. >> i can't answer that question. i don't know the staff for other cities. i think what's challenging for the public is that ficus trees the reason why they are so popular is they look amazing year-round. they are green, evergreen. and that can be difficult thing for people to understand. it would be great if we only removed trees just that were completely dead. unfortunately, dead trees, depending on the species some don't have much weight to them and can stick around a while. ficus trees will look very healthy and yet still fail as did the one in front of 666 octavia. it was not the biggest one out there. it split in half. >> if you think about it buses get in accidents all the time and people get hurt but for the common good of the city, we have buses. so i think trees are very similar to that. i mean i

unfortunately, i live on the side of town and they planted palm trees all the way down the street. they look horrible. i mean, they look miserable. and they don't do anything as far as what they are taking out as far as carbon monoxide. it's kind of a weed. so it saddens me to see that we are taking this many trees out like wholesale. and what is the survival rate for a new tree? >> there's typically a two to four percent mortality of replacement trees. >> only four percent? you are saying 98 percent survive. >> of trees that are planted yes. when proposition e was suggested, we absolutely wanted to see -- i did want to answer that.

because maintenance was a challenge. and the mayor initiated the planning of a lot of trees. tree advocates say whoa, how about we get funding for maintaining the existing trees. we have that now. so actually the trees that we are planting we can guarantee long-term funding for. >> okay. >> we are working hard on getting that funding. we have already made progress this year, the mayor had a press release about funding for urban forestry for tree planting. so it's starting to happen. >> we're the fifth largest economy in the world. and we fund free needles but we can't get trees in our ground. >> i agree. >> and that's not your fault. i'm not blaming you at all. so you are taking down 28 trees. and how many are you replacing? i know you put something on the overhead but i didn't see that. >> correct. so there are it's 27 trees now because one failed. so removal of 27 trees

replacing with 27. four of the trees on-site can't be replanted in the location where they are. we will find a close location to replant. so it's a one for one replacement with 24-inch box sized trees. >> okay. my concern the last case directly prior to this is a good example. there's a picture of an ally that overpruned, they were supposed to replace all those trees. there wasn't one tree out of the eight trees that were supposed to be there on that ally. >> i'll look at that. >> because they removed two trees in front so they can broaden their entrance to create their big expanse of their school and they were supposed to take care of the trees in the back and they didn't. there was ten trees there and now there's no trees there. >> protection is critical. some of our advocates here are aware of that. and together we are trying

to address that. >> okay. that was it. >> thank you. >> i would like you to rest your feet for a minute. i would like to take advantage of her being here tonight. >> sure. thank you. >> hey carla. >> commissioners, nice to see you all. carla, san francisco public works. >> hi. i have a whole bunch of questions. and i would like to step away from this particular case, because sometimes we tend to be a little narrow in our view. and we are not looking at the macro. we are alluding to the macro but not getting to the macro. quite frankly, i see very little problem with this project. it's been well-explained.

i know that ficus trees can be dangerous. it's not about that. i really wanted you to be here tonight to look at a more macro view and i'm not sure i'm going to support this initiative going forward when we get done. so first of all, i want to let you know, that i really appreciate your department's very hard work. second of all, i would like to let you know that i understand that probably five decades of neglect, at least were present in the management of the tree canopy in san francisco, because for a variety of reasons it deteriorated and people didn't take care of it. thirdly, i want to acknowledge that funding is probably not enough for you to do your job therefore you don't have the resources satisfactory to complete your job in the way that the citizens would like to see it complete. so there are a lot of factors. and finally,

as a result of all that, your department is way behind. you have a lot of holes in the ground where there needs to be trees. there's a lot of ficus trees and others which are poorly maintained and require pruning at the very least. and furthermore you have a lot of projects that we have seen presented in front of us. so you are way behind, all right? and i appreciate that. that's not -- and that's not a fault of yours. that starts with the 50 years of neglect. all right. so but all that being said, why are you starting yet another project? we have seen -- and i'm going to get to my questions. but that's the core question. why are you starting another project when there's no funding? why are you starting another project when the north beach there are four dozen empty tree basins,

