs to go somewhere and we also want it to be as clean as it possibly can be before it heads up and heads into our lakes and streams and so you know over the decades we've built out our storm water ordinances and storm water management requirements to now include things not just for conveyance of storm water you know moving it from areas to another area where it can pound up potentially flood but looking at flood mitigation efforts and storm water treatment and water quality to protect the the waters that that surround all of our residents here here so I'll dive into things that I know somewhat about that a lot of the requirements that we have for our subdivisions are for specific water quality guidelines set forth by the Clean Water Act and the EPA and actually influence not only our city but our Downstream impacts to like the Rock River Watershed so a lot of what we have to do is not specific to just us it's the larger Regional area and so the requirements that we set for things that we see in these public Outlets are to address some of the the regional Watershed concerns thank you aler Alder ver thank you mayor thank you all very much for being here you can tell this is a topic that we are all extremely interested in I do have uh one specific question and then a broader question my specific question is about EAB and I was hoping that uh Eric and Ian could each uh just share with us the estimated figure today of how many um current ash trees in the city are being chemically treated as it relates to the parks division obviously Eric it's the adopt a park tree uh program well since Charlie's coming first that's weird I'm talking about Eric but anyway I'll just finish my thought as it relates to parks of course it's the adopta uh a tree program and I was wondering if we knew how many were currently still being um chemic treated thanks to the generosity of folks in the community and obviously as it relates to our Terrace trees how many that ash trees are still um surviving that we're able to chemically treat all these many years now sure so when we first started our EAB uh chemical treatments uh we were treating every other year and we had just about 12,000 um that we treated so about 6,000 a year uh we're now down to right around 10,000 uh that we treat on a three-year cycle that's consistent with the chemical that we use in the manufacturer recommendations so we're treating just over 3,000 a year so uh obviously the trees it's not uh the treatment doesn't armor them against everything we still have storms vehicle strikes other things get the trees but we're still around 10,000 so it's still a big lift every year that's great yeah thank you I think I I'll mention with that as well um so by going to three years that allows us to do less damage to the tree cuz we're drilling once every three so it has three years of recovery versus every other year um there is Recent research out of the Morton Arboretum that actually indicated that with appropriate application you are not doing or introducing additional damage or Decay to those trees so what that means for us who has a a long term an ongoing treatment program is that remains a viable tool um there isn't a closing window of like you can only treat them five times and then they're done um and like Charlie indicated too like the trees that we're losing are not because of ineffectiveness of the treatment it's Auto impact storm damage or other stuff that happens um that ends up taking the tree out um as far as the parks trees go um there was a u adopted tree program um and that was through the the goodness and the the contributions of the residents um adopting those trees and paying for those treatments this last summer um forestry actually brought that treatment program under our umbrella we have trained staff we are able to leverage our purchase and our buy to get uh economies and what we're doing and so uh we actually had worked with parks and got that adopted tree list and all of those trees were treated by the forestry team last year so they will be treated once every 3 years it's about 300 trees now um but those are all being effectively treated under our Citywide Management program um and we're just going on to Parks property to do it once every 3 years by your own forces correct y so does the Madison Parks Foundation still receive the funds to cover that expense or are we using resources to do that work now the at this point the resources have come from our good friends with in forestry part of the the collective buy Urban for special charge funding uh and we have started to communicate to volunteers that they could volunteers and donors they could rep prioritize those to other things like and we're hoping to roll out a little bit more on the whole like give money to plant trees that's a really hard thing in Parks just so you know cuz what Charlie said earli about trees if you try to take Don ations for tree planting you should be ready to talk about species and site location in a level of detail that you are not prepared for uh but that's kind of the goal is to try to take those communities and neighbors who have been dedicating resources to the canopy and move it in a in a in a more um systematic canopy growth way uh is the plan right now that said we've told Ian that we have some resources if there's any shortage the reality is it's not that expensive for them to do it uh given the scale and and it was a staff time issue initially back in the original days when it was 6,000 trees a year when Forester was still with us in parks that was an irrational thing to even talk about now Ian's treating 30 3,000 on the street roughly a year 3,300 and 300 more in Parks Charlie maybe he's going to tell me he's going to send me a bill so that's fine I was just going to say so the funding for that comes from the fact that we're not treating as many trees on the Street anymore we're treating them every third year and over the course of the decade the cost of the chemicals come down just enough so that's where we treated The Oaks on Parks right same chemical same purchase uh that's what we're doing with some of that funding and the time that was set aside to treat trees is we are expanding from just doing ash trees on the Terrace to a couple of these other things uh asht trees a few of those in the Parks as well as the Oaks so that's kind of in that same bud budget envelope so it's it's not uh it's a matter of a few thousand to protect these trees and when we made the decision last year we felt like you know in the case of the volunteers the residents had carried that burden for 7even eight nine years at that point we had the funds we took it we took it on from that point to make sure we could continue to honor their sacrifice from those seven eight nine years of getting them treated so that's