the larger more significant trees we are losing at a pretty good clip these days. also, the time it would take 42 -- dpw staff to transfer ownership back to the property owner, we believe that we could are better spend the money on education programs, simple, great management. there is a question that i have related to the concrete around existing trees that will be relinquished. if there is damage to that country in taking out the tree, is also related to the cost? that is something that i would like to ask dpw. i think we will hear a lot from other speakers. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> thank you for holding this hearing. from what i gather, it sounds

like you and most of the people in the room are concerned about this issue. i am a longtime resident of the richmond district. i moved there over 50 years ago. i am also the co-founder and coordinated to local neighborhood beautification organizations. one works on graffiti in the richmond and another one called the grain and the geary planted over 30 trees on the geary boulevard median. i am here to ask you to please reconsider this issue of ending on the maintenance of trees to individuals from dpw. my work with dpw -- [inaudible] especially as president's initial anticipate they have to take care of.

the present dpw president said they must monitor trees that are currently owned by home owners. now they are proposing to increase the responsibility another 50%. i suspect if he did a cost- benefit analysis, it might be more expensive for dpw to start monitoring another 50% of the trees in the city as opposed to maintaining them. this is also a protective trust. when dpw planted many of these city trees -- and i know that this was the agreement reached on the above. they asked property owners for their permission to plan on their property on the condition that dpw would maintain the streets. suddenly, people will be hearing that that is not the case. i think that is terribly unfiar and -- unfair and not good

politics. i also do not know if you have read the lead editorial in "the san francisco chronicle" but it talks to exactly what we are arguments against now. i have also spoken to some of my constituents. they were not able to be here, so i would like to represent them. these are random samples of a lot of comments i have heard. the college professor from san francisco state university, outrageous. a richmond neighbor. we are going to lose a lot more trees in the richmond if this happens. a retiree from the sunset. the city could afford to donate tax breaks to larry ellison and twitter but cannot take care of its trees? from a real-estate agent in pacific heights. there go the property values in san francisco. from a member of the san francisco chamber of commerce.

dead trees should not be part of our image. thank you for your consideration. supervisor avalos: thank you for your comments. maria delostino. scott plaken. >> good morning, supervisors. i just want to point out something that has not been brought up here today. these trees are actually critical pieces of infrastructure, not just a public good. the benefits they provide, especially for storm water, is a huge mitigation for something this city has also addressed willingness to look at, climate change. we are born to see more severe weather with climate change. with the amount of the purpose

of services and a high amount of impervious services we have in the city, these trees are not just providing beauty and realistic value, which are incredibly important, but they are also important for severe weather. also as part of as -- part of greenhouse gas negations, the streets provide a sink. about 2% of our carbon footprint is offset every year by these trees. so a healthy forest is important for climate change mitigation and adopting to the adverse effects we will see in the future. supervisor avalos: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. steve career. i am here as a property owner, but i want to qualify one thing. i brought this up to our members a couple of months ago, that he

would be holding this hearing. there was a resounding no way we wanted this to happen. i have been in my home for 18 years. i have planted four trees in that time. because of my position working with the city, i understand dpw rules. there are two trees in front of our house that we did not plant and even want to remove it. i filled out the paperwork, paid a fee, but my appeal was turned down. the appeal was overturned by one tree because it could've been damaged. i appealed again to the board of appeals. of course, they overturned dpw's decision and asked me if i would plant three trees after removing

two. this cost me over $1,000. i could have removed these two and it would have cost me less in fines than what i have done. i jumped through all the hoops. in those 18 years, we have maintained our trees. we have maintained them. in my neighborhood, over a dozen property owners have taken down trees illegally. dpw will not report it. i have no idea if these people were fined, if the property owner has a lien on their property. i know around the corner there was a home that was sold. two years ago i mentioned to dpw that their palm tree was there. it is still there. if dpw is telling me i have to maintain my own trees, if i want

to remove a tree that i do not like and replaced it, i do not know why i have to jump through all of their troops and pay thousands of dollars to plant two trees. i increased the tree canopy in my neighborhood, is not only my property. i think dpw owes the residents of san francisco who have maintained their trees. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker please. "dm my name is alan grossman. i'm here for the san francisco urban forest coalition. i think what is missing from this discussion is a premise to this proposal, which is that if these trees are transferred back to the property owners, they will do a better job of

maintaining and replacing them and dpw does. -- than dpw does. anyone who knows the history of street trees in this city knows that is not the case. as the person before me said, trees disappear all the time. i have personally reported 50 missing trees to dpw, and the holes are still there. so the enforcement issue is equivalent. i do think, though, that you need to think about this in a more global sense. in 1992, the trade advisory board wrote a report after studying the problem. i will read a few parts. in national standard for street planning recommends 200 street trees per street mile, or 170,000 street trees for san

