Considerations for accomplishing these goals are discussed in the section entitled Implementation.

Organizing volunteer networks throughout the community and building other support systems for an urban forestry program takes a considerable amount of time. Providing education to tree board members and the community is an ongoing process. The Tree Board and its volunteers should therefore focus initial efforts on developing a sound tree management program. A tree management program will provide two important functions:

• It will prevent further deterioration of Stillwater's community forest (see Introduction)
• new trees will be planted and maintained for long-term health
• the health of existing trees will be improved through overdue maintenance which will extend their life span
• It will provide a foundation from which the other two goals can be built upon
• planting and maintenance projects can utilize volunteer help which will facilitate the building of networks and will also provide hands-on education for the community
• volunteers will disseminate information and excitement which will further develop networks and support

THE TREE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
A tree management program should set goals for the three basic needs of the community forest: planting, maintenance, and removal. Annual work plans that outline tasks to accomplish these goals, and associated budgets, should be documented in Annual Operational Plans. Suggested goals for initiating a tree management program for Stillwater's community forest are discussed below. Annual operational plans are also suggested, and are structured to accomplish the initial phase within a five year period. Cost estimates for developing annual operational plans are difficult to determine, but are quite high. Estimates vary widely depending on whether work is done in-house or is contracted, size and species of trees involved, amount of work required, amount of work accomplished through monetary means versus volunteer means, and many more factors. The following assumptions were made in development of the annual budgets below:

• Estimates are based upon information about planting, removal, and maintenance requirements obtained from the 1991 street tree inventory (see Introduction). They therefore only apply to initiating a program in the area inventoried (initial plan). They can be extended to include the entire Stillwater area once it has been inventoried (see Goals and Objectives).
• Estimates are based upon the assumption that all tree work will be accomplished through monetary means. Much of the planting and some of the maintenance work can be accomplished through volunteer support. Tree removal is best handled by professionals and will require the highest amount of monetary support.

Removals:
As discussed in the Introduction, Stillwater's community forest is in a state of decline. Many trees have died or have declined to a hazardous state (condition rating of 30 percent or less in the tree inventory) due to old age and/or lack of maintenance. These trees need to be removed for safety and aesthetic reasons. Dead trees need to be removed immediately, and hazardous trees should be removed on a planned schedule thereafter. The total number of trees that need to be removed are shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Removal of dead and hazardous trees is a continual process, and should be accompanied with replacement plantings. Proper maintenance of existing trees will slow the amount of removals needed in the future.

Planting:
Many spaces are available for tree planting. Planting projects should emphasize species diversification, and should aim to have each species comprise no more than 10 percent of the total tree population. They should also aim to plant at least the same number of trees that are removed. This will help ensure that the community forest is continually rejuvenated. It is critical that proper planting locations be identified since interference with utility lines is the foremost general maintenance and safety problem. Public educational programs are essential to reducing this conflict.

Available planting spaces originate from three sources: spaces in existence at the time of inventory, spaces created by removal of dead trees, and spaces created by removal of hazardous trees. Table 2 below shows the number of planting spaces that will be available throughout the five year initiation period.

Table 2

Maintenance:
Urban tree maintenance includes watering the first few years after planting and during dry seasons, pruning for strong structure and to remove deadwood, spraying for insects and/or disease when needed, and fertilizing when needed. A comprehensive maintenance schedule extends the life and improves the safety of urban trees. The inventory indicates that Stillwater's community forest has not been properly maintained. Almost 75 percent of the trees inventoried have not had deadwood removed, and almost 50 percent of the trees have been improperly pruned. Over 11 percent are interfering with utility lines which poses a considerable hazard. Maintenance should begin immediately after trees are planted and should continue throughout the life of the trees.

