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 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 e