Ann Arbor Environmental Commission 5/25/23

001so um let's see all right so let's start um welcome to the May 25th 2023 electronic meeting of the environmental commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call foreign [Music] this information is also available on the published agenda in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 at T channel 99 and online at www.a2gov dot org slash watch CTN all right um Sean would you read the land Heritage statement apparently I

002think Steve I acknowledge that the land the city of Ann Arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including Odawa Ojibwe and badewad me and YN dot peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807. knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals hey thank you would you proceed to the Roll Call I will uh let's see here um councilmember Ekman here Ann Arbor thank you uh

003chairperson Brown here in Ann Arbor thank you commissioner kalawart commissioner Curtis here Ann Arbor thank you commissioner Dale uh council member dish all right um commissioner Gib Randall here in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner Graham here Aberdeen Drive thank you uh commissioner Gruber thank you commissioner Merson I'm here in Downers Grove Illinois thank you uh commissioner mursky you're in Ann Arbor thank you Vice chairperson Mitchell you're in Ann Arbor thank you uh commissioner nedrich you're in Ann Arbor thank you commissioner oriel here in Ann Arbor thank you and commissioner wahing all right uh and that is a quorum all right thank you Sean um the next item on the agenda is the approval of the hmdoc let's see are there any suggested edits okay do I have a motion to approve the agenda as

004submitted John mursky do I have a second Shannon give Randall all who are in favor of uh accepting the agenda as drafted as submitted raise your hand or say aye hey okay it looks unanimous um the next item is the approval of the minutes from our last meeting from our April 27th meeting um I moved to approve the minutes uh John opens any second um Shannon seconds um if you approve the minutes as drafted raise your hand or say aye okay and he knows any abstentions um here hearing and seeing none the minutes are approved as submitted um so this proceeds to the first opportunity for public commentary this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call [Music] 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 922-9696-1644 this information is also displayed

005on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there can be a delay of up to three seconds before connection is established now do we have anybody online as yet Sean we do not okay well let's wait 30 seconds anybody on the line yet uh there is

006not okay well this ends the first public commentary period there will be a second opportunity to submit public commentary online or by phone at the end of this meeting so the next item on the agenda is unfinished business and so uh there is no unfinished business and so we'll proceed directly to new business uh the first item is the officer elections for 2023 um are there any nominations uh we do have on the list candidates who expressed interest we have uh commissioner Rita Mitchell for the chair of the environmental commission uh and um commissioner Stephen Brown for the vice chair of the environmental Commission um I will open the floor also now for any other Commissioners uh who would like to um state that they would like to run for either position I second those

007nominations all right um seeing and hearing no further uh nominations um I would anyone like to move uh to uh have a vote to elect uh Rita Mitchell as the chair of the environmental Commission I see box Curtis um would anyone like a second uh Lisa dush thank you let me make those notes really quick sorry um all right um all in favor of electing uh Rita Mitchell as the chair of the environmental commission please raise your hand or say aye aye aye all right um are there any a post any abstentions all right hearing none and seeing none uh that passes um so congratulations uh to commissioner Mitchell now chair Mitchell all right um I would now like to ask if anyone would like to move to elect a commissioner uh Stephen Brown as

008the vice chair of the environmental commission does anyone like to move uh Shannon gibrandel thank you uh any seconds John rusky thank you all right um all those in favor of the of electing Stephen Brown to the vice chair position uh please raise your hand or say aye all right um any opposed and any abstentions all right hearing that and seeing none congratulations uh to a vice chair uh Stephen Pratt all right um so um control of the meeting now goes to Rita Mitchell as the new chair so Rita all right thank you and thank you everyone and thank you Steve for being an excellent chair for three years it's been it's been good to work with you um and I look forward to working with everyone on the commission as we move forward we

009have as our new business um a a nap natural areas preservation overview and our presenter is Remy long and please be welcome Remy and we look forward to your presentation and a discussion where our goal is to keep to approximately 15 minutes for the presentation and we'll have lots of time I hope for discussion afterwards thanks thank you um start by sharing my screen and everyone see not yet there Perfect all right so as uh chairperson Mitchell mentioned my name is Remy long I am a deputy manager within the city of Ann Arbor Parks and Rec Services where I have the great privilege of overseeing the park systems conservation operations so one part of which is Natural Area preservation division of parks and rec um Natural Area preservation or nap for short Works to protect

010and restore Ann Arbor's natural areas and Foster an environmental ethic within the community so thank you for the opportunity to come here and share exactly what that means in practice see if I can advance slots there we go so a little background nap was established in 1993 when a the voters approved the latest iteration of the Park's maintenance and Capital Improvements millage which provided nap with its seed funding if you're not aware the city of Ann Arbor Park system is comprised of 163 Parks which contain 82 natural areas which fall under the purview of naps Management in total the park system is nearing 2200 acres and nap's share of that is 1400 Acres so just over 60 percent of the Park acreage is managed by now here's the organizational chart so that here's everybody that's

011getting the great work done um we'll start with Becky hand uh who is uh Knapp's ecological assessment supervisor that supports our two field biologists and together that group um inventories all of the plant and animal species that are present in our Parks um and their quality to help us understand better what it is our Park system contains we have the Intrepid nap volunteer and Outreach supervisor Tina Stevens that does an incredible job leveraging this community's conservation ethic to put it into practice and make nap a powerful Vector of the expression of that conservation ethic we shoot for about 10 000 hours of volunteer effort per year and naps nap and Tina deliver on that goal year to year and it's an extremely impressive feat we have the nap stewardship supervisor currently vacant position that oversees

012the day-to-day activities of the backbone of our conservation work which is our field crew that is out there clearing Trails removing invasives treating Etc so together the crew and the nap stewardship supervisor work collaboratively to set the weekly daily weekly monthly yearly management priorities across um uh acreage and then we have the nap Environmental Education and engagement coordinator position which is a new frontier for nap which again our mission statement to protect and restore Ann Arbor's natural areas and Foster an environmental ethic within the community this new position is focused on the latter part of that mission statement and doing more proactive and giving approach to fostering that environmental ethic whereas nap does a ton of excellent work in receiving support in developing that ethic through our volunteerism but this is one that will engage

013with Community groups schools Etc to further Advance awareness of nap's work so all of those positions all that great work is funded by the parks maintenance and Capital Improvements millage but within the nap office we also share space with Rosie Paul Donaldson who is the land acquisition supervisor for the city of Ann Arbor Rosie is charged with overseeing the day-to-day activities of the city's Greenbelt program which is a regional land preservation millage funded program as well as the Parkland acquisition activities within the city limits moving back to the nap side or and that is a separate funded through open space and Parkland preservation Village I'll share a little bit more on that later but moving back to the nap side of things I just can't overstate the role that volunteers play in supporting and uplifting

014naps Mission fulfillment so thanks to all of them some of which are here today so breaking down our work into several different categories we'll jump right in so as I mentioned we conduct ecological assessments and we do that through both animal and plant inventories on the animal inventory side of things we have our Frog and Toad survey where our field biologist trains volunteers to go to several different uh observation and listening points throughout the city and they are trained to hear the different types of frog and toad calls and then log that data we also have the salamander survey so if you really like traversing parks at night in wet conditions this is a perfect program for you to engage with where we have trained volunteers again going out into the parks carefully flipping logs

015and observing the different salamander species that we find throughout the park system we have a turtle stewards program which if you were to volunteer with you may find yourself paddling down the Huron and doing observations of different um sunbathing Turtles as well as helping with our Turtle nesting Mound efforts and protection of those nesting bones we have a very robust breeding bird survey program where volunteers go to various listening and observation points across the city much like the Frog and Toad surveys all of that data is logged and uploaded and curated by Naps ornithologist Juliet into eBird for public use and then complementary to that is our nesting box monitoring program on the plant inventory side we conduct photo monitoring so similarly we set up photo points throughout the park system and record and track

016the progress of our stewardship efforts across time so here's an example of an early 1900s photo of uh Cherry rock at bird Hills and a picture of what that same space looks like actually just this April and all of these photos we have photo monitoring volunteers that go to points across the city on different intervals and then submit those photos to nap which are then uploaded into a public-facing database an interactive map where you can click on the various photo points across the city and see the changes and conditions across time uh Becky and other staff also can conduct uh floristic quality assessments which is a method of assessing how natural a community is or a site based on the conservatism of the species and the plants that are present conservatism could be interpreted as

