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Charles Town Tree Board advances grant application to City Council to fund canopy inventory and student partnerships
Summary
The Charles Town Tree Board voted to advance the FADE TRACON grant application to City Council to support a canopy inventory, software and equipment purchases and to formalize partnerships with Shepherd University students for GIS and field work; the application deadline is Feb. 27.
The Charles Town Tree Board voted Feb. 5 to advance a grant application to the City Council that board members said will fund a new tree canopy inventory, software and capacity-building work.
Chair Aaron Amor said the board will propose the FADE TRACON application to City Council and plans to present the item at the Feb. 16 council meeting. "The deadline is February 27," Amor said. Scott Updike moved the motion and Tashiana Cherokee seconded; the board voted in favor and the motion passed.
The vote advances grants the board is pursuing from the West Virginia Department of Forestry and the Mid-Atlantic Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Amor told members the Department of Forestry program distributes funds in roughly $50,000 allotments and recommended a three-phase planning approach to ensure the town can implement projects across multiple years.
Shepherd University collaborator Tashiana Cherokee described how students and faculty could support the inventory and related work. "We're thinking about ways to kind of build up that training and maybe even help support some type of pipeline where, those students ... have that inclination to want to stay in the county afterwards," Cherokee said, describing potential special-topics courses, Research Experiences for Undergraduates and semester-long GIS coursework that could provide field and mapping assistance.
Board members said a first step is confirming the usability of legacy data from a 2019 i-Tree inventory. Amor said staff and consultants will test files uploaded to Dropbox for ArcGIS compatibility and corruption before committing grant funds to a full re-survey.
The board and its technical lead, Matt Ward, plan to focus Phase 1 on capacity-building—software, mapping, outreach and a small tree nursery—rather than moving immediately to large-scale planting. Amor said the town's $12,000 tree set-aside is insufficient for a planting-heavy proposal and that the capacity-building approach will better position the town to manage larger grant awards.
Next steps: the board will finalize the FADE TRACON application for City Council consideration and expects to pair grant requests across funders to avoid duplicative asks. Amor said he will attend the Feb. 16 council meeting to present the proposal.
