yeah. sweet. thanks, man. >> okay. >> okay. so we have a motion and for clarity, president fung, you're making a motion to continue, not, at this point -- >> yeah. motion of intent. >> a motion of from president fung to continue this matter to february 27 to allow time for the appellant to prepare the necessary findings in consultation with the zoning administrator to support the granting of a variance. okay. on that motion -- [roll call] >> okay. so that matter's continued, and you need to work with -- >> you should go buy a lottery ticket, too, after. really. you should. >> thank you, everybody. >> okay. thank you for your patience. we will now move onto item number 8-a and 8-b. this is 18-135, and appeal

18-136. subject property, 100 larkin street. this is deetje boler and demonstration gardens versus san francisco public works bureau of urban forestry, proest itting the issuance to the san francisco public library of a public works order, approval of request to remove 19 ficus street trees along the subject property. of the nine trees to be removed on height street, the street spacing from the utilities and placement of furniture will reduce the number of trees from nine to six. this is order number 188456, and i would just like to make an announcement that we do -- we have arranged for a bridge -- bridge line for anyone who wants to call in for public comment, so we're going to put that phone number on the

overhead so if you're at home watching this exciting hearing, and you want to call in during the public comment portion, you can call this number. if you can lift it up a little, gary. >> okay. i've never seen this before. >> yeah. it's an accommodation. we had a request for accommodation for people who were unable to attend the hearing. so that's 415-554-9632, and we'll field your call for public comment. so i understand that the appellant, miss boler, is unavailable and miss asbury, the appellant for 1836, will be presenting, so you have a total of 14 minutes for the two appeals. >> before you start, do we have overflow room. >> we do have an overflow room. >> but nobody's there? >> i don't think so. i believe the sheriff's would direct them. we can go check. it's in room 421. >> i just want to make sure if

anybody was directed. >> yeah. there were -- if you're in room 421, please come to room 416. okay. thank you for your patience. miss asbury. >> thank you, commissioners. as commissioner rosenberg said, i'm going to read deetje boler's brief. she says -- oh, and i should say that miss boler is a long-time friend of the library. she's been active in working for the library as a friend of the library for 30 years, she told me. it is said that st. francis talked to the birds. maybe, maybe not, but what is certain that no one will be able to talk or even listen to the birds if the presently proposed removal of the groev

of 19 trees that harbor then is allows to proceed. as will be shown such an attack on the city of st. francis is not only undesirable but it is also unnecessary, wasteful to the environment, costly to the city and demoralizing to the public. to begin with, in 1994, there was no library in this location nor even these trees, just a parking lot and a one-story office building. in is 996 -- in 1994, the main library was moved from its original location, which the art museum now occupies into this new construction at the corner of grove and hyde streets, at the southeast corner of the civic center, centrally located with city traffic, city and country transit stops, including b.a.r.t., all disgorging at this busy intersection.

the library arguably enjoys the heaviest use of any building you can think of. there are about 1 is 00,000-about 100,000 visitors to the library. -- of the construction of the building shows the sudden appearance of sturdy young trees alongside the completes building in 1996, and there, they have stood until now, where they are in danger of being destroyed, one and all, and the birds would lose their nests. there are many thousands of empty tree beds on our streets, waiting to be planted. more money is needed in the budget to cover the cost of

contractors for these. there's no telling when any new trees will be planted if the present trees are removed. not to indicate removal to and replanting at another location but rather the complete destruction of a grove of healthy trees, to be witnessed by a shocked public. it would be regrettable to lose all the oxygen emitted by these trees daily. it would be a shame to lose their capacity to remove pollutants from the air. there's nothing wrong with the trees that the appropriate care, so far not afforded them, won't cure. and this is no time to tear up the streets around civic center, leaving the public approximate watch helplessly as more trees are destroyed for

specious reasons. the advanceness project is disruptive enough and in itself causing the loss of many mature trees. the two most recent cases of tree limbs falling on san francisco are oak trees and not ficus. these 19 ficus trees are relatively young and have many more years ahead of them if properly cared for. the removal of these trees as presently proposed would be extraordinarily disruptive, messy and unpopular as it would presumably involve cutting off the branchs of the trees so that in falling, they don't do harm, then felling the trunks, digging up the sidewalks and streets to get at the roots in order to make space for replacement trees, whenever that might come about, as there are already a great many empty