017how picky the plants are for growing in certain site conditions so depending on what is there and its relative Rarity and picking this we can say that it is an exceptionally rare or high quality or Remnant site and which would then prioritize our management activities Within through that plant inventory work we've identified over 1200 species of plants within the parks 22 of which are State listed as endangered threatened or Species of special concern and moving on to our actual stewardship efforts the ecological restoration that we do uh day to day again our photo monitoring has yielded the pictures to the right which is a firstenberg nature area you'll see a photo from 1997 and then below what over 25 years of active stewardship and management could have revealed in terms of change and condition so

018on the stewardship and restoration front we of course remove invasive plants and shrubs from the parks and we also utilize somewhat uniquely a very um effective management tool of controlled Burns within the parks I uniquely I say because of the urban context in which we're conducting um this prescribed fire programming we you can look Statewide and you'll find very few examples of other agencies that are operating with within an urban context that are safely deploying this tool in the field many others are using working in large expansive rural areas where smoke management Etc is less of a concern um and less sensitive but here our team has immense expertise and utilizes various tools to ensure that we're able to safely use this effective Land Management tool within our Urban context we also do see dispersal

019in collection we collect local genotype seed and then disperse within the parks for our restoration efforts and then Knapp has 50 miles of Trail within the natural areas which is the bulk or rather there are 80 miles of Trail within the city of Ann Arbor Park system but 50 are within our natural areas and so day to day we're receiving reports from the community of trees over trails that need to be cleared cut you know erosion that needs to be addressed Etc and so our conservation crew is out there making sure that those needs are met and then we not only can conduct an urban controlled burn program but we do so with volunteers and we invite them into that experience so every year we host a training in February there is no experience necessary

020and then the burns actually take place Monday through Friday in the afternoon and it's in the afternoon because my phone starts chattering around five in the morning when the crew is busy or when the team is busy deliberating conditions weather smoke models Etc and which sites are suitable to burn that day and then by eight or nine o'clock has settled on which site is most appropriate and safest and then move on to the public press release and social media postings and then going and posting signage at the burns site flagging the burn site creating burn breaks Etc so then finally after all that work from early in the morning the team's ready to go and put fire on the ground usually around noon or one o'clock and then we'll actually actively be burning for a

021few hours but the team can be there long after that because they are doing what they call mop up which is putting the fire out if any there's any Remnant smoldering they're taking no water packs around and making sure the entire site is quote unquote cold which I'll get the site is cold text sometimes as late as nine o'clock or later depending on how much they burn that day so really a huge undertaking and hats off to everyone on this team that gets it done so other stewardship activities within our restoration scope we have stewardship work days private and public where folks can come out and remove invasive plants with us by pulling or cutting sometimes we'll do plantings we'll work on trail improvements of note and then also as I mentioned native seed collection

022and dispersal usually March through December and typically almost all on weekend mornings and afternoons because that has yielded the most participation whereas weekday ones have been yielded far less and again you know experience necessary will teach everyone what they need to know when they get there as all we're looking is for Willing folks to come and volunteer we have our Park stewards um uh commissioner Curtis here is a phenomenal Park Steward you can explain all about it better than I can most likely but this is um effectively a natural area adopter who spends a great deal of time in these spaces um they have nap approved management plans and a longer term commitment to see that management through to to actualization removing plants on their own time and then they also act as the eyes

023and ears because with 1400 acres of land to manage you can imagine with the limited staff of 15 or so that we have we can't be everywhere all at once um so that we really rely on these Park stewards to be uh uh take an active hand in managing these Landscapes but also just keep a surprise up to date on what the Park's needs are we have in addition to those volunteer opportunities and these we also do Outreach so we're doing nature walks in partnership with the Ann Arbor District Library we are present in the community at Earth Day the greeting Fair here on River day Etc and then our volunteer opportunities are not just limited to field work we do have in-office volunteers Craig here pictured on the right is with us a lot

024and does a lot of great in-office work we have interns regularly research projects in collaboration with the universities we have community service volunteers and then occasionally special projects coming from Eagle Scouts and then finally as I said this is a totally separate program but Falls within the totality of the parks conservation operations which is our land acquisition functions nap does support this in terms of sharing an office and collaborating and sharing ideas as well as when the city receives a Parkland acquisition application from a landowner Knapp does assist with the evaluation of that site to assess its flouristic quality so quickly the breakdown of the Greenbelt millage technically called the open space and Parkland preservation Village there's a 30 year millage that passed with overwhelming voter support in 2003 67 of voter approved um 0.5

025mil for 30 years and after The Debt Service to the bond is paid it yields about 1.8 million a year in Revenue which is divided into one-third for Parkland acquisition and two-thirds to Regional land preservation efforts outside the city limits but within the Greenville District here is the Greenville District um as you can see the city of Ann Arbor this is a map of the Greenbelt District Circa 2000 and the public and private conserve lands inside and outside the city and here is a map today after 20 years out of 30-year millage we've added 7 600 acres of permanently protected land to the Greenbelt District in partnership with other agencies Scio Township Ann Arbor Township Webster Township Lodi Superior and other Ann Arbor Township we secure Millions upon millions of federal funding to leverage our

026city taxpayer dollars to add as much protected Green Space to the map as we can so again outside Knapp's programming but I wanted to make a quick mention of that should you wish to connect with us obviously reach out to me directly if you want but you can get involved and see our list of nap events and work days coming up follow us on social media and be happy to engage so I wanted to keep it quick so we open it up for further discussion but thank you for the opportunity and I really appreciate it thank you Remy um I just want to say as a park Steward myself I want to I want to acknowledge that nap has been um essential to my participation in the city and I appreciate very much the education

027that I've gotten from staff um and the experience in in working with um native plants areas and and just being out out in nature the team is great and I really appreciate them um and thanks for being really timely with your presentation um what we want to do for tonight is just to proceed with a short presentation by John mursky and then to kind of merge uh discussion of of nap in general and have this be kind of like a brainstorming session or discussion of how the environmental commission can work with nap and and as most effectively because I think we all have very similar goals and um yeah let's just move forward I'll try and keep this bare balloons and John if you would proceed with your presentation that'd be great do you see

028it yes okay uh I'm gonna go through uh hopefully 125 slides in around eight to ten minutes so there's going to be a lot of fast clicking and uh what I'm would intent to talk about is what we and I mean all of us have done to our parks in terms of the impact of invasive trees um I've done some photo documentation and uh I'm gonna end with a question what can we do to reduce the negative impact of invasive trees on our parks and in particular I'm going to focus on the impact of um Bush Honeysuckle and common Buckthorn so let me see how can I think there we are so um here's some general information non-native trees only support a small fraction of the insect biomass that are supported on native trees um

029the diversity of those species obviously also declines and those impact insects are the base of the food pyramid for many other native species and not only that non-native trees shade out native tree seedlings when our mature native trees die that means we're not going to have progeny to replace them and Native shrubs and force for plants including wildflowers are also negatively impacted so the first I wanted to do is just show you photo documentation of um along the border to border Trail um it would it's my contention that the Huron River is certainly Ann Arbor's most prominent and perhaps our most valuable natural feature um and what I think you'll see is that dense thickets of non-native trees are now obscuring in many cases totally black views of and hinder access to the river and

030so I'm going to click through a bunch of slides showing you two sections of the border to border Trail and what invasives that many of us and certainly our predecessors planted as ornamental trees have done to our border to border Trail um certainly this way so this is a border border trail from Gallup Park um to the pedestrian bridge um and bike bridge that is near Huron towers and Mitchell Field um I walked this and took a photograph roughly every 100 feet and you're going to see that almost in all cases you can't even see the river anymore except where it is cleared near uh places where there are benches and the lights so I'm going to click through these real quickly so this is the beginning and I'm just gonna go click click click