and supervisor peskin in legislation i think a year and a half ago provided funding for your department to fill those tree basins? because he's wanted to support you and wanted to support, of course, north beach, so he would get elected again. and then we look at the budget. it doesn't take one year to have it survive. it's three years at a bare minimum. so there's no budget to water. so why is not the watering infrastructure being worked on in advance of planting a tree that's going to die because it can't get water for three years to let it survive? this makes no sense to me. that's another question. we have seen in front of us washington square where there was a -- i don't know where that stands. it's supposed to

come back to us. it might not. it might get settled if we are lucky. but we saw a plan presented and we challenged mr. buck no fault of his. he's made us all tree huggers. >> that was carla for me. >> we are all about him, but in washington square, there was a plan to remove trees and then put them back. yet we all sat here and heard there really wasn't a plan to put them back because we didn't see -- he couldn't explain to us how he was going to set them in on the sidewalk. so it was let's cut the trees down, this is how it sounded to us. let's cut the trees down but we don't know where we are going to put them back. so no planning. we saw a civic centre library. that's still under discussion. it's been back to us twice. once there was absolutely no plan and dialogue between your department and the library and the community. now there's been six months later eight

months later, more dialogue between the community the library and your department. yet it wasn't quite ready yet so we sent it back again. that's another project that needs to be -- that's completely in upheaval. i think it's 16th street where muni has a big plan and it's going to chop off a bunch of trees. and yeah, there's a plan. but it's a big project. and how is that going to get done in a timely fashion? and this leads back to hayes valley. you all have huge problems catching up with 50 years of bad maintenance. you'll have huge problems filling those tree basins and doing those projects. why are you even thinking when you can mitigate the problem not solve the problem, cure the problem through pruning, even though it's not -- why are you even thinking at this time of

starting yet another project in hayes valley which places that community at significant risk because you may not get it done in a timely fashion even though you committed to start it in two months and get it done 90 days later. this is what i wanted to have you come here today to explain to us to put our minds at ease because we are sitting here going, okay sounds good, it's legal let's go. but we scratch our heads and we say how the hell is this department going to get it done? not because of competency. just because who the hell could do it. so could you address that, please? a lot of questions but ultimately, why are you starting this project and why are we considering it tonight for immediate passage to move forward? >> sure. thank you for those points and questions. i will do my quest to try to address

them. thank you for recognizing the challenges that we did face. i think it's important to recognize that you are right we are starting behind the 8 ball, so to speak. there were years of deferred maintenance both on the part of the city and on the part of property owners. and we are now playing catch-up, as you say. we were fortunate after years of effort to pass a ballot initiative that gives us dedicated funding for tree maintenance. it sounds like a lot of money. but when you spread it out over 125,000 trees, it means we have to be as efficient as possible with that money. so what that means is we are going in area by area. we've broken the city into what are -- we are using a mapping unit called key maps. we have to go in and do everything that we can. that's the only way to efficiently get the work done. we need to try to address the needs of that area. so what we are doing is we are using

some of the information from the census but then our inspectors go in ahead of the contractor or city crews to reassess those trees and identify what work needs to happen. we've got to do it systematically were we'll always be behind the 8 ball. we'll never catch up. we'll be playing catch up forever. and the passage of that ballot initiative will not succeed. so we are not starting another project. we are working our way through the city. that's what we are doing. we are working our way through the city. these trees were identified as part of that key map that we were moving into. and we have to look at everything in that key map when we go in. i do want to correct a few -- there's been a lot of attention on the ficus trees. ficus trees are not a huge proportion of our existing tree population. they are about seven percent of our existing tree population. and only seven percent of the ficus trees that we've

worked on have been removed. so of the seven percent we've only worked on a fraction of them. but of the fraction that we've worked on only seven percent have been removed. this is not wholesale removal of trees. it sure feels dramatic when they happen to all be planted near each other in a neighborhood. i certainly appreciate that. but i think we need to keep in mind the scale that we are talking about. i want to correct a few other statements that have been made. we never plant a tree without the resources to water it. we understand better than anyone that you can't put a tree in the ground and not water it. i think the misunderstanding was that we've tried to clarify the dedicated funding for maintenance does not allow us to plant or water new trees. that dedicated funding has to be used for tree maintenance. so we've stated that publicly a number of times. i think people have misunderstood that to mean we can plant trees and not water them. we build the cost of watering

