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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApril 8, 2025 Tree Board Minutes from the Jeffersonville Tree Board April 8, 2025 In attendance: Eric Bitner, Jeff Cover, Carol Dunn, Jenny Felix, Bob Hill, Kelli Jones, Amber Powell, Paul Reid, Chad Reischl, Derrick Wiest, Heaven Williams The meeting of the Jeffersonville Tree Board was called to order by Jeff Cover at 4pm on April 8, 2025 in the Planning/Building/Parks conference room at the Jeffersonville City Hall Jeff began the meeting with a round of introductions and distribution of copies of the Arbor Day Foundation's "Tree Board Handbook" to newly present members. This was followed by a discussion of the agenda and general approval/acceptance of the informal minutes from an initial meeting of four of the appointed tree board members on March 11, 2025. Chad explained that the ordinance establishing the Tree Board included provisions that the Mayor would appoint 3 people from his staff to the board, and that the City Council would appoint 2 people. The Mayor's appointees include Amber Powell, Chad Reischl, and Derrick Wiest; the Council's appointments were Jeff Cover and Bob Hill. It was noted that Amber, Bob, Chad, and Jeff had been at the first meeting. The minutes were accepted by those present. The first order of business was to discuss a set of bylaws for the Board. Chad led this discussion as he and Jeff worked together to develop a set of bylaws. Chad indicated the City Council gave only very general directions when it established the Tree Board, but it would be up to us to formally establish some rules of order. Chad distributed copies of a working set of bylaws — generated by adapting the "Rules of Procedure" from the Scottsburg Tree Board to our organization's needs. He then walked through the draft. After a bit of discussion, it was agreed upon: 1. To increase the maximum number of members to 13, and 2. To approve these provisionally with a review in 90 days. A motion was made and seconded to approve the bylaws as noted. The motion passed unanimously. The second order of business was to elect officers of the Board. Jeff informed us that we'd need to elect a President, Vice President, and Secretary. We would leave the position of treasurer vacant at this time. Jeff opened nominations for president. He was nominated and accepted said nomination. He was elected president unanimously. Jeff then opened nominations for Vice President. Bob Hill was nominated and accepted. A vote was called and he was elected unanimously. Jeff then opened nominations for secretary. Chad agreed to take on the role, as he has already been helping with that. A vote was called and he was elected unanimously. Following elections Jeff brought up some planning that is already underway for Arbor Day on April 25. These included: 1. A proclamation has been drafted and signed by the Mayor recognizing Arbor Day in the City of Jeffersonville. Plan are in place to have the proclamation read a the City's Earth Day Festival on April 19. 2. Tree plantings on Arbor day: a. A tree planting with 2nd Graders at Riverside Elementary at 2:15 on April 25. This project is organized by folks at First Presbyterian Church b. Tree planting at the future Silos Park (near Middle Rd and Parkland Tr.) from 12-noon. This project is being put on by the City Planning Department. 12 trees will be planted in the future park. Folks are free to join up. The board then moved to informal discussion of new business items. These involved: 1 . Establishing committees: Some ideas included Public Information, Education, Service Projects, Finance, etc. The board agreed to revisit this at the next meeting 2. Approaching the City for Funding. This can be done at any time, but it does take time. It was agreed that it was best to have a plan in place and that we need to do some more thinking on this. 3. Initial PR for the Board: Questions were asked about whether we could have a facebook page, website, etc. Chad indicated that facebook may not be an option based on City policy, but we could feed info to the folks who manage Jeffersonville's Facebook groups. We could easily a page to the City's website, creating a new one would cost money. Bob Hill volunteered to provide some sort of write up about the formation of the Board and its purpose. Paul Reid thought we might even want to think about a logo. Kelly thought this might be a good way to get student's from Jeff High involved, Heaven and Jenny thought there might be an opportunity for some sort of Logo contest. 4. Communications: Chad was asked to start a new email chain for the board. 5. Tree City Application: We will want to talk more about this later, but Eric suggested that we should start pulling together budgetary numbers for tree work by the City as one of the requirements is that the City spends at least $2 per capita on trees yearly. Jeff wanted to be conscientious about everyone's time and suggested that unless there was any other highly important business to discuss, that we adjourn for the night. A motion was made and the meeting was adjourned at 5:20pm. Respectfully7 Submitted, had Re' chl K Secretary, Jeffersonville Tree Board.