Review of move to change from a ‘commission’ to a ‘department’ gets commissioners’ OK
By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news
Ashland Parks & Recreation Commissioners approved an exception Wednesday to the commission’s integrated pest management policy in the hopes of saving several trees in and around the Japanese Garden in Litha Park.
Ahead of a unanimous vote at the first APRC business meeting of the new year, Commissioner Rick Landt asked that the staff request for an exception to the pest management policy be pulled from the consent agenda and that such items be always listed for discussion because “our community does not want to see use of these chemicals.”
An audience packed the chairs at the beginning of the meeting, largely to speak in support of pickleball. But Don McClure offered testimony pleading for another way to preserve the park’s trees.
“Pesticides kill bugs, herbicides kill plants, this therefore affects our ecosystem. … Children are walking through the Japanese Garden daily. As a parent who had a 10-year-old son die from cancer, I say, please, for the sake of your children, grandchildren and the future generations do not use pesticides and other herbicides in our community,” he said.
Parks Director Rocky Houston said APRC already invested $30,000 replacing trees in this area and is “trying not to make that investment again.” The pesticide treatments requested are estimated to cost around $7,000. When Landt balked at this estimate, Houston acknowledged it was expensive, but that the cost was less than removing many dead trees.
As volunteer and special event manager for APRC, Suliman Shulton also manages the Japanese Garden. Sitting beside Houston, he said arborists examined the trees and found evidence of scale and beetle damage in some while others would be treated in a preventative capacity.
Two substances would be used in the treatments recommended for the different tree species. For the Douglas firs, an injection directly into the tree with the active ingredient of emamectin benzoate. For the pines, lower bark spray with the active ingredient of dinotefuran. This substance would be applied in such a small area near the base of the tree that it should be easier to control than a typical spray application, Shulton said.
“The arborists that I’ve talked to feel — of course nothing is certain — but they feel very confident that this is a very worthwhile treatment,” he said.
Canopy Arbor Care would be doing this work as a treatment they do often and “really believe in for saving this type of species which they see across the valley failing due to this type of beetle,” he said.
Commissioner Dan Weiner asked if APRC was working to address the root causes of decline that make trees susceptible to destructive forces such as beetles. Shulton said staff are working to ensure irrigation and soil conditions are optimal for overall tree health.
Houston said some tree species are declining across the valley due to a variety of factors and attempts to preserve some may be worthwhile. Some of the trees near the garden were planted by Boy Scouts a century ago.
Commissioners took turns expressing reluctance before voting unanimously to approve staff’s request. Commissioner Jim Bachman asked if the garden will be closed when the treatment is applied and whether the pest management policy requires posting notice prior to any chemical pest treatment; the answer was yes.
In other APRC business Wednesday, commissioners unanimously approved a statement of support with some remediated typos for the ordinance to create a formal Parks & Recreation Department, voted to retain Bachman as commissioner chair and Landt as vice-chair and the capital improvements plan received a final unanimous approval.
Houston briefly reiterated the capital improvements plan was the result of staff taking an inventory of capital improvement projects broken down into categories such as preventative maintenance as opposed to enhancements or new elements.
As examples, he listed the Siskiyou Mountain Trail reroute project and accessibility improvements are slated for many parks facilities, but APRC is also scheduled to deliver the new East Main Park and remodel the Daniel Meyer Pool. APRC doesn’t have the resources to do everything the public wants to see, prompting the development of this plan through public input and staff review of projects to produce a prioritized budgeted list of intended projects.
Houston also gave a brief presentation on the upcoming city budget process and commissioner’s role, such as ensuring parks staff deliver its budget to the finance department with other city departments by Feb. 13.
In looking at national parks data, Ashland Parks & Recreation is doing well for the scale of what it’s doing, Houston said. Ashland has four times as much park land per resident as compared to national averages.
Ashland has 37.97 acres per 1,000 residents, compared to an average of 10.6 per 1,000 residents. This is largely through APRC’s open space properties, Houston said. APRC spends on average $5,253 per acre while other parks nationally average at $8,260 per acre.
“We have four times the acreage, but we’re only spending twice as much,” Houston said.
Still, he said, to achieve the laundry list of desired recreation and parks offerings — including revisiting the adequacy of available pickleball spaces and sports fields — the parks commission will have to be thoughtful.
“We can’t just keep expanding our budget, we do have resource limitations and constraints as such this is something we will continue to work on,” he said.
Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].
Jan. 13: Corrected estimated cost of pesticide treatment.