031and you can see in the lower left hand corner the border to border Trail I believe this is an area that is maintained by nav it's a a prairie or a field area and you can see here on Towers to the left and there's the pedestrian bridge there we are on the bridge there's Huron towers and that's looking down the Iran River so this is another section on the border border Trail further Upstream from the intersection of Maiden Lane and Wall Street up to the Cascades and Argo Dam so this is Riverside Park Parks really on the right and there's going to be a few uh bad photographs here but that don't detract from the overall message foreign so this is actually now looking to the right the river is on the left this is

032the Cascades on the right and this is back looking towards the River on the left here we are at the dam there's Argo Pond looking down stream to the Cascades and I'm gonna also run through photographs of several other parks so this is Ruthven nature area Ruth Ruthven is on the north side of Gettys across the street from Gallup Park so this is entering on a path that is right across from a parking area on Gettys in Gallup Park and you can see um it's invasives all along the border and you can see the nice nicely maintained area um in the background and there we are in the Natural Area and you can see here undergrowth which is all invasive species as you can see also here this is firstenberg nature area walking West from

033Gallup Park so all these low-lying shrubs on the left and the right are what appear to be shrubs are Honeysuckle and Buckthorn same here this is it marshy area but the trees the low-lying trees in the background here are all invasives there's nature Miller nature area also low the understory all dominated by invasive trees and this is married Beth Doyle Park this is a picture taken in 2017 and you can see what wonderful stand of Trillium and my wife and I went back um this year unfortunately we were earlier a year late so it looks like there's less Trillium actually there's the same number of Trillium but what you really see is right next to this beautiful stand of uh or floor of of Trillium you've got all kinds of invasives in the background and

034um this is um approaching a bridge that leads to Packard Road Again invasives and this is a pathway going west also invasives on either side of the trail and I'm just thought I'd put a plug-in this is my favorite Park this is my backyard I installed a native Prairie in the foreground and which you can see in the background is what my property used to look like where there's a wall of invasive trees starting on my neighbor's lot in the background so this was an area that had been full of weeds and grass it was mowed um and a pain demo I might say and I um removed all that turf grass and weeds and this is all now a little native Prairie and you can see in the background here all of the dense

035understory that is on my neighbor's property it's basically a huge Thicket you can't even walk through it so um what I wanted to do is end with the question what can we do about the impact of invasive trees and open up the discussion about Remy's presentation and what we might be able to do collectively going forward and have maybe that end with a discussion about what in particular the environmental condition commission can do so thank you John and I want to also acknowledge Michael Coast who has joined us Michael I'm sorry that I can't tell you I can't say your your title but if you could introduce yourself as well and let us know your background we welcome you to this meeting and to this discussion we may have another guest coming a little bit

036later um but let's just start with Michael and then I'll get to you Brooks thank you for the opportunity to be here my name is Mike cost I work for the University of Michigan I'm an associate curator at the Botanical Gardens and Arboretum and I also teach in the school of environment and sustainability thank you um you have been at our meetings in the past and I really I appreciate your input then and this time today um Brooks you have a comment or question uh sure if you um one comment on the picture from Miller nature area um Miller is about 22 Acres I believe and I'd say a roughly 50 of that has been cleared of Woody invasives in the past year between the park stewards public work days from nap staff helping out

037to get that done that's the first cut which means it's all down which means now we have a lot of garlic mustard Dame's rocket and we have a big seed bank to deal with from the Woody so it's a work in progress but it things can get better over time with work um and a few questions on Remy's presentation first thank you for pulling it together with me it's it was a great overview um on slide three for your organization chart for the conservation crew I know they're all seasonal workers I know there's always going to be high turnover for seasonal workers if you've got budget for five to seven people can you hire ahead hire eight or nine knowing that they're going to leave during the end of the year and if you don't

038look great at the budget standard Parts start shedding people near the end of the budget year I don't know if that's something possible within the city framework it's it's really hard to know how long someone's going to stay with us we do have crew members that come back for multiple Seasons with us others that are only here for one or partial part of one season um so short of the crystal ball we do uh you know do Hedgerow bets at times and over hire and have a larger crew and other times a leaner but it is the kind of the quarterly projections throughout the year and seeing where the budget's at but needing to keep it within the budget okay um the second question was on the floristic quality assessments I I've never participated in

039one I've seen the output so I can tell it's a significant amount of Manpower and labor that goes into doing them um I think the ones from nap are 25 plus years old do you think they need to be updated and if not how do we know if we're getting better or worse overall no it's a great question I absolutely think they need to be updated but it is about resources so right now uh nap is working I'm working collaboratively with uh the Forestry Department and OSI to submit a joint proposal to the USDA Forest Service inflation reduction act grant funding to have they have about um a billion dollars that came to the forest service to grant for urban canopy management is the way they're branding the bucket of funding um but it really

040can address uh Natural Area management more generally not just canopy so together we are jointly applying for uh close to a million dollars for different efforts at OSI nap and Forestry one of the objectives within the Naps nap area of that Grant proposal is reprioritization funding my projections for the cost uh right now are 150 000 to fully re-prioritize all 1400 Acres okay thanks yep but I think it's really important as you said uh the prioritization was done early on um and we need to understand the value and the success and the impacts of the work that we've put in but at the same time as you mentioned it is iterative it is uh decades centuries-long work so finding the right interval for reprioritization is another consideration because doing it every 10 years may be

041too soon relative to its cost so looking at the opportunity right now at 30 years talking about it being quarterly or uh two times a century something along those lines the grant funds are available now so we will pursue them now but setting a standard for the intervals is a big consideration that we can extrapolate information from uh for future repriorizations if we are successful in this grant ask and learn things from this first free prioritization that makes sense even 25 years in the life of a tree is somewhat short but for herbaceous and in Woodies it's we've had a lot in Generations so yeah that makes sense exactly Mr mursky um Remy I would appreciate it if you could share with the rest of the commission which you shared with me in emails and

042also in even other meetings about the prioritization of natural areas and in the one to five categories you'd also shared um with the distribution of acreages and uh I I did some quick math and it looks like 70 percent of the uh total air acreage under nap control is in priority four and five areas which means that they're basically minimally if um if not at all uh maintained so I was wondering if you could it's and that would be 70 of the total so I'm wondering if you can explain what that's done what the resource constraints are driving that um and possibly what if anything could be done to um inch inch that down if you will the the the percentage right absolutely so I'm going to start at the highest level which is the

043the working philosophy that now has in approaching natural areas management which is we are looking at the work and prioritizing the work that we do through a natural community's lens we are not prioritizing the work for the most part that we do through a human communities lens we are here to protect and restore and Safeguard the biodiversity and ecological function of these natural areas within the parks and so to do that and to take that lens and translate it into a set of priorities we've developed a prioritization the prioritization is effectively a scale of quality or restorability one through five or rather one through four and then five is a term called Green Space which I can get into um but your priority One areas within the nap World um are going to be those

044Remnant prairies those high quality Woodlands Oak Savannah uh type conditions that are pre-settlement Circa 1800 land cover um very uh not invaded and relatively undisturbed and therefore take far less uh time and investment to manage because they're already in high quality condition then you move down the scale and you add in levels of invasion decrease fluoristic Quality Index scores and you get your priority twos and threes which are still relatively high quality areas but do have invasive present do have management needs then you get down to your priority 4 which is heavily invaded and then finally uh priority five which we call Green Space which is that that site is so irreparably Disturbed in the soil condition and makeup mycology soil structure uh and then plant um matter above ground is so Disturbed and invaded

045that it doesn't have the potential for restoration back to any type of pristine Condition it's not just removing a few invasive plants and then suddenly we're looking at what could have been a high quality ecosystem that existed 200 years ago it is that it is an old uh fill dump or was bulldozed over and tilled and then now has regrown but doesn't have a lot of chance of getting to the priority one level of ecological condition or floristic quality so uh to John's question about the spread of our varying priority areas across the 1400 Acres that we manage we have about 400 Acres of priority one through three areas within the natural areas so that is where the vast majority of our resources crew time volunteer efforts burns are targeted is within that high quality

046what I would generally categorize as higher quality natural areas that means the remaining balance uh is priority four and five areas that is about a thousand acres um so this is these are areas where nap isn't prioritizing much of our resources that said going back to the high operating uh lens of um stewarding for natural communities benefit first uh there is a caveat to that we have Park stewards and we have volunteer groups that are highly motivated to do work in their neighborhood natural areas and that's fair we appreciate that and we want to support that so where there is volunteer say Sweat Equity uh tied into a lower quality area nap is going to try to support to some extent with some follow-up so in Miller nature area if some invasives are cut and

