So at 11.05 I will call the Environmental Task Force meeting to order on March the 24th. My name is Sherry Tapehart. I'm chair of the Environmental Task Force. And this time I'd like Dolores Anderson. Would you please read the member's name so we confirm each member is on the call. Yes, I will. Mr. Shepherd. President. Ms. Moise. President Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Ms. Moise. Present. Thank you. Thank you, Dolores. And before we begin, Jennifer Whitman, I'm going to turn the floor to you. I know there are some housekeeping in rules that you would like to go over with the committee. Thank you Ms. K. Part. My name is Jennifer Whitman and I will be assisting with the technical aspects of this meeting. I want to mention a few things before we begin. This meeting is being held by telephones and we can advance the public health goal of minimizing face-to-face contact, also known as social distancing, to slow the spread of the COVID-19. Governor Abbott has suspended some of the requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act. For each maximum time permitted for recording your message, if you are satisfied with your message, press 1 to listen to your message, press 2 to erase and re-record, press 3. I'm sorry, I don't believe that's probably your voice now. Are you still there? You have reached the maximum time permitted for recording your message. If you are satisfied with your message, press one to listen to your message, press two to erase and re-record. I've gotten rid of that call. My apologies. So that was when we had called this moly's earlier. So I'm sorry. Let me go ahead and continue. Governor Avenue has suspended some of the requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act, which is allowing us to meet in this manner. The public toll delivery dial number to access this call is 833-268-8354 access code 426-987-135 this information along the agenda packet containing information to be discussed during this meeting is posted on the city's website. Here's some basic information we know about this call. This meeting is being recorded and this recording will be posted on the city of our own to the website page. The environmental task force will not be voting during this meeting. All speakers, including council members, must identify themselves by name every time they speak. I will remind speakers that they forget so that we can have a full record of this meeting so that the public may have a full understanding of the discussion. Presentation and other materials for this meeting are posted online as part of the agenda for this meeting. The agenda may be found on the city's website, www.arlingtontx.gov by clicking on attendance. For the members of the Environmental Task Force, please ensure that you are in a quiet place where you will not be disturbed during this call. Background noise can be very challenging in a meeting like this, so everyone has been muted. If you wish to speak, please dial star six to unmute yourself or if you're using your device, you can unmute yourself at the top of your screen. If any members of the task force has to leave the call for whatever reason, you're requested to identify yourself at the time that you leave the call as well as when you join back on. Do any of the members of the committee have any questions for me? Okay, so at this point, this K-part, I'll turn it back over to you. I'm sorry. This paper. I. Are you speaking? Miss Kepard, I believe your mic is muted. So if you hover at the bottom. Yeah, this is Councilmember Shefford, and I may have talked over you. If you're on a call, you're supposed to do star six to unmute. Is that correct? That is correct. Yes. Star six to unmute if you're on the phone. If you're on your device, as Miss Capehart is, you have to hover your mouse towards the bottom of the screen and then turn your microphone back on with that bar, turns on. So Miss Capehart, are you able to do that? I can't do it from here, unfortunately. I'm going to meet myself and give you a call on your cell phone. Maybe I could help. Okay. I could help. Jennifer, can you hear me? I can, yes, go ahead, please, I'm sorry. I don't have to. I don't know. I didn't do anything different, so who knows? We're the test case, right? Okay. All right, we will start again. So everyone, it's our Jennifer's comment, and now we will start again. So everyone is heard, Jennifer's comments and now we will start the presentation for each item that is discussed to presented. I'll call them for the presenter for that item. Once the presentation is being completed, I'll ask if any of the committee members have a comment. I'll do so by calling your name. If following those comments I'll ask if anyone has any additional comments and then we'll move on to the next item. Are there any questions from any of the committee members? Hearing none we'll start with the first item on our agenda of our focus areas, Nora Coronado, the staff and many comments on our focus items areas. Yes ma'am. Miss K Part, I just have some questions for you, identify yourself. Oh I'm sorry, Nora Coronado with asset management city of Arlington. This K Part, I have some questions about next steps. I we could discuss them now or the conclusion at the meeting. Whatever your preferences, ma'am. Let's since we have a presenter, Nora, let's move on