street tree beds waiting for their replacement trees with no many in the budget for that. however if these streets on grove and hyde streets were only to be gradually removed and replaced one or two at a time over many seasons, such severe effects could be avoided. the bird populations would be maintained, protection from the wind would be maintained, shade, quiet, calming would continue undisturbed. the beneficial effects on the atmosphere would be maintained, and the bird songs would continue for all to enjoy. these days, the public is being kept acutely aware of the disgust coming with climate change related to the variety of human interference with natural balances of nature. the urban canopy of this nation's cities is directly involved in these problems. in this case, the need for the continued presence of these trees on grove and hyde streets is quite clear, and the signers

of the petition are worth paying attention to she's included a printout of comments in her original brief. all parties should be aware that this contemplated us destruction of all these trees would bring very bad publicity to the sfpl and thus its neglect of the trees. not only was its public notice inadequate, but the library itself made no effort to alert its patrons to their proposal to get rid of the trees. this neglect of alerting the public to their intention to remove these healthy trees will only serve to point out their neglect of the trees over the years. if in the future it may be determined that one or another of the trees should be replaced and that such replacement would be guaranteed, then perhaps that would be an acceptable resolution. but meanwhile, the only action needed it for the trees to be

properly cared for, as they should have been all these years while they were under the care of the library facilities department before the passage in 2016 of the measure transferring responsibility for street tree maintenance to the city. at this request to remove these trees has not -- as this request to remove these trees has not come before the library commission for their approval, i am -- okay. i'm wrapping up hers. and as there is still no city librarian selected to replace the selected city librarian, it would seem wise to hold off any decision until there is a city librarian in place to take responsibility for the effects of so drastic an alteration to the environment of this very significant section of the civic center. so i'm going to stop there and move to just tell you about the

second brief, the one that i'm representing, unless anyone has a question regarding that. okay. so i'm here, representing the demonstration gardens. i'm casey asbury, the executive director, and we do environmental literacy and advocacy. so we work with deetje and other people in the public to build community around our public spaces. i'm also here on behalf of the district six sustainable open space coalition, so we work with friends of the parks and lots of other organizations. let's see if i can do this without involving the computer.

so basically, i'm here as a friend of the library and of the bureau of urban forestry. we are trying to improve the tree canopy in the tenderloin, midmarket and soma areas by a factor of five. that means we really can't afford to lose any trees, so even though i can appreciate the depth of the evaluation that was done of these trees, i -- i am here to bring forward some additional considerations in hopes that we may extend the determination on these trees and also bring some more of our neighbors into the process. i think it's an opportunity for -- for education about our

urban tree canopy, and while i don't want to appoint an adversarial position with our department of urban forestry, there are some additional things to add to the considerations. the basis of this appeals is on management of the trees surrounding the public library is in a civic space according to california guidelines for urban forest reup -- forestry up dated. this offer is made in hoping in keeping with the robust commitment to maintaining san francisco's forest, the library trees may be managed to mitigate specific urgent threats, newly articulated by the state of california to public health, exacerbated by climate change and generational

poverty. we suggest that in modelling this nuanced approach, san francisco is afforded an opportunity to further distinguish ours as a leader among green cities. so the evaluation is in a line with the new set of guidelines provided by the california department of urban forestry. it's urban canopy for the 21st century. it's included in my resources. could you apprise me of how many minutes i have. >> you have two minutes and 45 seconds. >> okay. well, i'm going to have to really run then. okay. so socioeconomic decisions, we

want to include an assessment. we also don't want to neglect the other eco system of a grove of trees like this. there was no study of the birds and butterflies that live all along hyde street, and this means it can be considered as a wildlife corridor. that's something that engaged residents can help with if the library doesn't have the resources to do this work in asking that this work order be rescinded, we're asking for more time to treat the trees within an adaptive management regime which might include, and this is another alternative that i don't like to come with critiques without suggesting

