Pennsylvania Invasive Species

- Hi, everyone.

Thanks for participating in this webinar.

So this presentation will be recorded and will be shared with the participants and will most likely be published online.

So good afternoon.

Welcome to our first "Pennsylvania Invasive Species Webinar Series." We'll have monthly talks with professionals about invasive species topics, especially the ones in Pennsylvania.

We want to bring scientific information to everyone and share what we're doing in the state and also what you can do.

If you want to watch the next episodes, you can find more information on the PennState Extension website or you can contact me directly.

I'll share more information at the end of my slides.

Just I wanna introduce myself.

I'm a new extension education specialist at PennState Extension.

I have an undergraduate and a master's in forestry from Brazil, where I'm originally from, PhD in entomology from the University of Florida, where I worked with invasive species in classical biological control.

And before I came to PennState, I did a postdoc at Rutgers, working with spotted wing drosophila management in blueberries.

So here's my contact information if you ever need to contact me.

Today's webinar will cover these topics.

So I'll be talking a little bit about what are invasive species, and we'll have our guest speaker, Kristopher Abell, the coordinator for the Governor's Invasive Species Council from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

He'll talk about the Pennsylvania Governor's Invasive Species Council, present legislation and more.

So let's start talking a little bit about invasive species.

Before we talk about invasive species, is important to know some concepts.

The definition of invasive species is a non-native organism.

So a plant, bacteria, an insect that can cause harm to the environment, to the economy and/or to human health.

It is very important to remember that not all non-native species are or can become, or will become invasive.

We might not think about it, but we use several these non-native species daily, and they're very important to our economy, to our health.

Like this bird of paradise in the photo, this is a very pretty tropical plant.

So a non-invasive plant that is not invasive.

And we have several other examples of things that we use daily and that make our lives a lot easier, that require we using non-native species.

I think that spotted lanternfly is the first thing people in Pennsylvania think about when we mention invasive species.

These species arrived in Berks County in 2014, so basically 10 years ago, and has ever since spread and established in several of our counties and our neighboring states.

We're very famous for it, that being good or not.

So people in Pennsylvania know a lot about invasive species already, but it's always good to add more information to it.

So the main characteristics of an invasive species is the capacity of rapid reproduction.

So we think about plants that produce a large number of seeds, an insect that can reproduce fast and generate a lot of offspring.

They also need to tolerate differences in the environment.

So remember, these species are not from here, so they need to be able to survive harsh winters, summer and several other different conditions from the area that they actually originate from.

They also have advantages when compared to native species because they do not have predators.

So these species we have in our environment don't eat them, a lot of times because they have warning coloration, like the red on the spotted lanternfly wings or several colorations like yellow, orange, and red or because a plant have toxins that can kill an herbivore or several other animals.

And there's so many examples of that.

They grow very fast.

So this way they can deplete the resources before our native species are to consume them, or they can start putting leaves out before our native species, for example.

And then lastly, they need to adapt to new conditions, to new food sources, to new shelter availability.

There is a lot of things they have to adapt to.

So not all non-native species can survive, can become an invasive, but these are the characteristics that make them become invasive.

So the question is, how does this invasive species arrive here?

And there's several ways that this invasive species arrive.

They can be introduced by humans, it can be intentional or not, by transport of species by trade, travel and horticulture.

We know several cases of people bringing something from somewhere else that look pretty, that can become a big problem.

Also, they can hitchhike on ballast water.

So some of these species hitchhiking ships' ballast water, often released in ports around the world.

The zebra muscles, like the one in the photo, you can see this is a very big problem.

They can also escape from cultivation.

So ornamental plants or pets released into the wild can become invasive.

Think about pythons in Florida, for example.

And also they can disperse naturally.

Some of the species disperse naturally beyond their native range due to environmental changes or migration.

Just think about how climate changing is change all the temperatures and things like that.

So species have more opportunities to spread.

And also remember that these are organisms, they do not know our land division policies.

They will spread where they can, doesn't matter if it's in a state or the other, or even think about Canada being so close to the U.S. or even Mexico.

So what are the impacts of invasive species?

So why do we care?

Well, invasive species can cause several problems.

They can have ecological impacts.

So displacement of native species by overgrowing them, for example, they can outer habitats and ecosystems.

They can disrupt food chains and ecological processes by changing food sources.

