THE CITY OF LAKE FOREST COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Monday, March 4, :30 P.M. City Council Chambers Chaired by Alderman Tack

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1 THE CITY OF LAKE FOREST COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Monday, March 4, :30 P.M. City Council Chambers Chaired by Alderman Tack 1. Roll Call 2. Approval of the Minutes of the February 4, 2013 Committee Meeting Copy of the minutes are attached beginning on page 5. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Approval of the minutes. 3. Comprehensive Emerald Ash Borer Management Plan & Resident Guide PRESENTED BY CHUCK MEYERS, SUPERINTENDENT OF PARKS AND FORESTRY ( ) PURPOSE/OPENING CLARIFICATION: This report provides City Council with an overview of the Comprehensive EAB Plan that is comprised of two sections: 1) EAB Management Plan as it relates to mitigation of anticipated losses on City-owned properties, and 2) a Resident Guide that provides extensive information on options for treatment, removal and reforestation of resident private properties. It is important to note that though the EAB Comprehensive Plan details a mitigation approach that would provide a framework for all City properties, the cost and inventories detailed in the document only reflect addressing City street right-of-way trees. In the upcoming months, City staff will continue to complete tree inventories on other City-owned properties such as parks, City Hall, Deerpath golf course, and wooded parcels. Future costs associated with these additional areas will then be incorporated into the CIP in planning years FY15 and beyond. Staff acknowledges that additional refinement of the Comprehensive EAB Management Plan and Resident Guide is necessary. ACTION REQUESTED: Staff is seeking feedback on the contents of the proposed plan so revisions may be incorporated. Most importantly, staff seeks City Council endorsement of Strategy 4, Combination of Removals and Replacement, over a 10-year timing window and recommends a total of $200,000 in FY14 Capital Improvement Program. BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION: The Comprehensive EAB Management Plan and Resident Guide were developed to adequately prepare The City and its residents with an effective response for the consequences of the Emerald Ash Borer. The information in the documents 1

2 allows City staff to make informed decisions and lessen the social and economic impact that such an extensive loss will have on the quality of life in the community. The documents are extensive, both for the EAB Management Plan portion and Resident Guide. As a result, staff has highlighted some of the key information and findings for each document below. Resident Guide Key Information: The Resident Guide is designed to aid residents in making informed decisions about managing EAB on their property. Staff is in the process of restructuring the volume of information to make it more friendly and concise, and will make a few of the larger sections stand-alone documents available upon request or downloaded from the City s website (such as the Tree Owner s Manual). The final content of the Guide will contain critical information about EAB, treatment options, removal options, and a guide to replanting. The City will continue to offer its Cost Sharing program for parkway trees to leverage funding opportunities and waiving of tree permit fees. The City is also offering a chemical treatment option for homeowners through the sale of a product, Optrol, which they can apply to their own ash trees. We are offering it at a wholesale price. We will continue to utilize the Dialogue and area media to promote the availability of this information to our residents. Further, the City Forester and his staff will remain available to consult with residents about tree management options for their personal property. Comprehensive EAB Management Plan Key Findings: The genus Fraxinus (ash) comprises 19.05% (4,461 trees) of the total inventoried tree population (23,420 public trees). There were 4,432 ash trees found along the street rights-of-way adjacent to homes and businesses and 29 ash trees found in Forest Park. The breakdown of relative age within the ash population is 15% young, 45% established, 37% maturing, and 3% mature. Young trees have 0- to 6-inch diameters, established trees have 7- to 12-inch diameters, maturing trees have 13- to 24-inch diameters, and mature trees have 25-inch and greater diameters. The majority of the ash population (60.1%) was in Fair condition. To facilitate future management decisions, the inventory and this Management Plan should be annually updated with accurate tree records and fiscal projections. The Plan takes into consideration the economic threshold level. The economic threshold is the level in which the costs involved in managing a pest infestation overshadows the value that a tree or plant is providing. Additional findings are located in the plan on pages EAB RECOMMENDED STRATEGY: Four management strategies were explored by City staff to determine an EAB strategy and are detailed on pages 9-12 of the EAB plan. Staff s recommendation was influenced by feedback from prior meetings with Park Board, City Council and residents regarding a desire to stretch the removal timing to lessen the aesthetic impacts throughout the community. Staff also factored in safety and what is feasible with man-power, equipment and funding realities. As a result, staff is recommending EAB Strategy 4, which focuses on a combination of removals and treatment of ash trees over a 10-year window. This option will allow us to stabilize the number of annual removals, spread out the costs annually, and prolong the life of the highest quality ash trees. The plan will address the removal of ash trees with a logical and systematic approach, including the removal of all dead, critical or poor condition trees first, followed by the removal of all ash trees less than 10 in diameter. The remaining removals will be selected based on condition, level of EAB infestation, and 2

