Announcements and Calendar Items:

	The Urban Forestry Club at the University of Minnesota will be having another professional seminar in November on the Dutch elm disease problem and other elm diseases that mimic DED.
	Bruce Bacon is having a soil ecology seminar this Saturday, Soil Ecology and Managed Soil Surfaces, testing for soil biology in different tilling/mulching processes.
	Tuesday Oct. 17 Proper Tree Pruning sessions in Caledonia, MN. The first session is for the city planners and decision-makers and the second is for the tree care companies that preform the work. For more information contact Katie Himanga.
	On Wed. September 27 Tree Trust and the University of Minnesota will be having a planting on Nicolette Island as part of the UMN sesquicentennial celebration and Beautiful U Day, followed by a reception. Any volunteers would be welcome.

Featured Program: Agency Proposed Legislative Proposals - Questions/Discussion by Agency Legislative Liasons
DNR - Peggy Sand
The state has a biennial budget process, this is for July 2001-July 2003. Put in for $3 million per year, mainly for improving staffing and equipment, fires and land management, recreation and forest land uses, computer systems (FOREST), 1/2 million for MnReLeaf.

DNR has to reduce budget by 2.5% (5 million). If done it could enter in a challenge pool, if chosen they could apply to get 5 million from the state. Decision made to not enter challenge pool, money received from the pool had to be applied to new projects and funded back to the projects that had money cut from them. 

So far there are no cuts to urban and community forestry programs, should be final on Oct. 16.

Discussion on LCMR - they advise the legislature on the lottery proceeds marked for natural resources. The DNR has to compete for it.

Ken Holman - 
LCMR distributes seed money for new projects. MnReLeaf and the County Biological Survey are not new anymore, and are looking for their own sources of funds.

CARA (Federal Legislation) - Money came from offshore oil exploration proceeds, $2.9 billion. Could provide permanent funding for community forestry, Youth Conservation Corps. May supplant or augment funds. STAC will probably play a large part as an advisory group to the legislature.

Rod Grams' non-support of CARA was brought up, he had a complete unwilligness to discuss the act.

MN DOA - Amy Sobieski 
The Dept. of Agriculture process is very similiar to the DNR, a proposal was submitted and the second deadline is coming up.

Discussion by Mark Schnobrich about getting to the agencies before their deadlines so that they know what STAC is looking  for and STAC knows what they are looking for. And then the information can be distributed to the members - as a starting point for activating members.

UMN - Alan Ek
The University's budget is waiting for approval from the Regents, and it goes in its entirety to the Governor's office. Most of the funds requested have nothing to do with urban forestry.

Reinforces the importance of wokring with key legislators to get additional funding. Some of the legislators STAC has relied on in the past have either stepped down or have been defeated. Maybe work with some out state legislators and the importance of trees in disaster and rebuilding monies.

Use regional STAC and the urban forestry mailing list to find representatives and senators. Get an advanced copy of the Legislative Report to Agencies and UMN so we can support them to the State. Or, support community forestry as a whole, nothing specific. Or, write our own bills and find a legislator to support them. 

MN DOT - reported to Glen Shirley by Paul Walvatne
MN DOT has nothing in their budget petaining to STAC.

Look for local communities that have benefited from urban forestry funding and urge them to contact their reps. Use agency liaisons as a communication network.

STAC needs to find local legislators, and get some of the constituents involved to urge them to vote for policies and bills supporting natural resources.

The Legislative task force can use Mike Max's computer data system to find key legislators then find constituent contacts for those legislators. Need to spur a more grass roots movement - with people without a vested interest in urban forestry.

Provide a draft letter or bill to constituents and members that they can copy/rewrite and send or bring to their legislator.

Summit 2000
A brief background on the conference was given by James Burks. The goal was to create partnerships between councils and non-profits. MnSTAC sent Paul Buck. He did not think that it was a very affective conference and did not meet his expectations. Janette Monear also attended, she said there was good networking, but sessions were not as good as she hoped. But did give a forum for discussing ideas with peers, and good fund-raising tips.

MnSTAC appears to have a bigger and broader base of members than most other states.

Announcements
Due to the length of the meeting the rest of the agenda was shortened to any pertinent announcements.

Don Mueller - The ISA 2001 conference Tours des Trees starts in Minneapolis. Don is the MN contact and is looking for people to be on the coordination team. MSA is volunteering as well and is looking for volunteers.

Ken Holman - Accolades to Gary Johnson and Janette Monear for articles in the Wisconsin Newsletter.

Meeting adjourned at 12:02 pm.
Paul Buck/Mark Stennes/Passed.

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