solutions. we could cultivate an offset grove perhaps on the southeast corner where the b.a.r.t. station was closed. that's an area where, through sheet mulching, we could plant a lot of trees, care for them in stewardship with the library, and as trees need to gradually be removed from around grove and hyde, we would have mature trees growing up to replace them. not necessarily to be transplanted, but again, considering the eco system functionality of having the carbon is he questered and a refuge for the wildlife and not to be disturbed. this is something that we've done in other places, and so i'm suggesting that might be possible. the bureau of urban forestry does not -- okay, well. >> you have 30 seconds.

>> 30 seconds. please go ahead. >> so usually, street trees aren't removed, especially mature ones. the bureau of urban forestry finds that they quickly become sticks, like in this picture. so they're -- by replacing evergreen ficus trees with deciduo deciduous maple trees -- >> you'll have six more minutes. >> okay. i don't want to step on anyone's time. unless there's questions of me. >> we will now hear from the determination holder, the public library. sir, you have 14 minutes. >> thank you. good evening, commissioners. my name is richard lombardi.

i'm the director of facilities for the san francisco public library system, and actually, i would like to thank miss asbury for her presentation. i don't feel like we have an adversarial relationship. >> sorry, sir. could you speak more into the mic. thank you. >> sorry. i'll lean into it. hopefully this won't fall over. i just want to say i appreciate the emotion of the writing. you can imagine being at the library, it's very rare that i'm involved in any kind of initiative that the community is not delighted it. it's something we don't usually do. this situation with the trees is a bit challenging because we do like to do -- we hope to have a positive influence in the community. we think ultimately that the

tree replacement that we're proposing ultimately will be positive. i'll try to make the rest of this as brief as possible. the tree removal became an issue -- it was kind of an outgrowth of a history of building maintenance issues initially that we had. ficus trees, as you know, they really can prosper in the right environment, but typically, they need quite a bit of room around them. i think you'll find that most arre arborists and tree experts would find that it's not good to plant ficus trees in a space around a library. i started getting a lot of concerns from our building engineers that maintaining the building was becoming very difficult because the trees, they're very, very lush, and grow after being trimmed -- it's not a long time before they're right up against the

building again. if you walk down the sidewalk, you'll notice that a lot of the trunks are leaning out into the street now because the building is crowding the trunks, and vice versa. we started getting a little bit concerned about ficus tree warning. starting to think about this, we decided we needed some expertise, and we asked the bureau of urban forestry to come and investigate the trees, and the results of that were actually deeply concerning. i do, again, really sympathize and empathize with -- on the public's concerns about the tree removal, but in my position, i have to be primarily concerned with the safety of the public. so what we've discovered is the trees have some serious potential for danger to the public. another thing that i ask everyone to please consider is the main library has a very

unusual environment. it -- the sidewalks are on the main library are very crowded, and if you've been around there at night, they're crowded at night. the library cannot control the camping and the activities that go on around the main library all along the night, and you'll find people occupies the space under the -- occupying the space under the ficus trees 24-7. and as miss boler mentioned, we can have over 3,000 people a day coming to the library. again, a ficus tree in a park, very, very little pedestrian traffic, that might be an acceptable risk. i think what we're called in the business, a target-rich environment, so safety is our paramount concern. as far as property placement, i would like to -- proper placement, i would like to

address that. the library does have the resources to replace the trees, and we definitely hear the comments of the public that have spoken here, and we would make the commitment to replace these trees very quickly and also with as large of a species as practical. i have heard commentaries from people that they're very concerned that the trees that would go in would be veritinely, perhaps subject to breakage. we do everything we can to avoid that. plant something large. our intention is certainly not to damage the urban forest. what we'd like to do is simply replace the trees with something we feel is more prepare. so i'd like to allay the concerns of the public. i can assure you that we do have the funding to do this project, and we would proceed very quickly. we would not want the outside of the main library to be bare. and i think that i'd like to, at this point, i'll keep my remarks brief. that's really the core of our concern, and we don't feel that our position is to go