and then we'll circle back. It's okay unless there's something that would impact what our presenter may be discussing with us. If not, then we'll move it down to the end. Yes, ma'am, we'll move it down to the end. Thank you. All right, thank you Nora. If this was Sherry K. Partigan, our next item is a presentation from Mary Gray, who's the executive director of the Texas Historic Tree Coalition. Ms. Grace will be using a presentation that's been posted with the agenda and emailed all task force members. And Miss Grace, Jennifer, if you will give us instructions in my notes that she needs to unmute herself, but that didn't work for me, so I just want to make sure that's the right direction for Miss Grace. She is on a phone call. So I think on the phone call, she can press star six to unmute herself. It's a little bit different if you're using your device since you are. Or maybe you're using your, I'm sorry, you're on the phone as well. I'm not sure why that will unmute me. Can you hear me? I can. Yes. Yes. Terrific. So you can just identify yourself and then begin with your presentation. You've got it. I'm Mary Graves and I'm the president of the Texas Historic Tree Coalition and we are an all-volunteer organization and we work across the state of Texas to find and recognize and celebrate historic trees and we also encourage the preservation and protection of them. And I just want to thank you all for having me. Go ahead with the presentation this morning. I think it's terrific that you found a way to make this happen. And I'm happy to tell you, with the presentation this morning, I think it's terrific that you found a way to make this happen. And I'm happy to tell you kind of our thoughts and feelings about Arlington's cross timbers, eco region. So for those of you who are looking on your screen, can you see the title slide? Yes, I can. So, okay. Well, what I'll do through the presentation is I'll kind of tell those who are watching on their screen when to advance to the next slide. So if we could, let's go to the next slide after the title slide. And you'll recognize Dr. Hopman's photo. I was able to watch his presentation online and I loved it and I actually got to speak with him last week. He was very kind to talk with me and he allowed me to use his image and I think that's a good place to start looking at lovely crystal canyon. And I would like to tell you that from our perspective, the Cross Timbers Eco region is historically significant. Some of the trees are likely 200 to 300 years old, which in itself is wonderful. But this is also a remnant of a post-octawanna. So this is a prehistoric system. It's one of the oldest self-generating systems. If not the oldest living thing in Arlington, it is living history. And it should be preserved and protected. And I also know from working with other cities that this is a challenge, a lot of things to balance. And it is difficult. And sometimes it's an either or. Either we have trees or we keep improving the city and developing. It's just such an important issue right now that I think it's worth working to find a way to get creative ways to let both things happen at the same time. And I think we can. But why? Why is this so important? The first reason is there's still something to learn from studying the cross-timbers. This system has survived for a long, long time, so something's going well there. And also from the perspective of wildlife, I think you asked if I had anything to say about that. And it would be just that if this eco region disappears, any wildlife that's dependent on this element in the environment will go with it. And we're talking about birds and reptiles, insects, pollinators. So it's very important. And another interesting fact, I think, is that we used to think trees are like people. You know, as we age, we kind of diminish in function. But we're starting to learn that this is not the case with trees. We're finding that big old trees continue to increase their capacity to benefit the environment. And our arborist, Bill Seaman, he's provided some great information for you. There's a link at the end of this PowerPoint presentation. It's an article from Smithsonian Magazine that'll tell you more about this. So if you go on to your next slide, you should see some people, some happy people standing in front of a tree. And this is from an event in Arlington last fall. This is from the Southwest Nature Preserve. And what happened there, the friends of the preserve hosted a dedication for their tree, called the Cato Oak, with wonderful parks and recreation. They were there. It was the nicest morning. And we dedicated this tree as historic. Also in the picture, if you look at the right side, there's a gentleman in a green jacket and a cowboy hat. That's Arborist West Callwell. And he's the gentleman that kind of came across this tree and said, I think that one is special. I think we've got something here. But you can't really tell from this picture how big that tree is. It's on a hill. It's up a ways from the people that are standing in front of it. So if you go to the next slide, you can see how big it really is. And it's a picture of Jim Prissinger and he's the gentleman with the preserve that did the largest portion of the work to get this tree recognized. And I'd like to tell you a little bit about it. It's a 54 inch