into every tree we plant which is why it's so expensive to plant a tree in san francisco because we have to water for three years and we have to water 12 months out of three years when we are in a drought. nine or ten months we are not in a drought. so it's expensive but we build the cost into that planting. what i think we should have communicated was with regards to projects like hayes valley like you mentioned columbus, we are focusing those limited resources we did have on replanting where there are a lot of removals in one place. so if we have a lot of trees that are coming out as are proposed on hayes and octavia we want to make sure those trees do get replanted right away. because that's where the biggest impact is. what that means is we may have some existing empty basins somewhere else that don't get replanted right away because again, we have

limited resources. the good news as mr. buck said earlier this year we actually have the greatest budget for tree planting we've had in 15 years that i've been on the job. and that's in large part because this deferred maintenance and the catch-up we've been playing has resulted in more removals than we have done in a year. what is that actually? it's two percent of all our trees. we've only removed two percent per year for the last two years. so again we are not wholesale removing urban forests. we are all here, we are all wearing our stickers too because we love trees. that's why we are in this business. we have challenges. and we have to make tough decisions. it is not easy. i hate removing a tree that looks healthy. but we have to be taking public safety seriously. we have had two injuries on our watch both caused by ficus trees, and both that we don't want to lose sleep over another injury again. the

idea is we protect public safety and we maintain trees. we preserve as many trees as we can. and we replace trees. and then we grow the urban forest. so our urban forest, everyone is fighting the canopy numbers. that came from our urban forest plan. they know that because we are out there advocating for better urban forest. that's how we got our money for maintenance and that's how we are going to get our money for planting. and we are going to be behind the 8 ball on planting just as we started behind on maintenance but we are committed to making that happen. so this year we are able to commit -- and i want to give an example of everett middle school. this was a case where we said, okay a lot of trees coming out around the school. we are going to make a commitment, we are going to get the replacement trees done quickly. we put out our schedule, we had our crews lined up and we had the trees within three months. in fact it was faster than that. why can't we do it the next day? because we have to grind the stump.

in many cases we have to repair the sidewalk. we have to shift basins. it's not as simple as pulling out a potted plant and putting in a plant. there's a lot of factors that go into this. we are trying to rebuild the public trust. we know we don't have it. we hear that every day. but we are trying to rebuild it. we've got to be realistic. i can't tell you i'm going to have them planted a week after they cut down. talk about losing trust. three months we think that's realistic. it's ambitious. it's going to be a challenge for us to coordinate the different pieces. but we are committed to trying to rebuild that trust and also rebuild the canopy for these communities. unfortunately no tree will last forever and certainly in urban settings, four percent mortality is considered good, reasonable mortality level. we've only removed two percent over the last two years. so i think we are not starting the project. we are trying to work our way

systematically through the city. in terms of addressing public safety concerns and i hope you took the time to look through the brief a large ficus failure is terrifying. we have lost many, many -- i'm sorry, damage to property, we have paid for more vehicles. and i'm okay with that. if we have to pay for a vehicle that's great. i just don't want to be paying for people's injuries. and so it's real. we have to be systematic but we have to address the highest liability first. and that's why it feels like so much is happening right now. because we are addressing a lot of deferred maintenance removals now. it's not accelerated. it's playing catch-up. so we do plan to put them back. we are focusing the resources that we have on replacement trees. we do have some dedicated funding this year for new trees. but the board of supervisors said we know you need to replace trees but we want to make sure you are working

on the goals to replace the urban forest. so some of our money is restricted. we have three different types of money. some can be used for replacement or new some must be used for replacement and some must be used for new. but we are focusing on efforts on replacing, particularly when there are lots of trees coming out. we are focusing those replacements first. we will try to get to the other replacements as quickly as we can. and so we do have a plan to put them back. and then lastly i think you talked about more dialogue. we have tried to be very proactive with hayes valley. we approached them before we even completed our assessment of the trees. we thought this grid is coming up. we know those trees. we shop in hayes valley. we like that neighborhood. we also know some of those trees have structural problems so we reached out and said when can we talk to you about this we want to start talking. we had two