047need herbicide dabbed on them to follow up to ensure that it's killed we can send the crew out afterward to follow up and uh treat those cut customs with herbicide so you'll see the majority of our year-to-year Acres falling within the priority one through three uh spaces but you'll also see a good chunk of our work um uh drawn to lower quality areas given the volunteer efforts that are happening on the ground there John if you can refresh it and where I should pick up on the list of questions if you had more um no that's fine I think um we'll just open things up and we'll take we'll go from and anybody else and anyone um can refer to the list of questions that we provided you but I don't really want to specifically

048guide the conversation just based on that so go ahead and hi everybody thanks so much for that presentation um it was very interesting and I want to say actually that I I was in um it was I was on walking around Argo on Monday and got to see um a burn happening as we were we walked right through it it was interesting um what priority does nap place on helping Ann Arbor residents to engage with natural spaces natural areas aside from volunteer work um you know is there any emphasis put on getting people out into these natural areas um and then kind of as a follow-up to that um how much does um use of these natural um spaces contribute to um invasive species flourishing in them so to your first question um that is

049exactly why um we have uh have a newly established position at nap for Environmental Education and engagement the volunteerism aspects of what we do you know I've been in the conservation field for a decade and looked at a lot of different agencies volunteer work we have somewhere between 80 and 120 volunteer work days a year I mean it is just out of this world I'm so impressed with what the knap staff is able to pull off um with the budget they have and that is a really important way to engage the community but it is important to acknowledge that not everyone wants to meet us out there and get their hands dirty not everyone can and there's still a lot of value to Maps work to communicate just by presenting by engaging by speaking by

050informing so the Environmental Education engagement coordinator will need to come in and basically from scratch be building out our framework for what does it mean to engage and educate the community about Maps work I would imagine that that will look like some concerted conversations with the school system and their Environmental Education efforts um creating a pipeline of interest from the schools or communities or senior centers whatever it may be to say we're not this is what we do this is why it's important we hope you care too if you want to come and volunteer with us that's the next step but we wanted to come to you first and familiarize you with our work and its value should you want to join us we have spaces for you to join us in and if you

051don't want to maybe you care about these other resources in the community like Leslie science and nature center or others and so we're just trying to first get people understanding what it is that nap's role is but then meaningful connections for those interested folks to wherever their conservation ethic wants to take them next which could just be a walk in the park and that is a success in and of itself um but to that point about walking to the parks yeah not all of our sites are equipped with boot brushes and people may be um bringing in seeds uh on their boots in high traffic areas um but that's just the human management component of the invasive species spread while we also have birds and wildlife and other things that we can't control um as

052easily uh doing that same thing throughout the park system so we're not taking uh exceptional measures to my knowledge to prevent that spread other than the management work we're doing but yeah boot brushes are kind of a basic low-hanging fruit that a lot of agencies implement um see another Park Stewart Shannon yes um uh like Rita I've just been so impressed with you all over the years um and I just feel like I've talked about this system to other communities and things like that through my work and I just think you all do a fantastic job I just want to commend you for that um I want to bring up the thorny tissue of deer um uh I uh will be very curious if you end up achieving this grant to understand what you find

053with the um the the floristic quality and and some sort of inventory with that 25 years ago it's about right actually you know in terms of when we really started getting crazy numbers of deer I'll be really curious to see if you get that I'm also concerned about um you know the canopy management and all that kind of thing and getting grants and then the deer just eating the seedlings that we are trying to trying to grow and um I know you all are not in charge of that um I'm wondering if you uh during the kind of you know period that we had where we had deer control uh which was not super long whether and again I know you weren't here um but whether there was any kind of reporting from staff and

054things like that especially folks that have been there for a while that noticed any kind of difference I know I've seen um I've seen some heartbreaking things in some of the natural areas around me in terms of Trillium disappearing in terms of other wildflowers disappearing um that have been really tough to watch um and feeling kind of helpless about that and um it's uh I think it's something that um you know as the environmental commission we might want to think about potentially moving forward again given the change in Council I I don't know that would be a commissioner dish question or commissioner you know I mean just we wouldn't and and Ackman whether that's something that there's any appetite for um but it really is in direct opposition to our climate goals in many ways

055because we are trying to uh plant trees all over the place and I can show you pictures of them all getting you know severely damaged by deer um so I'm just wondering if you have any kind of thoughts as in your position that you have seen or um hope to see or are just that that issue for you all as you manage our natural areas I'm going to disappoint here and I'm going to say that in the year that I've been with nap I have been largely focused on uh the backlog of uh onboarding materials and and getting up to speed on prioritization current management efforts budgets prospective Grant applications Etc and uh the history of um the deer call its outcomes Etc uh efficacy and the reporting I have not uh delved into yeah

056so I wouldn't be ready to speak about that I I look forward to just any um especially if you all get the the grant to some sort of reporting back about what you find in terms of diversity there's a lot of impacts on that it's not just direct I get that um but I'd be really curious to see uh what you know if there's if if staff feels like that's been a part of kind of how things have developed my other question is um around West Park which I don't believe is one of your the areas that you actively manage for but there are a couple of natural areas in there that have some of the most spectacular big folks that we have in the city um that are actually making babies and there are

057so few places in the city where we see Oak seedlings anymore and um there are you know as expected a bunch of tree of Heaven all coming in there as well and they're young and small and I'm wondering if there's any kind of um just sort of scanning Outlook awareness of some of those places where we actually have successful regeneration of local genotype Oaks happening and making sure that even if they're not I don't know if that's a Parks question or what something to be able to kind of stay on top of trying to help these little ones be able to regenerate so we have a Next Generation that can start to take the place of these big beautiful ones that are actively starting to decline in that part so is there any mechanism um

058within nav for areas that aren't necessarily under your normal um uh zones that you manage to be able to kind of Leverage some of your skills that maybe Park staff doesn't you know maybe they're not using all the herbiciding and things like that that you all do on a kind of daily you know on a daily basis is there any way to have some of these kind of more urban areas that you're not necessarily part of normally but to be able to use some of your skills to take care of problems that are small that then could become a lot bigger in 10 years because there's just real opportunities happening in a couple of spots that we might be able to some of the good news that we have you know with small Oaks regenerating

059I can say we'd be happy to consult and share information for sure we have great expertise on the staff but you know the flip side um or the the rub is with that philosophy of minimal resources minimal staff time capacity we really want to deploy it to those highest quality natural areas and safeguard that capacity to do that important work because we have these sort of tangential um no less important but tangentially related things we could be doing all across the community and so to make sure that we're staying true to our core mission is really important but we are collaborators we collaborate with Washington County and other agencies around to share information whether it be about prescribed fire Etc and I see this as a space that if Parks as a whole is able

060to develop some capacity or if there's capacity over it say give 365 which does more of the volunteerism within the mode Parks rather than the natural areas um will absolutely share expertise where we can okay great so that may be more of a kind of collaborative advising kind of role that then we can engage other parts of volunteer management within the city to be able to maybe take some of that on yeah okay great there's I will say since I in the last year there have been a few inquiries that have come through about folks interested in transplanting seedlings in the Parks and where's the natural area where I can take these local genotypes and you know Young Oak saplings and I can say It's actually kind of hard I've gathered from the staff in

061Fielding those inquiries that it's kind of hard to find an appropriate site for that um that doesn't conflict with our current management priorities or long-term plans Etc so uh there is a bit of a challenge there as well not just the information necessary to properly take care of them but where do they go next is another challenge so I just want to acknowledge that all right thank you yep um commissioner Curtis uh thanks um just going back to like when we talked about removing Woody and bases one of the things I've noticed like in Miller or Mullen or Sunset Brooks is once we open up the areas we see a lot more people families kids on the trail so there is a benefit for that I know it's not necessarily the biological side but there's