native post oak and most standard landscape ordinances would require inch per inch mitigation of a tree like this with a minimum of three inch trees. So if you divide 54 by three, you get 18 new replacement post oak trees. really not an equal trade off there. If you stick with the 18 trees that most ordinances would require, it would take approximately 28 years of growth for those trees to provide the same environmental benefits of the 54-inch tree. If you wanted to start with three-inch trees doing the same job that that tree is doing in the picture, it would take 155 new replacement trees to do the job, but this tree is doing in the environment. And if you go to your next slide, you'll see our source for that information. It comes from iTree Design and it's an industry standard. So these trees kind of to wrap it up, these trees are the lungs of your city. Arlington stands against the backdrop of the third fastest growing heat island in America, which is the city of Dallas. And we know that trees clean and cool the air. They clean the soil, and they add value to the property in your neighborhoods. They also slow stormwater runoff, especially big old trees. They really do the job. So they're essential in the battle to mitigate heat, stored in concrete glass and metal. And if you go to your next slide, you should be seeing a thermographic photo next to a regular photograph. And what this shows is how a good tree canopy can cool the surrounding area. Some of the shaded surfaces in the photo are 30 to 50 degrees cooler. And I'm not sure where the photograph was taken. I believe it was taken in Portland. So if this is true in Portland, imagine how important big trees are in our communities here in Texas with the heat that we can reach in the summer. And another reason to recognize and protect the cross-timberer's eco region and the remaining post-oaks in the neighborhoods that Dr. Hopman was showing you is that I can tell you from the work we do that people in urban areas know their remaining great old trees and they claim to them they value them and We used to be alone in the battle to try and save them. And this is not the case now. I've never seen it like this before. We've never seen people more dedicated, more willing to get up from their desks and come out to help us save the trees and their neighborhoods. We get calls and we're busier than we've ever been and people are grieving when their last big trees come down. We're at the point of pain. We're there. And sometimes when they come down, when you look at the cateau oak that we saw, this can be at least a 100-year mistake. So I know there are challenges. There's got to be a way to have both. I would tell you that old trees make happy communities and every Texas community needs big old trees. Every urban Texas neighborhood needs big old trees. So the eco region is worthy of recognition and preservation and I do think cities that work to find a way somehow to keep them will be the ones that are attractive and appealing to new residents and they're going to offer a very nice quality of life. a nice quality of life. And what's that? I hope you all could hear me and I can answer any questions if you have some. Ms. Gris, this is Sherry K. Park. Can you guys hear me? I can. Okay. Jennifer, can you hear me? I can, yes. Okay, so I guess I'm not muted. I was just trying to make certain. So again, this is Sherry Tape part. A couple of questions I have in this series. And I'll also ask the other committee members if they have questions as well or comments. Are you aware of any city, particularly in Texas, that have come up with a better formula than what most all of us have done? We do try to mitigate that a lot of times we hear from the developers, the post-docs in particular for very temperamental. And I grant you that there aren't probably a lot of cities that have the post-docs like we do. So we're always against that challenge. I don't think the developers necessarily want to get rid of the careers, but they've made it pretty clear to us by example that when they've tried, they've not been successful. So do you have any recommendations or suggestions or where we might turn for a different formula? That's a good question. I think everybody needs the answer to this. And I can tell you that recently the City of Dallas added to their ordinance a thing called a neighborhood forest overlay. Have you heard about that yet? I have not. Well, it's a tool that enables neighborhoods to come together. I think they have a minimum number of people that would be required property owners to buy into this thing and if they band together then they look collectively at their canopy and they see the assets that they have and maybe the gaps where they'd like to have trees and they work together to preserve and protect what they have there. And it's new and it's a different way to look at it. And I think it's something that could benefit many communities. So I would direct you there. Okay. I have a look at info. So the costumbers for us, the books were blessed to have some of. And I realized in our presentations from before that, apparently Arlington's one of very few cities in the region that have a remnant of the cost timbers for it. And your comments with regard to, you know, the three inch caliper, the catalog was gone, and how many trees it would