that's where that comes from that's great were were those do you recall Charlie were those Community organizations individuals notified then in last year WR in writing we let them know okay I don't know if it was phone calls emails but it was there a variety of types of organiz individuals phone calls emails neighborhood association there was a wide variety of people or groups that were had adopted trees and and kept up with it partly because we wanted to get their records to make sure they had kept up with it and we weren't walking into a situation where a tree was going to be too far gone or hadn't been treated for four or five years and wouldn't make sense speaking paroly the capital neighborhoods uh had been chemically treated and arranging their own Arbor private arborist to go on City Parkland about 30 ash trees and biringham and law parks for a good seven years or whatever it's been now I don't know so so they in their budget they still have a line item of all this money that they raised for ash um treatment uh so you're saying that you're pretty sure that they they should have been notified and that money that's in our budget would to continue contributions every few years can be repurposed on terms of the neighborhood association yes and and if it hadn't been it would have been an oversight on our part but Our intention was to take that all in so we'll double check for sure um and it also could have been all the rever if depending on when they had treated we it may not be time to tr exactly so what I'm think we can certainly follow up on that at your convenience whoever could that would be great yeah on that particular case they could still choose to give to parks and absolutely I I always encourage donations to the Madison Parks Foundation Eric you know that and then my my my um kind of I I'm sorry I thought I thought the ash treat question would be would be a lot quicker and my my other question actually is for you Ian uh and and welcome again as for your first inperson appearance at a council meeting here uh so I I was really thrilled when I heard about your hire in May of last year frankly because I hold Milwaukee forestry in such high esteem anecdotally from the short time I lived in Milwaukee uh and you know just what I've heard from Urban canopy activists in the state that Milwaukee it's one of the great things that the city of Milwaukee does right and at least historically has so I'm wondering I know this is very fair unfair of me to put you on the spot as we're ending the Q&A session here but could you compare for us and contrast perhaps from your all your years of experience as a manager in Milwaukee forestry versus our operation here and then as in particular are there any um aspects uh that you learned in Milwaukee that you've been able to bring to our forestry program here yet or that you plan to do uh very broad andir a lot a lot of plan to do um Milwaukee has for decades recruited and trained people from the street into our arbac cultural Workforce and so actually when the state went forward with an apprenticeship program they based that off of the training program that we had been doing in the city of Milwaukee and so we had a lot of influence on how like the the skill development and the times and the the benchmarks that were laid out what actually went into the Statewide program and so that's why I was so invested in trying to apprenticeship once I came here because I saw what it was able to do for the City of Milwaukee I mean we'd already been doing it it wasn't called apprenticeship it was just called arborous training um but we had actually pursued Federal funding in a couple of different Avenues with ARA funding and other things to even just train for the outside like we would hire people train them and then the idea was turn them loose because we were under a hiring freeze um and then um we did have success with that we did see people that had an interest but didn't have the opportunity and you connect those those two and now they're fully functional fully employed gainfully employed arborous working either for the city for other local tree care companies for the local utility um in in a number of different ways and so that's where my passion for um the arbor apprenticeship specifically kind of came from um I would I had also spearheaded our uh Urban tree wood utilization so in Milwaukee if you see a tree when you take it down we actually would take out the canopy and chip that part um you'd see a standing trunk which looks kind of odd but we remove the hazard because no trunk the wind is not going to blow a trunk over we can come and get that at a later time and so we would use what they call here clam trucks um but basically remove the whole trunk in one piece so that both saves saw time saves wear and tear on staff because instead of them lifting stuff they're mechanically moving stuff but we would send that wood to a local wood processor and then have the wood mil and so in buildings like the fiser Forum um there's CL Shadow crey building um there's a new child care center for WM um our Urban wood that came from the streets of Milwaukee are actually in some of those buildings and integrated so um opportunities to not only store and sequester carbon for the long term um but there's there's opportunities for growth within programs and so the the the interest and embrace of trees within this community the urban forcey special charge certainly of having stable funding was something that um really enticed me about kind of making the leap to come here and then taking the experience and the relationships that I have in Milwaukee and finding ways what can we do here in a community that's half the size of Milwaukee um to put the Madison spin on it I'm not looking to make this Milwaukee west but what things can we do here that I have some experience with in Milwaukee um to really help the long-term um opportunities for not only the canopy here but the residents that are here as well sounds good I appreciate that and I don't want to take up more time but I will just want to say in closing if you haven't figured it out you have a growing fan club among downtown tree activists and uh you were one of the first choices for to uh come in as a speaker oh for for the downtown neighborhood association that I mentioned a few moments ago so I hope that that can that can happen sooner rather than later you're happy to thanks thanks again everybody for all that you do thank you mayor thank you Alder Alder oox thank you um I really enjoyed the presentation and this is a fascinating conversation I didn't know we could talk for hours about trees but apparently we can't um but um and I I even like the comment about the fruit trees being somebody that moved to the Southside loved having all these mature trees I think