adversarial with the -- to be adversarial with our community. we are sincere in our desire to do the best overial. we have to think about people, really, it is a problem. we can't control what happens at night around the building. i also would like to say that we do have -- we have the resources to be able to consider certainly doing some joint work, and we'd be happy to meet with miss asbury's group. i would be very interested in discussing that. i would point out, we do a lot of greening, we do a lot of landscaping in the city. we were involved not long ago, a major project at the presidio

branch where under no other direction but our own initiative, we installed rain garden feature that will put the water back into the irrigation and into the ground. we had a major, almost $1 million work order with rec and park, and i miself-hayself hav founding member of the city's green building task force. not all specifically on urban forest, but certainly urban forest is a component. so i just want to try to reassure the public about my commitment to working with them and to keeping our forest as green as possible but again, within the parameter of safety that we're concerned about. thank you very much for your consideration. >> i have a couple questions. are you done, sir? i have a couple questions. >> yes, sir. >> so first question, since the library, '96, was not that long

ago, who picked that species and planted that. >> well, i wish i knew who did that, so i could call them. i'm afraid i don't know. if you would like me to find out, i'm sure we have records of landscapers and architects. i'm sure at the time it was best thinking. >> okay. and the other, just thinking forward, if the trees were to be removed, would you consider moving them two or four at a time because i think the loss of habitat of 19 trees at one time would be shocking to the neighborhood. >> we'd certainly be willing to consider any proposal zb. >> and the other thing is since they are such lush canopies, they're only a 24 box. would you consider a 48 box? >> absolutely. >> just up on that, have you guys applied for any work orders to do the replacement or at this point, you've only

applied for the removal? >> we've only applied working with the bureau of urban forestry. >> for the removal. thank you. >> i do apologize if the public -- there have been comment about noticing, proper noticing. so we relied on buff's expertise. we do have issues, people tear things down. >> sorry to interrupt, but the concern is we had the vanness p.r.t. in front of us. they're never going to be late, be on time, and not going to disrupt us. that's not the case, and because of the proximity, the loss of such canopies could be devastating to some people. >> i understand. >> thank you. >> thank you. do you have anything further at this point? >> i don't. thank you, commissioners. >> all right. now we will hear from the department of urban forestry. you have 14 minutes, mr. buck. >> if you aelectricity elect t

them, sir. are you sick, chris? >> my voice will preclude me from using all 14 minutes. >> good eepvening, commissione. my name is chris buck, deputy of urban forestry. i can assure you i feel much better than i sound, so my apologies. so what we'll do is actually go through the trees, tree by tree. i have photos of each tree. we always evaluate individual trees on a case-by-case basis,

and i certainly believe these trees deserve that level of expect. we had order number 188302. our hearing was in august to consider the trees, hearing on replacement. on hyde street, due to the proximity to streetlight and to the muni bus shelter, if approved, instead of nine trees on hyde, there would be room for six trees, as we need to space trees further from the bus shelter and from the streetlights, something that we do whenever we evaluation a site is always look at where can we plant replacement trees, so that's something that we feel strongly about. currently, some of these trees are less than 9 feet from the streetlight. ideally, these trees should be planted 21 feet from the

streetlight. also, we need 6 feet on either bus shelter. that's from the edge of the tree basin. at the moment, there's less than 2 feet to the edge of the tree basin. so if approved, we really do need to spread the trees out along the hyde street frontage. if all ten are approved for removal, there's two trees that haven't been replanted in the last number of years. my sense is that there's two vaults and there's electrical running too close to these sites. so i'm going to run through public works' concern about ficus trees in general. it's been pretty well documented in the media over the last several years, but in 2014, san francisco public works created a tree ram value criteria for ficus trees, which is -- removal criteria for ficus trees, which was pretty

unique for us. they have to be in pretty poor condition for the ficus because of the number of stem failures that were occurs, our director worked with the superintendent and myself developed a removal for ficus that would lower the threshold for removal. i have a bunch of pictures here, picture, clockwork orange. i want us to have our sieyes on when tree does fail. does it happen? yes. yes, it's probably greater chance to get struck by lightning in san francisco, which is extremely rare, but we don't want anyone to get hit, we don't want property damage. we've had a number of failures over the years, and the issue is codominant stems or stems that are relatively the same size. so the image on the right says

