Inside Arvada

Inside Arvada's Forestry Team: Talking Trees with City Forester Ian MacDonald

• City of Arvada • Season 1 • Episode 4

Share episode

Send us a text

City Forester Ian McDonald joins the podcast to talk all things trees in Arvada!

Arvada was recently named Tree City USA by the Arbor Day Foundation for the 33rd consecutive year! And for the fourth straight year, Arvada earned the Tree City USA Growth Award from the Arbor Day Foundation for our outstanding commitment to sustainable urban forest management.

In this episode, Ian explains the criteria required to earn those recognitions (including the fact Arvada spends $8.35 per capita on our tree care – far exceeding the $2 per capita required to be eligible to be named Tree City USA!)

Other topics discussed with Ian include:

Other news and events: 

  • Mayor Lauren Simpson recently gave her first "State of the City" address
  • The City's Volunteer Appreciation Event is now June 8 after getting rained out on April 27
  • The Ralston Central Splash Pad and Olde Town Water Fountain open Memorial Day weekend! 

Visit us at ArvadaCO.gov/Podcast or email us at podcast@arvada.org.

Katie Patterson :

Welcome to Inside Arvada, the City of Arvada's podcast, where we bring you conversations with the people who make Arvada a thriving community. Hear stories about the past, present and future of Arvada through the lens of the city team members who help make it all happen. Explore the complex topics impacting our community, from the roads you drive to the water you drink, the parks where you play to what your neighbors think. Join us as we take you Inside Arvada.

Sean Star:

Welcome to Episode 4 of Inside Arvada, the official podcast of the City of Arvada. We're so thrilled that you're listening and tuning in, and if you're enjoying the podcast, we encourage you to help us spread the word by telling a friend, tell a neighbor, tell a co-worker, give us a rating and subscribe. And on today's episode of Inside Arvada, we're talking all things trees with our guest, Ian MacDonald, the city's forester. Ian has a long list of credentials that include being a certified arborist from the International Society of Arboriculture. He's an ISA certified municipal specialist, an ISA certified tree worker, and he has an ISA tree risk assessment qualification, as well as being a climbing specialist. He graduated with a bachelor of science from CU Boulder, where he studied hydrology, and he began his time with the city as a forestry technician in 2013. And in 2020, he was promoted to his current position as City Forester. Obviously, he knows a lot about trees, and so today's interview was very informative and, as always, I'm joined by my co-host today, Katie Patterson. Hi, Katie.

Katie Patterson :

Hey Sean, I am so excited for today's episode. I have to say I'm not much of a tree aficionado. Everybody, I think, loves trees generally, myself included. I got to learn so much about different types of trees and how we care for them, and then learned after we recorded, actually, that one thing Ian forgot to mention was that, as a part of the Tree City USA award that we receive as a city which he does explain there's an additional award they've gotten called the Growth Award, and what that means is that, as a part of that Tree City USA award, they really have gone above and beyond in their commitments to tree care here at the city, and so that was a really cool thing to hear more about. So let's get started.

Sean Star:

Hi, Ian. Welcome to Inside Arvada. We're so excited to have you on as our guest. Let's begin by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do for the city.

Ian MacDonald :

Sure, so I'm originally from Rhode Island. Came out here for college, only went back to Rhode Island for a couple of years. Came back out here because that's where my wife wanted to live, and I wanted to live where she is, so found my way to the city of Arvada, uh, through the City of Boulder, um, started working here about 10 years ago, 2013. Uh, so yeah, I guess I'm into my 11th year and I've been the city forester since 2020.

Sean Star:

Yeah and uh. Arvada. We have a long history of prioritizing our tree care. Recently found out from the Arbor Day Foundation that we have been named Tree City USA for the 33rd straight year and we also received the Growth Award for the fourth straight year. And those recognitions are not just handed out, they're not just automatic year over year. What is all the work that goes into earning those recognitions from the Arbor Day Foundation?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, so our original city forester, Craig Hillegass, applied for our first one, like you said, years ago, and back then you had to do like a full submittal. You had to type everything up, print it all out, mail it into them. It's a little bit easier for me today. I get to do it all electronically, but, uh, the criteria is still just as stringent. So, um, it's not like we send in like a fee and we're like, hey, we want to be tree city USA. I mean, been at it for a while.

Ian MacDonald :

We actually have to document a number of requirements. The biggest one is a tree ordinance. Um, so every year I have to go through, like our city code and pull out, like land development code, tree ordinance, what we have in terms of, like tree protections in our park systems. Who's responsible for what? In terms of like, does the city of Arvada maintain it? Do homeowners maintain it, things like that.