So instead of being something that our species are accustomed to eat or they can eat, it's gonna be something else.

So they're not gonna be able to eat that anymore.

Or even mating sites that were before available and they're not because invasive species took over.

They can cause economic impacts.

They can cause damage to crops, fisheries and infrastructure.

This is a very (indistinct)

as agriculture globally is influenced by pests.

We know several examples of that.

The cost to control it, to manage invasive species are very high.

And when you spend a lot of money and time managing these species, you are losing a lot of profit.

And that increases year by year.

And also loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

And lastly, health impacts.

So the spread of diseases to humans, livestock and wildlife, allergies and toxins, reactions to invasive species, like this plant giant hogweed from this photo here.

If you're getting contact with the sap of this plant, you can have very nasty skin reaction and also impacts to human wellbeing and quality of life.

So that's all I have to talk about concepts for invasive species.

Well, you learn a lot more about invasive species as you start watching more of our webinars?

If you're interested in learning more about invasive species in Pennsylvania, identification, methods of control and more, so just pay attention to our next webinars.

Here's the list of our next topics.

If you have a topic suggestion or comment, please contact me.

Now we'll go to our next speaker, Kristopher Abell, the coordinator for the Governor's Invasive Species Council from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

Thank you, Kristopher, for giving us your time and talking about evasive species today.

Stop sharing.

- [Kristopher] Sure thing. I'm happy here.

Appreciate it.

Just a quick check.

Everyone can see my presentation and hear me?

- Yes. - All right, I'll get going.

Yeah, very much appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

Great introduction on invasive species, Patricia, I'm gonna talk about one thing that the state is doing to help address those impacts and those threats from invasive species.

And that is the Pennsylvania Governor's Invasive Species Council for which I'm the coordinator.

Maybe a few of you know about the council and why we exist and how we exist, but for those who don't, I'll start off with a little bit of background.

The council was created by a governor's executive order, and the executive order states that "The council shall provide a forum "through which multiple state agencies "and non-governmental entities meet with the common purpose "of identifying invasive species of concern "that threaten the Commonwealth's natural "and agricultural resources." Besides that overarching purpose, we were given three specific mandates.

The first is that we are to develop and implement a state invasive species management plan.

The council as a whole is to provide guidance on the prevention, control and rapid response initiatives.

And just as importantly, we're to facilitate coordination amongst all the various levels of government to address and manage invasive species threats as they arise.

Invasive species don't really care about jurisdictional boundaries or political boundaries and it takes many different groups, agencies working together to properly address an invasive species threat.

So that's where the council is unique in that it provides this forum for all these groups to work together.

So who are those folks that work together?

Well, there are seven state agencies, Department of Agriculture, DCNR, Department of Environmental Protection, Transportation and Health, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and Game Commission.

And then there are also 14 non-government organizations on the council.

And they run the gamut from conservancies to industry, academia, outreach groups and local government entities and so on.

You can read the full list there, but there's really a diverse representation across the board, present and participating on the council.

What does the council do?

Well, the council meets quarterly for starters and we talk about the latest updates and threats regarding invasive species.

But really the lion's share of the work that the council does happens through committee.

We have a number of committees that meet on a monthly basis or more often to work on specific topic areas.

The first one that I'm here to talk primarily about today is development of a Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management program.

But we also have other committees that do great work.

We have a, a legislation and policy committee, and their job is to make recommendations or even draft new legislation and then may also make recommendations on how to implement that through policy in order to be effectively manage and prevent invasive species.

We have a communications committee.

You know, there's really a lot of outreach that needs to be done to help folks understand what invasive species are, why they're important, the impacts they're having, why you should care, and also what the council does and what we're doing.

So the communications committee focuses on those types of things.

We have an Invasive Species Listing Committee.

So, as Patricia mentioned, there are many non-native species present, many hundreds in the state, but only some are invasive and then even a smaller number of those invasives are really of true concern and threat.

And the council works together to try and identify a list of those that they feel is of greatest concern for the state.

And they hope that this list is sort of a reference used by state agencies and other entities that are concerned with invasive species.

For those that don't know, that the state of Pennsylvania has their own Aquatic Invasive Species Rapid Response Plan.

And that is produced through a committee of the council, that committee is led by Pennsylvania Sea Grant.