codominant stems can make they are more prone to failure. that's the image on the right. the image on the left is even worse because we actually have included bark, and that's where the ficus trees are failing. here's an example of what the ficus stems like like after failure. they're literally shearing apart. it's sort of like when you're doing a wish bone on thanksgiving, and you're waiting to see which branch is going to break off. we had some embarrassing situations with ficus that failed on hyde street on russian hill, stopping the cable car for half a day. it continues to occur. joe dimaggio playground were lined with ficus trees. those trees are no longer there. here's an example of one.

the stems just started splitting on each other. so there's a lot of media just in general about the number of failures we've had with ficus trees, and so that's why we lowered our threshold. we do have now as of a few weeks ago, a section on our website with more on our concern of ficus trees with additional information. we added this because we have also initiated the removal of 28 trees on octavia in hayes valley. we had a community meeting, and in other corridors where we anticipate when we evaluate ficus trees that we're going to have a lot of trees that we initial for removal, we're now going to scheduled community meetings in advance of posting those notices to do additional outreach to the public. this failure occurred on leavenworth in the tenderloin just a few weeks ago. this is another failure that

occurred on hayes a couple of weeks ago, the ficus tree. here's an example of what it looks like. sometimes you get a warning that they're starting to split apart, and you can get out there in time and save them -- excuse me, not save them, remove them in a controlled manner. we've gone over this before, but we have specific criteria specifically competing codominant stems with acute or narrow angles attachment with or without included bark. we have a number of references we do look at. the journal -- sorry, the textbook, arboro culture, the bible in our industry. we did have a typo in ororiginal notice when we did the -- in our original notice when we did the original posting over the summer. the street address of the library is 100 larkin.

the correct frontages were market and hyde, and we had larkin and hyde. we corrected that notice and still had nine people that attended that hearing, so we felt like it was adequate posting. it was certainly a typo. i don't think anyone was walking around, not knowing what trees we were talking about. notices were removed during the 30 days, which was anticipated, so we went out several times to repost notices during the 30-day posting period. here's a view of the subject trees on hyde street. there's nine trees. just going to show the structure without a whole lot of commentary about what we're pointing out are codominant stems, a number of stems originating at the same portion of the trunk with branchs that are equal size, narrow angles

of attachment. tree number one. there's three number two. we'll also talk about the standing water in the basins, which is another concern that we have. tree number two is bad, but it still has a number of competing stems with narrow angles attachment as did tree number three. the structure of three number three is pretty bad, as you can see. it's essentially at the tree nursery, there are standards, and nurseries are improving their standards. essentially to leave the tree out, you top the top leader, and it makes it leaf growth, so when you buy it at the nursery, it looks fuller. some of these issues really started before the trees were

even planted. tree number four, as you can see the view across the street, the trunk comes up, and then, it stops and divides into four to five stems. this is a really weak structure, prone to fail. this is what it looks like. have great concern about these stems failing. for the sake of the listening audience, i will try to keep it relatively brief, but this is the information we provided at our public works hearing. one of the things we did at public works is we took a lot of time to write a seven-page findings to really go into detail. we certainly anticipated that this would be appealed by the public, approval 19 trees for removal, so the public work order goes into great detail about a lot of the specifics around each tree, also the standing water that the library can sort of talk a little bit

more about during rebuttal. but we really wanted to address as much of the concerns as possible. tree number seven on hyde. tree eight. tree number nine is the largest on hyde and probably has the worst structure. and then, we have the trees around the corner on grove street. tree number one has some wider angles of attachment, but we still have a number of competing branchs and a previous large stem failure. and very poor structure of tree number two. poor structure of three number three, with a large injury, which is on the backside of where a number of stems actually attached to the main stem, so that's a point that's prone to file. tree number four has very poor structure.