Ian MacDonald :

They also want to know what our budget looks like, and that's broken out into four categories. They want to know how much we spend on planting, maintenance, removal and management of the tree canopy, which is like contracts and inventory updates, stuff like that. They also look at if we're like investing in equipment, newer things we got a new bucket truck three, four years ago, so I got to submit that as part of it and ultimately what they're looking for is they want at least $2 per capita spent on tree care in a city to be minimal qualified for Tree City USA. We spent $8.35 last year per capita, so we're like well over that. Arvada is very committed to a healthy urban canopy, which I'm very grateful for, and another requirement is that we have Arbor Day celebration and a proclamation from our city council. So I submitted for that a couple of weeks ago and I'm hoping to receive that from them fairly soon because on May 14th we'll be hosting Arbor Day.

Sean Star:

Yeah, that is the next question we want to talk about is the annual Arbor Day celebration that we have, and so last year was the first time I was part of it with Peck Elementary. It was a bittersweet year to be part of that, because Peck Elementary had been the school that we partnered with for 37 years and, unfortunately, last year was the last year with Peck because they were one of the schools that closed down, and so it was pretty cool that I think it was your idea to plant the 37 trees in honor of the 37 years with Peck Elementary. What are just some of your favorite memories from that annual Arbor Day tree planting?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, it's the kids, obviously. I mean, they get super excited, they get super into it. They don't care if it's raining or snowing, if it's muddy, sunny. There's very few kids I've seen that are like, yeah, this isn't for me. Almost every single one of them is like, yeah, give me that really big shovel. I'm jumping into this hole, I'm digging for worms. Like, uh, I can't say there's been any group that I'm like, oh man, these kids really don't want to be here. Um, so that's always the most exciting thing.

Ian MacDonald :

Um, yeah, as you mentioned, we tried to plant 37 trees last year and we did, but man, did it rain hard last year. Um, we got I want to say we got 23 of the trees in the ground that day and we went back and finished planting them. So we did get 37 trees ultimately. But what was really fun about that one is we had a lot of the folks that had been involved in Arbor Day over the last, you know, 37 years come back. So we had principals from Peck Elementary. We had some teachers that were kids when they were doing some of the earlier days, so they remember planting as kids and then they were their teachers. Now we had the former city forester, former city managers, I believe we had some former city council members.

Ian MacDonald :

Um, yeah, we had former employees of the parks department. We actually had the um, I want to say Kyle Sylvester is the assistant parks director over in Brighton and he started here in our forestry department. So he came out and planted a tree with us. So, um, yeah, that one was pretty special, maybe a little ambitious to go for 37 trees, but we got them all in eventually. So yeah, I mean, over the years Craig kept really good records and photos that I've gone through over the last few years and tried to label. So I've seen some pretty interesting projects where they planted a lot of trees and they partnered with some senior housing in years past. So they've tried a lot of different things and usually the weather's pretty good. He kept records of that. So sometimes it snows.

Sean Star:

Yeah, those kids last year were tough. They were not deterred by that rain. No, they did not care. And now, going forward with Peck closing down, we're going to partner with different schools each year and just do different plantings around the city each year.

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, that's the idea we're partnering Stott this this year and, um, they're, they seem excited for it. I'm not sure they fully understand what they're getting themselves into yet, but, uh, been communicating with the teachers and I think they thought we were going to plant like one tree, because I sent them the list and they were like, oh, we'd like to do the catalpa. And I was like, no, we're planting all those trees. So, um, I'm hoping the kids come out enthusiastic. And um, yeah, we're going to plant over at Yankee Doodle Park and I'm looking forward to engaging some new kids, new schools, because we have a lot of great elementary schools in Arvada and I think it'll be a lot of fun to rotate through them. So hopefully I don't overextend the elementary schools that are like, oh, what is this? I've never done this before, but I think they'll be excited to engage. So far Stott has been.

Sean Star:

A great hands-on learning experience for those kids too. Oh yeah, definitely so. I think you mentioned the term urban forestry and when I first joined the city I saw that and I was a little bit confused. I'm like you know, we don't live in like a metropolis, it's not like a downtown area, but urban forestry really does describe the work that you do. How is it different than more traditional forestry?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, so urban forestry I mean in a nutshell I would say is more focused on like the individual tree rather than the collective trees, and traditional forestry is like you're looking at the full body. You're looking at forest management. Maybe you're looking at like logging stands for commercial development and you're looking in that traditional forest, like here in Colorado would be like in the mountains, right, like that's where your, your natural forest stands are and how you're managing that.