I had two pair of trees two apple trees couple of plum trees and now I just have one apple tree left so so much for cultivating the trees but my question really has to do with you know we talk about trees and and the ecological perspective of wanting to interact with our environment and trees um I just kind of wondered when I heard you talking about someone mentioned a 40 % canopy standard and we're at about 25% and I just wondered if forestry has a connection with what what is a sustainable standard um and the reason I asked that question because I recently had an opportunity to try to explore getting some solar on my house and they told me the tree canopy was too thick to sustain that so in the process of trying to move with some of the mayor's ideas of you know being more energy efficient the trees uh obviously aren't allowing me to do that so my question is is there a concern about what a sustainable standard is and or even logically are there I'm pretty sure there are cases where we don't replant trees you know um for a reason can someone kind of shed a little light on those two perspectives let me just say Al there that you'll that that tree is going to save you uh energy on your air conditioning I got that thank you getting some benefit from it yeah I'll just say real fast 40% is a uh aspirational goal um and it's not something uh the city can do on its own unless we turn every Park uh close it and turn it into an arboretum um there's really no way the city can get which I'm not advocating for Eric I'm not trying to put you out of business I took forestry then we're going to close Parks um so so we won't get there as a city planting city property uh we can certainly move the needle from 23% and move it upwards but the way we get to 40% is focusing on lands that the city does not own so that that's going to be partnering with other land owners um in the city so that can be schools that can be seage District that can be really anyone who owns land in the city that has plantable sites and and finding ways to encourage them to um plant trees if they don't have other use for the property as far as solar installations that's been a little bit of a back and forth in my 13 years here and essentially what we've settled on is if the tree is there first then the tree will take preeminent over a solar installation if you have a solar installation we will we will honor that with a tree so we might plant a small tree or we may not plant a tree that would shadow that at all so we we basically try whatever is there is first kind of takes preeminence so we will not plant a tree that will crowd out your solar but we're not going to cut down trees or heavily PL prune trees to allow for a solar installation and that's kind of how we've the best balance we've been able to strike okay thank you thank you I was going to mention since you did mention kind of like the ecological picture of everything that is something that's always kind of we're grasping with also in areas that are maybe part of a Conservation Park which are trying to restore Remnant Remnant communities those might not have a lot of tree canopy cover because historically if you look at Finley's mapping of vegetation in Wisconsin our area was primarily PR and Marsh so we're always looking at how to balance those objectives we recognize we're not in a pristine you know original environment and ecosystem anymore so but when we're looking at the larger ecological picture we kind of have to look at what sites it's appropriate to have trees and look at other pollinator species and biodiversity and where we want to have Prairie and the whole grand scheme of trees in our larger Urban landscape and the ecology behind it [Music] thank you one real quick comment so um there there are utility complex bull grade as well that that we do have to to check for so I mean those can be things like um electrical it can be sewer and water gas um and so those are some of the Partnerships that I talk about of like working with engineering and others of if we have a new plat can we put that sanitary sewer and the water line instead of through the middle of the Terrace can we put that someplace else you know are there opportunities where we can make a plantable space where if you do just put straight lines that that might not be something that it looks like a plantable space even though when we start Excavating below grade or researching below grade it may not become a plantable space and we do try and stay you know a distance away from either the driveway a sidewalk or other utilities so that we don't have those ongoing conflicts thank you aler Mian uh thank you mayor just want to ask question real quick um we were like the 19th Place um place in the country to actually receive a grant from nature everywhere I just wanted Eric to touch on that and what that means what to the city and the parks C certainly so the connecting uh nature everywhere formerly connecting children of nature is a collaboration between the children of nature Network and the national league of cities we were originally uh uh part of the first cohort of uh that work back in 20156 um 13 12 13 cities we've been um recognized again uh with this is a partnership with public health as I mentioned earlier a lot of other agencies that are involved uh Public Health being a key driver so I really want to call it Janelle and our team but what that what that Grant uh is means number one is the national league of cities and children nature Network think we are uh we kind of have a pretty good attack a plan of attack to try to work to connect those kids and an intentional Outreach in different ways and I think one of the things that made that impactful in that regard is the fact that we're doing it from Partnerships right our focus is in in partnership with with other agencies with the schools but with other entities like the community centers the neighborhood centers right uh that's how we're going to try to meet where where kids are at and connect them to Nature I think another part that I heard this last week of nature everywhere was we are um there's there's some in the environmental I'm very careful I want to be diligent in the in the conservation environmental movement um there's some who have a real strong feeling about what nature is right um we take a pretty Broad View when it comes to connecting kids and seniors to Nature uh or at least philosophically we do like I think getting kids outside uh near pollinators near trees is pretty darn good because we're fighting against the iPhone right and so it's kind of uh part of the grant thing Grant award was how we're kind of working to to build the program there'll be a lot lot coming on that we'll hopefully give you guys an update again in about two months with what's going next but again we