At 5/26 Council there is report on a Tree Bylaw for King. There has been very active engagement from the public on this and I hope that it will continue. Because of the quality of feedback from many members of Public and the significant effort by Staff a proposal to protect trees has evolved significantly. What is now being developed is an education program to increase the understanding & appreciation of people about the value of trees and an efficient means to incent the planting of more trees; in addition there is reconsideration of the need for any bylaw at all given the regulatory oversight already in place provided by York Region and the restrictions in place to protect natural heritage features as outlined in Oak Ridges Moraine. I encourage you to review the report and provide feedback.

For sure, for me, I did not envision ending up where we are today.

• I think the evolution to thinking about the education piece and the encouragement of more planting is really good.

• I am very concerned that we don’t end up with a bylaw which either discourages people from looking after their properties because of cost/time/hassle to get a permit OR encourages people to ignore the by-law and to hope they don’t get caught and penalized for non conformance.

• I am also very supportive of not duplicating regulations already in place.

But, I don’t believe the latter are adequate; I think there are some important gaps. I will have some questions for Staff on Monday.