Words By Sophie Franchi
Since January 2022, the Akron Tree Commission has been meeting monthly to work on the implementation of the City of Akron’s Master Tree Planting Plan. We’ll periodically summarize these meetings, which are publicly live-streamed on YouTube, to keep our readers up to date on the City’s progress toward its goals for the Urban Tree Canopy[1].
The past three months have been exciting for the Commission, with a heavy focus on a new grant application and developing a public education strategy. Here’s what’s new:
May 2023
New City Public Service Department Representative In May 2023, City of Akron Arborist Jon Malish was replaced as the City’s Public Service Department liaison at the monthly Commission meetings by Parks Maintenance Foreman John Hilkert.
USDA Forest Service Grant
The May 2023 meeting kicked off with a presentation from the City of Akron Watershed Superintendent Jessica Glowczewski about the City’s application for a USDA Forest Service community grant program. With the Inflation Reduction Act Urban and Community Forest Grant, the USDA Forest Service is giving away a total of up to 5 billion dollars. The minimum award to ask is $100,000, and the maximum is 50 million dollars. At the time of the meeting, Glowczewski was in the process of finalizing the budget and writing a proposal for this grant along with the Grants Manager for the City. While they were still waiting on some partners to provide the budgetary numbers for their portion of the grant funds, Glowczewski said they were looking to ask for a total of a little over 5 million dollars.
This grant targets urban canopy and urban forestry practices, workforce development, and long-term sustainability for creating and implementing some type of urban canopy program. The grant also targets areas that are considered food deserts, where fresh foods are not readily available, as well as reconnecting canopy/fragmented canopy, biodiversity, and invasive species control.
The City will not be required to match the grant if this work falls solely in a Justice40 community. Akron has quite a few communities that qualify for funding based on those requirements.
This is a five-year grant, which Glowczewski said is conducive to training, setup, and development of a robust program in each of these communities. The City hopes to spend those five years to create a tight, viable program that they can continue to support into the future, past when the grant funds are exhausted.
Glowczewski acknowledged that community opinion is going to be a big challenge and that communication is very important for the grant to be successful. Glowczewski explained that this grant would allow the City to work with community liaisons who will foster community engagement by going out to talk to each of these communities and trying to get an understanding of what they want and where they want it.
Ideally, a large portion of the green infrastructure that is planted using these funds, such as trees and shrubs, will be edible. So, the grant writers were looking at orchard development and potentially planting berries or herb gardens, or even starting new community gardens and then teaching the residents of the communities surrounding these edible green spaces the gardening skills needed to maintain these community resources through different training programs and public outreach.
The City partnered with a variety of local community organizations and businesses for this grant. The City’s portion of the grant proposal covers the East Akron, South Akron, and Middlebury neighborhoods. The City aims to utilize an ex-offender re-entry program called Truly Reaching You[1] (TRY) to begin to develop an urban forestry training program.
TRY begins interviewing inmates when they are coming close to the date of their release. Once the inmates are released, Truly Reaching You picks them up and provides them with clothing, food, housing, and job/work skills training. Currently, TRY provides ex-offender training in construction and landscaping programs. The City would like to help expand the landscaping piece to include different urban forestry techniques. The benefits to this expansion are mutual: the ex-offenders receive certifications and better skills, and the City can work toward repairing and restoring the urban tree canopy, especially in neighborhoods that do not have much green space.
One of the City’s partners for this grant, Akron Zoo has a very similar mission but is focusing on creating a workforce development program for young adults 18 to 24 years old. The Akron Zoo will afford them the opportunity to gain experience and training, which will in turn contribute to restoring the urban tree canopy in the Sherbondy and Summit Lake areas.
The City will also partner with Summit County Public Health (SCPH) to put up air quality monitoring stations in the neighborhoods where the grant funds will be used. These monitors will track whether the trees are effective and whether there is a reduction of particulate in the air. SCPH is going to donate the sensors to the City and then collect and monitor all the resulting data.