ANNUAL OPERATIONAL PLANS
Following are suggested annual operational plans for initiating a tree management program in Stillwater over a five-year period. Each annual plan outlines work objectives and associated budgets for the year. The costs used in the tables are estimates as such costs vary widely depending on several factors: tree type, size, location, health, and more. Removal costs are supplied by the Stillwater Parks and Recreation Department. Planting and maintenance costs are supplied by Cox Landscape Company Inc. (a private landscape company in Tulsa), and provide for the planting of a 2-inch balled and burlapped tree with complete maintenance (watering, pruning, spraying and fertilizing) of the tree for 2 years following planting. The estimate provided by this company was used to determine annual budgets since it seems to be the only local organization that could provide a representative cost per tree for both planting and maintenance. Stump removal costs were determined using an estimate of $3 per inch in diameter (taken from "Removing Stumps", Grounds Maintenance, 1991). One representative diameter from each size category was used to calculate stump removal costs: 24 inches, 30 inches, and 36 inches.

Year 1:
The primary objective for year 1 should be to remove all of the dead trees and fill the spaces created with replacement trees. This would mean that 53 trees would be removed and the same number of replacement trees would be planted. In addition, trees should be planted in currently available spaces. The annual plan provides for filling 1,059 currently available spaces. This number was determined by dividing the total number of available planting spaces by 5 years so that the same number of spaces are filled each year

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Year 2:
Objectives for year two should be to start removal of hazardous trees, plant in spaces created by these removals, and fill more currently available planting spaces. The tree inventory defines hazardous trees as those with a condition rating between 5 and 30 percent. A rating of 0 percent indicates the tree is dead while a condition rating of 100 percent indicates the tree is in the best possible health and condition. Hazardous tree removals for this year include those with a condition rating of 5 to 15 percent since these could be viewed as the most hazardous. According to tree inventory data, 35 trees fall into this category. The resulting operational plan for year 2 is shown in the following tables.

Table 6

Table 7

Table 8

Year 3:
Objectives for year 3 are to remove more of the hazardous trees, plant in spaces created by these removals, and fill more currently available spaces. Hazardous tree removals for this year include those with a condition rating of 20 to 25 percent. A total of 76 trees fall into this category. Therefore, 76 replacement trees will be planted as well as 1,059 to fill more available spaces. Operational plans for this year are shown in the following tables.

Table 9

Table 10

Table 11

Year 4:
Objectives for year 4 should be to continue removal of hazardous trees, replacement of trees removed, and filling of available planting spaces. Hazardous removals include 97 trees with a condition rating of 30 percent. The resulting annual plan is shown in the following tables.

Table 12

Table 13

Table 14

Year 5:
Objectives for the final year are to finish removal of the hazardous trees, to replace those trees removed, and to finish planting trees in available spaces. Hazardous removals include 96 trees left with a condition rating of 30 percent. Once again, 1,059 trees will be planted to fill the remaining available spaces. The annual plan for year 5 is summarized in the tables below.

Table 15

Table 16

Table 17

SUMMARY OF ANNUAL OPERATIONAL PLANS
Summaries of the annual budgets, annual work plans, and hazardous tree removals are provided in Tables 18 through 20.

Table 18

Annual work plans were structured to create annual budgets that would increase with each year. This would provide time to develop the necessary monetary and volunteer support for the urban forestry program. Objectives for each yearly operational plan are summarized in table 19 below.

Table 19

The most important objective for the initial tree management program is to create a safer community forest. All dead trees found during the inventory are therefore removed during the first year. All hazardous trees (those given a condition rating of 5 to 30 percent during the inventory) are removed throughout the remaining 4 years. The same number of trees that are removed are replaced each year to ensure continuation of the community forest. Available spaces are also filled each year to expand the community forest. A summary of the hazardous tree removals are shown in table 20.

Table 20

Trees with the lowest condition rating can be considered the `most' hazardous. Hazardous removals therefore start with the lowest rated trees and successively remove higher rated trees the following years. Objectives for years 4 and 5 are to remove all trees with a condition rating of 30 percent. Removals for each of these years were structured to create the yearly increase in the overall budget for the initial 5 year program (see Summary of Annual Budgets above).