Tree City USA adds Park Falls

PARK FALLS — The city of Park Falls has successfully completed the application process to achieve a Tree City USA designation. The city joins Phillips, Medford, Ashland, Washburn, Merrill and Spooner and other regional municipalities in maintaining the annual designation by working to maintain and improve tree habitat.

The application process took around four months of approvals until the notification came that Park Falls would be awarded the Tree City USA designation, said Scott Schultz, director of Parks and Recreation for the city of Park Falls. The designation requires an annual declaration from the city, showing its support for Arbor Day and following a city forestry plan with goals to preserve and expand nature within the community.

“Working with the Arbor Day Foundation and Tree City USA gives us the opportunity to really go after some additional funding that’s out there to be able to support that,” Schultz said. “This gives us that leverage to be able to showcase what we’ve done as a city, now, and in the past to be able to get to this point.”

Park Falls and the entire surrounding area is built on local outdoor environment and recreation, he said. The idea that people live, work and play in the area is something that the city wants to build upon.

Part of the application process is looking at city ordinances that support and maintain trees in the community, he said. The groundwork for the designation started with a city ordinance that supported the Arbor Day Foundation all the way back to 1995, to the most recent from Mayor Tara Tervort that the Common Council approved in September.

“It’s a great recognition for our city to have been awarded the Tree City USA designation,” Tervort said. “Tree City USA is a great organization that puts focus on our environment and helps educate people with the importance of cleaner air. They put an emphasis on protecting trees during urban advancements and also help create aesthetically pleasing neighborhoods.”

The city will place Tree City USA light banners on street lights in the near future.

The designation required the city to show records of city budget expenditures and department of public works staff hours that went into replacing trees or other tree-related work over the years, Schultz said. Those records will be maintained annually for renewal of the designation.

The process requires an inventory of trees on public property, which was already performed a few years ago, Schulz said. The report showed there are 936 trees on public property, among which approximately 81% are in fair, good or excellent condition, with approximately 173 of trees, or 18% in poor condition.

“They’ve replaced many and most of those already,” Schultz said of the department of public works crews. “There were three dead trees that have all been replaced as well. So 81.2% of our trees within the local community are in good health, which is great to hear.”

Hines Park has the most density with 137 trees. The city estimated there are around four times the amount of public trees on private property, he said.

Bill Hoffman is the designated staff member who is responsible for the city’s forestry program as the Department of Public Works director. Hoffman will use the tree audit and the city forestry plan to continue identifying tree conditions to conduct removals and new plantings.

“The Tree City USA designation provides me with direction, assistance, and recognition for our community,” Hoffman said. “The designation demonstrates our commitment to the program as a way to build pride among residents, as well as position Park Falls as an attractive place to live.”

After the Tree City USA designation the next natural step is to work toward a Bird City USA designation, Schultz said. The application process is similar.

“That’s really looking at creating and sustaining a healthy habitat for your year-long bird population,” Schultz said. “But you have your migratory birds and birds that are quite seasonal and it’s also creating an atmosphere in which they can thrive in the area.”

The Tree City USA program was founded in 1976 as a project of the Arbor Day Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture, and the National Association of State Foresters. The program provides information and training for municipal forestry staff who then assist municipalities in establishing a plan to grow urban tree canopy in order to manage and expand tree cover.