3 location. This strategy will also set the framework as we further expand our inventory and update the plan for ash trees located on other City property. This winter City staff has been actively removing EAB infested ash trees identified through the recent street tree inventory. In addition, staff has applied for two grants to leverage the budgeted City funds for tree replacement on City-owned property. In response to City Council s interest at previous meetings with resident strategies related to price breaks, removals or treatment, staff has been investigating various options. Staff has issued a Request for Proposal with the Village of Lincolnshire for the application of preventative insecticidal treatments to ash trees on publicly and privately-owned properties. These proposals are due back by the end of March This option, in combination with the available Optrol previously indicated, will give residents a couple of good treatment options. With replacement, it is important to continue to encourage our residents to maintain diversity in the tree canopy and staff will continue to provide resources as to types of trees that do well in our zone. We do have the ability to get smaller trees at City wholesale cost, but residents would need the ability to transport and plant on their property. Staff would encourage residents to work directly with a local tree nursery to select trees that fit within their specific landscape needs that takes into account the myriad of variables such as desired scale, existing vegetation, site location, growth schedules, annual care and more. Removals are also a complex challenge, and staff does not recommend that the City get involved with this aspect for reasons such as liability issues, access concerns, condition documentation and costs, to name a few. Staff will be happy to address this in more detail at the meeting, if desired by City Council. On February 19, 2013 staff met with the Park & Recreation Board to seek their endorsement of the draft EAB plan, specifically Strategy 4 and the Resident Guide. While the Park Board endorses the design of the plan and the recommendations of EAB Strategy 4, they provided feedback on ways to refine the plan contents and recommended that the Residential Guide be pared down to a more manageable size. They also felt the plan needed to better articulate that the included inventory numbers and fiscal projections only reflect street trees in Lake Forest, and does not include woodlots and other City owned properties. There were other minor points identified in the plan that were noted that will be corrected before the final plan is released. Staff appreciated their feedback and guidance with the documents. BUDGET/FISCAL IMPACT: The following table (area highlighted in blue) was presented to City Council in November 2012 to show staff s recommendation for funding the costs associated with EAB management. Due to the timing of the CIP deadline, the numbers were based on the old inventory data. As you can see in the draft EAB Plan (page 13), the total funding estimate which has been added to the chart below (Street Tree Plan Total) is higher than the amount requested in the CIP. However, it is important to note that the cost estimates on the EAB Management Plan are based entirely on contractual costs (outsourcing all work) for all removals, chemical treatments and replanting. It is anticipated that City Forestry staff will offset these cost significantly. For FY 14, staff estimates that the cost to implement the plan can be reduced by over $100,000 through staff efforts and we can work within the total of $200,000 for this upcoming fiscal year. Staff will re-evaluate the street tree plan in the fall of 2013, add the estimated cost for the inventory on remaining City properties and adjust the CIP for FY 15 and beyond. 3

4 CIP FY 14 FY 15 FY 16 FY 17 FY 18 TOTAL Annual Tree $100,000 $100,000 $100,000 $100,000 $100,000 $500,000 Replacement EAB Treatments $50,000 $50,000 $50,000 $50,000 $50,000 $250,000 EAB Removals $50,000 $100,000 $100,000 $100,000 $100,000 $450,000 CIP Total: $200,000 $250,000 $250,000 $250,000 $250,000 $1,200,000 Street Tree Plan Total: $392,985 $421,740 $384,455 $376,360 $383,290 $1,958,830 City staff is committed to addressing this challenging issue in a manner that will ensure public safety to the best of our ability, reduce property loss and preserve the many benefits that trees offer this community. We will strive to do this in the most efficient and fiscally responsible way possible. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Staff seeks City Council endorsement of Strategy 4, Combination of Removals and Replacement, over a 10-year timing window and recommends $200,000 in FY14 Capital Improvement Program. 4. Opportunity For Public Comment 5. Adjournment Respectfully submitted, Margaret Boyer Deputy City Clerk 4

