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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK end of this year. We will start some work around Sietz Park and then on deck are Pulaski, Pinhook and O'Brien. So, that kind of rounds out the major projects along with the neighborhood projects that John discussed. He continued, There was conversation and in talking with Councilmember McBride, we weren't exactly sure what these were,but they had come up. So, I will hit on a couple of trails. Bullet Trail did open late last year. That was a wonderful Public Works project that connects the area of Riverside Drive over to Portage,just north of Pinhook. On deck, looking at the Lincolnway East Project, that will provide some continuity of the Riverwalk on the north side of the river. Some of that groundwork was laid late last fall. The Coal Line Trail is on deck as well. That is a project that will start next year. I mentioned Pinhook and the circulation that is happening around there. We are partnering with United Way at Pinhook and LaSalle Parks to do learning trails. That will get families out on the trails and learning as they go along. That is a pretty interesting project. Again,the Downtown Riverwalk is all moving up to that ten(10)foot ADA compliant trail system and we'll see some work start on that this year. We also applied, in partnership with Public Works and Engineering, for a State grant to connect the east bank trail to the riverside trail and into Michigan. That is a lot of work on trails and connectivity and I know that is important. Another requested update was from the Chair of our Ecological Advocacy Committee, Steve Sass, for the tree and shrub work that has been talked about a couple times. Steve Sass, Chair of the Ecological Advocacy Committee with offices located at 321 South St. Louis Boulevard,handed out folders of information(which is available in the City Clerk's Office). He stated, I was last here in July and spoke about some of the things we had been researching with regards to the Tree and Shrubs Ordinance. At that time, I gave a little bit of background about how we got here and how we started with examining some things going on in terms of things we were doing with forestry in South Bend. The Committee took a look at some of those and consulted with the City forester about some things we would like to see done differently. Brett came back and provided us with some additional recommendations and pointed out some outdated codes to us. Chapter nine(9), section nineteen-thirteen(19-13)and nineteen-fourteen(19-14)pertain to the prohibited trees and shrubs. Nineteen-thirteen (19-13) specifically deals with trees in what they call the tree lawn area. That is defined earlier in the ordinance and that is the area between the street and the sidewalk. Nineteen-fourteen(19-14)deals with shrubs but, City-wide, actually deals more with specifically one(1) shrub which is berberis. The reason for that was,presumably, at the time the shrub berberis was an alternate host for wheat rot fungus. So, it was causing agricultural damage. He continued, Both of these ordinances were last updated in 1962, so, they are very antiquated. Wheat rot fungus, apparently, is no longer a concern. So, the Ecological Advocacy Council was asked to make some suggested changes to these two (2) ordinances. What we came back with, you'll find on the second (2nd) page, were proposed changes. I wrote the overview as well as the specific changes at the bottom of the page. What we've done is we've suggested taking Nineteen- Thirteen (19-13), which is the prohibited species of trees on the tree lawn area and changing that ordinance to be prohibited species of vegetation City-wide. Then section Nineteen-Fourteen (19- 14) changes from prohibited species of shrubs,which is no longer needed whatsoever,but we used it as an opportunity to do something different. So, we switch that over to the tree lawn. So, Nineteen-Thirteen (19-13) pertains to the entire City, Nineteen-Fourteen (19-14) pertains to just the tree lawn area. In July, I presented on the evils of the ecological and monetary damage of invasive species. That is very well-documented. I found a statistic and it is on the first (1st) page. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building;227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 1574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 6