parks are not doing a ton we are really trying to integrate and collaborate uh but thank you for the question it's it's a great opportunity it's a high honor it was very competitive Grant selection in National League of cities I think really things we have have it going on a lot of kids a lot of nature right and one one last question I uh so this is about um understanding for me as an aler to understand uh property owners rights I know me and Ian we I guess this question is for Ian or uh for Charlie to see what um so there was a easement in my district that um the mg asks a property owner to see if they could do some work on their property I'm just wondering as a property owner do they uh if there's a tree that's in the way that uh that they deem it's in the way if they were to uh the property owner does not want them to remove the tree so my question is uh do can they pick it up and replant it or if some if a property owner is given uh U agreement to use that easement and there the tree is in the way so I'm just trying to understand the rights of a property owner uh does that tree can it be uh put into into another uh place or that might be an attorney question I don't think we're qualified answer that one sorry I don't want to speak to what we know nothing about oh okay yeah I I think that's that's probably a honestly it's probably a question that the property owner needs to ask an attorney oh okay yeah because if it's if the city isn't party to the the transaction it's I don't we can't comment on it well mg& e if they're it's that's not us okay understand that may be Bear's saying since we've heard a lot from the public uh post storm Madison Gas and Electric is a private utility it is not controlled nor regulated by the city of Madison um and I think one of the things that you heard tonight is that our team did a I think bang up job of uh cleaning up after the storm and um a lot of times we were waiting for mg to come through and and clean up their lines so that we could get in there and and deal with the rest of the trees so I have no other alers in the queue with questions so can we give these folks another Round of Applause thank you all very much um clearly a topic that folks are very interested in and I appreciate everybody having such great questions and encourage you to follow up uh with the staff um on specific things in your District or questions that you might get from constituents um we will clip this video and uh share it with the council if you want to share it out on your blogs um and uh obviously also the presentation will be available um if you want to share the slides so with that we are uh at the hour of 8:30 on to honoring resolutions um item three is legistar 883656 recognizing June 2024 as pride month in the city of Madison uh Alder field would you make the motion to ADT motion to adopt is there a second second moved and seconded to adopt uh we read this at the pride flag raising so we will not read it tonight um but I want to thank everybody who did come to that event um and who took part in the reading it has been moved and seconded is there any objection to uh recording a unanimous vote in favor of item three seeing no objection we record unanimous vote in favor of item three item four is legistar 8369 7 commending the student journalists of the daily Cardinal and the heral for exceptional journalism on item four Alder gajan a motion please motion to adopt is there a second second moved and seconded to adopt item four unfortunately the student journalists that were here to receive the proclamation uh wanted to avoid the weather and headed out which is probably a wise choice on their part so unless there's objection will dispense with reading and I trust that the Elder will get them copies of the proclamation and seeing no objection then it's been moved in seconded is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of item four seeing no objection we'll record a unanimous vote in favor of item four are there any disclosures or recusals on tonight's agenda Alder field thank you mayor on items 68 and 101 I'm a UW Madison employee but that relationship will not affect my vote on those items thank you Alder viver uh items 63 and 64 I am an employee of the Department of Health Services um but that will not affect my vote thank you Alder Alder Curry thank you chair I need to recuse myself from agenda item number 66 legislative file 8 3458 due to being employed on LTE basis by YWCA and overseeing the program that would benefit thank you Alder Alder Tish sir yes I'm going to e Echo exactly what uh Alder Fields just said I'm also a W Madison employee and it will not affect my vote on those two items thank you Alder Alder Harrington mckenny thank you Madame mayor um item number um it's 8 3481 I'd like to uh recuse myself and also there's a correction it says uh uh Harrington mcken District one It should read District 20 all right although I just want to make sure that clerk has that can you say the legister number again 83 481 and uh we'll note you as recusing and that the district should be 20 or that there's a discrepancy there we should check that thank you are there any other disclosures or recusals on tonight's agenda seeing none we'll move on to the presentation of the consent agenda president figure our call okay a consent agenda is moved with the recommended action listed for each item on the agenda including public hearings except one items wish have regist wishing to speak two items which which others have separated out for discussion debate purposes this document list super majority items agenda items recommendations different from the agenda item for exclusions items introduced on the floor and agenda items with corrections agenda items that are with super majorities um agenda item 63 amending the the public health operating budget to accept Wisconsin Department of Health Services grant funding for one FTE bilingual dieric specialist and a one FTE week program manager 15 votes required agenda item 64 amending the public health operating budget to accept Wisconsin Department of Health Services grant funding for 1ft Grant manager and8 F health education coordinator to to support immunizations and a efforts agenda item 75 2024 Board of assessors appointments 14 votes required agenda item 81 establishing in person absentee voting locations for the 2024 partisan primary and general election 14 items required agenda item 85 amending the police department's operating budget and authorizing the major and chief of police or design to accept a project safe neighborhoods Grant Awards of $1,888 and a burn Justice assistant Grant of $40,000 on the state of Wisconsin Department of Justice for overtime for patrol level problem oriented policing initiatives and National integrated ballistic Information Network