As of November 1, 1999, Bruce Payton, 10-year Urban & Community Forestry Program Coordinator in Rhode Island will be job sharing and on December 1, 1999 will begin a new job in State Lands Management full time.  "I would like to thank all of you for your help as I often called on many of you for assistance and ideas, and shared with you Rhode Island's efforts."  Paul Dolan will be the new Program Coordinator starting December 1. He can be reached at 401/647-3367.

The conference committee responsible for Interior and Related Agencies established a mark of $31.3 million for the Forest Service urban and community forestry program. This is $760,000 above the mark last year, but included a $500,000 earmark for the Salt Lake City Olympics and $250,000 for the NE Pennsylvania Initiative. The budget narrative included language directing the Forest Service to commission a study on the feasibility and potential of "block-granting" all or portions of Cooperative Forestry programs. This bill was submitted to the President for signing in late October. He is likely to veto the bill because of several riders and unmet administration priorities in the "Lands Legacy" program introduced earlier this year. The Forest Service is funded currently under a continuing resolution at last year’s levels and a decision is pending to extend or shut down government as we publish this bulletin. Congressional leadership is further seeking a 1% across-the-board reduction in agency funding, that would reduce the final appropriation below $31 million.

Millennium Green is a national project of the White House Millennium Council led by the Department of Agriculture in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and Department of Justice. Millennium Green will encourage, promote and recognize the creation of healthier, more livable community environments for the new Millennium. Everyone and anyone can get involved! For more information on how to get involved, please call 1-800-522-3557.

Beyond writing a letter to all governors with an offer of free Millenium Groves of trees--and preparing a letter to congressional leaders requesting permanent authorization for urban forestry within the Land and Water Conservation Fund--USDA Secretary Dan Glickman was so taken by his Seattle experience that he has requested departmental action on behalf of urban natural resources. Undersecretary Jim Lyons has brought in Mary Chapman from the Northeastern Area to assist him in putting together a team involving FS, NRCS, and Extension to frame a major new Department-wide initiative on urban forestry. More information will be made available as it develops. Mary Chapman can be reached at 202/720-8571.

The Catalog of Federal DomesticAssistance (CFDA), it is a complete listing of all Federal funding opportunities in every Federal agency. The web address below includes funding opportunities no matter what your subject matter may be. There is a QUERY button on the bottom of CFDA screen that will take you to the search engine to locate funding opportunities. The hard copy of the CFDA consists of 3 bulging 3-rings binders - each listing may only be one-side of one piece of paper so the funding opportunities are numerous to say the least.

Web address for the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance:

http://www.gsa.gov/fdac/

To demonstrate water conservation, Forest Service and University of California researchers built a sustainable garden where a parking lot once stood in the courtyard of the department of horticulture building. A unique demonstration brought a group of about 50 to the dedication. For more information on the garden and other ongoing research, check out the web-site at http://wcufre.ucdavis.edu (see Sustainable Urban Ecosystems).

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