this is an example, a little more extreme example that many of these trees here don't have proper root flare at the base of the trunk. the trees are sitting in water because the library is washing, hosing the sidewalk down every night, early in the morning. so we have trees that actually want to have a dry trunk generally, and they're sitting in water pretty much 24-7, so i do have -- we approach this with concerns about structural failure of the upper canopy, but i do have serious concerns about the long-term sustainability of these trees sitting in water. it's promoting decay, so i would worry about that, and the library would talk more about why those conditions exist. tree number five, very poor structure, narrow angles of attachment with included bark, as well as with tree number six. this one's a little bit

smaller. tree seven has poor structure, three eight is showing decline. and tree nine has poor structure, as well as tree number ten. the concern i have about the standing water is it promotes root rot. the root or crown of a tree's base or trunk is a very sensitive part. you know like the back of your neck, it's very sensitive. there's a lot of girdling, a lot of pavers should be removed 6789 typically, if this is being girdled with pavers, it

will just limit the root crown. again, with the standing water, i do have concerns about that. when i went to the site, we had an i.s.a. inspector evaluate the trees. i looked at the trees. actually, the day we planted the memorial tree with our ed lee, i met with our superintendent to walk the trees together. we walk it tree by tree, and we hope that as we look at these trees, we'll find trees with structure that we can work with from a liability perspective, but the end of each block, we found that based on photos that we have here, we have tree that's have very poor -- trees that have very poor structure. we have a facility that's asking us, can you give us some assurance about public safety.

that's very difficult to do on this site. regarding replacement species, red maple's been recommended because it literally will sit at the edge of the ponds in water 24-7 throughout the year, and it's developed a root system where it totally tolerates that sort of saturation, so our recommendation is red maple. we talked to the library about, could you build a raised edge around these trees to keep the water from going in the basin? their response was it would be more of an attractive nuisance than a help. that's more than enough of the scratchy voice. i'll follow up in rebutt skbal answer any questions. >> we have questions. >> first of all, how many limb

failures or incidents have been reported out of the 19 trees that are proposed to be removed? >> i'm not familiar with -- a lot of failures occurring at this site. i see the evidence of a couple. nothing too recent, but there are a couple of photos that show a couple of limb failures with a couple of trees. >> okay. and the other is -- so the standing water is not going to be an issue with the new tree? >> correct. red maple is -- i was literally on vacation in cape cod, and they're ringing a pond. i know they're riparian. they actually like supplemental water. they're planted a lot in san francisco, but they like supplemental water that we typically don't get in the summer, but the library is actually going to be hosing down the streets every day, so they would tolerate that quite

well. >> in the neighborhood, a lot of trees just get demolished, what is your opinion on 24, 36, and 48 box trees? >> i had not discussed it with the library previous to tonight. >> 'cause he disagreed that he would put 48. >> exactly. so my only -- that's exciting to hear. our only limitations are going to be on what the site's going to give us. so certainly, if the library can make that commitment to 48-inch boxes, without a doubt, i feel like we should try to honor that. if approximate we have individual sites -- if we have individual sites where we're running into trouble. we might need flexibility where we can't quite fit a 48 in. i'm worried about some of these vaults on grove, but we have ficus in there now. we're not aware of any utility issues, so i think we'd find a

way to get these trees in the ground. the sidewalks are wide enough for 48s if needed. the sidewalk can be widens, tree placed in, pour back some of that sidewalk on top of the root mass, so there are ways to do it as long as we don't run into hard, fast utility sishs >> what's the difference again? i know you probably explained it to me the difference 1,000 times. >> 24-inch box is a good, solid start. it's a very young street tree. it is a sapling, but it's more resistant to pedestrian vandalism. 36, it's, like, a year or two older, a stouter tree, a few feet higher in height, a little more width. but the 36 and 48 references to 48-inch wide, so 48-by 48 --

inch b- -- 48-by-48-inch tree. >> root ball. >> right. there are side industry standards in the nursery. the benefit of that would be giving the public as much of a replacement canopy as possible. i get it. it's not going to replace that. the bigger the tree, the less the vandalism. the larger the tree, the slower they sort of transplant, so it takes it a while to get them established, but it can be done. >> okay. and the last question is, so the proposal is remove 19, but you said spacing would not allow it. so what would you be replacing is t 19 trees with? >> it's proposed 16.