firearm Ballistic cases investigative cases 15 votes required aenda item number 8 six amending the parks division 2024 capital budget to receive $10,000 in private funding support and transferring $50,000 in existing Geo Authority from Madison Senior Center Courtyard project to the lake Monona waterr pro project and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to enter into a contract contract for purchase of services with Sasaki Associates in to provide professional design consultant services for the first phase of implementation for the lake Monona water front 15 votes required agenda item number 87 authorizing the mayor police chief and city clerk to sign an intergo governmental agreement with the city of Milwaukee to provide support to City of Milwaukee law enforcement from July 13 2024 through July 20th 2024 and amending the police department's operating budget to receive reimbursement for set expenses 15 votes required agenda item 89 authorizing the parks division to submit an if awarded to accept a grant of $12 million from the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration for the lake Monona Warr pro project and authorizing the mayor and the city clerk to enter into a contract with the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration to accept the grant award 15 votes required agenda items with recommendations different from the agenda there's none at this time agenda items excluded by one request of others or two speakers registered by noon on June 4th agenda item 106 amending section 10.18 and 1.08 38 and creating section 27.05.2012 electronic waste recycling po policy um is also being pulled to add a referral to the finance committee on June June 10th 2024 items introduced from the floor agenda item legis file 83781 declaring certain alcohol license establishments ineligible to extend closing hours to 4:00 a.m. from July 15 2024 through July 19 19 2024 pursuant to 2023 Wisconsin Act 73 which permits extended closing hours during the 2024 Republican National Convention held in Milwaukee Wisconsin um that is to be back in common Council on June 18 There's No Agenda items needing Corrections at this time and that is the conclusion of the conent agenda thank you president figuro call uh in addition to that we have a regist we have regist wishing to speak on item 58 so we'll exclude that are there additional items that members of the body would like to have excluded from the consent agenda all there Herrington mcken um item number um 65 and 66 and 8 86 I have a questions 65 66 and 86 correct thank you Alder Alder Ginder Rajan thank you I'd like to just be added as a sponsor to Item 99 Item 99 will'll add Alder Ginder Rajan as a sponsor Alder Haring to McKinny um sorry Madame mayor um add as a sponsor number 85 5 83 285 and also item number 100 83422 items 85 and 100 Al there Harington mckin will be added as a sponsor Alder Knox Alder Knox you're muted thank you can you hear me yes yes um I would like to be um added to um 89 91 items 89 and 91 and 86 all right so 86 89 91 and 91 just making sure the clerk has got this and 133 hold on Al there okay sorry about6 8991 and 103 133 133 yes thank you thank you Alder are there any other items that alers wish to have separated from the consent agenda at this time time seeing none let's go through that again quickly um the following our super majority items items 75 and 81 require 14 votes items 63 64 85 87 and 89 require 15 votes the following items will be excluded items 58 65 66 and 86 I would like to ask unanimous consent to add the referrals to finance committee of 610 on items 106 and 120 and leave those on the consent agenda Alder Knox is that on items 106 and 120 no hold on just a minute then uh so with unanimous consent we will uh add the referrals to finance committee on 61024 to items 106 and 120 and not exclude them and then Alder knock something additional 92 can you add 92 to the con to the agenda to the exclusions yes item 92 all right so uh one more time then the exclusions will be 58 65 66 86 and 92 and we have one introduction from the floor is there anything additional on the consent agenda if not president figureo a motion please move to adopt moved and seconded to adopt the consent agenda is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of the consent agenda seeing no objection we'll record that unanimous vote on the consent agenda items and we will move on to public comment on public comment we did did have registrant on item two um which I think we will not have registrant on presentations in the future but since that was a possibility of one registrant on item two wishing to speak Edward hmel of District n do we have Edward on the zoom it does not seem we have anyone in the room there's no one in the meeting with that name thank you all right then the next item with registrant wishing to speak is item 58 which is to Grant the 18 plus and 21 plus entertainment 2024 2025 license renewals with restrictions as previously approved and to include any change of corporate structure and amended conditions as set forth in the report on agenda item 58 we have several registrants wishing to speak the first is Todd Callister of district 6 to be followed by Karen Craig to be followed by Chris Lucas do we have Todd on the zoom there's no one in the meeting with that name all right how about Karen Craig there is no one in the zoom meeting with that name how about Chris Lucas of district 6 yeah we have Chris Lucas Chris you should be able to unmute I am unmuted go ahead uh I just wanted to express my concern with um unconditional approval of the uh entertainment license for Mickey's Tavern um I live about 150 yards away and I know some of my neighbors have expressed concerns about the noise level that comes from there when they play their have their live bands um hoping maybe that can be like separated out or whatever you do and sent back to the committee for further review thanks thank you we have no other registrant on item 58 are there questions for the registrant if not uh we have no other items with a registrant wishing to speak so we will move on to item 58 uh item 58 is legistar 83374 to Grant 18 plus and 21 plus entertainment 2024 to 2025 license renewals with the restrictions as previously approved and to include any change of corporate structure and amended conditions as set forth in the report on item 58 present figuro call a motion please move to Grant moved and seconded to Grant item 58 are there questions for staff Alder rumel thank you mayor it's so nice to see attorney Assistant Attorney zilv here with us for I think another item but could you help um me and everyone and my constituent who um just spoke talk about how we deal with the annual renewal if if a neighbor has a compl how is what's the best way to approach that if