And then finally there's an outreach and education group that focuses specifically on aquatic invasive species.

All right, but what I'd really like to focus on today, and what I hope everyone here will be interested in is this Partnerships for Regional Invasive Species Management.

What I see every day in emails and telephone calls and meetings I attend and what the council members are all too aware of as well, is there's a large unmet need for managing invasive species in the state, particularly plants, invasive plants that are just running rampant through our natural areas and this is a problem.

How do we deal with that problem?

What's the solution?

Well, the council believes and thinks and recommends that this Partnerships for Regional Invasive Species Management program is probably the best solution we know of currently.

So what is it?

Well, it would be a statewide, comprehensive management program.

And just taking each of these words in the title at a time to break this down, partnerships is the first word, and this is critical.

You need to develop a number of public-private partnerships between all stakeholders that are impacted by invasive species so that it's not this very siloed individual approach, takes all these groups working together to make a difference.

And there's a need to coordinate that at a regional and local level.

And that's exactly where the regional aspect of this program comes in.

And I'm gonna use New York as really the best example here.

They've had a PRISM program for 10 years now.

So they've broken their state up into what they feel are manageable chunks, manageable regions.

Each one of those regions works more or less independently to deal with their priority invasive species.

So there are a number of advantages to working at this regional scale.

You have shared interest and values, right?

So things that are of great concern in Western New York are probably very different from those on Long Island.

And there's just not a good one-size-fits-all approach for a state the size of New York or Pennsylvania.

So being regionally based helps to address that.

It also allows for more local community leadership rather than some sort of centralized leadership where sort of mandates and guidance is handed down from one central office in the state.

Well, here you have leadership taking place locally and that allows for addressing local issues and priorities.

What's really important for this to work is having that sort of single lead organization in each of those regions so that they're coordinating and leading the effort to make sure all these groups, these partnerships are working.

And then finally, in order to make a program like this work, as you can imagine, it takes money, a quite a bit of money, unfortunately.

So in order for that to happen and to not be sort of dependent on soft money that comes from grants, that's unpredictable, the council really feels that dedicated state funding is needed in order to provide the necessary capacity for the program, the stability it needs and also legitimacy.

I'm just throwing up a couple of other maps to show how this regional aspect has been addressed by other states.

Different approaches are taken.

So for example, in Michigan, each one of the different colors there is an individual PRISM.

So you have even just a single county sometimes acting as its own PRISM.

And then I'm showing a map here of Florida as well.

Again, just to get a sense of the variety of ways that states have regionalized themselves.

So how do we do that in Pennsylvania?

Well, the council really deliberated on this for quite a while.

It's not really an easy question to answer.

There are many different ways that you could start to draw lines on the map.

What the council ultimately decided was to capitalize on the existing relationships that exist with conservation districts.

So the Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts has six regions in the state.

And yeah, just to capitalize on what they're already doing, the networks that already exist seemed like a good advantage, a good way to address this regional aspect.

That's not to say that at some point down the road it may make sense to move a county or two, for some reason it may become more apparent down the road.

So that's, in a nutshell, a very high level what a PRISM is.

But let's drill down a little further and say, well, what do they actually do?

Especially if it's gonna cost this much money and effort to create a program like this?

Well, let's look at what it will do.

Firstly, as I've already mentioned a few times, it's going to build and coordinate a large and diverse partnership, which gives a lot of power to address invasive species threats.

What are they doing specifically against invasive species?

Well, really the vision here is that they'll do everything, everything you can think of, everything that's possible.

So from conducting surveys and mapping distributions of invasive species, monitoring where they are, where they're spreading, how fast they're spreading, managing them and even eradicating them when possible.

The third thing there really important as well, is developing a capacity within that region to detect and respond rapidly to new invasive species that pop up there.

Super important.

Also important is to provide education and outreach.

There's so much of this that's needed.

Educating and reaching out to folks so they understand what invasive species are and what impacts they're having.

Also, number five, organized events and volunteers.

Even with state funding and with dedicated partners, there's never enough manpower to deal with invasive species, particularly invasive plants.

You know, when you look out your backyard and see garlic mustard everywhere and the idea or the thought of pulling every one of those, you get an idea of how important still volunteers are for those kind of efforts.

So a PRISM would recruit and organize volunteers.