different neighborhood walks. as chris said we stopped and spent almost 30 minutes at the very first tree. we are like we are never going to get through all the trees if we don't keep moving. so we kept moving. we are hearing you in terms of doing that outreach. we have done it with every project now where there's -- or every area where we've gone in and there's a large number of trees proposed for removal. we did a lot of outreach on 24th street and columbus avenue and a lot of outreach here in hayes valley. >> and how do we -- i think it was 16th street. what was the last one? 16th street was the muni thing? and i recall because i participated in that dialogue that we came to an agreement as part of our approval of that initiative that you would have the trees done, that project done started by in x number of days or months and

finished in x numbers of days or months. i can't remember the details. the focus of the question is it's nice that we sit here and we say okay do this in this period of time and mr. buck accommodatingly says yes. and we have no idea that it ever gets done until we hear from the public that the project was started and never finished or you hear the rhetoric i'm sure on a daily basis. so if we tonight move forward with this and you establish in your own brief some parameters around that, and we agree to those parameters, how does the public, how do we, who offer that approval, and the public, hold you accountable if instead of three months from now when it's supposed to be done it's not or six months from now it isn't even done or nine months from now

it isn't even done which unfortunately as part of your track record, not globally but unfortunately there have been several projects which kind of lag. so how does the public or ourselves hold you accountable or how can we have the trust that it's actually going to get done when we move it forward? >> yeah. and i think the only thing that i can say in response to that is we have to build that trust. so we have to be successful. and we recognize that. it is no fun for me or for chris buck no fun for me to be here. i like seeing you all but i don't have to come to these hearings anymore and i changed my plans tonight to accommodate this. >> we appreciate that. >> we don't want to be called to task for failing to do things. it's way more fun for us in our work to be able to say you can trust us because look, we are starting to prove that we are capable of doing this. so we are more motivated

probably than anyone to hold ourselves accountable. it will make our jobs easier in the future if we can deliver on these things. it will help ensure we are not getting bombarded with nasty e-mails that we get constantly. we have every interest in being accountable because it will only make people trust us more, and then it will make our jobs easier. i can't -- i don't know of a way to say you know, we'll have this accountability watch us. we don't have that. but everyone sitting here tonight who is invested in these trees is going to be watching us very closely. so we are going to have to try to do it. now, what we do have now is a public information officer. and she is available to the public to respond to questions if someone says, you know, i didn't see this happening, she can find out and respond back to that person. so we are ensuring that we have a level

of responsiveness that we are able to deliver that we haven't in the past. but the only other thing i can say is that we now as i said, when we are making these commitments, we are allocating the limited resources that we have to ensure that we can meet these commitments. >> thank you. and thank you for coming tonight. sorry for ruining your plans. >> that's okay. >> but i think again, in a macro sense, we have had several tree hearings on major projects. and it kind of culminateds in your appearance tonight to give ourselves and the public this overview and also given a hearing that was supposed to happen tonight and is going to happen on january 8, this also sets the tone for future hearings. so i appreciate your appearance tonight. thank you. >> i'm happy to be here. i'm happy to see you all.

but i think i would much rather not -- i would much rather have that trust already built. >> i'll be inviting you wednesday. >> so i don't have to come back. >> thank you. >> thank you. is there any public comment on this item? yeah. after public comment. >> you know what i would like to do, looking at the hour and we've had discussions about the lateness of these hearings and i don't want to limit the public's ability to speak but we've heard a lot of dialogue. and i really would like to give the opportunity for the public, those who are right now who are in favor of this project to stand and then those who are not in favor of this project to stand so we as a board see a vote. and noting those people have communicated their position. then if anybody has anything

to add that isn't redundant to what we've already heard maybe they might want to edit their comments accordingly. >> i think we can get a poll of who is for and against but everyone needs to have an opportunity. >> it would be their choice. >> how many people in here are opposed to the project? raise your hand. okay. how many people here are in favor of the project? okay. >> in the interest of your sleep i'll put it to the public if you hear your point already made, and you feel that you don't have to have it heard three or four times, we would appreciate it that we already know that you are all against the project and the point has been made and you don't have to come up. >> the volume of the speakers, we will limit public comment to two minutes. >> but you are welcome. >> but everyone is entitled to speak.

