Lawrence city forester Mike Perryman uses a Trimble, a hand-held mapping device, to inventory ash trees in the city’s right-of-way Friday at Prairie Park. The Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department will be treating, removing and replacing ash trees over the next eight years as the city combats the emerald ash borer infestation.

Lawrence Parks and Recreation has started removing and replacing ash trees in an effort to ensure thousands of trees in the public right-of-way aren’t left dead in coming years.

The City Commission approved in March an expenditure of $238,540 this year on treating, removing and replacing ash trees infected with emerald ash borers. The insects are expected to kill all of the city’s ash trees in the next eight years.

Mark Hecker, assistant director of Parks and Rec, told a city advisory board Tuesday that, so far, one horticulture position has been added with the funding and that an injection system, chemicals and trucks have been purchased.

Last week, Parks and Rec started the process of removing and replacing ash trees with two of four ash trees on the lawn of City Hall. Workers removed and replaced another six near Cottin’s Hardware on Massachusetts Street, and three more will soon be removed from Constant Park.

“We’re trying to be pretty conscious, if we take them out that we put them back,” Hecker said. “Not take them out and leave it for months.”

Parks and Rec has also nearly completed an inventory of the city’s ash trees, Hecker said, something the City Commission asked for by Labor Day in hopes that an updated tree-count could help to develop more accurate cost estimates.

At the time commissioners approved a years-long plan to phase out ash trees, Parks and Rec estimated there were approximately 3,200 publicly owned and managed ash trees in the city. Over the next eight years, the total cost of treating, removing and replacing them could reach higher than $3 million, if city leaders decide every year on the same financing strategy approved last month.

Now, Parks and Rec is looking for answers on how it will manage ash trees that aren’t in the public right-of-way but are close to it.

“We have a pretty good program set for the right-of-way trees,” Hecker said. “The problem is the trees just off the right-of-way; we can’t control them, but if they fall down, they fall in the street.”

Hecker said the department would first work on public outreach, including providing to Lawrence residents a list of local vendors that could remove trees, along with price estimates.

When Dutch Elm Disease spread through Lawrence in the 1960s, the city responded by establishing a temporary process to remove trees near the public right-of-way that were deemed a nuisance. Homeowners were notified they needed to remove the trees, and, if they didn’t, the city would at the homeowners’ expense.

Hecker said it “can be done that way” if the city were to pass an ordinance, but Parks and Rec isn’t currently looking at that option.

In other business:

• The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board was notified of upcoming meetings regarding updates to the department’s master plan.

Two public meetings will be held this month to gain input on the plan — a document that will prioritize which facilities and services need upgrading in the future.

The first meeting will be from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday in the Legacy Room of Sports Pavilion Lawrence, 100 Rock Chalk Lane. The second is scheduled from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. April 21 in the commons area of Lawrence High School, 1901 Louisiana St.

Besides the public meetings, 16 focus groups will have been held by the end of April. The focus groups target different users of parks and rec facilities and range from groups of five people to 14.

After this month’s meetings, the city will conduct a statistically valid, random survey of Lawrence residents.

“It’s going to be quite a process; it will be several months to get it all together,” Hecker said. “The idea is to see what the public is interested in, things they may not be interested in anymore and how we should change our focus.”