And then finally, again, the vision here is that with all of this capacity and ability that the PRISMs have, they would assist and coordinate with state agency efforts as well.

And even with some research projects with universities.

So I hope this begins to paint a picture of really the vast potential that a PRISM can have.

All right, well, who's in a PRISM?

I've mentioned many, many times now about developing these partnerships.

Well, who are the partners?

You know, just to give you an idea and a real-world example, this is a partner list from the Lower Hudson PRISM in New York.

So you can see here, just a few years ago, they had recruited over 40 partners.

And again, it, as with the council, it spans a wide diversity of groups, from industry to cooperative extension offices, conservancies, agencies, local government, everyone.

It's really impressive.

And I think something like this could happen here in Pennsylvania as well with this program.

So again, that's a lot of higher level stuff but if we continue to drill down, how effective is this program actually, you know, maybe it sounds good on the surface, but what do they actually accomplish?

So thankfully the way New York has structured their program, they require each one of their PRISMs to submit an annual report, and those reports are all available online.

So I just took, again, from this Lower Hudson PRISM in New York, I scanned through their annual report and pulled out a few things I thought were really impressive, right?

So we just looked at their partner list, over 40 partners, who dedicated, you know, free of charge over 15,000 of hours in that year towards PRISM efforts by developing their early detection rapid response capacity, they identified several new plant species that showed up in their region.

They held many training sessions, almost 900 participants on and on right now, events, thousands of folks reaching those events that are reaching...

I mentioned volunteers and how important that is.

In one year, they were able to recruit almost 1,600 volunteers who gave over 14,000 hours of free time to manage invasive species.

71 interns, 323 removal projects.

They treated multiple populations throughout the state.

So I think, you know, just this surface level looking at this report, it's really impressive what they're able to accomplish in one year.

But you know, don't take my word for it, don't take just the few bullet points there, as I mentioned, their reports are all available online.

Just to emphasize that I took the covers of many of their recent reports here to splash up on the screen, hoping that might encourage many folks to maybe go out and check some of those reports and see what these PRISMs are capable of.

And imagine what we could do here in Pennsylvania with this.

So if that is convincing and maybe even exciting, how do we do something like that here in Pennsylvania?

How can we establish that?

Well, the first thing is there's a lot that goes into it if you start to think through it that, you know, you're talking about rolling out a program all across the state.

So you need to really develop the details of how you would implement this program.

You need a detailed plan, as I've mentioned at the top, funding is essential.

So we need support from the governor's office in the budget to be able to fund this program and outreach to legislators is needed as well in order to secure funding year to year to make sure that funding comes through to continue this program.

In order to gain that support from legislators and governor's office, we need agencies at every opportunity to advocate in the importance of invasive species, to educate on the impacts they're having and how PRISM is a needed program.

And not just state agencies, you know, we need everyone, it should be a real grassroots effort really from industries to private individuals, you know, just letting folks know about the program and why they think it's important.

But that first item I mentioned, you know, how would this program be implemented?

If we are successful in getting funding, well, we wanna be equally successful at utilizing that funding and we wanna make sure that this program is successful in Pennsylvania and see the kind of success that New York sees.

So that involves a number of things.

First, we need a detailed budget proposal, right?

How much is this gonna cost?

Where are all those dollars going, if we don't know that, maybe we're not likely to get that funding and get it year after year.

And then further, number of important things, so the committee actually formed a number of subcommittees in order to address each one of these things, but you need a timeline, you know, from the day that you know you're getting funding, that's day one and then what happens day two, day three?

How do you find that local host?

Well, we wanna release an RFP to try and open this competitive process to find the best possible lead organization in each region.

Then you need to develop ideas and guidelines for how those proposals are reviewed.

You know, there's a committee that needs to review that, who should be on the committee?

What are the procedures they follow that are fair and effective at identifying the best organization?

And then when you do identify that organization, you need a clear statement of work and clear contract language, you know, what are the expectations?

What are the reporting requirements?

What sort of deliverables do you expect and so on.

So all that needs to be developed.

We know that one of those deliverables we want from each PRISM is a five-year strategic plan so that they have projected five years in advance what they plan to do with their funding and how they plan to develop partnerships and manage invasive species.

So we wanna be able to assist in that effort because that's a big ask.

So we provide guidelines for how to develop those plans.