if there was a license that they were having say noise issues with Etc we do have a separation hearing um usually it's in the month of May to deal with issues that have come up or have been referred um and this year we did not have a one of those hearings because there were no licens that were referred to us for concerns in terms of putting conditions on or things like that um I only became aware of this I think at the same time you did within the last couple of weeks and it's not that we can't address those concerns outside of one of those meetings so um those concerns will be addressed with the establishment and typically when we do that um generally they're responsive and take the steps necessary to address the issue that's presented to them and if they don't then um after we have that meeting um then it heads down the line of what would be Progressive discipline if there's something that they can be cited for if there's a law violation um and then we would go down that path one one final question attorney zivy so you know when you look at if you're like me it dig around and all those licenses and some or have you know a dozen conditions and some you know were approved 20 years ago and there's nothing does the alrc is a poli policymaking body have any have they discussed ever looking at those older licenses to see if they need to update them or they just just it's just complaint driven is that how we approach it well it it's complaint driven and also when an establishment changes hands or if one goes out of business and another one comes in at that location then when that happens they do look at the past conditions and discuss whether it's appropriate to keep those conditions on the new license or um put different new conditions on the license but as far as I know I don't think they've ever done a um a deep dive into licenses that have existed for an extended period of time to see whether any conditions should be updated or added to the license so yeah I mean I guess the short answer is it is primarily complaint driven thank you and I just say to my constituents who were complained about this I will I will work with them on you know trying to talk with that the license establishment thank you mayor thank you aler aler figure oo I just want to add a point of clarification so um an applicant can also come to The Arc in future years and request a condition to be removed that's correct yeah thank you thank you Elder thank you attorney z zil uh I have no other alers with questions on item 58 it has been moved and seconded is there discussion seeing no discussion is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor of item 58 seeing no objection we'll record that vote and that will take us to item 65 item 65 is lar 834 455 authorizing a non-competitive service contract with language line solutions for over the phone interpretation video remote interpretation and translation of documents to support Public Health in Madison day County on item 65 president figural call a motion please move to adop moved and seconded to adopt item 65 on item 65 are there questions for staff aler Herington Kenny uh thank you very much I do have a question of staff and I wanted to um know how efficiently that operation was going um it's been some time ago since we uh I was involved in a uh language accessibility and it did not work as well and so I I wanted to know um how this was functioning and if uh there are any problems that we should be concerned about aler we have a number of folks from public health here I'm not sure which of them would like to take the question but we'll start with Janelle I'm going to um sorry I cannot be on screen my computer completely fritzed out once I got home this evening and logged on so um hopefully you can hear me all right yes um I'm going to just ask that Sarah kamacho who is leading our language access work jump in I just wanted to introduce her to respond to this question thank you director Hinrich Sarah thank you Janelle um so we actually lately have been having um a fair amount of success with language line um especially in um getting interpreters quickly on the line for languages of lesser diffusion um every once in a while there are some edits that we need to make to the translations that they complete but that is part of our workflow um so I would I would say that um there really are not any significant um concerns of quality um that we've had regarding language lines Services thank you very much I I just needed that update thank you aler and thank you Sarah are there any other questions for staff on item 6 5 seeing none it's been moved and seconded is there discussion seeing no discussion uh is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of item 65 seeing no objection we'll record a unanimous vote that will bring us to item 66 which is legistar 8 3458 authorizing a non-competitive service contract with YWCA Madison Incorporated for Tenant Resource Services to Court tenant capacity building on item 66 president figuro Cole a motion please to adopt moved and seconded to adopt item 66 on item 66 questions for staff Alder Harrington mckenny uh thank you Madame mayor um I specifically had a question because um the Tenant Resource Center um two things the Tenant Resource Center had been providing support to Residents and also there was a time that the apartment associations was doing these um uh um these trainings and so are they no longer eligible to do it is that why that there's a non-competitive selection process or was that open Alder I am looking for who might be able to answer that question I think I could I'm sorry if I does my name appear I'm from public health I can respond to that uh yeah go ahead yeah so um the but selected agency was based on complementing the amendment that was written into the adopted into the budget which specifically says that this re the funding was is meant to go to an agency that was fund through the 2023 VP or vience prevention grant program as an amendment to their 2024 contract so adopting that language as it was written we had to consider the applicants that have already been awarded under that grant program which was YWCA Madison was the only grantee who was performing this type of work and specifically tenant organizing as adopted into the budget it it it perhaps would be helpful to take a step backwards um uh and this is not uh just the general Citywide tenant support work that we have funded previously right this is a specific um funding stream through Public Health violence prevention unit is that correct yes aler does that answer your question I think I'm just more confused if you can help and Ma U Madame mayor you do a good job at kind of breaking this apart um I'm totally confused um does it mean that what does it mean because I'm confused so um perhaps