francisco, 850 square miles. to maintain this figure, we would need to plan 8500 trees annually, based on an average life span of 20 years for every street tree. they made a series of recommendations and discussed resources and they said it is simply not going to happen on must something else does -- unless something else does. at the end of the report it discusses enforcement. it talks about the failure to enforce the laws governing the street trees. what they say is we must ask ourselves -- and they italicized this -- why we cannot tolerate vandalism and graffiti of public property and yet tolerate the destruction of resources ultimately much more valuable

than a bus seat or let post. -- lamppost. if you will look as good after 30 years as a well care for a tree. that was 1992. at that time, there was 100,000 trees. i think a study will indicate the refusal or inability of the city as a political body to take on the importance of the urban forest which has untold economic and environmental and social benefits. we all know that the property owners get 5% more for their property when they sell. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker please. >> good morning, supervisors. thank you for holding this hearing.

my name is maria. i am from the international society for arborists. i am a tree risk assessor. i am a former volunteer and employee for friends of the urban forest. when you were having those discussions with director rifkin last year, i was reporting as the director of urban forestry to the superintendent' of redwood city. he said to me, look, they are doing it in san francisco. my response was, it has not happened yet. at the time, i was also the chair of the san francisco urban forestry council, and we brought it up in discussions there. we knew that we would hear it

again, if it were to come up again. i was hoping that silence was bliss, it was not. today, i actually want to put all of that aside and tell you my seven-year story of the trees it within the 200-foot radius in my home. i am a solid middle-class tenants, not property owner in district 3. this is the view across the street from my home. this is the view a couple of doors down. these are trees maintained by the property owners. there is no maintenance. this is how the trees looked when i moved in seven years ago. then there is excessive

maintenance. these are the trees two doors down. these could probably qualify for a fine. here is another tree within a 200-foot radius of my home. on the left, that was martin luther king day. i went out and said, this is a violation of the ordinance that the tax our street trees. you need to stop. you definitely can not do that to the trees down the hill that are fine. the image on the right is the tree this morning when i left my house. it cannot be made healthy again. as other folks mentioned. these trees are left in the hands of the property owner.

we need to find a way to work in the maintenance of these trees in the future. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker please. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is scott. i am a home owner. what about my home in bernal heights 20 years ago, the street in front of it was not new. supervisor avalos, you mentioned that your tree was 2 for maintaining needed to find time to do it. the tree in my home is 75 feet tall. the lowest lives are 45 feet off the ground. there is no way that any of the home owners can personally maintain those trees. it requires a cherry picker, posting to make sure that cars are not part under the large lens that fall.

my suspicion is, had renewed at the time that the trees were planted, that they would be the responsibility of home owners to maintain them, a different species that would not grow so large would have probably been selected to make it possible for homeowners to protect it -- maintain them. the only way that i will be able to maintain the tree in front of my house is through my checkbook. that will probably be many hundreds of dollars a year, and that would not be equitable, to use a word used by the dpw gentlemen. trees that are healthy are for approximately a quarter of the size on my street, looking at the pictures in the past presentation. if you are ever up in the mission or burn all heights, they are mature trees that provide beautiful canopy and shade. but i will tell you what my

neighbors will likely do. they will over-prune those trees so that they can replace them with young trees that they can maintain themselves. then the beautiful look along the corridor will disintegrate. an earlier speaker mentioned the similarities to morgan stanley. i would plead for a pension deal for my trees. they are over 30 years old, and they deserve some attention in their own age. -- old age. >> could i have the overhead? my name is michael nulty. i am the executive director for alliance for a better district 6. we recently sent a letter to capt. garrity, who is on the tenderloin committee.

we only have a problem with nuisance trees. there seems to be no actual way to get rid of the trees. the captain has contacted dpw and asked that the removal of these trees the dawn. what happens is, when these trees are replaced, like on the corner of turner and taylor, there was no community input. they were basically dumped their from polk street. i am going to read the letter.

these seven trees make it extremely easy for loader verse, intoxicated persons to drink and dope dealers to loiter and in danger those who walked down the street and lastly, make excellent trash cans and garbage cans for rats. district 6 is important. we thank you for your attention. basically, all we're asking for at this point, in this particular case, these trees have become a nuisance. as an organization, alliance for a better district 6, have supported all of the tree- planting programs and are nearby. we have been involved in the creation of community benefit 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 overa