And then finally, you know, with all the work that's done, there's a lot of information and data that's collected and how do you store that?

How do you process it, how do you share it?

So developing some guidelines there.

These are all things that the council has done and we have those ready to go, but it was a good amount of work.

And then finally, how is the program administered, you know, at the state level, there does need to be some administration and some oversight to make sure this everything runs smoothly and effectively and the money is used properly.

So how is that administration done?

What sort of staff are needed to do that?

So where are we in that process in terms of finding funding?

So we had good support from the previous administration, from the Wolf administration, but then folks maybe remember, the avian influenza has really started to become a hot thing around 2022.

And, you know, any available money had to go to help address that.

So we sort of missed that vote back then and now we have new administration and so we're essentially starting from scratch trying to inform this administration again about invasive species, the impacts they're having, telling them what the PRISM program is, why it's important.

So we continue to do that and submitting recommendations and budget requests for a PRISM program.

But probably as many of you who, you know, read the headlines and pay attention to the news, really the current priorities are economic development in the state and job creation, you know, bringing jobs here and industries.

And it's a tough connection to make with how a PRISM program would really align with those types of priorities.

So it's a little bit of an uphill challenge at this moment.

But I do wanna mention, so that's sort of talking about the PRISM program, what it is, its current status, why it's important.

So I just wanna go through a few things that the council has done in the past and will continue to do.

And I mention these, not so much, sort of, to brag on the council, but more to help folks be aware that these events are happening and hopefully to have more participation.

Case in point, back in 2021, how many folks knew that there was a public hearing on invasive species?

The council co-hosted this with the Center for Rural Pennsylvania.

We had a number of excellent people give testimony at this hearing.

That's the list at the side of the slide there.

Some really excellent testimony given to legislators.

Another thing the council does to try and spread the word about PRISM and invasive species in general is we produce a quarterly newsletter.

So again, we'd love to get that subscribership number up and let folks know more, get the word out more effectively about what invasive species are, what we're doing at the state level, what PRISM program is.

So on our website, there is an opportunity, a link to sign up for that newsletter, (clears throat)

excuse me, newsletter.

Another thing we did just back in 2022.

We knew how important it would be to be able to make the case of what impacts invasive species are having.

You know, we feel this is super important to demonstrate the need.

So just pulling two questions out of the survey.

We distributed this statewide, we tried to reach as many folks as possible, but I suspect, again, many in the audience maybe weren't even aware of this.

So we'd like to do something like this again in the future.

But what we found from this initial survey, we think is interesting.

So what settings do you most encounter invasive species?

Well, the highest response rate here was parks, forest, and other natural areas.

But I think it's a little surprising that folks are seeing them really everywhere.

There wasn't a low category for any of the categories that we provided as an option, right?

So roadside, in the suburbs, even in the urban communities, so invasive species are recognized in many environments and having impacts there.

So it's not just this isolated issue.

Another question we asked is what really limits the ability to manage those that you're seeing?

And again, many things, we thought maybe it would just be, well, we don't have enough money.

That's the obvious answer, and it was a high response rate, but even higher than that was not enough staff, volunteer time and also just not enough time in general.

So this points to the need for more than just giving extra money to do things.

It points to a need for more infrastructure and more staff and a more comprehensive program.

If folk are interested more about this survey, we have more on the council website, you can see more there.

Thankfully and fortunately, we did get quite a bit of media coverage from the results of this survey.

So I just threw up a couple of headlines.

I think it's really cool to see and encouraging to see if it just did get picked up and the word did spread a bit there.

One of the first things we did with the new administration is we produced a biannual report.

So we talked about the activities and recommendations of the council from the past two years, you know, to familiarize the new administration with the council and with invasive species and with our highest recommendation that they consider the PRISM program a priority.

Another thing that we have done and we continue to do, I hope more people have heard about this maybe than the other things I've mentioned so far, but we've started a new statewide holiday, if you will, called Pennsylvania Native Species Day.

Our second observance of this was just last year on May 18th.

We had representatives from all seven state agencies that are on the council as well as a few industry representatives make statements and remarks at a press event at North Creek Nurseries.

If folks are interested, that video from that press event and some other resources are available on our website.

And we're in the midst now of planning this event again for this year.

We'll be holding another press event this time at Big Elk Creek State Park, where they're doing a lot of restoration work using native species.

