?oo sfoo we are live again rules committee, and we can on to item no. 6 ?oo . >> item 6, hearing to determine seats on the forestry council. there are 6 seats and 6 applicants. >> great. thank you everyone for hanging in with us on a fairly long meeting. we're going to take things out of order this time just for one applicant who i believe has to leave soon and other people might have to leave for her and

that's meg loman are we live? okay. glass of water real quick. . >> imspeaking on behalf of meg loman, who could not make it here. we had another commitment. we have incredibly luck to have meg loman applying for a position on the

urban forestry council. one of the objectives i have had as chair is getting the best minds in urban forestry on to the council and she clearly ticks off that box. if you have looked at her application, and i don't think anyone has competed with her in terms of length of a cv, 13 pages was quite impressive. she brings enormous background, not only in scientific inquiry based science but also in experience and knowing a lot about trees, about eucalyptus, she has done a lot of study on eucalyptus, she also very committed to the citizens of san francisco by working at cal academy. we have a speaker who will speak on her behalf also who is from cal academy and he can go into greater depth but i think she will be an enormous asset to the council and we are lucky to have her to apply. thank you very much. >> i did get started on wanted to hear from the applicants themselves and generally the public comment comes afterward

and speaking on behalf of someone else is basically speaking for public comment. miss loman cannot be here today, so i understand that so i will make an exception. i already have. and i will make another exception for another member of the public who also serves on the public utility commission to come forward and speak on behalf of miss loman and that will be public comment briefly for mr. kwan to come and speak on her behalf. commissioner kwan. >> thank you, chair avalos, supervisors tang and cohen. i feel like i've been here recently. i am here to express my strong support for dr. meg loman, who is also a close colleague and a friend of mine. from my day job at the academy of sciences, meg is our chief of science and accountability so she is our

head scientist. we are one of the leaders in propriding stem education and support to both the children and teachers of san francisco. meg is one of our primary leaders in that effort. beyond this, the academy is very active and involved in serving this city and we put a significant amount of our resources to reach the underserved and underrepresented communities. we are one of the leading employers in this city of individuals with disabilities .d one illustration of meg's work align these lines is tree climbs. i know we have opened this ub opened this up to the public and supervisor tang went up our big tree, it's more than just a big climb, it's studying the health of the tree. she also has had people with disabilities up in that tree. we have dedicated apparatus up

in the tree. so this is an important aspect to embrace urban forestry. outside the academy, meg is well known by her twitter handle, canopy meg. she is a global champion for forest conservation. she is a role model for women in science. my oldest daughter included. meg is a subject matter expert in a number of tree species, especially eucalyptus, having advised the government of australia along such matters. meg is not only immensely knowledgeable but she is also solutions oriented. it's not just the collection of information, it's how to solve problems. pardon the pun, meg can really see the forest for the trees. on top of all this, meg is an exceptional person. she is a very caring, it's her kindness and integrity that really drive her work so i would ask that you find in her a strong candidate. thank you

for your time. >> thank you very much. okay, that was public comment. we will close it until all the other applicants present and i have mr. hillen is not going to be attending but in case he is here he can come. okay he is not. so we'll go on to the next, who is andrew sullivan. mr. sullivan maybe had to leave as well. dan kito is not going to be attending and i don't see anyone named dan kito standing up, so mr. flan nigan, you are back. welcome to the rules committee. >> thank you very much. i will keep this brief. i would like to reapply for seat no. 4. i have been chair of the council the last two years. i basically once i got to become chair i led a strategic planning process to try to

identify the areas of interest and necessity for us to study to be relevant to the board of supervisors and the mayor. for the last two years we have basically followed that road map and we have made some great progress on studying issues around mount davidson, we are currently in the middle of trying to come up with best management practices in order to deal with historic tree stands in san francisco in order to review issues such as sin wrap that you coming in front of the board and we would like to come before the board for or against sin wrap that touch on urban forestry. we have looked at the nsbrt, on the next agenda we are looking at the transformation of masonic and how it affects trees so we are trying to be as

relevant as possible and the good news is we have some really good folks on the council and with the addition of folks like meg loman we are fortunate to have the best minds working. so i am honored to be working in this position and hope i can come back and do more. >> thank you, i'm always curious. i may have asked this before but can you me your favorite trees in san francisco? >> i can tell you my least favorite trees. a micale is my favorite which is a magnolia that comes from tibet. my least favorite is purple plum they don't last very long the tree doesn't last very long. everyone thinks it's a great flowering tree but 15 years later you have to put in a new tree. >> is that so? i still see the same trees i appreciated 20

years ago. >> they're dying, buddy,. we need trees that can last for a long period of time and not just look pretty for two weeks. >> how much is urban forestry responsible for planning our can pi canopy for the future. >> we were literally, we reviewed that plan at every stage, it was urban forestry council -- this council, friends of urban forest and the planning department and dpw all got together. we are deeply committed to not only working on the first phase but trying to jump start the second and third phase also which is really critical to the canopy. >> i live in a district where we're losing trees. we're putting in a lot of trees and