Ian MacDonald :

Something that you know, say the state forest service is looking at is is full um management, um, whereas urban forestry, you know, down here in the city you have individual homeowners. They have a tree in their yard. You're calling a health tree healthcare expert and they're coming out and they're diagnosing your tree. They're not like, well, let's look at the whole neighborhood and I mean they might look at your neighbor's trees and be like, well, this one looks like it's suffering from this. That's probably what's happening to your tree here, but they're they're more or less treating your individual tree and as big as we get is going to.

Ian MacDonald :

We do look at our whole tree canopy. So I don't want to say we don't look at it as a whole, but when we go into a park, we're looking what does this park need? And then we're drilling down like what does this individual tree need that we're taking care of? This tree needs this type of pruning, or it needs, um this plant health care or integrated pest management to be done on it. So that's kind of a that's how I see the difference at least.

Sean Star:

Yeah, and part of your job is removing dead and dying trees that need to be removed. You know, we operate under the philosophy that we want to plant more trees each year than we remove, which we accomplished that last year in 2023. But occasionally we do have some projects going on in the city where trees are planted right on top of underground utilities, such as the sewer line project that's going on right now at Danny, Kendrick and Davis Lane Parks, so we're going to have to, unfortunately, remove some of those trees in order to access the sewer line there. What is our plan for how we go about replacing those trees that we have to remove?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, every year in August we go through our park system and we inventory every tree. I always tell my crew 50% or more dead and if it's at that borderline, 50%, if we prune it is it going to look really bad? If the answer is yes, we'll mark it down for removal. We try to get to them through the winter time. But yeah, like you said, sometimes live trees need to go. We always try to focus right tree, right place.

Ian MacDonald :

I have the benefit of having modern day GPS. I can sit at my computer, I can see where all the storm lines are, the water distribution lines, um, not necessarily excel energy, but we can do 811s for that now. You know, 30 years ago they didn't have that. 100 years they would have to pull out you know the parks map and be like okay, the line is supposedly here, let's not put a tree here. It's a lot more labor intensive and further back than that, you know those lines probably weren't even there when those cottonwood trees started growing or elm trees started growing. So some of it has been installed after the fact. Some of it was. We planted trees right on top of lines without knowing it and when you have to do utility improvements we have to work around some of that. Our utility team has been really good, working with us on Davis Lane and Danny Kendricks to implement a tree protection zone. We've moved the sewer line a couple of times to try and save some of our bigger, more mature trees. But part of the compromise is you have a couple of these trees are going to have to go or we're not going to have a sewer line large enough to service the west side of town or the east side of town, like you, to have some development.

Ian MacDonald :

Some of the stuff is going to go um. So in those instances where some of those trees have to go, we have a consulting arborist come out. They do a tree evaluation. Um, most of them are certified with the 10th edition of the tree and plant appraisal guide. Some of them still use the ninth edition. I found that they come out fairly similar.

Ian MacDonald :

But essentially what happens is they'll take, say, a 30-inch cottonwood tree and they'll compare it to a pristine specimen 30-inch cottonwood tree. If that tree was pristine and perfect, you would ultimately replace it with 30 inches of trunk diameter, so it would be 15 two-inch diameter trees. But most of the time your tree is not perfect. You have dead in there, you have trunk wounds, you have some decay, maybe the tree is past its prime because they don't live forever. They just live longer than we do. And so you start mitigating down and say you get to like 15 inches of mitigated diameter. So they would give us roughly seven trees of two inch diameter.

Ian MacDonald :

And we put that kind of into a big mitigation pot and we say all right, we're taking all these trees out. We have 150 inches that we need to replace. How many can we replace on site? Danny Kendrick's Park and Davis Lane have a lot of trees. Can they hold more? Absolutely they can. So we're planting back, say, 50 diameter inches. We're going to do 25 two-inch trees in each of those parks. Well, the inches that don't get replaced we're compensated for monetarily. That goes into our tree replacement fund and we use that in other parks throughout the city that need more trees than perhaps those two parks can hold. So it works very similar with the land development code too, if you're putting in a new building and trees have to be removed as a result.

Sean Star:

So yeah, it's a very thorough process. We're not just going in there taking trees down willy-nilly and just kind of going about, yeah, and there's a lot of back and forth on it.

Ian MacDonald :

I mean, we're putting up tree protection zones to try and save what is there. But you know, construction disturbs the ground. Maybe you lose a tree, those trees that aren't planned on removing. We still do a mitigation report on those. In case we do lose them in the future we can say hey, you know what, we lost this tree, we need to replace it. Looking for those funds and it's worked into the cost of the project.