In addition to providing background about the grant, Glowczewski asked the Commission to provide a letter of support for the application. Glowczewski requested the Commission’s feedback on how to best weave their goals into the grant proposal and expressed interest in collaborating with the Commission to work on the development of the details.
The City of Akron Arborist Jon Malish was providing supplementary information and assistance, such as developing maps, advising on planting types, ordering equipment and supplies, and coordinating the on-the-ground effort to determine planting locations and monitor installation on City property. The application was due June 01, 2023, and the City will know within six months of applying whether they will be awarded the grant. The work would start in the beginning of 2024.
Commission member Jeff Fusco asked about any other partners and about plans for the rollout for informing the community. Davey Tree was named as another partner, and Glowczewski said that the grant budget includes funds for hiring a consultant to be the community liaison, who would do the majority of the public education piece, including grassroots canvassing, setting up meetings, and finding stewards in the community to help spread the message.
Glowczewski explained that the grant favors funneling the funds down to communities through subcontracts. She said that the grant suggests that the majority of the money the municipality receives will need to be distributed to organizations that will actually do the work. That’s why it’s so important for the grant writers to find community partners like TRY, the SCPH’s Akron Regional Air Quality Management District, Summit Soil and Water Conservation District, Akron Zoo, and others.
Glowczewski also wants to make sure the programs set up with grant funds live on well beyond the grant timeline and explained how another area of focus is to get City Council approval and potentially pass some type of legislation or resolution that supports the improvement of urban canopy, which Glowczewski believes would define the City’s commitment to the programs and show support of the community grant partners.
The Commission voted in favor of writing a letter of support for the grant.
Akron Tree Commission Community Outreach
After Glowczewski finished the grant presentation, Commissioner Sarah Vradenburg observed the grant as an opportunity for the Commission to start getting out into the community to begin the public education piece of the Commission’s own mission and suggested they start to contact City Council members to request a spot on the agenda at ward meetings.
Vradenburg suggested the Commission share this public education duty and said she would work with Commissioner Jeff Fusco to get a schedule of ward meetings and then send out an email for Commission members to each sign up to speak at a ward meeting.
The Commission made a plan to work on writing a script and gathering information, such as facts about the urban tree canopy, how trees affect property values, how they affect the atmosphere and quality of life, etc., for public education at ward meetings and otherwise in the community. Vradenburg offered to get information together before the July Commission meeting, where the Commission hopes to approve the information and begin scheduling.
Logo Contest
The Commission has had an ongoing contest for its new logo design. They voted on the logo and discussed possible revisions by a professional graphic designer.
The Commission plans to contact the Firestone High School student who won the contest, acknowledge them publicly, and award them $100 in prize money.
Ohio Urban Forestry
The final item on the agenda for the May 2023 meeting was a request for Commission support and guidance from Ohio Urban Forestry, a for-profit company founded by James Robinson, Rich Moone, and Scott Lesneski. Vradenburg met with Robinson to learn more about what they are doing. 33Ohio purchases land that is owned by the Land Bank, the City of Akron, or otherwise owned by the public and converts the empty lots into tree farms. Ohio’s website states that its mission is to “enrich the present and fortify the future of the environmental vitality of urban areas in Northeast Ohio.” They aim to achieve that mission by “planting and managing native trees and plants on properties which are located in underserved urban areas.” The Commission plans to follow up on this in the future.
June 2023
The June 2023 meeting centered around public education about the Akron Tree Commission and the City of Akron’s upcoming tree lawn plantings.
Logo Contest
The only item of unfinished business from May’s meeting was that the logo contest winner had still not been notified, so Vradenburg offered to get the name of the winning Firestone High School student to Commissioner Patricia Wyatt, so that Wyatt could relay the information to the student.
Public Education Strategy
Prior to the meeting, Fusco emailed the other Commission members a blurb on watering trees written by an Akron resident and former colleague of Vradenburg from the Akron Beacon Journal, though Fusco did not mention the name of the writer.
