Land Acknowledgment “The Long Tom Watershed lies within the traditional homelands of the Tribes and Bands of the Kalapuyan peoples. Following treaties in the 1850s, the Kalapuya people were dispossessed of and forcibly removed from their Indigenous homeland by the United States government. Today, many descendants are citizens of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. We acknowledge that we are on occupied lands, and express our respect for Kalapuya and all Tribal Nations of Oregon, and the important contributions they continue to make to their communities, including to the stewardship of this watershed.”
Anna Scott: facilitator, Dennis Todd, Kevin Hillery: Fair Arborist, Steve Wisnovsky, Paxton Hoag: board liaison, Robert Albano, Jon Silvermoon: board liaison, Tom Gannon, Thom Barr, Glenn Johnson, Bobbi Jo Newton, David Hoffman, Jon Pincus (arrived 7:10), Jain Elliott: scribe.
April Meeting Notes were approved and will be posted.
Board Liaison Report: Paxton says not much happened at the May meeting that affects LUMP. There were willows planted blocking the entrance to a large campsite off Chela Mela.
Staff Report: Steve is concerned that Sierra isn't here.
Announcements: Paxton attended a zoom seminar on the EAB through the Master Gardeners at OSU. There were pictures of ash forests developing from camas fields that looked just like the Fair. Ash trees were suppressed by Indigenous burning, and have only become established in the last 200 years. https://extension.oregonstate.edu/mg/events/forest-foe-how-you-can-help-slow-emerald-ash-borer-invasion?_hsmi=255508714&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_XQXgUvg-31hgwlS9TJ9IeVg6F6WGrSYtLYP0w21a-C_nkk9-EkqWerE-dFhb8GposFuStgaReHrNzoEoQU1d52RKJeg Anna wants to make sure that the hyperlink for access to LUMP info is available. https://lump.oregoncountryfair.org/ https://oregoncountryfair.org/land-use-management-planning-lump-committee/
Emerald Ash Borer work group report—Fixed Assets committee toured the site, EAB team will give regular updates at board meetings. Will host another site walk after the late June board meeting. Kevin says we might not be able to replace the ash forest because nothing else will grow where it's so swampy. Labeling ashes is good, but we could also label non-ashes. Jon wants to do a cost/benefit analysis of what it will cost us to deal with the EAB versus relocating the Fair to another site. Wants to formally involve folks from other committees so we have a coordinated response. Paxton says Fixed Assets is now starting to set things up that we've already done. But we do need them to help us set up funding. We'll need something like an EAB newsletter. A lot of people will want to know what's going on and how to get involved. Steve is disappointed in the state's response. Kevin agrees. Looking forward to the June 1stEAB conference. Kevin thinks we should have been planting trees already, should be planting now, will be planting when AB gets here, and after it's gone. We need to raise money to do that—maybe Fixed Assets will help, maybe we can solicit donations after educational info presented during the Fair. Glenn wants us to focus on 10 things that are important to communicate. Also we have thousands of trees on site like tiny oaks that people are stepping on. We need people to change their habits to protect the trees we have, that are already adapted to the site. Anna would like to have LUMP function more like the board committees of her experience. Wants us to make decisions as a committee that our liaisons bring to the board for consideration. Tom wants us to stay in touch with the state and county and other entities. Also wants to be careful about messaging—some folks could misunderstand and hear that ash trees need to be taken down now. Bobbi Jo thanks Kevin & Glenn for all their work. Paxton would like us to recommend a plan to the board, but not in June, when we'll all be thinking about the Fair. Agrees with Glenn that we need a newsletter that goes to crews and committees. Jon thinks this should be a board work session, not just part of a regular board meeting, maybe in August or September. Also should be talking with budget committee to get into the process for this fall. Kevin will be giving an Arborist's report to the board in June, would like it to be sponsored by LUMP, and just focus on accomplishments, what we've done so far. Wants to set up donations before the Fair. Anna would like Kevin to let the board know, as part of his report, that LUMP is requesting a board work session on the EAB, featuring the EAB work group and Kevin & Sierra. So moves. Jon wants an oral report from the EAB work group to the board every month. Anna's motion passes.
Biodiversity monitoring update from Glenn: tracking what critters we have on site. We've had traditional/solo reports (Chewie's thesis, Bob Nisbet on wildflowers, butterflies, dragonflies.) Starting in 1997 John Alexander & Glenn have done bird walks every year from Community Village and kept bird lists through the eBird app. They've digitized all their old stuff now and made OCF a hot spot for world wide bird IDs. Anyone can go to the site to post and find bird info. Sierra set up a google drive to house all these reports and lists: OCF Natural Resources. There's a fish and aquatic survey, lots of other stuff. iNaturalist platform's set up for individual site observations. Wild Edibles booth in CV records interesting sitings, individual records of unique species, in iNaturalist. Bobbi Jo uses iNaturalist all the time. https://ebird.org/home inaturalist.org Follow up from Anna: iNaturalist ("iNat") has an identification app that is very complementary, called Seek. They are both by iNat organization, but the iNat app is where the data are stored, and you can have experts weigh in to confirm/deny your ID. I think you have to have a clue about what it is before you post. Seek is an identification app that attempts to identify things immediately for you based on photo (using AI tech). Use Seek to identify things, use iNat to store and share to the Oregon Country Fair project in iNat.
Drafting EAB preparedness response plan Budget process for requesting allocations Review action items: Kevin will report to the board, Glenn will send us the 10 things to tell folks, Glenn wants a graphic designer to help with postering for this. May have a trade pass available.
next meeting will be on site, meeting at noon June 4th.