Sean Star:

Now you and your team are responsible for maintaining trees that are on city property, and that's about 14,000 trees. I think there's about 10 times that number of trees on private property throughout the city, and so those trees, the property owner is responsible for maintaining those. So we don't want people going to our forestry department asking how to maintain those trees. But since we have you here, we want to talk a little bit about how homeowners can take care of their trees. Obviously, it's always good to use a professional tree care to take care of your trees. One of the big things we always try and educate our public on is emerald ash borer, and so what are kind of some of the first steps for people to look for with EAB and what should they be doing?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, I mean specifically to emerald ash borer. You got to determine whether you have an ash tree or not. You can Google ash trees and find tons of photos of what they look like. They're fairly distinct for the area. If you're not sure, having a plant healthcare expert come in, most likely in the form of a tree service company, have them come out evaluate their tree. Come out, evaluate their tree.

Ian MacDonald :

You know, when it comes to tree care, it's funny. The first people that get called generally are us, because somebody wants an impartial opinion. Right, you're calling a tree service, they're coming down, they're selling a service. So I get a lot of phone calls of folks just asking me general questions about their trees. Um, it's always a good idea to have a tree care service that you trust to give you. Um, you know actual facts about your tree, like they're not just like. Oh yeah, tree's dead. You got to cut it down. Like, you called them up cause you're not sure if it's actually dead or not, like, and you got to take their word for it. So, um, finding a and a qualified tree care service that you trust is very important, just like you would a plumber or an electrician for your house.

Ian MacDonald :

I think we had discussed before this podcast. I always kind of point people to Denver. They have a very thorough licensing program and I know a lot of people are like, well, how come Arvada doesn't do it? It's expensive to run and maintain. So I just assume let Denver pay for it and we can piggyback off of that. And the office of the city forester there has, I want to say, 250, 300 tree care companies that have gone to the city of Denver and they say we want to do tree care in Denver and Denver says, okay, here's a written test they have to pass. Then they have to go out into the field and show that they are a competent in the field. They have to show their license, they have to show they're insured. So you can use that list to find tree care companies that you care for or, sorry, tree care companies that have been somewhat vetted. But again, not all tree care companies are the same. So, looking at reviews as well, um, to find yourself like, okay, what? What are other people saying? Their experience with this tree care company has been um, if you have large trees, that's the way to go. If you have a smaller tree that you planted, you can find lots of videos on YouTube on how to do proper pruning Anything up to five inches more or less. You can buy a pole pruner at Home Depot and do some pruning yourself. I always recommend finding a tree care company that can do the work, but I understand there's a lot of DIYers I'm one myself but if you have a big tree it's worth having a tree care company that you can trust. So, um with Emerald Ash Borer.

Ian MacDonald :

When you have an ash tree, um, I always kind of tell people 10 inches or less I would 10 to six inches in diameter, you can still treat your tree. They'll probably do like a um a soil injection. You got to do it every year. They generally charge per diameter inch. I'm not sure what the soil injection rate is, but you can expect to pay like probably $15, $20 per diameter inch, which is similar to the tree injection cost, as well as $15 to $20 diameter inch.

Ian MacDonald :

If you have six or under, you probably want to consider replacing the tree because your yearly cost of maintaining that against emerald ash borer is going to far outpace the cost of removing and replacing. If you have a large ash tree, which a lot of folks on the east side of town do it's worth having a trunk induction done. It's good, usually for two years, but you can expect to probably pay $230, $350, depending on on your diameter inch for sure. So say, you've got a 15-inch diameter tree, you're looking at at least $150 for that, but if you don't treat it, you are going to lose it. It is here in Arvada we confirmed it in the Homestead Park neighborhood and it's slowly spreading out from there. I've seen a lot of folks having to remove their ash trees in that area as a result, and it is just slowly spreading across the front range. It started in Boulder in 2013. So it's working its way down the 36 corridor more or less, and there's been several municipalities that have identified it at this point.

Sean Star:

And by having your trees treated for EAB. That helps stop the spread.

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, I mean it can help stop the spread through the city, um, it can also, I mean it's going to preserve your tree right Ultimately, which is going to, you know, boost your home value, um, by having a nice ash tree out front.

