Bernards Township Shade Tree Commission Minutes

February 13, 2008   7:15 PM

Town Hall Conference Room

1.         Call to Order:

- The meeting was called to order by Randy at 7:20 PM.

2.         Roll Call

Present: Randy Santoro, Chris McManemin, Fred Burgerhoff, Jack Gray, Mark Harabedian, Scott Spitzer, Dave Ferratti.

Absent: Charlie Cunion, Dennis Dinsmore, Judy O’Connell.

3.         Minutes from December

- Reviewed and accepted as corrected.

4.         Bills

- None.

5.         Correspondence

- Recreation, Parks and Pathways Advisory Committee requested our opinion of the Scotch pines on the Farmstead Park property. Jack will visit the site and report back to Randy. Randy will reply to the committee’s request.

6.       Grant Report (Green Communities)

- None.

7. Arbor Day

- Jack provided the tree list for our Arbor Day planting. We will plant 3 white oaks and 2 London Planetrees in the Dog Park.

- Fred will check with teachers at Cedar Hill and Oak St schools to see if they can use seedling for an Arbor Day classroom activity.

8. Charter Day

- Discussed ordering seedlings for distribution and other plans.

9.         Education Report

- Steve Gray (from DPW) has taken non-CEU Rutgers continuing education courses such as a Soils course. We will apply for CEU credits if Steve takes a CEU certified course in the future.

- Randy and Mark are not able to attend “Municipal Shade Tree Management” this month, but would like to attend at another time.

10.         New Tree Plantings

- Parker Landscaping has completed the Fall Planting throughout the township except for 5 trees which will be planted in the spring. Parker will send an updated invoice crediting the unplanted 5 trees.

- Commissioners should provide homeowners our recently created letter about caring for their new trees. This should go out by spring.

- Dave brought Deer Guards which were distributed after the meeting. These will be placed on new tree plantings sometime by spring.

11.      Tree Removals/Prunings

- Discussed silver maple at 12 Dayton and the township engineers evaluation – tree is not in ROW and our follow up to homeowner.

- Keats Rd homeowner requested removal of two Norway maples. Trees were inspected and utility contractor called to okay removal.

12.     Updated Community Forestry Plan

- Mark will speak with Dave Welsh for an updated status on the document review.

13.     Old Business

- Discussed field on Haas Road – no scouts are ready for Eagle project this year. Will move planning for this project to 2009.

- Discussed possible opening on the STC and a potential ordinance change to allow alternates. Mark will ask Denise about any Tap the Talent requests from residents which indicate interest in the STC.

14.     New Business

- The Parks Dept. would like a list of trees for new plantings. Randy will obtain a copy of the recommended trees for developer planting from Engineering to be used when creating our master list of recommended trees for the town.

- Mark will ask Bruce about Developer Tree Fund and whether we can use some of the funds for our projects.

15.     Next Meeting:   Wednesday, March 12, 2008

16.      Adjournment

9:20 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,

Randy Santoro

Chairman