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Meeting Minutes for November 18, 1999
Plymouth Ice Center,
3400 Plymouth Blvd.
Plymouth, MN 55447
Meeting convened by Glen Shirley, President, at 9:45
Minutes of
October 21, 1999 Meeting:
Jeff Cordes was missing form the
attendance list. Motion by Glen Shirley/Ken Holman/Passed
Attendance:
Jeff Borst: Tree Trust
Lisa Burban: USFS
Dennis Fallon: Northern States Power
Bekky Hargrave: University of Minnesota
Fletcher Johnson: Northern States Power
Janet Larson: Private Consultant
Gary R. Johnson: University of Minnesota
Bill Schumal: Northern States Power
Glen Shirley: City of Bloomington
Jill Sinclair: City of Chanhassen
Gail Steinman: Tree Trust
Dave Sundmark: City of St. Paul
Paul Buck: City of Plymouth;
Dave DeVoto: Retired
Ken Holman: DNR Forestry
Jan Hoppe: Private Consultant
Anne LaPlante: City Of Hutchinson
Don Mueller: DNR Forestry
Mark Schnobrich: City of Hutchinson
Marc A. Shippee: City of Blaine
Ralph Sievert: Minneapolis Park and
Rec Board
Mike Sowers: City of Eagan
Mark Stennes: Top Notch Treecare
Carrie Zitzman: DNR Forestry
Introduction of Visitors:
Fletcher Johnson introduced Dennis Fallon and Bill
Schumal. Motion by Fletcher Johnson/Mark Stennes to add Dennis Fallon to
MnSTAC Membership. Passed
Ken Holman introduced Carrie Zitzman. Carrie works for DNR- Metro Forestry. She will be attending the MnSTAC meetings and be taking the minutes. Carrie is the Forestry Office Manager and handles the accounting portion of Metro Forestry
Announcements and Calendar Items:
Don Mueller passed out the U&CF Update and
highlighted the followed items:
 | December 8-10, Minnesota Turf and Grounds Conference |
| January 23-25 (note date change), Wisconsin Urban Forestry Conference |
| February 26, Minnesota Greening Conference, this will e held in Brooklyn park. |
| March 28-29, Minnesota Shade Tree Short Course |
| March 30, MnSTAC Monthly Meeting & Tree City USA Awards Luncheon |
| June 11-13, Ecology of Urban Soils, contact Cindy Ash or visit the listed Internet address. |
| September 9-12, Grassroots 2000 Summit, note correct dates |
| Opportunity: Legislative Commission on MN Resources, more details can be found at www.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/lcmr/lcmr.htm |
| Opportunity: Call for Presentations, please feel free to submit a proposal to present at the Tree City USA National Conference |
The following items were mentioned and not on the U&CF Update:
| December 9, MSA Winter Picnic and Silent Auction, Columbia Golf (dinner is free and donations are welcome) - submitted by Dave DeVoto |
AMP paraphernalia will not no longer be produced. Items on display at the meeting, including hats are shirts, are for sale from Paul Buck, City of Plymouth.
Marc Shippee announced that the City of Blaine will be have a fifth grade Ardor Day Poster Contest. He was surprised to find out that Minnesota does not to have a National Arbor Day Representative. Without a representative, Minnesota schools cannot compete in the nation wide poster contest. Ken Holman is going to contact the Arbor Day Foundation to get more information about acquiring a representative.
Also on the Arbor Day subject, the city of Maple Grove is checking with a restaurant to see if they would be willing to use the winning poster as place mats in the restaurant. If this happens it would provide more recognition for the winner of the Maple Grove poster contest.
Ken Holman announced that the DNR Metro Forestry Health Specialist Position had been filled. Susan Burkes will be starting in early December. She will be coming to us from Missouri and filling behind Dwight Scarbrough. Susan will also be on the DNR's Teams of Forest Health Specialists as the State Entomologist and will be the Metro Region's contact for Gypsy Moth/ Oak Wilt. Also, James Burks, her husband, has assumed the position of City Forester for Crystal/Rosedale, filling behind Marcia Holmberg. James has been serving as the chairman of the Missouri Urban Forestry Council.
Condolences were sent out to Rob Buffer, leadworker for the GGRP Project, and his family. Rob's wife Sarah Vest passed away recently.
Glen Shirley announced that Rich Hauer has agreed to organized the Feature Program items for the MnSTAC Meetings. These items can be submitted to either Rich or Glen.
