districts which have taken some responsibility for tree planting. in district 6, there have actually been quite a few organizations formed. we are very supportive of the trees because we believe -- this has not been mentioned yet. trees help with noise abatement. when we hear the sirens go off in our neighborhood, we believe that the trees help us with noise abatement. that is just another aspect of how trees help us, particularly in the downtown area. thank you for your attention. i'm going to give a copy of this to the director. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker please. anyone else that by to comment, please line up in the center aisle. >> good morning, supervisors. i am a citizen of bernal

heights. we went through a similar experience 12 years ago when dpw was relinquishing the street trees in a wide swath in our neighborhood. as soon as people got the notices in the mail, there was a line of four tree removal permits. the trees were planted in the 1970's and suddenly in the 1990's, it was relinquished. eventually after a lot of contention, most of the trees were unrelinquished. at the time, the city agreed to hand over a couple of corridors. virginia avenue, a bunch of trees on other streets. they said they would keep on maintaining. but the first reaction was, for a number of homeowners, to ask for removal permits. subsequently, some of the people

that had to maintain their own trees had topped them, as seen in earlier illustrations. i do not remember what the numbers are, but we have effectively lost trees that were going just fine in the neighborhoods. i think that was an unsuccessful experiment. the fact that we managed to resurrect some of the trees and keep dpw maintaining them was a success in the neighborhood eyes. as other speakers mentioned, we have the folsom tree corridor from bernard hill to the mission to approximately 21st street. elm trees that were planted at the neighborhoods request by the city in 1973. the city was going to maintain them. well, they have come in some cases better than others, but it

is an iconic corridor that people can compare to other places in the city. like delores street. people know where it is. we would like to keep that going, and as the previous speaker mentioned, it is not going to happen if individual property owners who run a little coffee shop on the corner or rent out a couple of apartments -- how are they supposed to take care of trees like that? so i would urge you to make arrangements so that dpw actually gets more tree maintenance vehicles because the city needs them. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. another iconic street is persia street in the excelsior district. next speaker please. >> good morning. the key word for today is the iceberg.

i consider my mother to be a victim of ex-mayor newsom's screening program. in 2008, this letter was received and underlined the department of public works will be responsible for the care, watering and long-term maintenance of the trees. short-term maintenance is my responsibility. as a caregiver, the letter basically said, we do not want a tree because there is no way we can maintain it. the letter was never replied to. phone calls came back with a staff member calling me. the intensity of the phone conversation was fine.

it was basically, screw you, you are going to get a tree, whether you like it or not. pole speed ahead. -- full speed ahead. we were never notified that mayor newsom would include a tree program on church street. 30 years ago, my mother did not get a tree. as you can see on our block, there is a tree that had been there. it has been replaced. the sidewalk is going to be replaced again. the cost of doing business. there have been 12 events in the 1.5 block area between july

8 and december 9, two blocks on church street, just trimming or removing concrete on the streets to repair the trees. pg&e also comes in and cuts the trees that are there. bucket truck 450 on the street parks and then return later for a yawn. the meeting impact required disruption of service of over three and a half hours causing muni service to be disrupted. buses to be substituted. church street between 22nd and 30th now has green dots on all of the squares. it cost $100 a square to

replace. that is a considerable cost. i contacted the mayor's office but did not get a response as to the cost. supervisor avalos: thank you. >> i know you do not want to hear it because it is politically incorrect -- supervisor avalos: thank you for your comments. >> here are the newspaper articles. supervisor avalos: if there are no other members of the public that the bug to comment. ? public comment is closed. scott wiener has also expressed a great deal of concern over this as well as finding revenue for maintaining our level of street tree maintenance. if you would like to express any comments now? ok. a couple of questions raised by

members of the public. one was related to if there was a plan -- there is -- to relinquish the responsibility for treatments. would that be a tree by 3 basis, or is it done by street? -- tree basis, or is it done by the street? >> good morning, supervisors. ed rifkin. i am sorry i was not able to be here at the beginning of the hearing. as to the process of relinquishing, we will only relinquish as we bring them into good condition. if they have been recently pruned, that is a requirement of the public works code, something we would want to do in any case.

it will be somewhat tree by threree. often, it could be a block or stretch of a street. technically speaking coming it is a tree by tree. then we would notify the property owner when we have a tree in good condition ready for look relinquishment. supervisor avalos: but it looks like you will be looking at that in blocks? >> generally, yes. supervisor avalos: as far as your community maintenance program, is that all general fund? are there other sources of funding that cover that cost? >> it is predominantly a general fund. there is a little bit of general fund in the capital budget. i believe we get a little bit of prop k, a half cent sales tax money, for tree maintenance.