We'll have some good speakers there, again, making remarks.

Again, more information can be found on our website and we've made a real effort this year to put up a list for those that have let us know with the outreach we've been able to do, we have a list of local events that people are doing at the same time, you know, holding native species walks or invasive species walks, webinars, and so on.

There's a list of those on our website.

So encourage folks to check that out.

And maybe there's something happening locally or there's still time, you know, consider doing an event yourself.

Something we did just last year, again to try and raise awareness about invasive species with legislators that the House Ag and Rural Affairs Committee held an official hearing in conjunction with a field tour at Temple University just back in September of last year.

We had some great testimony given there, you know, here are some members of the committee that showed up and they were asking questions and were very engaged.

There was definitely some interest there, which is very encouraging.

Many of them stayed following the hearing to do a field tour.

So just in the foreground there you can see some Japanese knotweed, but there are many others present at this site.

So it was a great opportunity to educate and it was also a great opportunity for council members to interact with legislators and again, just to do that essential outreach that's needed.

And there is also a recording available of that hearing on our website if you're interested in hearing the testimony given and the questions asked by the committee.

We are planning to do another field tour and inviting legislators again this September.

We're still in the process of trying to find a good location and finding some good speakers.

So just throwing that out there as an invitation, if folks have some great ideas or suggestions for really seeing the impacts that invasive species are having, that might be a good location for a field tour, please feel free to reach out, I'd love to hear.

Nearing the end of my talk here, but I definitely wanna mention this.

This is a second strategy in order to get a PRISM program happening in the state.

And that's to actually make it a law that we have PRISM program.

So we've drafted, and we are hoping to introduce a new piece of legislation.

That legislation called the Invasive Species Act would do three things.

First, it would establish the council through legislation in statute rather than through executive order.

So this would give the council a little more staying power and clout if you will.

It would also create a restricted invasive species account with an annual appropriation that would be used for a PRISM program.

And finally, it would give the authority and the mandate for the Department of Agriculture to support and fund a PRISM program.

So we feel this is another important piece of the puzzle and something we hope to get introduced soon and we'll need support in order for that to pass.

One of the tools that we developed in partnership with Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

And really it's probably more fair to say that they developed this exclusively, but with some suggestions from our legislative committee, they created this really cool noxious weed or invasive weed by legislative district dashboard.

So this is an online tool where you can put the district that you live in or a legislator can put in their district and all this great information will pop up.

So a map of their district with points of where reports of invasive and noxious weeds have been received.

You get some news stories that have popped up locally about invasive species.

You get a full list of those noxious weeds that exist there in that district.

Pictures, video, impacts, you know, any studies or work that's been done to demonstrate the impacts that those invasive species are having locally.

There's some links here.

Yeah, it's just a tremendous dashboard they developed and we're hoping to get the word out more about this for folks to check it out, particularly state and local government.

So happy to have folks interested in this, reach out to me.

You should be able to find this online with a Google search "Pennsylvania Noxious Weeds by Legislative District." But I believe also on the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy website, they have links to this.

Last thing I wanna mention, just a little side note here, so this isn't about PRISM anymore, but I mentioned at the top, one of the other committees is the Invasive Species Listing Committee.

I wanted to make sure I mentioned that most of the lists that they've created and recommendations they have are online and available for folks that are interested.

We hope this again is a great educational tool, but we have separate lists for plants, plant pathogens, insects, aquatic animals and aquatic animal pathogens, mollusks and other invertebrates, birds and animals.

And we're working at developing Pennsylvania-specific impact scores and risk assessments.

So this is still in progress.

There's some great information right now, but we're hoping this will be developed into an even larger resource and more valuable resource for folks.

Maybe I went through that kind of fast.

I apologize if I spoke quickly, but happy to take any questions or comments.

Here's my contact information.

Before I do take any questions, I will mention that the council meetings are quarterly and they're open to the public and really we and I welcome everyone and anyone to attend those virtually or in person.

I think the more folks that attend and participate, the more support it shows.

And also you can learn about many of these upcoming events and even ways that you can participate.

You know, the council, committees and activities aren't always necessarily restricted just to council members.

It's great to bring in other folks as well to help.

And also just one more plug for our website.

Lots of other great information there I didn't have time to mention.

So hopefully folks can scan through that.

So I will stop there.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you for your attention.