Ian MacDonald :

But it is, it is an ongoing and regular expense, so it's something you have to consider when you have an ash tree. But if you don't have an ash tree, that doesn't mean you don't have to consider the regular upkeep of your tree. It's always cheaper to do something regularly than it is to wait 10, 15 years and be like oh man, I got to spend $2,500, $3,000 to have this tree pruned. Like you could spread that cost over every two or three years, probably every three years. Have somebody come out, just prune the deadwood out of your tree, maybe raise a couple limbs up. You don't want to over prune them. So we always we go with a three to five year pruning or try to go to a three to five year pruning cycle and recommendation for trees, because you really don't need to do it every year. Three to five years is sufficient.

Sean Star:

Absolutely. So we don't take care of everyone's trees throughout the city, just the ones that are in city property, but we do do some tree care programs or tree related programs. So we have trees across Arvada and that's when we offer people to buy trees at low cost in the fall and then they come pick them up in the spring. We do our annual Christmas tree recycling, you know, right after Christmas, obviously in January, where folks can drop off their Christmas trees. And then we also have a free mulch opportunity, which Ian can share. A little bit more about a new opportunity coming soon over there on the West side of town. And then we have the plant a tree and Memorial tree program. So tell us a little bit more about the free mulch opportunity that we're working on and the plant a tree and memorial tree programs.

Ian MacDonald :

Sure, yeah, as you mentioned, we've always Arvada has been really good about offering programs throughout the year, from tree recycling to free mulch and I should say Christmas tree recycling. The free mulch has always been offered. It was originally at our parks maintenance facility, but with the larger facility we didn't have the room for the bin anymore, so we moved it out to the Bird's Nest disc golf course. It was available year round 24 seven, which also meant it was available year round 24 seven for people to dump there, which is why we had to stop providing that location. So we have decided to move it to the upper parking lot of the reservoir.

Ian MacDonald :

We're going to build a concrete bin there to store our mulch and the reason it's not available yet is we just haven't had time to build the bin yet. We're shooting for May to have it there. It will be available when the reservoir is open. I believe the reservoir is open from April until like September or October. Don't quote me on that, I'd have to look it up.

Ian MacDonald :

On the city website, but it's more or less when people are looking for mulch. Anyways, spring is really when people are looking for the mulch, which is why I've been fielding a lot of questions lately about it. Um, we do intend to have it back up. We just have not had the time to build the bins because we were going to do that in april but we had two snow storms and a windstorm and we're just getting to the finishing touches of that. We just got our tree uh delivery um for the trees that we're going to plant throughout our park system yesterday, so we had to unload that, get them stored away. So I'm hoping next week or as soon as arbor day is over, which is about two weeks from now um, that's when we'll have the opportunity to to build those bins.

Ian MacDonald :

Um, the memorial tree program has been around for probably the longest, um, in terms of what we've offered uh the city for for folks. It started actually with um indian crest, golf course, and that's where a lot of the original memorial trees were planted. Um, and it's moved into the city when indian crest was like we can't just host this here anymore, like people, like we have too many trees, basically is what happened. So they got moved into um it was North Jeffco parks and rec at the time, um, and we started planting trees throughout our park system and basically what it does is it allows folks to pay for a tree in celebration or memory of a loved one or an event. And we have had I been going through the inventory, I want to say we have 450 memorial, active memorial trees. I want to say I have about 50 that I just can't. I don't know if they're still there or not. The records just weren't good enough to be like, yep, that's for sure that tree. But yeah, I mean 450 trees over 30 years. We have lost some and we've tried to replace some. Some folks just buy the replacement. But that's pretty remarkable.

Ian MacDonald :

I always tell people when they're at Majestic View Park almost half that park is memorial trees. Those trees were bought by somebody else and planted there. And there's parks. This program has become so popular. There's actually parks that I'm like we can't plant there anymore. But Majestic Dew being one of them, the only way I can plant in that park is by removing a tree because it's full, and I'd love that people want to plant that many trees.

Ian MacDonald :

But you can pick any tree or not any tree, any park, and we have a list of trees. It's mostly Oak, maple, linden that people go for, but they'll go with catalpa or coffee tree. Um, I try to keep a fairly wide range for folks. So, um, yeah, the trees are about $350. And basically what we do is we coordinate with the family and pick a date that works for everybody during the week, monday through Friday and we'll pre-dig the family and pick a date that works for everybody during the week, monday through Friday, and we'll pre-dig the hole and get the tree set. And a lot of times the families will come out, they'll do a memorial service or a celebration service and, um, they'll backfill the hole and they absolutely help and love participating in planting that tree and we were happy to let them do the whole thing if they want. At that point we just make sure it's finished off correctly and we give it some water and away we go.