actually be. And your comments with regard to the three inch caliper, if the catalog was gone and how many trees it would actually take, but more than that, it's the number of years it would take to achieve it, even with 100 and something trees. Those kinds of things are extremely challenging for cities, extremely. You know, we have dedicated green space, obviously it's easier, but we have some infant development that's yet to happen. And they're not all of Arlington has the post, but the places that do that little strip that comes through here. That's probably in my opinion, my biggest challenge with regard to preservation of what we have left. And there's a difference between mitigation and preservation. But again, do you have any examples of preservation ordinances that are maybe applicable to the cross-timbers for us? You know that's, that is a really good question. Just off the top of my head, no. I don't have examples, but, and I'll tell you too, I am not an arborist nor am I an archaeologist or any of those things, but we all work closely together to do the work of the coalition. And I'll go back and ask them if they have any examples. We'll see if we can get some information for you on that. I think it all. Yeah, I would also, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I would also tell you that we have found that trees that are recognized sometimes are a little easier to preserve and protect. You might consider declaring your cross-timbers eco-region as historic. And we can prove that up, pardon? And we can prove that we can show evidence that it's historic. Well, yes. I spoke with an archaeologist who talked about that being part of the old Savannah, the post-doc's Savannah. And yes, he feels it is historic. Okay. So that might come to you. It certainly is something worth exploring. Okay, I appreciate it. Mr. Shepherd, do you have any comments or questions from Ms. Grade? Star six to unmute. There we go. I'm sorry I was trying to find star six. No, at the moment I do not. I may have some follow up questions when we're able to meet in a little more formal setting than we do now, but no. I think she's covered the information adequately for me. All right. Thank you, Mr. Shepard. Mr. Armeyres. Council Member Armeyres, if you look at the bottom of your screen, there should be a, if you hover your mouse down there, it should allow you the chance to unmute your microphone. We're not hearing you. Okay. Miss Keppard, do you want to go on to Miss Moeison? I'll see if I can't text Miss Farmer. I can see if there's something. Okay. Good idea. Do you have comments or questions in this room? It's Star Six on your phone. Hello? Hello? Yeah, you can hear me now, great. So I didn't know I did that on my phone also. So mostly what I wanted to tell you. Can you hear me? I was going to say yes. Yes, Miss Moise, if you'll identify yourself with a record. listened to this is that this is information we need to have. I appreciate this miss Grace putting this together for us. I would like to hear more and I agree with Mr. Shepherd. It would be great to have this in a different type of setting where we could really drill down a little bit more, but I do really appreciate you bringing all of this to us because I think it's really important. So thank you. Thank you, my pleasure. Now I'm going to switch to back on mute. Okay. All right. Thank you, Ms. Lee. Jennifer, are you trying to make contact with Councilmember Carl Mines? She did. She did indicate Star Six, and I think I may be confused. I thought she was on her device, but perhaps she's on the phone. She knows about the Star Six, and perhaps there's just some technical difficulties that aren't allowing that to work for her to get back on. Oh okay. Okay. So maybe Dr. Formars, she's texting me again so. Okay, hold on. If you can hear us, Dr. Farah Mars, please go ahead and speak. She says she's hitting star six, so it's not working. Okay. So, Dr. Farah Mars, it looks like you are also on your device. So, if you're on your device, you can look at your screen. Look at the bottom section of the screen it has a on the right-hand side. It's like a, it won't go, it won't show up unless you hover your mouse down there. But it'll have the recording on the left. And then there might be a microphone there that might have a cross through it. Because that's what's showing on my screen here. If you could click that, that might, you might be able to unmute. And Jennifer, is she able to communicate with you through text on the TV she can? She is, and I'll tell you what I think what I'm just doing is I'll call her and put her on speaker because you can hear me and then you'll be able to hear her. So that sounds great. That sounds great. So I'm calling calling yourself on here. So I'm calling yourself on here. Hi, it's Jennifer. So I'm going to turn this up and let you go ahead and ask questions from here. I'm sorry, this is so awkward. That's okay, I can hear you perfectly, but you can continue anything about getting to you. Okay, all right. This is Victoria Farmires. Thank you for the small further presentation. I just want to have one follow-up question. We talked about your declaring in the store. Could you say a little bit more? I know our forestry staff has looked at mapping all of our forest all of our trees and have been in turn working