5 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Proceedings of the February 4, 2013 Meeting 6:30 p.m. City Hall Council Chambers 1. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL: Chairman Novit called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. Carina Walters, called the roll of the Committee members. Present: Acting Mayor Schoenheider, Aldermen Novit, Waldeck, Pandaleon, Reisenberg, Tack, Palmer and Adelman; Absent: None Quorum present. There were 10+ present in the audience. Also present were: Robert R. Kiely, Jr., City Manager; Victor Filippini, City Attorney; Marlo Del Percio, City Attorney; Catherine Czerniak, Director of Community Development;; Michael Thomas, Public Works Director; Elizabeth Holleb, Finance Director; Susan Banks, Communications Manager; 2. Approval of the Minutes of the November 5, 2012 Committee Meeting: Alderman Palmer moved, seconded by Alderman Adelman to approve the November 5, 2012 Committee meeting minutes. Motion carried unanimously by voice vote. 3. Review of the City s Water Transmission Main Study Bob Ells, Engineering Supervisor presented a power point presentation regarding the Water Transmission Main Study. The study validated the current strategy and intent of the Capital Improvement Plan; that is, to continue replacing old and undersized water mains system wide; thus increasing the capacity of the system and reducing the potential for future main breaks. 4. Preliminary Discussion on City s water Conservation Program Michael Thomas, Director of Public works provided the Council a number of options for consideration on the City s water Conservation Program. These included a 6 day program, even/odd program, and what criteria cause a ban to be put place, along with what the City of Lake Forests capabilities are during June, July and August. Council can expect to see additional information in the coming months. 5. Update on Miscellaneous capital improvement projects/studies Michael Thomas, Director of Public works spoke to Council about pending Capital Improvement Projects and participating in the Municipal Partnership Initiative (MPI), for some of these projects. MPI allows municipalities to bid collaboratively, potentially seeing better pricing. Again these will be coming to Council on the next few months. 6. Opportunity For Public Comment: Seeing none. Before adjournment, Council recommends moving Stonegate form the Omnibus agenda to the Regular agenda so there may be discussion, second that item #4 on the agenda looks to amend NSEAC, there is value in staying in the consortium for a number of reasons; auditing of energy efficiency, possible electric car charging stations, etc. 7. Adjournment There being no further business, Alderman Palmer moved, seconded by Alderman Novit to adjourn the meeting at 7:36 p.m. The motion carried unanimously by voice vote. Respectfully Submitted, Carina Walters Assistant City Manager 5

6 HISTORY OF EAB IN LAKE FOREST The following timeline provides additional background on EAB-related activities that has culminated in the development of the Comprehensive EAB Management Plan and Resident Guide EAB confirmed in Lake Forest; City removed trees on June Terrace and adjacent bike path Staff began to inform the community about EAB through Dialogue, public meetings, web page and informational brochures Forestry staff began a monitoring program to detect EAB spread to other neighborhoods and City properties Lake Forest selected as one of twelve communities in the U.S. to receive a grant from the Legacy Tree Project which allowed The City to begin chemical treatments, at no cost for five years. This program along with in-house funds allowed the City to begin treating over 600 ash trees on public property, and today this number has grown to over 1,000 ash trees. City waived permit fee for residents to promote assistance with removals on private property Forestry staff compared past tree inventory to current tree conditions and determine it is too old to be of value in developing an EAB management strategy City purchases TreeKeeper inventory software in August and hires Davey Resource Group to conduct a partial inventory of all public trees along street right-of-ways Staff participates in Town Hall meeting and other public meetings to continue awareness of EAB Staff develops preliminary cost estimates and baseline information for November 2012 CIP funding discussions City forestry crews complete remaining street tree inventory in January 2013; the total number of street trees inventoried was 23,173. By completing the inventory in-house, the City saved $52,000 in contractual costs and trained our team on the software so we can maintain the tree inventory into the future February 2013 Davey Resource Group and City staff is able to formulate draft Comprehensive EAB Plan and Resident Guide that includes accurate long-term management strategies and cost projections for mitigating street tree removal, treatment and replacement and resident assistance information 6