Sean Star:

So very cool. We will uh include links to the those programs and services in the show notes if anyone's interested. So if we are, if someone is looking to expand our urban canopy, is there certain uh type of trees that you suggest people plant here in Arvada that are friendly to our or the climate is friendly to those trees?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, if you see ash for sale, stay far away. They're technically not supposed to be being sold in Arvada or not Arvada, but the state of Colorado. But I know I've seen a few things where it's like oh wait, a second, that's an ash tree, don't buy that. It was worse in 2013, I think, when the first moratorium came and people were desperate to get rid of the ash that they weren't supposed to sell. The tree industry as a whole is kind of trending more towards smaller, more compact I don't necessarily want to say ornamental trees, so they don't all flower. But your big cottonwoods and locusts and ash trees, your big shady trees, more or less, are falling out of favor with growers and they're going more for not necessarily pear, but a more oval-shaped tree, a little bit easier to maintain, doesn't necessarily take over your whole yard and hang over your house and stuff. So for me I would go with like, drought tolerant, not very showy trees, and I know a lot of people love their like red fall color. But I always say they're the divas of the tree world. They want a lot of attention and if you give it to them, they'll like, they'll give you your nice fall color. But if you don't give it to them, they'll let you know that they're not getting attention very quickly.

Ian MacDonald :

Um, and a lot of times they're the first trees to start declining. Um, the unexciting boring trees like coffee catalpa. Um, white oak trees that don't get the fall color. Um, hackberry, uh, those ones. If you want a big shade tree, hack hackberry is great but, like oak, has a ton of varieties and stuff that you can choose from that are more compact.

Ian MacDonald :

And yeah, I, I hate to say it, but like the non-showy boring trees are the best way to go. They, they don't want a whole lot from you and they'll give you what you're looking for in return. If you want something showy, crab apple is always nice. There's lots of different flowering trees, hawthorn and stuff. So, yeah, it really depends on what you want. Stay away from the divas if you can. Yeah, people love their maple trees, but maple trees do not love Colorado. So that's not to say there aren't maple trees that are doing just fine. There are. I've seen some great ones. Last year was a fantastic fall because we had such a wet spring and a cool fall and I drove around and I was like man, there are some like textbook autumn blaze, like pamphlet. That's what you expect to see every single year, but I don't see it every single year. We have a lot of yellow here, which is mostly from the ash trees and locusts, so you're going to get your vibrant yellows.

Sean Star:

And then next question was about some of the misconceptions that you get, or calls, frequent calls that we get from residents about our forestry department, and so you know, one of them is about property owners and which limbs they can trim, whether they're on their property or city's property. What are some of those misconceptions or common questions that you get?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, a lot of times people want to know like who's responsible for the tree between the sidewalk and the road? It is in the city, right away, but the right of way maintenance is on the homeowner. We also get a lot of like hey, my neighbor's tree is growing over my property line, I want to prune it. The neighbor is saying I can't Once that limb crosses your property line. You do have a right to maintain that. But I always caution folks like you can't just go out there and like strip all the limbs off that tree, cause if the tree does die your neighbor could have an enforceable action for the loss of their asset. So it's always best to have a good relationship with your neighbors so you can take care of that stuff. But if you don't, you do have the right to maintain stuff that's on your property and that property line goes from ground to sky. So if you have limbs protruding over your property line, you do have the right to maintain them back to the property line. Shooting over your property line, you do have the right to maintain them back to the property line. Just keep in mind that if that tree dies, you could use in moderation. Don't just strip the tree because you could get yourself in a lot of trouble. Same goes for city-owned trees. If they're growing over your property line, absolutely you can prune them back to the property line.

Ian MacDonald :

A lot of folks will write in, ask our vets like hey, limb's growing over you guys need to come take care of this. Reality is we have four people for 14,000 trees. The limb growing over the property line is probably going to be pretty low on our service requests. It doesn't mean we're not going to come out and take care of it, but you're going to be waiting a while. You can go out and prune that limb off. Please don't throw it back over the fence. Cut it up, throw it in your municipal trash. They will haul it off. If it's a really large limb or it's dead and it's hanging over, we'll do our best to come and take care of it in a more timely manner. And that's a lot of the stuff we get.

Ian MacDonald :

We're working on trying to get trees off of our fence lines, just because we do have a lot that I mean. Just because we do have a lot that I mean. Think of how many miles of fence line we have throughout our park system compared to like one homeowner that has, you know, two or three trees that are in the park behind their house. So I have all of those fence lines in that park and the trees that are on our side to maintain. My crew knows that when they're in those parks trying to prune those trees back off the property line is part of our maintenance operations. But again, we can't get to every single limb. So if you have a few that you want to cut off, we're not going to come out to your house and be like, hey, you can't touch those trees, like you do have a right to prune those back.