the trees on hyde are pretty hemmed in, and so it's totally a ancillary, but it would address library's concern about advisability. i know most of the -- visibility. i know most of the public wants more shade, but it's spaced out. >> i've walked it. it's a very tough block. thank you. >> thank you. is there any public comment on this item? >> i have a few questions before we move on. >> sorry, chris. >> is it possible with replace -- there's 19 trees, proposed 16, to find somewhere in the library streets so in total we still have 19 trees in the general vicinity? >> we can look into that. i did look at the site at some point, i believe, with folks from the library to look at

that as a possibility. we walked the frontages. we can -- we can double-check that. there's underground vaults. the two trees that are on the -- is it mcallister? bolton. the two heights that are essentially on hyde are -- trees that are essentially on hyde. some of the design got reworked due to a number of my sense is massive pedestrian usage issues so some of that was scaled back, but we can absolutely look at that. in terms of trees nearby, we -- public works can look at, or figure out a way to plant additional trees nearby, whether it's across the street, at the orpheum or elsewhere,

where can absolutely look at that. >> in terms of scheduling because i know that was a concern that the appellant raised, could you look at the schedule. i think the concern around the sudden elimination of the entire canopy almost in that particular two streets, and how that timing of the replacement would be, especially concerning these are deciduous trees, it's fall, they would not have their canopy, they would be waiting until the spring to grow their leaves. >> i'm like okay. is there a position on our staff you can fill? there's a tree removal, and then, the stump is a separate process with the stump grinder. we're also going to have an additional step of reconfiguring the layout of the trees, so there's going to be repaving old sites and cutting

new sites, and there's rerouting pedestrians while you're doing that. the permit itself allows typically a property owner six months to do that, so remove and replace, complete in six months. whispered to roberto to say, like, four months, could we do it in three, but the pedestrian logistics, routing traffic, i just worry three might be too aggressive. but i suggested hey, could we commit to having you do this in four months, from start to replacement. the longer you have sites in transition, there's more there's expected changes in path of travel, so you're just exposing yourself liability wise. we're willing to say hey, let's commit to a four-month turnaround if not sooner. >> and would you contract the work out or would public works

do the replanting and everything. >> we haven't settled on that. we're so focusing on hearing and understanding the concerns from the public. the library has approached us, so a lot of other city agencies will ask us, can you provide us a quote to do this work. my understanding is they're interested in doing that, as well as getting a quote from a private contractor. >> and then lastly -- two last questions. one is around the water, which does seem perfect for this location, but also i was thinking, we live in california, drought, etc., and for the foreseeable future, the library may be washing the sidewalks in front of the library, and so perhaps that is a concern left for a couple decades from now. i'm not sure when that issue may be resolved. what are your concerns about the water needs of the trees? >> the -- there's a lot of efforts to conserve water. i know several years ago, during the drought, you know,

the p.u.c. and state p.c. really taxed local municipalities to really scale back on water, and public works -- i don't know all the staff, but we did a tremd job. rec and parks scaled back the water, and all state agencies had to scale back the use of water in a major way, appreciable way. street cleaning, it just always seems to require water or steaming. i wish we could use that when people are making decisions, that that's not sustainable for the city to clean out every day. [please stand by]

sk . >> i always assumed or resulting decisions are included in the packets that the appellants are providing, so the seven pages. in addition to that is our tree removal criteria for ficus trees, so at a minimum, as a brief, i could have provided those. i felt like i'm sitting with reams of paper not realizing you guys may not be sitting with the same information. but i appreciate that. i did notice on the petition, which was robust and had me named personally at one moment, that you know, it's ov overwhelming. i just felt like for the public who's signing off on the petition -- >> is your question answered? >> yes. >> sorry. i -- thank you. >> where are red maples planted