so please proceed, ma'am. >> welcome. >> thank you. i'm susan. i worked for many years with friends of the urban forest as a community organizer for tree plantings throughout the city. according to a recent new york times article a tree must live for ten to 20 years to build up enough foliage so it can have substantial impact on carbon. that's the description of the hayes street trees. i remember growing up in the area when it was an african-american neighborhood when the city didn't come to prune the trees. and thank you president swig for pointing out there's been no pruning for 50 years. the trees can be pruned. they can be cared for. in consultation with my former colleague, san francisco head forrester we respectfully request the recent planting

not be repeated. several hundred trees were planted. they are almost all dead or dying. they have virtually no care. while we support the replacement plan, we request that only 24-inch boxes be used and that all trees be on streets that are dpw designated with special designation which will guarantee three-year minimum watering with care and a better chance of survival. thank you. >> thank you. can you get a speaker card? >> i did. >> okay. thank you. >> welcome. >> my name is sam. i lived in hayes valley for 20 years. there is a tree at 568 hayes outside my window. i have an intimate relationship with that tree. when people talk about replacing them, it would be akin to someone saying we have determined

your pet needs to be euthanized. don't worry about it, we are going to give you a new one, here is a hamster instead of your cat. you can't replace a living creature you have a relationship with in the way it's described. i would also mention that the trees specifically outside of my house is supposedly interacting with the street light and that's the reason that mr. buck cited he could overlook all the other potential causes except for this one interaction with the street light yet it's also planned for replacement so it seems someone determined its interaction with the street light is minimal or to be mitigated. this seems to be the case to me. trimming would reduce its interaction with the street light. it would not remove more than probably five to ten percent of the canopy to make that trimming.

and i think that every possible step needs to be taken to avoid removing any of the trees. it's relative. and obviously from the public outcry, i feel this is one or two people's overzealousness. if you only have funding to remove trees every problem looks like something a saw can fix. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> good evening. my name is natalie down. i lived in hayes valley for five years. i'm a block away from the posted trees. i had bronchitis eight months. i have a respiratory condition which means i'm part of the population who is severely affected by wildfires. i had an attack

so bad i couldn't get out of bed. if it's this bad with the trees still here, what will it be like when the trees are gone or replaced with desid use other trees. the climate crisis and wild fairs this needs to change again. from the release of the initial ficus removal criteria, the city paid arbor pro to do the assessment. they have this criteria. and it was still a different decision. earlier this year, 39 trees were posted for removal. we do appreciate the public works changing in direction to remove less of those trees. but since then the city of san francisco declared a climate crisis. we don't feel the appropriate urgency is given

attention to the trees being removed. in light of the rule book being changed four times in the past five-years it's time to change it again. we need to reprioritize mature trees to sequester as much carbon as possible. replacement trees have to be evergreen. when the trees have already dropped their leaves. these replacements absolutely have to be evergreen. the city of san francisco needs to realize its tree protocol subject to climate change and take action or we won't be in a position to recover. >> ma'am, thank you. next. >> welcome. >> hi. my name is brook armstrong. i had a business in hayes valley for ten years. i've been

in san francisco for almost 40. i have an issue of trust with the dpw. my business is on franklin street. and they just took down two large beautiful trees last week without notice. it's frustrating because two years ago they took down another tree in front of my building without notice and it remains a hole in the ground. so for two years they have not replaced that tree. so i feel dubious about what they are saying. it's frustrating. the other thing is it does feel this is a reactivity issue rather than a proactive issue. it doesn't seem to me any of the trees is an immediate emergency situation. and yet we are sort of mowing them down. i get that what the previous speaker said was it's an efficiency issue a financial efficiency issue. but then, you know efficient for tuna as opposed