with them to do so. Can you get us a little sense about how people go about defying the store and trees? a little bit about how you go about getting the historic tree. Sure, I would be glad to thank you for your question and what we do is we work closely with different communities around Texas and to declare a historic we build a case, so we do research and we look at the story that each tree has a story and of course we're looking at a system of trees. So what we do is we pull together the facts and we have a board of trustees that reviews them. board of trustees that reviews them and our board we've got certified arborists. We've got master naturalists. We've got one person who has experience working with cities and planning and things like that and we all just kind of look at it and if it has merit, we say, OK, yes, it does have value. And we officially proclaim the area historic or the tree historic, and it goes on our registry. One final question I make about the yet specific parameters. Do you have a sense right now of the number of trees currently the crosstimmers within the Arlington boundaries that have been designated as historic. No, I do not the only trees that I know of in Arlington that are designated historic right now is the Cato Oak. I think there may be one more that I heard of, but I'm sorry I don't know. We have recognized. We have recognized. I'll talk information out of chair because thank you. I missed that last part, could you? Again, big chart on wires about a chair. If we could have a cello information or order, if you could provide a cello information regarding which tree's having designated his start within about 99 to her five-mile boundary of Arlington or perhaps they figure your crates tree helpful to know that. Thank you. Okay terrific. Yes I'll look into that. If somebody else has proclaimed something historic and if it's not on a registry somewhere we may not know about it. I can tell you for sure the ones that we have and it is the CatoO and I'll get back to you with what we're able to find out. Thank you. This is Sherry K. Partigan. Miss Grays, thank you. And I think we would all benefit even more if we could have a more fluid discussion. It's very difficult through this challenge that we're going through right now. But we probably will reach out to you again as each of us considers more. And they have some additional questions for you if that's okay. considers more, and they have some additional questions for you if that's okay. And particularly with regard to any additional information that you can give us with regard to proclaiming a portion or some aspect of the cross-terverse force in Arlington having some historical designation. And I realized we'd done the catalog, but in a broader context, it's not just an okay, it may be the stand of the KEDZ-OX host-oX. because they owe us hostels. And then to a comment that was made earlier about, if you tried to replace the catalog with three inch caliber post-oaks, that that in itself is almost an impossibility because you can't go to a nursery and buy a post-oaks. So I wish I guess wins itself even more to the idea and probably fact that it has some historical significance. We'll have to explore that further. But your comments are very much appreciated from this committee, from every comment I heard from each of them. And we'll take probably another look at this again and be back in touch. But thank you so much for your time. This is very challenging to force all today, but we wish we could have an easier discussion with you because I think we have a lot of pent-up questions that this is just not the right format for today. But I appreciate your time. It's great very much. Oh my goodness. Thank you for having me. Quickly, one thing did come to mind regarding any other sections of the cross-tembers that have been declared historic. We did last year work on the campus of Dallas historic village, which used to be old city park. They do have a remnant, a small remnant of that post oak area on their campus. And we didn't specifically say those trees are historic. The whole campus, the trees, we've isolated the ones that were not landscape but were likely there when the park was established and we're watching them. Also want to let you know we did start. We're trying. We took acorns from the post-opes and we are trying to start some from that campus. Oh, that's great. That's great. That's great. This is Sherry K. Partigan. All right. So any other questions from any committee members? It's so unmute. Not hearing any. Miss Grace, once again, thank you so much for your time today as difficult as it was for us to communicate very easily. But staff is done an incredible job trying to put this together for us in a very short period of time. So we're all learning some of it. I'm sure my inability to get my laptop to work when I'd like it to, but you know, we'll get through this together, but thank you again so much for your time. It's great. Thank you all. Cherry K Part again. Now we'll go back to Nora Coronado who had updates or questions or decision points for the committee. Ms. Coronado. Yes. Thank you Councilmember K. Part, Nora Coronado with asset management again. So just just to kind of get a sense of direction from the committee. We have some information, some follow up information. Richard Gertzinn