Fusco suggested that the Commission needs to get moving on gathering information for public education.
Vradenburg suggested somehow getting information about caring for newly planted trees to residents who were scheduled for tree planting on their tree lawns. She suggested including information about proper watering and mulching strategies, etc. The Commission agrees that any printed resources should include information about who the Akron Tree Commission is, why they exist, what they do, and how to get in touch with the Commission, as well as facts about the benefits and importance of trees, guidelines for minimum tree care and maintenance such as proper mulching and watering strategies and refraining from wrapping things around trees, and information about who to contact if a tree on your tree lawn needs more. Fusco also suggested including information about Akron’s new Tree City status with the Arbor Day Foundation.
The Commission discussed several different strategies for getting this information to the public, including walking neighborhoods to distribute door hangers, speaking and passing out pamphlets or flyers at ward meetings, and including mail inserts with letters that get mailed to residents informing them about upcoming tree lawn plantings.
As Parks Maintenance Foreman, Hilkert should know tree planting locations weeks or months in advance, so the Commission should be able to plan a strategy for the distribution of information based on that schedule. Commissioner Jim Aitkin inquired whether Hilkert can send the Commission a copy of the letter that gets sent to residents informing them that they are scheduled to receive a tree on their tree lawn, and Hilkert said he would get a copy and send it to the Commission, so they are familiar with the language and can use it to guide information gathering for public education.
The Commission feels it would be best to include its web page on any printed materials, but the web page is currently under construction and expected to be live when the City releases its updated website. Vradenburg said she would check in again about a timeline with the City of Akron Chief Communications Officer Stephanie Marsh, who is the Commission’s point-of-contact for the website and all other communications. Vradenburg also planned to check with Marsh about in-house graphic design help for the printed materials/
The target start date for public education is the fall of 2023, so Vradenburg proposed making some concrete decisions at the upcoming July meeting in regard to language and format so that resources can be printed in time for fall. Vradenburg also suggested beginning to contact Akron City Council members to request speaking time at upcoming ward meetings, and Commissioner Sara Biviano agreed to reach out to the Council members to start that process. Fusco recommended dedicating an hour to an upcoming meeting or scheduling a separate meeting to put together talking points and a five- or ten-minute presentation for the ward meetings.
Fusco also proposed planning ahead for next year by gathering a list of all the events that will be hosted by the City of Akron and selecting a few of the events expected to have the highest attendance; the Commission could have a presence at these events and distribute information and resources.
Vradenburg suggested getting T-shirts made with the new logo to wear when attending events for public education. Fusco suggested buttons, and Commissioner T-shirt sizes and style preferences were requested for ordering purposes.
Wyatt proposed the Commission have a presence at various neighborhood Night Out Against Crime events that happen around the city, and Fusco agreed that these events would be a good place to distribute information. Fusco suggested including data on the printed resources about how planting more trees in neighborhoods reduces crime.
The Commission also discussed ways to engage the public through digital interaction on social media and the webpage. Suggestions included encouraging folks to share with the Commission when they see a cool tree or something interesting involving trees, and sharing stories that people like to hear, such as when someone dedicates a tree to a loved one.
The Commission discussed collaborating with the City on any future plantings on City property to involve the community and turn it into more of a special event. Fusco asked Hilkert if he knew of any upcoming plantings, but Hilkert said there is nothing planned aside from tree lawn plantings throughout the city.
Fusco asked about the possibility of paying a communications consultant to assist with strategizing the public education messaging, and Vradenburg offered to add this to her discussion with Marsh.
July 2023
The Akron Tree Commission held a Working Group Session at 1:30pm on Friday, July 07, 2023, in person at 166 South High Street, 3rd Floor. This group session was to discuss the public education strategy mentioned in previous meetings. As this was an in-person meeting, it was not streamed live on the City of Akron’s YouTube channel. The next monthly meeting date is yet to be announced.