the overall budget is relatively small. supervisor avalos: the prop k funds, that was approved about seven years ago or so. is that a specific amount that can be only used for treatment? is there flexibility on that allegation? >> as with most of the prop k funds, there are a lot of little buckets that the money flows through. i believe the treatments money that we have is solely for tree maintenance. supervisor avalos: how much is that? five under thousand dollars? >> yes, around five and a thousand dollars, $600,000 -- $500,000, $600,000. supervisor avalos: is there any way to use sewer fees because there is an impact on run off? perhaps if the board had the

ability to reprogram puc money -- i am not sure if there is anything available for that, but could that be a source of funding for purposes of restoring our sewer system, maintaining runoff, that can go into our ground water, tree maintenance, preventing the sewer system from being overburdened by rain. >> it is a great question. in order to use those funds -- many to be a direct nexus established. you could establish that nexus and the stormwater benefit. we would probably have to undertake some analysis to establish that texas. then it is a matter of lying for the funds in the sewer system. as you know, the sewer system

has a backlog, just as our streets do. they do not have the funds are now to adequately be ride the restoration and repair its -- provide the restoration and repair they need. diverting some of that money to treatments, while it may be a legitimate use of repair funds, would we in the sewer system. certainly a conversation that we could have with the puc. supervisor avalos: maybe we can bring our offices together. maybe that is something that supervisor weener wants to weigh in on as well. he has expressed an interest in that as well. >> i will follow up with the puc today. supervisor avalos: ok, well, i want to thank everyone for their comments and for dissipation in today's hearing. clearly, the comments were

overwhelmingly, completely from people concerned about our forest, a canopy, concerned about the direction that the city is going in right now with relinquishment of street tree maintenance. that is something alarming. i know this plan has been coming forward for a while. i have been concerned about it. i think it makes some sense to figure out how we can prevent that from happening and look at, in the short term, proposals -- perhaps to have 11 fte's. to have those maintain would be a short-term goal. to have a longer-term goal, how we can find a revenue source that could be available to maintain.

the benefits are clearly a great and numerous to the city oand county of san francisco. i appreciate the friends of the urban forest also talking about the community benefit, not just the individual benefit, having a tree in front of their property. i'm looking for to what we can do with the current budget to the least alleviate the immediate need to of aggression our responsibility for the street tree program. >> if i may, we share the love and passion for the urban forest. that is a core part of our mission. it is a clear responsibility laid out in the public works code. it is our responsibility. so in terms of the importance of

the larger community benefits of, environmental benefits, economic benefits and, we see it as an important part of the city's infrastructure, something we want to maintain in the best way that we can. i just want to affirm that we are coming from the same place. i do want to mention what we are proposing here, which might be unfortunate but necessary, given the state of our resources, given the state of inequity that currently presides -- resides, we do think it is the responsible thing to do. we are not proposing a radical shift for the urban forest. two-thirds of the street trees in san francisco today are the responsibility of private property owners. so in most cases, that is

already where the responsibility lies. so we are now proposing a massive shift of responsibility. we are kind of enjoying more in a direction that we have already established -- supervisor avalos: i agree with that, but i do not think there is a real consciousness about property orders are informed about their responsibility, or when they do not have the ability to physically do the care, have ways to get it done and the city still able to step in when they cannot do it. an aide to be a system for that to work. it does not seem like we are quite there. i would like to see, before we go through any relinquishing, if that can be explored. i know this is something you are probably concerned about. i appreciate your dedication as a public servant.

i understand dpw is stretched thin, but we would appreciate an conversation about how we might do that. >> we have striven through our community court or programs, sidewalk improvement programs, recently come out of reach with trees, helping people to understand their responsibility. everybody is responsible for the sidewalks already. it is just that one-third of the trees are taken care of by the city. you are right, people do not understand their responsibility. we have been working hard to make sure that they do. supervisor avalos: and in a way, when the city cannot step in to support, either with advice, training, or actual services itself of street tree maintenance, it would be important to have some sort of hybrid approach instead of pulling back completely. i think we need to maintain a

level of staffing to make that happen. >> we have been working to provide good information and not just on the trees that are your responsibility, but here is how to care for it, here are some resources. we will also still do emergency repair, inspections. those things will not go away. i just want to clarify the point, most street trees are ready and they are generally being maintained by private property owners. that is not to say we do not believe, which we do -- some members of the public indicated, to make sure that all the trees are uniformly cared for, for dpw to provide that service through a dedicated source of revenue. that would be what is best for the urban forest. we concur with that as well. just, absent the funding sources, it is not something we can do. even with the 11 arborists we

have today, we are not nearly adequately maintain just those. we probably need three times as many arborists to be near that 5% of average cycle to prune. we would need triple of what we have today just to maintain the one third we have. supervisor avalos: when was the last time we had -- i remember in 2005, i was working on legislation about trees. >> i think we've provided data going back a few years. we have been cutting for the past three years because we have run out of other places to cut. i guess i just wanted to caution, even if we were to find funds from the puc or wherever, to get back to 11, we feel it