Feature Program- City of Plymouth's U&CF Program, Paul Buck, City Forester:
Paul Buck started off by mentioning that all Arbor Month Partnership promotional item are being discontinued. They are too costly to keep them going. Please see the selection of items he has, and make an offer. The Zachary Lane median plantings (approximately $200,000) spawned enthusiasms to do this type of planting to all the medians in Plymouth. This planting consisted of flowers being placed around trees that already existed. The filler for this planting was a combination of compost mater plus sand from the street sweeping the city does in early spring. Another project that Paul mentioned was that he city wanted him to hide the indoor soccer field from the wetland. His answer was this, paint trees on it.
Oak wilt in Plymouth was up to over forty trees this past year, a significant growth in this area. Many of the occurrences were single trees. Paul also reported that there are only about 3,000 acres left to be developed in the city and half of this will be done in the next few years.
Legislative Report Update:
Mark Schnobrich and Jan Hoppe gave an update of the
Legislative Report. This report will show the Legislature a historical
perspective over the last 25 years of where MSA and Urban Forestry has
been in Minnesota. Photos and materials were passed around for comments
and help identifying individuals in the photos.
The next step for the report is a meeting that is being held on December 2 at Tree Trust. An open invitation was given to anyone who wanted to participate in this meeting. Hopefully the finished materials will be given to the printer on December 6.
Discussion of MnSTAC Future:
Glen Shirley conducted an open forum to get ideas
from MnSTAC Members as to the future of the committee. The following item
were discussed:
| Janet Larson wants STAC to lend more support to and address control of invasive exotic woody plants in general, take a more ecosystem approach to urban forest management. |
| Ken Holman would like to see renewed commitment to support the regional committee. Glen Shirley is in the process of getting a chair for the Outreach Committee. they would be the logical group to get out and visit the regional committees. Also, it was mentioned that the dates for the committee meetings be added to our U&CF Update. |
| Mark Stennes would like to see a commitment to better nursery culture. |
| Gail Steinman is interested in getting a legislative liaison/representative to attend the MnSTAC Meetings. We should all work to get them better involved. Mark Schnobrich offered the idea that there should be one meeting a year at the Legislature. |
| Jill Sinclair mentioned changing the name of Field Reports on the monthly meeting agenda to something that better deals with local focus on resources. |
| Paul Buck is interested in getting the meetings moved around more often. Would like to see a larger variety of hosts, not just the Department of Agriculture. |
| Glen Shirley stated that with special feature programs comes a larger crowd. Get more of these special feature programs so we can increase attendance at meetings. That lead to the discussion of incentive to attend meetings, mentioned by Mark Schnobrich. He also mentioned that we need more interaction at the meetings. Ken Holman suggested organized tours, etc. We should create meetings around such events. Lisa Burban suggested that we should have a "25 Year Celebration" once a year. |
Glen Shirley proposed to come back to this subject in a few months. People with further comments and/or suggestions should contact Glen.
Committee Reports/Field Reports/Agency Updates:
Bekky Hargrave informed us that she is the contact for the MnSTAC Internet Address, If there is any any information you would like to see on this page, or if have comments, please contact her.
It was brought to our attention that they MnSTAC Directory needs to be updates. There will be a flyer in the next mailing dealing with this issue.
Don Mueller gave an update and said that the Arbor Month 2000 Calendars were at the printer for preliminary setup.
The Publicity and Awards Committee recently met. They hope to be having another meeting by the first of next year to look at the awards.
Ken Holman informed all that he is taking requests for the remaining copies of MnSTAC's Tree Emercency response notebooks that were put together by Katie Himanga. If you want one let him know.
Dave DeVoto of the Planning Committee stated that there was a meeting directly following this meeting and the Vision Statement has been completed and sent to the Executive Board for approval. Today's meeting is about redoing the Strategic Plan over the next five years.
Ken Holman gave us update on the status of the MnReLeaf grants. the tree planting money will most likely be completely used, there is still forest health money left, and the inventory portion may be having a new deadline.
Ralph Sievert offered wood chips to all. If you ant some contact him at the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. the city is willing to deliver to you within a reasonable limit. He also stated that Dutch Elm Disease numbers doubled from last year. This year there were at 2,500 and there were less than 1,000 a year ago.
Meeting adjourned @ 11:54
Motion: Mark Stennes/ Paul Buck/ Carried
Minutes submitted by Carrie Zitzman