062a benefit for the public when we start doing some of that stuff and knowing that in every Park Steward or they agree with you that if we have priority five the best we're ever going to make it in our lifetime is probably a four if we're dream maybe it's a three it'll never be a one or a two so if we have fives and we start clearing the Woody bases out it'd be nice if the park stewards had the flexibility to go in and plant other trees shrubs their money their time without you know using staff resources you know we know we're not going to put an invasive one in if we put a service bear in and it doesn't have the right sunlight or it's Miller which is a gravel mind and so the

063soil is pretty much crap it might die but you know it's our time it's our effort it's our money it would be nice if we had that level of flexibility to do some of that stuff or understood I over the year I've been here you know one thing that I've been able to bring to Napa's fresh perspective and so to have you know desires you know kind of a thorough inquiry internally and it takes time but I'm hoping that we can build more and more flexibilities and and really look at you know long-standing policies or or standards within an app that that do increase the flexibility and and address everything from climate resilience and adaptation to you know the added capacity or flexibility within certain natural areas that are very low quality and therefore easier

064to experiment with them they don't keep having that discussionist step number British I would wait until uh my cost speaks because I think he wanted to speak to the deer thing also is that right yeah I was gonna say something I was going to say something about deer and a couple other things so um I'm happy to wait if you want to go ahead no you go first and then okay all right well Remy thanks so much that was a great presentation it was really good background and um to understand uh some of the some of the depth that you're some of the depth of the work you're doing and I've been a big fan of of the Natural Earth program in Ann Arbor since I learned about it when I was uh an ecologist

065in Chicago area where there's a great amount of stewardship uh volunteer stewardship effort in in the Five County region so so yeah it's great to hear about so thank you um I want to address a couple different things that we've talked about uh first I'll just say you know the prioritization is fantastic it's really critical because as we all know in our own lives and our work lives if everything's a priority then nothing's a priority right you have to have priorities I mean somewhere along you have to draw the line so you know where to focus so and and focusing on where there is biodiversity that's where you need to focus on protecting biodiversity and stewarding that biodiversity so it's really critical to have that um that scale and to be putting your effort toward

066where you can protect biodiversity so I was really glad to really good to see that um the deer um we've you know there were about 80 deer taken out from about from around the Arboretum because there was an adjacent small preserve and they started a little bit earlier with the USDA and then the Arboretum through the city city call we took out about 80 deer when I got there in 2014 um there weren't really any Trillium to speak of in the Arboretum you'd see one once in a while under a blowdown but in 2021 after taking out 80 deer we had just like an explosion in other words the Trillium were there they were being eaten and eaten and suppressed by the deer but after a few years of that deer pressure being taken off

067they started to grow larger big enough to flower and this year again great flowering and the the wonderful thing too is we've had Jacqueline Corto Dr Jacqueline Corto doing research at the Arboretum she's done uh research projects I think she's got sites that married Beth Doyle looking at the same thing um studying Oak regeneration or studying Oak seedlings through planting seedlings monitoring them caged and not caged looking at a variety of native plants as well as Trillium so that research is continuing and continuing to fund that research if there's any opportunity I think would be important because it's it's detailed monitoring and that's one of the things that's really helpful um you know and it takes some expertise so and that's a project that's already going on but yeah we have seen Shannon there was

068good representation of Trillium you know after taking out deer so in other words we it that's a really good news story we we have to have data to be able to say that but in this case we do and we can make a difference so I think if we could get the call back that would or some kind of regular thing so it's not a political thing that we have to go through but in other words not a huge process if we could just get it as a standard thing where we're calling deer at some reasonable level and the Heron Metro Park is able to do that really well and they have a standard of and I remember the exact number of deer but they have a like a number per acre they're shooting for

069um and no pun intended there but um so so yeah and they're interested in you know I think if we could Court Nate dear uh Us in southeast Michigan so it wasn't just Ann Arbor that would be great and there's efforts in Southfield and elsewhere to do this so there might be some collaboration and the university would be interested in collaborating on that too the other thing about Oaks so Shannon talked about open regeneration and and the lack of seedlings there are lots of seedlings you can see them there's nothing in the sapling layer in other words there's nothing in the deer browse layer like they can't get above seedling the seeds will germinate little year or two and then they can never get above the browse line but it's really critical that we have

070a good sense for our understory Oaks in other words Oaks that are like four inches above the browse line but not in the overstory nothing but big we know that the overstory will someday send us what we really need is to find identify and protect and Steward the understory Oaks that are there that's what we call Advanced Oak regeneration Oaks that are 20 30 40 feet tall because that's our next crop of Oaks and then in the meantime if we can control deer and we might need to plant in cage or just simply cage some Oak seedlings to get them higher level in other words above the Brows but you know in your in your management this grant that you're talking about you know like having a good sense of where the the next crop

071Volks is and it's not in the seedling layer it's in the understory if you have it at all and those are really uh that's like uh you could think about them as gold nuggets you know that that's what's really critical and in terms of invasive shrubs I've heard talk tonight about area fives and area four and I I understand that and it is hard to to prioritize but um it it you might you know I don't know if it's possible to do this but the University is doing on some of the lands and they're it's very heavy-handed but there's equipment where you can mow these down right you know brush Hogs and mowers um vent tracks and I wouldn't want to use those in our natural areas in our pristine areas but but it'd be

072something to consider where it's nothing but Buckthorn and Honeysuckle and privet and um and in especially in Upland settings the ventrac machine and others where they could just kind of if you've if you've gone through the area you know you're not going to be cutting uh young Oaks like you would want to do that where you're going to be cutting young Oaks but if there isn't anything else there and uh it would might be a way to kind of appease the effort for getting more people on the trails things like that thank you Council number dish thanks so much for those words and I'm sorry I've got unstable internet as usual so I've been in and out I missed a little bit of what you said about deer but um councilmember Ackman and I have

073spoken about this and um we we feel [Music] um you know we share the concern and it might be one way to begin would be to do some education with Council and I'm not quite sure what form that should take but um I had spoken a little bit with uh Chris dick about uh doing some kind of education and um Mike your name came up as maybe being able to be part of that it would be great to just raise awareness about the progress that the call made and one thing that really struck me about what you said Mr cost is that or Mike I'm sorry that um is that uh you saw the Trillium bounce back by 2021 which is interesting because that means that's after we've stopped calling actually for quite a while

074so that means that some of the positive results might even still be seen and might even still be felt which suggests also that we don't need the huge thing that that was done some years ago we need something more like what nap does just regular Burns and I don't mean I'm calling on us to roast deer I just mean that we want to have a a maintenance program and that this would be something that wouldn't necessarily have to be voted on every time but it's just part of our Force management and so you know it would be great uh if if anyone has time to think about that uh and I mean so I'll just put that out there of like how that might be able to get started and and also how we could

075do some education because um council member Ackman as persuasive as we both are I don't think that we can hit people with the force that those who have been doing Forest studies and can say things like what you just said Mike about the Trillium I don't I don't think that we can have that kind of persuasion on on Council and if we could just get up you know a handful more uh uh council members who are open because this is Icky territory to wade into you immediately get barraged and I know people have strong and valid feelings about animal rights and against guns in the city and these are all strong and valid feelings but but I think what isn't um what's harder for people to this the side that isn't getting as much AirPlay

076is the stewardship side and I think that we have a strong ethos of stewardship and so if people understood the connection between deer management and stewardship I think that that would be helpful so that's that's all I wanted to say thank you um Mike did you have more that you wanted to add happy to hear I've I'll forward um maybe it should go to Remy but I'm not sure but um I spoke at uh at the Society of ecological restoration conference along with others from Ann Arbor um about deer and you know the deer cult program and what we founded so there were folks from um the Heron Clinton Metro Parks that have this guy they mentioned them and I think Remy you know Michael Han was there and so um so yeah I can

077forward you the apps forward run me the um the the program where everybody you've got people's names because there there's a effort to do a regional a regional approach but uh just to reiterate that here on Metro Parks you know I'm sure they went through a difficult time to get the program established I realized they don't have the constraints uh all the constraints we do here in Ann Arbor but but their program just goes every year and it's you know that it's just part of their management you know so so that's really great and Mike I wanted to respond to what you said about those Oaks that have made it above the browse line uh and the protection of those so the Grant application proposal that we're putting together right now uh Sean is working

