Parks and Public Landscaping Advisory Board Agenda and Packet 2022 10 6

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Parks and Public Landscaping Advisory Board Minutes June 2, 2022 Page 3 of 4 in place. If no irrigation was in place, landscaping with rocks was preferred. PPLAB recommended that signs needing repair just be removed (see memorandum in PPLAB agenda). D. We do need an inventory of eligible entrances to be addressed. Direct focus on the worst appearing ones to upgrade appearance. City Staff has an initial inventory, but that needs to be updated. Staff could circulate current list for PPLAB informal drive by inspection, and maybe some pictures of the sites would be useful to help prioritize actions. E. Entrances to the Enclave and Coal Creek subdivisions were damaged in the fire, and will be priority discussion items, but PPLAB is uncertain if the Enclave or Coal Creek HOAs are active. F. We can address these entrances in more detail next meeting when we have some better documentation. Equity issues need to be considered. 9. Continued discussion on Median Landscape Renovation designs We have moved forward with RFPs for the services of a landscape architect for design of medians. RFP's will be going out this month (June). The 2018 master plan established designs for median renovation, but funding lapsed and the Covid Pandemic hit. We now have the opportunity to update median design to current community tastes and values. These community values include less turf, sustainable, wildlife -friendly plantings where irrigation is present, annual/perennial color planting features, and preserving sight lines for traffic safety. The original concept from the Master Plan was to have a landscape architect present ideas to the PPLAB. A lot of work was completed on this in 2018. The objective was to go with a commonsense design, not going too "big" but, fix up what we have. Now, we have the opportunity to update to more sustainable values, including less turf, more native plants, and pollinator friendly planting Discussion continued with acknowledgement of "one size does not fit all." Council has given some direction but is looking to staff and PPLAB to discuss concepts and move ahead with the planning process. Maybe some median improvement work could happen this Fall, or more likely next year. We have been losing a lot of trees to EAB. The infestation is continuing to spread. Cherry Street was hit first, 3 to 4 years ago. McCaslin Ash trees look pretty bad, all are in bad shape. A few hackberry trees are still in decent shape. The plan for the future should consider the replacement of disease susceptible trees like Ash, in favor of more resistant varieties. We need to get the design going for Via Appia and McCaslin to Cherry. If we go "native" with plant selection, we may not need to spend money on irrigation systems for medians now.