Executive Director’s Report February 2020
Federal Policy Update – Congress has passed a $32 million budget for urban and community forestry
Forest Service Regional Update – Meeting scheduled for March 11th to discuss U&CF/WUI grant deliverables, met with Eric Douglas, facilitator for the project to support planning ideas.
Forest Service Funding –No update.
Forest Service Research – the LA Urban Research Center’s is interviewing research applications candidates in the near future for three positions.
Cal Fire – we’ve been invited back for final submittals for our two grants applications – the applications are due in April. I imagine we will hear back by late summer.
CUFAC – next meeting is scheduled for March 25th and 26th in San Diego.
State Policy & Advocacy – Hughes met with the leadership of the Strategic Growth Council on February 11, 2020 along with CA ReLeaf staff and their lobbyist to discuss issues that we will both addressing at the Capitol, so we are on the same page when we are speaking with decision makers. I will be returning 2/20/2020 to meet with various legislators and staff working with John Kabashima addressing urban forestry pest issues.
Program Updates –
CIRCLE Projects (Cap & Trade Funding) – CIRCLE 2 – all trees planted, monitoring and replacements still underway – wraps up at the end of March 2020.
High-Speed Rail – CIRCLE 3.0 – – All trees planted! We are focusing on monitoring and replacements now – this wraps up at the end of March 2020.
Cool Parks Program – All plantings are complete for the Fall and another round of plantings will take place in Spring 2020. Monitoring is underway. New events are planned in seven cities in March and April, including two Northern California cities, San Rafael and Novato, and Sacramento State University.
City Forest Renewal – Meetings are underway and MOU’s are being signed. I submitted a request for an advance to CALFIRE to support us in paying bills for rapidly.
2020 Conference – Is scheduled for May 14-16, 2020 in Sacramento in partnership with CA ReLeaf. Working on sponsorships and populating the agenda. We believe we will wait to hold our annual award till the Fall, and align those with another one-day long summit.
Santa Rosa – we will help support the Coffey Park neighborhood with their Arbor Day Foundation tree give away April 7th.
Other –
We have moved into our new office – loving it – a fresh start! We’ll be looking for a small conference table if anyone in the urban wood business might have any idea, I’m all ears! 🙂
Respectfully submitted,
Nancy Hughes