Those present: Dawne Howard, Tom Anderson, Vince Perrotta, Dave Barrow, Dave Hunter, Bruce Philips, Keith Schoonover, Lori Schoonover, Sonia Demiray, Mike Kay

1. Call to Order: Keith called the meeting to order.

2. Treasurer’s Report: Dave indicated that we received a $297.82 donation from Drake Russell, and $.11 in interest. We made a $12.00 payment renewal of forestryboard.org domain. Current balance of $5,800.37. Payment is pending to National Band & Tag of $170 for the Tree Tags at Hood College.

3. Logging Site Exams: Bruce mentioned that the How to Obtain a Logging permit is now on our website but he has a small revision that he will be sending Dave. Bruce also mentioned that is his communication with Eric Dodson he learned that Eric will now be requiring a preconstruction meeting as part of the permit process. Bruce, Dave, Mike finalized a logging site inspection form that Dave will be loading on the website so that we can type directly into prompt boxes. Bruce is also in discussion with Eric to hold a joint training at a proposed logging site with Frederick County Permits people and interested Forestry Board members. This will enable discussion on what we look for when we conduct our specific inspections. Mike indicated that no new plans were received for February review.

4. Climate Change Committee: Tom mentioned that he and Mike just held a virtual meeting with Paul Walker and other DNR folks to discuss and brainstorm various ideas on how to implement the Forestry section of the County’s climate change initiative. Tom mentioned that maintaining the health of forests will maximize carbon uptake. Mike mentioned that we discussed various tree planting programs, and the need to control invasive plants.

5. Frederick Tree Walk: Dave mentioned that all of the Hood College tree walk has been completed except for a slight glitch in one QR code. Dave mentioned that Hood College Administrators are very pleased to be participating in this initiative. The individual tree tags should be delivered in 3- 4 weeks where they can be installed on trees once the weather breaks.

6. Arbor Day Poster contest: Dave displayed the 3 posters that were under consideration and that poster #2 won with 62% of Board members voting for this poster. Mike indicated that Maryland’s First Lady will be deciding who is the statewide winner of this contest on February 19, 2021.

7. PR Activities: Sonia mentioned that she generated 2 wildland Fire articles with the help of Aaron Cook; and, these articles will be run in the Frederick News Post on February 20 and March 6. Sonia also worked with Bethany to develop 6 articles on wintertime tree identification that will be run in the Frederick News Post. Finally, Sonia asked members to develop 150 – 200 word narrative for their Virtual Middletown Green Fest program. Sonia mentioned that she would be happy to assist members with this narrative. Sonia would like to have the narratives completed in the next two weeks so filming can occur sometime in April.

8. Nature Notes: Dave mentioned that we have sent 24 Nature Notes to Sue that are pending publication and we have 31 awaiting review. Dave mentioned that Bethany’s winter tree ID articles generated more hits on the website than any other article!

9. Web Site: Bethany discovered an issue with link forwarding on our website. After several hour trying to fix the problem I submitted a request to Google who solved the problem. Now QR code readers get set to the right link on there first try. I also discovered a way to reduce the number of characters needed to get to our website so the QR codes won’t be as complex. I have changed the FCFCDB.org domain to be a first level domain instead of forwarding it to the frederick.forestryboard.org domain. Users can use either domain to get the exact same result with either URL.

10. New Business: Tom mentioned that he learned from Anne Hairston – Strang that Hemlock Woolly Adelgid perishes when temperatures decrease to 10 degrees F; and we might break that mark this weekend. The trouble is that the predators of HWA also die at this temp.

11. Next meeting: The next virtual meeting of the Forestry Board will be on Monday, March 8, 2021. Log on time will be 6:59 sharp!