with planning is following up on the tree ordinance on the solid waste management and recycling side. We have some results of the recycling audit. Currently of course because of the current state of affairs, the trash truck demo that had been that had been, that was in the works, is being postponed for now. I did, we could, you know, I wanted to get to the city's, the committee's direction on whether we need to meet next week or put a pause. Staff is currently working on developing the draft content for the deliverable. We have, we're continuing to research, put information together, put some graphics together, that kind of thing. And we hope to have that too, y'all, by early, will actually mid-April. I think we've covered all interests that have been expressed by the committee in the focus areas, but wanted to get a census to, as far as meeting and researching additional topics and getting you that follow-up information, how you would like to proceed. This is Sherry K. Partigan. Ms. Coronado, what about the God in Texas Parks and Wildlife, I realized he's not yet available? Mm-hmm. I think before we start talking about a deliverable on that aspect, we need to hear from him. Yes, you're correct. He is still currently unavailable, but it has a great interest in coming to the committee and and presenting to y'all and answering any questions you may have for him. So that is still a presentation that still needs to be made. Thank you for that reminder. And so, again, Sherry K. Part, I assume that we are probably going to still be doing what we're doing today next week. For the future. And well, I think it's April 3rd, right? Is that not the correct date? I believe so, then. I believe so, then. So if we do another one of these, another meeting next week, for instance, it would be this format once again. So since, I don't know, I, committee, I'd like to hear from each of you how you'd like to see that you want to defer for a week or if you would like us to consider having a meeting next week, which we, at least at present, don't have accounts of meeting for next week so we could just focus our attention on this but would probably likely have to do it this way again. So, Mr. Shepherd, if you could unmute and weigh in on that, Farmy? This is Robert Shepherd. I would prefer that we try to defer this at least another week with the hope that we will be beyond, that everything will be more or less back to normal with the hope that we will be beyond, everything will be more or less back to normal with the appropriate social distancing after April 3rd. I believe it's a little bit challenging for us to forward our conversations in this manner. So that would be my vote, but obviously we'd defer to the will of committee. Thank you Mr. Shepard. Mr. Farah Mars. You're still on my phone. You can go ahead and talk. This is Victoria Farah Mars. Yes, I would agree if we could defer for what week to see where we are. That would probably be from the poll. Again though though I would defer to the majority of the committee. Thank you. Ms. Bowie. There we go. Hello. Staff, we have direction. We'll defer till after April 3rd. Yes, ma'am. And by that time, maybe we can also get the gentleman from Texas Park and Wildlife. Yes, ma'am. And then committee, if you want to go to the next slide, please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Staff, we have direction. We'll defer till after April 3rd. Yes, ma' And by that time maybe we can also get the gentleman from Texas Park and Wildlife. Yes, ma'am. And then committee, if you have additional questions or items that you would like staff to gather some information on, just please reach out to Nora directly with your questions or desire for additional info. Great. So that when we do meet again, we can have, you know, probably be a pretty robust meeting and probably cover quite a bit of topic, I would think. And then if we have a presentation by the Texas Park and Wildlife gentlemen. Jennifer, I have a question of you. Is this a Sherry K. Partigan? Yes. Jennifer, the questions that we ask Miss Grace today, is she likely to give those answers back to you so you can do something that's done to the committee? Or how will that likely work? I'm not sure Miss Grace is still on the calls when I ask her. She is. And I can, I think it would be this Jennifer Whitman, not sure Miss Graves was still on the calls. Why not? She is. And I think it would be this Jennifer Whitman. I think it would be useful if Miss Graves, she and I have Connected with each other because we have each other's Email so she could get those answers back to me and I can Disseminate them to the committee. Okay. Great. And my fire of objection from many of the committee members that tell or proceed with the info that we've asked for from Ms. Gray. And then as I look through the agenda, that brings us to the end of the agenda unless the committee member has any other comment or question before we adjourn. This Robert Shepherd, I have no further questions. Thank you, Mr. Shepherd. Thank you. I have no questions. Thank you. This is how long I have no questions. Thank you. So committee, we will stand adjourned at 1148 on March the 24th. Thank you and thank you staff for putting this together for us and we're learning in real time. Thank you all so much. Everyone, thank you. Appreciate it. Bye bye.