would be appropriate to pursue rather than the course of relinquishing. it will take a long time to happen. we can only do it as the trees are prepared to do so. the sooner we can get real funding in place to fully maintain our forest, the sooner we can stop -- supervisor avalos: we are going to end hearing very soon, but i think if we could look at some hybrid approach, a joint response. as a person mentioned folsom street, there are some trees that are very difficult for property owner to maintain because of their size. those protected by the city. the city maintaining that it is probably what makes sense. i have a small tree in front of my house and i can easily

maintain it. that is something that is completely viewable. but there are probably hundreds of others who have a tree in front of their house that cannot do that. they need an option. i can see the property owner had been added responsibility, and also for the city. that is where i wanted to go. thank you. if there are no other comments from colleagues, we can adjourn this hearing. maybe we can set up a meeting with friends of the urban forest to talk about this in the future. appreciate it. this is the last item. we will continue this item to the call of the chair. we are returned, thank you. -- adjourned. thank you.

president newlin: good evening, ladies and gentleman. by paul together the meeting of the entertainment commission -- i call together the meeting of the entertainment commission. would you call the roll? commissioner meko: here. vice chair joseph: here. commissioner cavellini: i am here. commissioner benetti: here. president newlin: also here.

>> we have a quorum. commissioner roja has an excuse absence and i do not know about commissioner perez. he may be running late. president newlin: item one, public comment. members of the public might address the commission on items of interest to the public that are with in the subject jurisdiction of the commission. with respect to agenda items, members of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes at the time of such item is called. is there anyone in the audience who would like to participate in public comment? seeing none, i will go to item two, approved the minutes of may 24, 2011. >> i move to continue. >> i second. >> i think i have to do a proper vote.

commissioner meko: aye. vice chair joseph: aye. commissioner cavellini: aye. commissioner benetti: aye. president newlin: aye. item three, the report of the executive director. ms. king? >> good evening. seems like it has been a long time since we have been together. [laughter] sorry. i am going to get serious now. the report is in your package. it is fairly short. the legislative and policy update for this evening is simply that the limited live performance legislation that i have talked about a couple of times now has been fast track. an update from the last meeting is that due to the board of supervisors recess that will be coming up shortly, supervisor mirkarimi was able to get the

legislation on to the july 7 agenda for the planning commission. staff is requesting that the present -- that the present calendar the entertainment commission discussion for two weeks from now. at that time, supervisor mirk arimi will send staff to the meeting to make sure you get whatever information you need. if you need the legislation yourself, at that time the staff will send you whenever you need to be prepared to have that discussion. president newlin: have you heard anything about any amendments to this? i just got a call by the press today, and just inquiring. i am not aware of any. >> i have not seen anything like an amendment or a replacement or anything like that.

moving on, staff and office of state. i wanted to let the commission know that a pending board of appeals appeal for the 2080 van ness location that was called the heights has been finally withdrawn. as you might recall back in december of 2010, we issued a warning letter to the heights. at the request of sfpd, we calendar them for this commission -- which, under -- we calendared them for this commission discussion. the permit holder filed an appeal at the board of appeals. since that time, the business has folded.

there has been a new permit issued to operators at the same location. the board of appeals formally receive their withdrawal from the appellant. that thankfully is now filed. in addition, the citation appeal, the first one we have ever filed -- we did finally get an outcome on the circolo appeal. the citation was issued on february 27 by mr. bernelli for a violation of their security plan. that was appealed and heard by an and the district of law judge under the office of the comptroller on april 29. the matter was taken under advisement and the final disposition was reported to staff on may 27.

and they ruled in favor of the commission, upholding the citation in its entirety. we worked closely with the city attorney on this first time around. we are hoping that in the event of an appeal, if this would happen again, we will not need the city attorney. we will have a template to use for any further appeals and citations. lastly, i wanted to update the commission about something i am not sure i mentioned before. in mid-april, i called a meeting with a bunch of commercial brokers into the office to basically explain the process of the things the entertainment commission does. these brokers are the first line, typically, in speaking with someone who wants to get into the business we regulate. it has been really helpful.

i wanted to update the commission. it has resulted in more understanding of what is expected of buyers. i hope that you begin to see less on sure applicants, in some regard, and less pressure because they did not understand when they signed a lease. we are trying to back that up the chance of that when you see applicants they know what is expected of them. thankfully, under corrective action on permits, we have nothing to report since the last commission. vice chair joseph: i want to compliment you. i would not have thought of that, commercial brokers. that is a great idea. good for you. >> thank you. vice chair joseph: you are welcome. president newlin: i second that.