with the work of your department, we are putting in hundreds of trees but what are your thoughts how we can move forward on preserving our trees, expanding our trees in the face of what our current policy is? >> one of the things ironically i spent the last two days, six hours worth of focus groups that we at friends of the urban forested and paid for. one of the things the public is interested in and are they concerned about the tree canopy and trees and expanding the canopy and we also spoke a great deal about the urban forest plan. what we discovered in the process we had home owners with trees, home owners without trees and renters. we were surprised at how the renters

really weren't that interested in trees. but they are very interested in the damage that trees do to sidewalks. and so one of the recommendations from the urban forest plan is that we have a dedicated funding source for the care and maintenance of street trees that also means the city would take back the liability for damage to a sidewalk done by a tree. we realize that is a huge issue for the public and i think that that's going to be one of the things if we are successful in running a campaign in 2016 or 2017 for dedicated funding source, ie, parcel tax of between $16 and $40 for a condominium or average home, most people were saying they would go ahead with that. we actually got 10 to 1 in one group, about 6 to 4 in another group and the other group they were kind of split down the middle. so i think one of the talking points we're going to have forward we want to push green

issues and make the city as green as possible but we also want to make it accessible and the fact that people don't feel our sidewalks are accessible, by taking back all the responsibility of all the sidewalks, there's 6,000 sidewalks that have to be repaired that were the city's responsibility but are a backlog and that's why the parcel tax is as expensive as it is. i think that's a good thin. we need to spend the money. this is again another opportunity for us to pay attention to deferred maintenance. >> that's great. i think one thing we talked about before in our discussions about the type of program that can support the trees is job creation as well. now we're able to fund maintenance of the trees is make sure there's local access for people into these green jobs. >> i think about 10 years ago

the budget for the bureau of urban forestry was 7.5 million dollars. i think it got as low as 1.7 million dollars. that's all personnel. the number of arborists went way down. >> it was around 14 before, 15 about 10 years ago. >> yeah, and now it's way down. it's cut more in half. so hiring more people and also be using contractors also. >> i know we're a little bit astray, but not too far astray. what is the norm for other cities in terms of responsibility for sidewalks? >> the best practice in the united states is you have a municipal system that takes care of the trees, the city takes care of them. also what's really -- what the supervisors should be very concerned about is because of that cut in the budget we're now, the average pruning of a tree, street tree, is between 12 and 15 years and best practice is 3 and 5 years. and so that's why you are getting the damage. so not only do you

have limbs coming down, you also have the sidewalk damage. that's two areas that can be attenuated by having the right people doing the right thing and planting the right tree in the right place. >> supervisor tang. >> i think supervisor avalos actually hit on a lot of the issues i want to hit on. maintenance is very important. we can plant all we want but if we don't maintain it we are going to see loss of trees. i would urge everything we can do to make sure we have a very proactive plan going forward and for the record i would like to urge the city to stop planting myer plums. >> i had 12 in front of my house. good luck. just for supervisor cohen's, had he interest, we planted 5400 trees in her district in the last 30 years and we just planted 400. we planted a lot more than 400 in yours. in one day --. >> i know, it was great.

>> we'll be back. thanks very much. >> okay let's see. kevin johnson has withdrawn for consideration, mclowden has already presented, sandy sherman was doubtful whether she would be able to make it today. rose hillson -- is rose -- here she is. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i brought my public comment letters with me. i didn't want to kill trees but then i provided a package to you, at least the things that i got. you may have gotten electronic emails other than what i have. so those are all my letters and emails. i'd like to say that i was originally recommended, i'm

trying to reapply here, originally recommended for the community seat on the urban forestry council by supervisor mar to serve out another member's term and subsequently supervisor farrell, my district supervisor, recommended me. i've been the chair of the landmark tree committee since 2012 and i worked on firming up language in the legislation for landmark trees to ensure that the most worthy tree specimen makes it becoming landmark tree. to assist with staff i also created a matrix as an aid for not only the landmark tree committee but the full council and also for the public to readily see the application of the criteria for public works code chapter 16 for landmark trees. i enjoy reading legislation, believe it or not, and most of my free time is reading all kinds of things that the city has in the community field. my community seat it's important for ensuring that a representative that is about san francisco residents and

visitors. i itemized some of my community service. i've been a neighborhood activist for over 20 years i'm a product of the public schools and i volunteered at many san francisco unified school district schools k through 12. i participate in san francisco police department community meetings and i was under police department richmond community advisory board. i worked on the j town community and this led to the crafting and adoption of the city planning policy document called j town cultural heritage economic sustainability strategy document. currently providing communities a jtf, japan town task force future development towns, worked on urban forestry council table on arbor day, which is this saturday. member of the advisory committee for the traffic calming project, analyzed and commented to changes to the recreation open

space element, aka rose. city's general plan as part of a working group, evaluated and comment ode changes to chapter 31 of san francisco admin code deals with ceqa california environmental quality act, and had the opportunity to meet many community organizers. i worked on community clean up at laurel hill playground, with rec and park staff, san francisco state university, many volunteers from nonprofit organizations helping youth get ja*up job skills such as one brick. these young adults have been wonderful to work with and come from a diversity of ethnic and associate yes economic backgrounds. there are also students from various public school backgrounds and usf students who have helped with clean up. i look forward to this activity and sliding in the mud on rainy days. i am the proud oupber of a landmark tree, which is what distinguishes me from every other member on the council.