078with with Knapp and Forestry um to develop this is is twofold for the nav portion of it one re-prioritization so we understand in a reasonable interval 25 30 years what has changed from Baseline conditions to present with all of our activity and investment but also the development of a public engagement process to um initiate a conversation around restoration forestry and what that might look like um so not commercial forestry by any means but what does it mean to selectively cut for Forest Health and that would involve an inventory of our forest you know assets including those Oaks that have made it above the browse line and are set to be our next Generation um and so developing a plan and engaging the community in a conversation and what successful restoration forestry might look like within

079the parks so hopefully this funding comes through for both of those efforts um but it we've learned a lot and then be poised to enact a lot more effective management if we get both of these things funded that's great yeah and we'd be interested in collaborating with you as well um yeah and one of the of things that we're witnessing is the tree diseases coming through right so we've got Beach Leaf Disease which is a brand new disease in Michigan just came in last year and it's now even in it spread into um uh Sinclair County and then Oakland County Miss McComb or what hasn't been spotted but now we know it's in Washington County as well um it's one of the research projects I'm working on and um there are some beach in the

080parks in Ann Arbor so that's a tree that's probably going to that's a disease that kills the trees Hemlock willia delja just showed up at the Arboretum and uh first identified we haven't planted a a Hemlock there in 20 years so um so it probably came in through Birds most likely so that means it's elsewhere you know including on if there's Hemlock and then Parklands like the bird Hills so or anywhere else um so I I think um we might not have to do any canopy removal there may be a tree is just dying just like the Ashen Elm and um have taken you know been so but knowing what the what we have in the understory is great so yeah so we're really interested in that process as well uh Chris Graham thanks unveiling

081Remy welcome to I hope a Fearless leadership of the anti-race program you probably don't know but um it began in a uh parcel of land owned by the University of Michigan east of the Veterans Administration Hospital wherein the city agreed to allow Oakway to be moved East and to be put through this parcel of land which would be transferred in part to the VA right over the top of Heritage bur Oaks some of these big guys we've been just talking about we the natural feed early versions of the natural features committee got the entire Council and the mayor to come out and look at these big trees the road was supposed to go right smack through the middle of them most of them would have been destroyed the council unanimously agreed to work with the

082university to move that right of way further east to save those trees the deal made was to allow for a short time parking along Fuller Road below the hospital where some people want to build a train station today uh most of those Heritage trees are now gone they began to go because the university did not enforce their property rights and keep the VA from clandestinely parking Vehicles down below the new parking structure they built between it and the new Fuller roadway and then more recently by the construction on University property which again they must have transferred the destruction of the largest one of those trees underneath that new north parking structure um the council agreed that this was very important and members of the natural features committee present were also advised about the understory of

083that area which was police ramnis cathartica Buckthorn and Chinese Hammer honeysuckle big guys very large still covering that area um they went away from that being fully aware that we really had a problem not just there but across the city of Ann Arbor with these invasive species thank you Don mursky you do ride on a trail of tree or tears when you go on the port of the Border Trail we have made some progress on our parks we have made a huge amount of progress with our citizens when I first started in business in the 1970s not a single person I worked with knew what a Buckthorn was new and Hammer honeysuckle was now every single client I have knows what they are and many of them ask us to get them out of there

084and we've taken thousands of cubic yards of those plants to the city's landfill on compost center over the years and that result of all this was Kim Waldo who helped write the natural features master plan with us who helped write the amendments to the code that currently govern the regulation of natural features went to the Sierra Club and mounted an effort to get a millage developed to support the original natural areas program and it passed unanimously through the council and overwhelmingly and ever since in the renewal of that millage to support the work of the natural areas program it's really a stunning statement of the wisdom of previous councils that they really wanted to work to protect the biodiversity of the city of Ann Arbor especially in the natural areas on its parks and the

085first step was to remove invasive species Second Step was fire third step is the many other net invasive species that have come and are coming maybe a fourth step is to managed for disease maybe a fifth step is to manage for climate change and maybe a sixth step is to get really back busy about deer um thank you thank you Shannon for talking about deer I am uh kind of uh rabid about this subject as many of you know I believe that we definitely educated a previous Council and they showed their wisdom about that education and supporting the deer call over unbelievable Flack from all over the world the current Council doesn't seem to have the same courage my suggestion about that is to get it out of the uh discretionary part of the city's

086budget and get it into perhaps maybe the parks division budget so it's not voted on as a line item in a discretionary way could be enforced or budgeted in some way but anyway get it off the front page um remyi had a great friend her name was Peg coring for many years um uh you know her pretty well she was a great help to the city in developing the green belt program and I thank you uh I think you probably consider a great treasure I'm wondering to what extent we are paying any attention to natural features on those parcels and they're now beginning to be quite a few of them clearly the idea was open space to begin with but certainly some of those properties have uh wetlands and maybe Prairie elements and certainly native

087Forest fragments that um we could guide and work with the uh homeowners and Farm managers and farmland owners to perhaps expand our Outreach I uh the your funding is too Limited and I think maybe we're getting to a time where we really need to step it up a notch it'd be great to have some federal funds but this whole coveted thing is going to run out one of these days and we may need to come back to the taxpayers and suggest that uh we need to do more I have said that we need to look across the entire city for all properties about our forest management plan about our Outreach Outreach with regard to natural features we need to teach and Outreach and encourage and spun to the extent we can clearly we can't work

088on private property clearly the university doesn't want us on their property but we can have a lot of influence if we have the time and money to give a lot of influence and guidance so I guess I leave with a question where I mean what about the green belts Greenbelt properties um what's valuable out there what what should we be doing if we had the resources to do it that's a great and complex question that I will attempt to answer um uh no no it's it's a question um that has been asked before uh but effectively when conservation takes a lot of different forms the Mosaic of land conservation is is many different titles that create the picture of success and the funding that goes into it um is investing in different types of conservation

089outcomes so what the green belts funding does is protect private property and the rights that are restricted through the voluntary conservation easement agreement between the city and the private landowner do guarantee the city this Perpetual benefit of the property remaining largely in its current natural or Farmland condition any further diving down beyond that natural Farmland condition uh is limited there are no management requirements of the forest except for that um any landowner who wants to commercially tender their property has to do so in accordance with a Timber management plan prepared by a certified Forester because that is the level of enforceability that we're able to guarantee through these legal agreements there's checks and balances but we do not mandate organic agriculture um Etc because the legal Agreements are only as strong and good as they

090are enforceable so if we say we mandate organic but then um it is Our obligation to enforce that standard we also are signing up for Perpetual soil testing requirements to see and check whether or not that agreement is being upheld so the the conservation easements will provide a landscape of open space Farmland natural areas the quality of which is assessed at the time that the properties are brought up for consideration and I'm pleased to report that uh things look like they'll be improving in the future in that regard because previously you had a lot of acquisition Specialists like myself running these Green Belt transactions who are a conservation background is grant funding um complex real estate uh negotiation um and and that acquisition process and less of leaf and bugs and so we were going

091out to these properties or we go out to these properties which are primarily Farmland at this point with the green belts strategy and there are incidental wood lots of 20 acres to the 100 Acre conservation easement with the 80 acre balance being productive farmland so we I or similar are not trained ecologists and didn't know what that 20 Acre Wood lot held now that the city has brought the green belt programming in-house we have a better opportunity to collaborate with the expertise here at nap and bring that over and help with these assessments early on in the application process to assess uh the floristic quality of some of these prospective applicants and then um place a conservation easement on those high quality properties that said the easement terms or the easement terms and they can't

092mandate and don't mandate additional stewardship requirements however there are more resources and we could be doing a better job of connecting these private property owners with natural resource conservation service USDA Land Management funding should they be willing but the bottom line is all going to be about their willingness to participate thank you thanks that's a great question and go to John and I just want to let us know that it's 8 30 and we should probably close I would like to ask it one question myself that could please go ahead Jen thank you um kind of keep this short uh I want to pick up on the opening um that Lisa and a few others uh touched on and that is what can we do to improve the situation um and I just wanted to

