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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, October 7, 2019 Page 5 Commissioner O'Brien indicated the Commission actually talked about ideas like that but without knowing what the Council is thinking in terms of funding, wheth- er this is a year to year request for a budget or a longer-term contract, it has been hard to know where the Commission should focus efforts. This is certainly one model of the plan and staff and the Council might come up with a different one. The Commission is really concerned if there is going to be dedicated funding and a plan rather than getting into too many specifics of the plan without knowing where the funding is going to come from. Councilmember Laliberte indicated she would be supportive of a plan but did not know what kind of plan that would be. She was intrigued by the planting earlier because if it is a buddy tree, the buddy will be gone once removed. She thought it would be helpful for the Council to have a real conversation on this with a pro- posal. The Council does not know if there is a contractor out there that is inter- ested in doing this. She asked if the contractor would be interested in doing both the removal and the planting parts of this, and what their recommendations would be from a best practices perspective. That is where she would like the most con- versation to happen and then based on that, the Council would have the infor- mation beyond the example provided by the Commission. Councilmember Willmus' recollection with the Finance Commission was not un- like the proposal the Parks and Rec Commission is putting forward. The Finance Commission actually came forward and explained this is something that should be an ongoing commitment and establish a fund in that regard. He thought the Fi- nance Commission had talked about use of reserve dollars to get that started but what he took away from that in longer term was to actually create an ongoing separate line item in the budget. He did not see that as dissimilar to what the Parks Commission has proposed and thought it was an aspect the Council should look to and consider. He would be interested in going out for proposals to see where things come back in terms of the numbers. The first thing that jumped out to him were the cost assumptions, how the Commission has developed those, and how confident is staff with those numbers. Some of that information would be beneficial on the front end. Councilmember Groff thought the city needed a plan for this and the information the Commission is bringing is important. He asked if the Parks and Recreation Commission has talked about this with a forester or the University of Minnesota professionals on where this is tracking. Parks and Recreation Director Lonnie Brokke indicated there have been inquires made and there has been tracking this for a long time. Councilmember Groff indicated he would like to see the RFP's go out and see what it comes back at because the city should not assume a contractor would not