important to the local native american culture and botanical history of the city. in 2010 i received a coalition for san francisco neighborhood award for working on a myriad of neighborhood issues. in 2014 your colleague, supervisor mark farrell, gave me the honor of doing asian pacific american heritage month, a commendation for 15 years of service to san francisco and i think it's critical that neighbors' voices are heard on matters relating to our urban forest and to be inclusive of different viewpoints based on the unique flavors and circumstances of our neighborhoods. the diversity, ecological reasons and actually the people's concerns balancing all these things to naik a very special and desirable community to live in. and it is important to value and have cooperative dialogue not only with the public but with all the city agencies. residents have many concerns and supervisor avalos you mentioned that in your district there are trees being,

not as many trees there, there are neighbors who are concerned with street tree relinquishment, i think it's important to get this before the urban forestry council so it doesn't bubble up before the board of supervisors and maybe we can help with some comments from the urban forestry council to help along the way. also i would deeply ask for your support in keeping me on the council. i have a list of landmark trees if you so desire. i give that to your administrator personnel here. thank you. >> thank you very much. any comments, questions? >> thank you. >> that was our last person seeking appointment and so we can go on to public comment for these appointments and i think people learned the drill for public comment . first speaker

please come forward. >> my name is jeanie qwak and i have lived and voted in san francisco for more than 30 years. i sent a letter supporting rose hillson for seat 7 of the urban forestry council. i am here to expand on my letter. >> rose has an outstanding character. she searches diligently for facts, follows through completely and keeps her word. rose would be a unique asset to the urban forestry council because she understands the striepkt and issues of san francisco. she believes in the strength of san francisco and citizen participation. she has thoroughly followed the issues in city planning, housing, water public transportation and parks. she understands and supports nature in san francisco. she is also a great teacher. in my first attempt to change proposed legislation i succeeded in changing a word and this is because i followed rose's advice and teachings.

she told me to be very familiar with the existing code and the proposed legislation and she told me to focus and be succinct apkd that is what she does and my following it helps me. i want to close by saying, as i said in my letter, rose is passionate about the health of people and so it follows that she is passionate about san francisco trees and a healthy urban forest. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is karen kai and i'm here to support the reappointment of rose hillson. i've worked with rose for the last several years on the japan town cultural heritage economic sustainability strategy. rose has made unique contributions, not just in terms of her work on the land use and public

spaces segments of that document. she really has put in a lot of time as a community member and i think that's one of the key things she does. she takes a broad view she integrates, she directs, she makes people pay attention to important issues. she's tenacious, she's dedicate the and was really an asset in those regards. i recently worked with rose with regard to the rose parks tree, which is one of the trees along the van ness brt plan. and rose was looking forward and this is another thing that i think is very important. there is a possibility that that rosa parks tree that was dedicated by mayor newsom may have to be uprooted and be relocated. and she reached out on her community connections to try to find a

possible location and hearing about it, i went to the principal of rosa parks elementary school and that set into motion a whole new set of wheels on sfusd, which can take a long time to navigate, and we have now reached a point where, should it become necessary for that rosa parks tree to be relocated, we have a point in the fillmore, with the principal's support and that's because of rose's hard work. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is paul weber, i am from telegraph hill and i am here in support of rose. i first met rose working on behalf of taylor hill dwellers on a number of projects on which rose was working either for her association or for the

coalition of san francisco neighborhoods. and is what impressed me so much about her was, this has been said by others, but her dedication, her hard work, her thoroughness and amazingly she has no personal agenda unless you call the good of the city an agenda. she is just that, namely, one who thinks of the best for the city, not for what might advance some particular individual cause. she also gets along well with people and works well in a group setting. she has been i know, a member and i think she should be continued for another term so she can continue the work on behalf of the city and

i certainly hope you will reappoint her. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. . >> yes, good afternoon, my name is hiroshito miss guda, i am the chair of the housing and transportation committee. rose became very active in san francisco cultural neighborhoods, gee, i guess the last 5 or 6, 7 years ago. and i also brought, introduced her to the japan town community. very surprising is in a very short period of time she's gained the respect of people in the coalition and also in the japan town community. i believe it's because of her at tenaciousness and thoroughness. she doesn't give up. once she gets her front end into

something, sort of like a pit bull, she bites, doesn't let go until the issue is resolved. and i think the council would be very well served. she's probably very modest in her accomplishments and i think, you know, she's probably the mvp of the council. so please retain her for another term. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is charles, i'm on the tar bell station pcab and i've come to know rose through years of working with her on the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods. i've worked with her at the level of the executive committee where i'm