MINUTES 10-15-18 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Councilmember O'Malley added that Dr. Lambrese is away at a conference on LGBT mental health. He thanked Equality Ohio, Stonewall Democrats, all who contacted him, council colleagues and members of the administration. On the motion: All members voted in favor. Motion passed. 3. Public Works Committee Report regarding meeting held 10/15/18; Mr. Rader, Chair (to be provided) Tonight we met as the Public Works Committee. All members of the Committee were present, including David Sangree who was a guest from the Keep Lakewood Beautiful Tree Committee. Also Director Beno and Streets & Forestry Manager Chris Perry were present to answer questions. First we briefly talked about Ordinance 42 -18 which was the easement. We decided to defer on that while Director Beno works on some trying to figure out some other spaces as per our last discussion on that. So, we didn't really discuss that very much. We spent most of our time discussing the Keep Lakewood Beautiful Tree Committee and an email that Mr. Sangree sent. We covered about three topics specifically. 1. Some people within the tree committee wish to see the rules of the City changed or adopted that would require people to basically keep trees that are on their property or at least replace them when they are brought down. 2. There currently is a fund within the City that allows some funds for people to plant trees on tree lawns on the private side of the tree lawn. 3. One of the major topics of discussion was potentially carrying on that discussion to maybe create a task force within the City. Right now there is some discussion with the KLB Tree Committee to disband and continue within a more defined role that the City would create. There is a lot of research that needs to happen. We need to get with the Law Department and find out how we would tackle in order to plant a tree on private property; in order to require someone to keep a tree on private property — there's got to be a lot of legal red tape on how we would do that. In the future we will have to invite the Law Department into the Committee to have some discussions in regards to that. Motion by Rader, seconded by Mr. O'Leary to receive and file the communication. Councilmember Bullock acknowledged the time and focus provided by the Public Works Committee. He welcomed the resumed focus on these topics. He credited the City for making big strides increasing the numbers of trees on public land and stated that the next step is to strategize about increasing private tree plantings. He asked to speak with Director Butler about the legal issues about planting tree lawn trees on private front lawns on streets where tree lawns are too small for planting.