r or Ahmed will stop me when I go wrong but um the city has historically granted monies through uh to the Tenant Resource Center usually through the Community Development Division um and certainly the pandemic we worked closely with them and and still do on eviction prevention that's a completely separate thing um this contract is for tenant capacity building um not for eviction prevention um or tenant education um and is specifically related to the work that the violence prevention unit is doing and Ariel I don't know if you want to add anything about that work yeah I think what's most important here too is this is funding that was actually allocated by the county um so the city is just adopting this resolution to add it to Public Health budget um in accordance with what the county passed okay and the reason that I pulled it is that uh when I was with um Madison are Madison area Urban Ministry now just Dane that this is one of the programs that we worked with with the apartment Owners Association and so your explanation that it is really um uh County funded really kind of breaks it up for me thank you thank you aler Alder Knox did you have questions yeah I did with um um Step can you talk about more specifically what services you're providing under this um um what you call capacity building can be more specific so go ahead okay so they um the YWCA Madison they obviously have been doing housing support for a long time specifically for women experiencing abuse and this is part of their new program that's specifically looking to help support individuals now entering and leaving their emergency housing and then pursuing their own type of uh permanent housing through rental property so they're kind of giving a full um training and support for those people to to build the sustainability around that so it includes understanding the tenant laws um tenant and landlord laws so that they know their rights when they become a tenant um other types of things related to just having uh housing searching going um correctly and then also understanding any other type of process around what it means to sustain housing uh Financial stability basically looking to ensure that they are empowered as a new tenant uh to address anything that might come up and then just have a full education around it and does this happen on a individual tenant basis or do they do any kind of group empowerment kind of things with the management or the property management it's specifically around like case management so the individuals in the program get that kind of support not as much dealing specifically with the property managers okay thank you thank you Alder other figureo call questions oh nothing I just wanted to say that this is a day County thing but you guys got it thank you aler aler Harrington mckenny additional questions oh I I'm sorry I didn't hear the response she was just going to point out the same thing that arel pointed out which is that it's St County funding okay any additional questions aler and I I do have to ask the uh one additional question because um the program really was very very important when we did it at uh just Dane and so is there a model that's being followed by and I know I hear that it is County money I get that but is there a a program um model that's being followed is there any coordination with uh the apartment Owners Association at all because they were very instrumental and helping us to format um a program and work collabora ly together is that totally out of our realm because it is County money it it is a little bit older and and I would just add that unfortunately the apartment association has dramatically reduced capacity from the time when you were working with them um they just really haven't been present in this space in the last maybe five years okay thank you it was very successful and I'm hoping that even though it is County money that uh Public Health still you know keep so watchful eye on it because it was really helpful for tenants to have that educational process thank you thank you Alder are there any additional questions seeing none item 66 has been moved and seconded is their discussion seeing no discussion is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor seeing no objection we'll record unanimous vote in favor of item 66 and we will move on then to item 86 item 86 is legistar 83301 amending the parks division 2024 capital budget to receive private funding support and transfer funding from existing go Authority from the Madison Senior Center Courtyard project to the lake Monona Waterfront project and then further authorizing a contract with Sasaki Associates to provide design consultant services for the first phase of implementation for the lake Monona water front project on item 86 president figuro Cole a motion please move to adopt moved and seconded to adopt item 86 on item 86 are there questions Alder Harrington McKinny thank you again um I wanted to make sure that the project of the Madison Senior CZ Madison Senior Center uh Courtyard project was complete because I know that um I was on the board when this came before us and um I see that the the $50,000 is being transferred from that so the completion of the work at the Madison Senior Center um has it been completed and I know in the document it said that um sufficient money had been set aside so where is that into in completion and are we sure that there's enough money to successfully complete that project superintendent NP um yes thank you for the question we are confident that the remaining Authority the the good news is for the for the council is the the project came in well under the original budget estimates and there a lot of work from project manager Mike Sturm who's managing both these projects he's very confident the senior center Courtyard uh which is now officially for you all administered by the parks division as a small Park l our um lovely park system um help 10 minutes or less to a lot of folks but so that is that project is very very be near completion and the remaining Authority after this transfer is um significantly sufficient to ensure a successful outcome has that been project been completed or it's it is 98.5% complete we're we're actually uh doing some enhancements to the little play feature we put in based on some neighborhood feedback there's a couple um uh you know kind of uh punch list items that are already covered under the contract those type of things but I would recommend you take a visit it's quite beautiful I think it's a very big Improvement thank you that concludes my questions thank you all are there any additional questions on item 86 seeing none it's been moved and seconded is there a discussion seeing no discussion is there any objection to recording unanimous vote vote in favor of item 86 seeing no objection