Sean Star:

All right, so now I will turn it over to Katie for the lightning round.

Katie Patterson :

Okay, so we're going to do a quick lightning round of quick fire questions to get to know you a little better. Help our listeners get to know you. Um, so first, what is your favorite thing about Arvada?

Ian MacDonald :

Oh, um, I guess the community, um, I feel like people are really engaged in what's going on in the city. I think we see that a lot when we have our open houses or planning committee ones, where it's like, hey, come down and take a look at this project that we're putting together, give us your opinion. People come out and they let us know what their opinion is. It's not always bad, which is great, which means we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. A lot of people like what we're putting out. But you see it on Speak Up Arvada as well, when we ask people to vote on new playgrounds and people want to see a certain theme or what have you and our Ask Arvada system.

Ian MacDonald :

You see people, they're going through the parks, they're going through the trails, they're seeing stuff and we don't always get like this is broken, that's bad, you should do a better job. Like there are those people, but they're pointing out things that need to be corrected. It's been eight hours since the snow came and I was able to do my entire walk. You guys had it plowed. I see stuff, even about our roads being cleared after a snowstorm, where people are like man, I was driving to work and I'm coming from Denver and roads are bad there and the roads are bad on the highway, and then I get to Arvada and they're clear. This is great. So I think just people really are engaged in the community around us and they want to see it as best as it can be and we want to provide that.

Katie Patterson :

Yeah, I love that. That's an answer we haven't gotten so far, and it is so true. It's like a two-way street with our community. That's great. What was your first, last or best concert?

Ian MacDonald :

My first concert was Bob Dylan, which I wish I could say was amazing, but I think he was like 100 at the time. No, I'm kidding, I know he's not 100, but it was cool. I can say I saw Bob Dylan. The last concert I went to was, uh, was fish, the jam band.

Ian MacDonald :

Um, I actually took my uh six-year-old son, who was thrilled, he loved the glow sticks, um, and he actually made it almost all the way to the end of the concert and they they played for a while, um, and actually I think that was the best concert I've been to Like and I think it was the best cause my son was there and he was just like thrilled by the whole experience. So, um, I had taken him when he was five and he fell asleep after like I don't know, 20, 30 minutes, but in all fairness, it was a Friday and he'd been at school and he was exhausted. So I took him on a Saturday last year and he made it almost to the end, but they played until like 1130. So he trooped it out. I think that was probably my favorite. I really enjoyed watching him. Just like experience that.

Katie Patterson :

So that's awesome, yeah, getting a little music aficionado out of him, yeah, definitely.

Ian MacDonald :

So I've been to several. Another one that stands out is I went and saw a band, an evento Russo Duo, in college and that was a good one. It was a fairly cheap two-man group. It was a drummer and a pianist. I don't think they're together anymore, but for some reason that one stands out, maybe because it was my 21st birthday, but I enjoyed it. That was a good one. Went with my roommates.

Katie Patterson :

Nice. So what brought you to work at the city?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, like I got into forestry with the city of Boulder as a seasonal and I did a couple of years of commercial tree work when my wife and I were living back in Rhode Island, Came back out here, got a job back with Boulder as a seasonal and I got maybe a month after I was with them. They're like, hey, city of Arvada is looking for like a full-time arborist, you should apply. And I'm like, yeah, okay, Like I'm going to get that job. Um, I was like, all right, I'll apply. Like there's no way that's happening. Like I was looking for private tree care um companies to go and work for at the same time and got the interview, came out here, met the crew Um, I think it was like Robert Bromley, who's our open space supervisor now, Craig Hilligis, Joe McLean I think there might've been one other person in the interview Um, and, yeah, I, good interview.

Ian MacDonald :

They wanted me to come back and do the climbing test and I remember, remember doing the climbing test and that there's a honey locust out in front of City Hall. It's still there and I hadn't climbed in a few months at this point. So I was a bit rusty trying to get up in the tree and at one point, Craig and Joe were like looking at other trees waiting for me to get up there and I was like, oh boy, this is not going well. But I got the job and I was super thankful to get it. I just wanted to like learn more as much as I could, and Joe was a great mentor. Craig was a great mentor. They really gave me the opportunity to like learn and develop and, like you know, put that time and energy into an employee, which is what I. One of the things I really love about working for the city of Arvada is their commitment to employment, employee development.