in our city? >> there's a lot on harrison in the mission. they're throughout san francisco. it's a relatively newer species. i would say ten to 15 years ago, we started planting them a little bit more frequently, so the mission -- so we're in the right microclimate. you know, they can tolerate some wind, but certainly, i wouldn't put them out in the richmond. >> thanks. >> so we have them out. >> thank you. we will now move onto public comment. >> can i have -- can i have your hands, who's here for public comment? okay. okay. thank you. okay. >> thanks for staying with us all this late at night. i have to hand it to chr

christopher buck. it's his job to spread propaganda. of course he doesn't offer any people hurt by branchs, and he constantly skirts the issues, creating this scare campaign, not the least of which is that he's blaming accessibility issues around these trees. i have a very large power wheelchair. i have no issue getting around these trees, getting on the buses in this location, and i also stated that the petition going around which now has 2,251 signatures as of this morning, here's a copy of it, which i'll leave with the secretary, doesn't have enough information for the commission. i actually got his nine-page public works order number, and i posted it on that petition

because he doesn't know how to do his job and keep the public informed. i'm going to reiterate again that the lack of oversight and the complete incompetence of the department of urban forestry is the problem here. they just wait for them to get to a certain state where they complain about too much water or something like that, and they say oh, we'll just chop them down, instead they could be caring for the public good and make sure that these trees are being properly cared for, or contacting property owners and insisting in some way. as far as the notice, by their own admission, there was typos in the notice. in my opinion, the public has not had proper notice for these removals to be taking place. for the amount of arrogance for him saying no one walking around, wondering which trees are going to be cut down.

the notices are folded over, they're destroyed from rain. they're in a very small informant, very hard to read if you have a disability, very height, not able to read if you have a wheelchair. he talks about a community meeting happening? he's never informed me of any community meeting. i e-mail him. i e-mail him about the trees that haven't been replaced over on mission and appleton. it's a travesty, and it's really ridiculous. and you know, it's shown by this meeting being this late at night, not being widely circulated and when it's happening, and his department not doing that. his department should be doing that. there should be noticed around the trees, as well. thank you for your time. >> thank you. next speaker. >> i have a letter from the s.f. forest alliance, which i

will also leave with you. >> thank you. >> commissioners, ilan duffy, district six. i happened through this city in the north valley called chico, and it's just amazing how many trees they have in that city, and trees that are multiple feet in diameter, and it turns out that the wife of the rancher in that area, about 100 years ago, she just started planting these trees. we just simply -- we don't have anything to compare like that in this city, nothing. i'm concerned that if we're going to have an -- a culture where we're going to protect trees, i'm concerned how we start that by chopping down a

bunch of trees. it seems inconsistent, and what one person mentioned about the birds, is absolutely true. the birds, particularly the sparrows, they like the ficus. if you take those out, those birds are going to decline. one of the few nondomestic species we have in the inner city. i -- i think that's about it. you know, just that, you know, obviously, this is going to be a pretty significant undertaking, as we go to 48-inch and 36-inch, this is going to be a bigger under taking. this is all in a fossil fuel connec economy. at some point, we have to think more about what we're doing or conserving in some fashion. i don't think this is the direction for that.

i have a seeked suspicion that one of the issues is the bird droppings, and i am a regular at the library, as well, and i've never actually had a bird dropping on there, even though there are lots of birds there, and the sparrows are just wonderful to have in the neighborhood. >> thank you. >> overhead, please. >> good afternoon -- or good evening, commissioners. my name is john altier. i'm the cochair of the tree campaign. i handed in, on the hearing of august 27, 2018, i handed in a binder. that's the front of the binder, and paper, inside that binder. over 100 pages.

where is it? it's not in your packet? so i could blame d.p.w. of not informing you of information that was handed in at the first hearing not presented here. that's the first issue. second, the san francisco government agencies are cutting down trees at unprecedented rates. the city canopy coverage is shrinking by 4% each year because of large scale tree am value. agencies and policy makers need to assess all options to removing existing trees before doing so. in the february 2018 main library request tree removal of 19 trees, the permit costs $1,498. the main library gave a voucher to d.p.w. in december 2018, d.p.w. stated to me on the phone that the