093clarify at least what I had hoped was going to be the thrust of my presentation and that is not critique um but a recognition of what we all did by introducing ornamentals into our yard and what could we potentially work together to undo and I I'd like to know I mean we we talked about how the value of prioritization and I think that's really important I I also lived and seen also the city recognize the value of not only prioritization but also setting goals for example Vision zero goals for traffic and pedestrian safety and carbon neutrality targets and I'm wondering um if for example would make sense to set a goal related to um the the general topic of Natural Area equality whether it's invasives or whatever the case might be and I'm I'm thinking

094of a few actions um that we might be able to take towards those goals for example um Remy you shared with me last year maps of firstenberg national area and it's pretty highly fragmented into area coyote areas one two three four and five where there's for example an area number one almost completely surrounded by priority four area and I'm wondering could we reduce the fragmentation and reduce the boundaries between our our areas and then take the pressure off our higher quality areas I also looked at the pros plan and if you look at the number of Acres burned it's dropped from 160 or so Acres um in like 2016 down to 60 some Acres the last three years what could we do to increase that again um and um I'm wondering you know what could

095we do in terms of the millage so what I wanted to just simply do is open back up this idea of what are opportunities that the environmental commission could advance and Steward to hopefully undo to some degree and set some targets to move in in the other direction as opposed to to seeing this inevitable March of invasives and the loss of our our natural um areas that's probably that's a long question and probably lots of different answers but I I hope that yet this evening and maybe in subsequent meetings we can actually think about what what we might do to to actually improve the situation well I'll start that big conversation with an invitation um which is that in July nap will be launching a public strategic planning process and we will have several public

096engagement and listening sessions we will in all likelihood develop some type of survey and mechanism for soliciting this type of feedback so at a very high level what is the vision of success um at a very high level what should naps lens include obviously we use a natural communities lens right now but as has been mentioned a climate adaptation and climate resilience lens and so forth these are all the types of things that we want to hear what the community wants and then what success looks like because just like our Baseline prioritization and 30 years of work and the need to re-prioritize the the land that we manage and see what our progress has been nav's been around now for 30 years and it is time to to re-engage with the community about the Strategic

097vision for what it is we do and how we do it um so the invitation is for everyone here and your community and networks to please attend those sessions I'll be sure to pass them along when they come you'll hear about them in press releases undoubtedly but I want that to be as robust as possible so that we can go another 30 years knowing full well that we've had public engagement and support for the uh the nap vision that sounds terrific um and I think it's kind of related to my question because when I think of of all of our areas I kind of mentally erase the boundaries between public and private and think of us living collectively on this space that is shared and I'm wondering what what we can do in the commission

098to address issues of of what our boundaries between public and private space where there might be invasives that come from one side or the other from sometimes there's an invasive that's on a public property that's moving into private property and sometimes it's the opposite um and I'm wondering what we can do about those kind of boundaries and I'll toss into that things like managing um The Tree Of Heaven that I think is is a potential problem for us that we haven't addressed yet because I think a lot of those trees are on private property and it would be really nice to come up with a way to inform the community and address how to best act on that because of what I understand is the support of that tree for the um spotted Lantern fly

099coming our way um yeah so I don't know if you can comment on on boundaries and and how we can work together you know and maybe that's in the education that you're talking about I can I will support you in that uh human dominion and real property law is a very tricky thing um and messy in this regard because natural systems don't care about human Dominion uh and our property boundaries and so forth um where nap lives right now is firmly within our lines because that's where the millage funds our work um there was a time uh where that spilled over into some Public School properties and the line was blurred but we had tightened up that line for about the last decade and we firmly invest our resources just within the parks there are

100other agencies around that I'm not sure what their capability and capacity is to help with private property management like the Washington County Conservation District um you know they are developing through their own millage this influx of resources to the community tool rental uh and then they have a community Forester on staff that is helping advise general property owner inquiries about management and you know ecosystem health so uh they among others might be good resources outside of nap in the short term but long term um nothing short of kind of changing the rules would allow us to kind of blend uh cross over and outside of our our current property boundaries right so I wasn't trying to suggest that Knapp would reach out but it's more like in the in the education of it and and

101the the um when you talk about the prioritization it's it's kind of letting people know that we all share our space yes and um pointing out those things and I think that those of us who have engaged with an app directly get it but but I think there are a lot of people that don't and yes and then you're you're right on that's exactly what I'm hoping the function of the education and engagement coordinator will be or part of their function um some of that will be determined about the candidate that's selected and what strengths they bring to it um what community ties they may have or not what programming experiences they have I'm hoping it's not a duplicative effort and it really does lean into the value of nap within the city's functions but

102also it does spill over inevitably into private property management because it's just learning overall about what is this big issue we're trying to tackle here and the intricacies involved with it so I I see that function doing a better job uh clearly communicating what it is we do and how complex it is within this Urban context right thank you uh Brooks the local system organization will also answer questions from homeowners I know I've talked to them before about some of the work I was doing in Vision setting and and they were very helpful for that so that's another place you can contact good thanks um I want to say thank you to um Remy and to Mike for joining us tonight and your input is really important um and I'm hoping that this is just

103the beginning of more conversations that will continue and move us all into a positive and healthy ecosystem thank you thank you for asking for input thanks yeah thank you we want to continue um I'm oh Steve mistake okay mistake in hand um I am going to so y'all this is my first meeting running as this position so um bye thank you um uh I'm gonna move on to the reports from the Committees from the work groups and I'm just gonna go through what I can read here um uh let's see could we go have a report from I commission council member dish on the Zero waste working group any updates no updates okay that's fast thank you um pollinator working group well I'm going to say briefly um and I appreciate it that's really appreciate

104you jumping in um but we're in the midst of um want the launch of the pioneer where Yard Care Program um we've distributed many signs uh is it Sean can you tell me the count again is it 200 200 store um we have uh 202 folks who have registered for a yard sign 235 who have registered for the email list and 247 who have registered overall nice really nice and we've had really good support that I appreciate from Sean keeping some records for us and communicating with people um getting the signs um as well as the Communications Department of the city and getting out some extra messages to the community about this um and more to come so one of the things that I'll just say that pleases me about this program is that we

105are not just focused on May that we have the opportunity to engage with people throughout the year based on the way it's been structured and I'm really excited about that and although I have to admit it took me a while to get to that point um I think this is really excellent and I appreciate it um Bridget would you like to add anything from your perspective I think you guys covered all of it I think I'll just add that in addition to the the people that registered this year we now have 450 on our 450 folks on our sort of communication list that we'll engage with throughout the year and we have some ideas as to how we might engage pollinator week is coming up in mid-june so we're Brewing some some ideas to continue

106that engagement in the summer great thank you okay let's move on to the water quality working group um I'll just say that um uh commissioner nedrich is uh pursuing chloride contamination of the river and I'm still uh pursuing nutrient pollution of the river both through storm water and wastewater treatment plant and we'll bring this to the commission at the appropriate time but we've also started looking into trying to figure out the source of petroleum Motors in West Park that occasionally crop up so uh we're working through the databases and with the drain commissioner just to see if we can identify a source for those um you know some kind of episodic petroleum contamination that's evident so we'll uh we'll bring that to the commission when we have something more substantial thank you um natural features

107Chris Graham well thanks to Remy and thanks to John and thanks to Steve and Rita for bringing Remy and bringing the subject of natural features before the commission and the subject of invasive species both of them heart and soul of things with those of us involved have been working on for decades now um I think it was three months ago the council commissioned passed a resolution asking the city to open the door to three of our members two of which are now officers of the commission to participate in the internal discussions about how the natural features master plan will be Consolidated with the rest of natural that rest of the master plans of the city we have gotten no answer a no will not be acceptable I assume the issue is that they're organizing and

108trying to figure out how to do things and at some point very soon we will be included thank you thank you um Parks commissioner Martin hi thanks uh we just met last week and we had a presentation by the Lower Town Conservancy they gave an update on on a park that they're developing called Broadway we call it Broadway West it's the old mishkan site the Seven Acres of that development will be uh Parkland managed by this Lower Town Conservancy um and uh progress is being made on that they're doing environmental remediation this summer and then I think development starts in the fall we also had an update from the farmers market um it's super busy right now they're just two days a week in addition to all the other things that happen like food truck