Ian MacDonald :

Um, and a few years went by. I had an opportunity to become the lead worker. Um, I took that. I think I was a lead worker for about a year and then Craig was getting ready to retire and I was sat down with him one day and I was like hey, do you think I can do this? And he was like yeah, absolutely, Like, these are the things you probably want to start focusing on. And, um, he's the one who got helped me get the ISA certification and pushed me towards that municipal specialist climber stuff as I was developing through my career. So, um, I was in a good position when he retired to to succeed him, so that's awesome.

Katie Patterson :

That's a really yeah Awesome story Um what was your first job.

Ian MacDonald :

Um, my first paying quote unquote job was mowing lawns. I mowed two lawns when I was a kid. I think I was making like $30 every other week. So that was my first job. But my first like W-2 paycheck job I was a busser at a restaurant in Newport called Sardella's. It's still there. They've gotten bigger. I actually was just there for a rehearsal dinner last summer for a friend of mine who got married and it was interesting, going back as like a patron and not working there, and I was like man, this place has changed, but there were still like a few people that were still working there. I was like man, this guy is still working at this restaurant, Like, okay, Um, great food, good restaurant. Um, it's actually owned by the former mayor of Newport. Um, so that was my first like W2 job.

Katie Patterson :

But yeah, that's a good, yeah, that's a good first job. Uh, what was your favorite project that you've done with the city up to this point?

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, um, I've worked on a lot over the years. I don't know if anyone in particular stands out as being like yeah, that was amazing. I mean we were kind of talking before we started this podcast of, like what qualifies as a project. Is it like a big multi-departmental working together kind of thing, like I've done with, like Davis Lane and Danny Kendricks, um, or is it like tree planting or Arbor Day, like smaller projects? Um, you know, I I don't have one that really stands out as being like that was the best one, um, but maybe it's just cause I've been here for a while and I've worked on several projects over the years. I'm sure somebody will be like dude, what about that project? I'll be like oh yeah, that was a good project, Like. So, yeah, unfortunately I can't speak specifically.

Katie Patterson :

You spoke to some general programs, yeah, that you like.

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, I mean we do a lot of different things. So you know, tree pruning is a project that my crew does every year and that's still something I'm trying to get back out there and do with them. Because now I go and climb trees with them and I'm like, don't look over here. I didn't even tie my climbing, not right. So, um, they're good sports about it. I'm sure they are like, oh man, he's coming back out in the field again. Look he's, he's going to try to climb a tree. Let's go back to the office. Go write some emails.

Katie Patterson :

Nice Well, thanks so much for being with us today. We really appreciate it, Ian.

Ian MacDonald :

Yeah, thanks for having me down here. This is really cool. Thanks, ian, appreciate it, yeah.

Katie Patterson :

So before we let you go, we have our recent news and updates, other events happening in Arvada to let you all know about and, as always, please submit any feedback or listener questions you have at podcast at arvadaorg. And one thing that's happened in the last month or so is that our new mayor, lauren Simpson, had her first State of the City presentation. Is that our new mayor, lauren Simpson, had her first State of the City presentation, and so we will put a link to the YouTube video YouTube recording of that in our show notes for folks. And then last time we talked about the volunteer appreciation event that was delayed due to weather and so, sean, tell us a little bit more about the updates on that.

Sean Star:

Yeah, so our volunteer appreciation event was supposed to be on April 27th but we got rained out and we have a new date. Now. We're going to be holding that event June 8th, from 1 to 3, so that's a new date and a new time. Invites have been sent out to our volunteers, so please go ahead and RSVP if you got one of those invitations and want to attend. And now we're pretty much fully into summer, and so that means the Splash Pad and Old Town Fountain are both opening Memorial Day weekend. The Ralston Central Splash Pad hours are 8 am to 8 pm, or, excuse me, the Ralston Central Splash Pad hours are 10 am to 8 pm daily, and the Old Town Fountain is open four times a day for two hours at a time, so it's 9 to 11, noon to 2, 4 to 6, and 8 to 10 pm.

Sean Star:

Thank you so much to our guest today, ian McDonald, the City Forester. Please be sure to listen to our next episode featuring Marco Rindazzo, a neighborhood leader from our Neighbors Connected program. To stay in touch with the podcast, you can visit our website at arvadacogov slash podcast, where you can subscribe to the show or send us an email at podcast at arvadaorg to ask questions that will be answered on an upcoming episode. Thank you to our listeners and for today's podcast. It was recorded and edited by Arvada Media Services, producer James Long, and I will leave you with today's fun fact. The world's tallest tree is a sequoia in Redwood National Park that goes by the name of Hyperion. It is 379 feet tall, but its exact location is not public in order to help protect the tree and the surrounding area.

Katie Patterson :

Whoa.