we'll record a unanimous vote in favor of item 86 and move on to item 92 item 92 is legistar 8391 amending sections of the Madison General ordinances related to Chronic nuisance premises to one make it easier to declare chronic nuisance when the nuisance activity involves Firearms Andor serious bodily injury or death shortening the period for declaring chronic nuisance premises based on nuisance activities not involving Firearms or serious bodily injury or death two adding a section to exempt certain victim centered offenses such as domestic violence from eligible nuisance activities three administrative and reorganization of some subsections for easier comprehension I must say attorney zil you could write a shorter title on item 92 president figureo call a motion please to adopt moved and second to adopt item 92 on item 92 are there questions Alder Knox yeah I have questions um but my questions is for staff yep that's where we're at appropriate okay um is someone from the uh police department here wait anyone possi we do not seem to have somebody uh from the police department but we have multiple City attorneys okay I I'll take one who's available I think attorney zelie will will take first position here first chair and I don't know if she can answer this but there's a provision in this that talks about one of the conditions being uh um I believe is having possession sale or use of synthetic marijuana is that correct I'm trying to find that that's correct okay so I guess I kind of want to know from um a charge classification perspective the difference between possession sales versus use because I think those are three very distinct U charts right well first I'll start by saying that synthetic marijuana is not um legal it is it hasn't been in the news recently but it's the substance that a few years ago it um nicknames were K2 spice bath salts and it's a very dangerous substance for humans to consume it's illegal on the federal level the state level and we also have a city ordinance against it um but to your question in terms of um what class of charges that typically is it a felony is it a misdemeanor is it I would say it's not I don't know that I've seen it charged out at the state level um I don't know about the federal level so in terms of the city it would be a city ordinance violation okay and then possession what's the what it um if someone gets charged with possession and that's just having the product there's no quantity because of the fact that it's an illegal product and is that a misdemeanor under the city ordinance as well anything that's a city ordinance is not a crime it's it's the equivalent of a traffic ticket okay but I would assume this sales of it may change the classification the under the ordinance it would still be just an ordinance violation okay something that typically our da is not going to charge so in terms of this these changes so so are we saying that someone um I mean if a property owner has an individual or individuals who are charged with a misdemeanor of possession that they could move forward to being determined to be um that this property would would meet the definition of of uh what this ordinance is I I mean I'm just trying to process that it would have to meet the criteria and the criteria if the proposed amendment passes the criteria would be two enforcement actions for the general nuisance activities in a 60 I mean three enforcement actions for the general nuisance activities in a 90-day period 60-day period sorry and the enforcement action is either a physical arrest issuance of a citation or refer referral of charges to the city attorney's office or the District Attorney's office so it's not just one instance of that yeah I understand that I'm just and again just trying to just trying to evaluate the severity of the of the offense uh relative to the other ones okay thanks yeah I think you answered my question you're welcome thank you thank you Alder Alder Herington mcken questions uh yes um attorney you know that you're are a rock star and so uh you've been working with with us very diligently over on the west side and so um the the althor of this proposed um uh resolution did talk with me and my question really is is that um as you're looking at the amendment uh are we at a point where we need to be updating our uh overall nuis abatement so there's a lot of things that are happening I just want to make sure that you I mean you are looking at that terms of specifically for this amendment but overall um do we need to be updating the city's um nuisance ordinance to fit what's happening let's say on the on the West Side uh well that's these changes apply across the city and they do the ordinance was adopted in 2007 and at that time it was more directed toward the ener quality of life type nuisance issues that were happening because that's predominantly what was going on and over the years the nuisance activity has unfortunately gotten more violent and that is a big part of the change now so that we can act quicker when there is there are crimes of serious bodily injury or involving Firearms okay I think you answered my question because it had not been updated since 2007 but your look at it has brought it into thank you you did answer my question thank you you're welcome thank you Alder Alder yuger uh yes uh when uh we reviewed and then approved uh and recommended passage of this from the housing strategy committee uh at the time we did that we noted a minor drafting error that's a bit confusing um and I thought we had it corrected but the version that I picked up through legistar here with the agenda still has the the problem if you would look at the um Amendment for section 2 Sub a sub one it's right at the top of the first page at the bottom of uh in that paragraph you'll see it ends with a colon that then goes to three items that have been crossed out um the version I have that I printed before I came down here does have that language eliminated oh good in response to what you asked at the committee thank you thank you Alder are there any additional questions for staff on item 92 seeing none it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion on on item 92 seeing no discussion is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of item 92 Alder Knox yeah I I will vote no on this nay aler Vladimir burus uh I also will be voting no thank you Alder so we'll have seeing no additional alers we have two no votes uh would which gives us 18 eyes and that item will pass and that brings us to the end of our agenda are there any additional introductions from the floor or announcements if not president figuro Cole it's your turn is there a second moved and seconded to adjourn uh is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of adjournment seeing no objection we are adjourned