109rallies and things like that at the farmers market site um and I think we approved a couple of um very straightforward resolutions and um that was about it for are meeting this month great um Transportation Commission council member Ackman have anything to report okay um city council neither council member or both so I think that this is probably the good time to bring up um uh email that uh commissioner Brown sent earlier in the month uh to council members and then specifically Lisa and I and maybe some of you too about uh Senator Irwin's efforts to put forth a bill that bans pfas from food packaging and we were talking about how you know what what might the city's role be in showing support to this because it might actually have the ability to pass

110um I reached out to Senator Irwin and he said you know official support is always welcome um he did specifically call out the municipal League which I believe uh you brought up commissioner Brown um but uh councilman R Edition I thought that we would go ahead and draft a resolution that is basically kind of a statement of council's support for this and we'd be modeling the language after the bill uh that Senator Irwin is going forth so I'm not sure people saw that email that he sent around or if people have thoughts about uh what we should be sure to include but basically this would be a letter somewhat like I think our letters of the password we've asked the legislature to act on gun rights and things like that so thank you for bringing

111that to our attention I really appreciate it anything further that's my British yeah we just say feel free to email us if there's you know somebody else I'm happy the bill is Senate bill 0327 and it was introduced um the 4th of May I don't really know what the legislative process is so I'm not sure how long it takes to actually make it uh to the floor for discussion but uh council member dishes kindly offered to start working on this so okay sounds really good um chairperson report Steve do you have anything left over from here no I just wanted to remind you that the Planning Commission and the energy commission should report out oops well thank you I think I did Planning Commission right didn't I oh no I didn't I'm sorry I found

112this list and I missed it let's do planning um not a lot since we last met since I last reported out I think the only connection I would probably make is that we um started talking a little bit more about the potential for amending our Transit Corridor um uh code to be able to make very narrow rights of way that is basically behind the curb up to the sort of edge of the sidewalk the inside there to the sidewalk that is right kind of at the property line there's some places in some of those quarters where it's very narrow and that um staff put together a really good analysis of how while we how wide we would need to make it in order to be able to get three trees in and some of these

113other amenities that we want to be able to have like you know like shade on the streets when you walk you know which is not you know the the natural areas preservation groups you know Zone at all but all these things make a profound difference I think for just our quality of life and and all kinds of things uh even even in even urban areas um so I would say that their um the Planning Commission does not all feel the same about this um I would say that I'm a huge proponent of this I'm trying to convince my colleagues um I think other people are more um at peace with uh the buildings being closer even if it means to some of those areas get squeezed so I just would report that you know people

114are of different Minds about some of this and that um I am trying to Advocate my own position which I'm where I believe this is actually critically important for many many many reasons um so it is undecided um at this point but um and I think the tension is mostly around we just need to get these other areas um uh like Summit Road and wash now we need to get them branded as tc1 first and then we can go back and make changes and then some of us are saying hey let's just make a some tweaks now to kind of get us through and then um bring in uh Washington Plymouth so uh we are not all of the same of the same mind on that um so that's just you know get a bunch

115of humans together and that's what happens thanks well um maybe we can join in on some comments okay there you go okay um all right who else did I miss energy yes uh we had two agenda items um and elections uh first agenda item we had a report out from uh Brian steglitz on uh hydropower uh generation in Ann Arbor uh it may not be widely known that the city owns four dams one of which was actually um at least one of which is outside the city limits those were taken over um from Detroit Edison long ago um two of those generate hydropower and the question was uh whips the opportunity on the other two as well as Maybe increasing generation on the existing two and unfortunately it doesn't look very promising the city has

116a long-term contract with DTE to sell that energy to DT to edte um and then I generally the the bigger problem is that um it's very expensive and a very long process to permit new dams and to get hydropower uh from those dams and also the maintenance costs on dams are very very high I know Council and Brian mentioned this is in the past has actually looked at whether or not we should even be maintaining all of our dams um and let the river be float free-flowing um so unfortunately in terms of Base load for the SCU or a municipal utility it really doesn't look all that promising unfortunately the other agenda item that we had was a review of the nine circuit Federal Court decision to strike down the natural gas ban um in

117Berkeley California there's an energy commissioner that is a lawyer who did an analysis and presented that to the energy commission um the take on it is a little bit different than the city attorney's take and I encourage the council members to take a look at that um and uh just want to mention that there are 104 municipalities or jurisdictions in across the United States that have passed what they are calling generally zero emission building ordinances 104 um after the ninth circuit Court's decision the state of New York reached a budget agreement that will include a natural gas ban this official spokesman said without exceptions so knowing what the Circuit Court did in on the west coast New York is still proceeding with a natural gas ban so uh I know that this is a priority

118issue but uh I would just point out that maybe this is not a set case that I would encourage people to look at that analysis um the last thing that we had was elections and ours were not as quick and clean as yours both Carlene Calvin Garcia's Vice chair and I are both turned out and um the two of us didn't do a swap and so there were no new nominations for chair or vice chair so we are serving for another month and hopefully someone else will step up and and take over as chair and vice chair so uh I commend I commend this commission for a a an efficient transition so that's the update from the energy Commission thank you um I'll just say um I'll just chime in as a chairperson then just

119to add one more thing to um pollinator-oriented things um I've been talking with some of the park staff about alternate lawn maintenance that is being done in some of the parks there's a group of about eight parks that have some designated areas that are being not moaned for the month of May and there will be some testing on on what it looks like what it what people's reaction to it there's a survey that's active and I encourage you all to participate in that survey and talk with your friends and Neighbors about it um they are also going to do an informal testing for ticks because that's been a frequent comment of concern in the community about which we really don't know I know that there is concern but I don't know what evidence is available

120and so we're looking towards at least an informal test in those Parks which I think will be really a good start for using some some data to get us moving towards a confidence in the community toward alternate approaches to lawn care and installation of native plants um and I think that that is the end of this agenda oh um well Sean submitted his support his report and so we all can read that and thanks Sean for all your work on on supporting this commission our next scheduled meeting is October 22nd sorry um just uh adding on to the um kind of Staff updates um well it's a commission update I believe that this is uh commissioner oriel's last meeting with us as her term is expiring um so I just want to thank you lunia

121for your service on the commission um and let everyone know that I am working with um uh our commission staff member to get the applicants for the Youth positions um and we will have someone in lunia Siege hopefully for the next meeting but it might be the meeting and thank you Linea thank you munya thanks for for being with us and contributing and best wishes on your next steps thank you chime in real quickly uh the energy commission has four openings um we have applicants but we'd like to have a broader set of applicants and uh eventually hopefully then uh Commission in terms of diversity um and so uh if anybody knows anyone who might be interested in serving on the energy commission particularly young people please encourage them to get in their applications thanks

122Looney amazing many friends send them our way um all right so then I think uh for our next agenda if anyone would like to raise some topics that you for sure want to consider um please do so or send an email um yes I believe the um plan currently um and please chime in if if you have something else to suggest um but the plan currently is to have it be a working session um where we will be discussing the working groups um that the commission has um just going over through those working groups um looking at um if uh we want to add new working groups if any of the working groups that exist need to be removed or restructured um and I'm also looking into the possibility of getting staff Liaisons to each

123of our working groups um so that is that's good okay any other specifics from anyone okay um that we have a second public commentary and is it good for me to read the phone number again for the feeling I believe the next scheduled meeting item is first um before we get to the public company didn't we just do that uh well just announcing the date oh the date June 22nd yes June 27th at 7 pm yeah right and um okay so if there is a new member of the public watching oh Steve you know I still have my crib sheet here you want me to read it oh sure go ahead okay so um I got it from Emily Dryden in like 2007 17. so uh uh this is an opportunity for persons to speak

124for up to three minutes please call [Music] 877-853-5247 that's 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 922-9696-1644 again that's meeting ID 922-9696-1644 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and be patient there's a there's a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is

125established um I will note that we do have a caller on the line their hand is not raised yet um so call our uh if if you do want to raise your hand please do so um otherwise we will wait a little bit in case anyone calls it didn't see anyone in addition Sean uh no one else has called in and that caller has not raised their hand all right in that case I will ask for a motion to adjoin adjourn Steve thank you second Shannon um so um everyone who agrees that we adjourn say aye and thank you all um and see you next month June 22nd let's stay in touch thank you Rita you did a great job thanks yes indeed thanks for the guidance all right good night everyone