Our commission consists of the following members:
- Ken Paur - Chairman
- James Pearce - Vice-Chair
- Cindy Gill
- Evelyn Bertilson
- James Carley
- and me - BenJoe Markland
We work directly with Jon Anderson and his staff from the public works/parks and recreation department to help accomplish our goals.
The main topic of discussion for our group was the completion of an urban forestry database. The city is working to finish a database of every tree on city property. This would include species, size, and location. Most of this work has been done by hand but eventually will be computerized. Once the database is completed the commission and the parks and recreation department will have a greater understanding of what South Ogden has with regards to urban forestry. This in turn will help us assess costs for replacement, insurance for certain types of trees, diagnose hazards and pinpoint issues quickly.
In the end our commission deals a lot with Arbor Day as well. We have a huge goal of helping promote this day and the need for more trees in our area. Your ideas and suggestions are welcome. We have in the past gone to schools but are finding this less affective.
Overall it was an interesting meeting and I have a lot of studying to do. I will keep you posted on our progress.
2 comments:
Is this commission a paid position? If so, I am not sure that the city, with its current financial circumstances should pay to have such a commission. It seems like a really frivolous way to spend the cities money. But if it is not a paid commission, with no city budget being spent on the commission, nor its activities, than I fully support the upkeep and documentation of the cities trees.
It is a paid position but it is already paid for. The big cost is the software to manage it all. But we have some funds allocated for that too.
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