to pole catching the fish. so in my neighborhood you can mow down the trees that might be a problem at some point but it makes the neighborhood unlivable and it affects my business. so rather than creating sort of a toxic unlivable waste land, i would prefer that we not replace them all at once. replace as we go. they're also a couple of dead trees on lily street that have not been replaced and i bet they haven't been included in the numbers. finally, just you guys work in this area, we live or work in this area. hayes valley has a massive carbon and co2 emission. we have oak traffic, we have franklin traffic the freeway onramp and we have cars that are sitting basically in a grid emitting co2. >> thank you. what's your address on franklin

street that has the holes in the ground? >> 45 franklin. we have three big holes. >> okay. thank you. >> i didn't have to use ac before and now i do. climate change. >> thank you. >> good evening. i'm here today to urge the board to slow, prune and save the removal of trees. i actually live in mission not hayes valley but i'm very concerned about the lack of a macro approach on these issues. and in particular the wholesale removal of trees without where there should be an approach that maybe phases the removal of trees to allow the community, neighborhood and ecosystem to adapt and for the replacement foliage to come in more slowly. i also wanted to show a picture if i can get the overhead so this is across the street from where i live. ten days ago, that was a beautiful ficus tree that looked perfectly fine to me and provided shade, cooling and privacy for my

neighbors. ten days later that's what it looks like. this was taken yesterday morning. but i can assure you that this morning that's exactly what that tree looks like. so unless the projects are truly adequately supported with funding and staff to provide not only replanting three months out but the immediate removal i mean this is a hazard and a blight on my street now. and in an era where climate change is really rapidly changing not only our global climate but the city, we are experiencing more and more frequent super heating events, those super heating events will kill people. there is going to be greater air-conditioning and cooling loading that will result from the removal of trees that are providing shade as well as the lack of the carbon sequestering. it is a mitigation problem and a community issue. so please slow down the tree removals. >> thank you.

>> thank you. >> next speaker please. >> if you could give the speaker card. thank you. >> and welcome. >> hi. i'm really nervous. this is the first time i'm doing this. but i love my tree. it is like a pet to me as well. and i actually just moved to hayes valley. my name is ellie. i live at 508 octavia street. i wanted to show my tree. so i don't know if you can really see but that's my living room. it's my safe haven and that's my tree well giant tree outside. and i heavily rely on this to chill out. i will tell you why. let's see here. my old home downtown was on a street with replacements to old growth trees. they mostly died, never groomed were peed on.

then turned to garbage cans. in august 2018 i was attacked by a mentally ill homeless person while living, while leaving the san francisco at 7:00 a.m. on wednesday. in december 2018 i had to close my little shop on hyde street due to mentally ill and criminal people coming in and harassing my place of business. i really needed a safe haven. in february i completed six months of treatment for ptsd. in june, 2019 my partner relocated for a job and i was unable to join him. so i'm truly alone. this tree really protects me. it gives me privacy. it gives me quiet and chill time that i need to heal. so mine is a little more selfish.

i really agree with the environmental and everything. but i thought i would bring something a little different. so thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> familiar faces speaking next. welcome. >> too familiar. >> someone has to keep us company here. come on. >> can i have the overhead please? let me get this. i guess you can see that on your screen. my name is lance carnes. i'm here to uphold the appeals. i read mr. buck's brief. he described how they surveyed areas and rescued ficus by

reclassifying them from remove to prune. so here's the picture of a 288 key map areas. they surveyed three. and they said well it's probably the same for the whole city. i don't think that's significant sample. on the next slide here. changed 34 percent to prune. in hayes valley, 21 trees slated for removal, 20 are rated prune. citywide, you probably can't read, but citywide, it's 85 percent were changed from prune to remove. the other question i had, and i think some of you also had is how many ficus trees over

the last five plus years, i sent a request to buff and asked that question, i got back one little report. and it turns out because of a major flaw in the way buf records tree data there's no way to determine trims for ficus or any other species. this last slide here is these are the top ten street trees rated by priority removal. and i'm wondering if buf is looking at these. here's ficus about in the middle here. 653 trees 773 -- total. and about one in three fail. >> your time is up. >> would you please conclude and summarize

your finding? >> summarize my findings? >> yep. what's your point?. >> i think by focusing too much on ficus trees they are missing dangerous street trees. for example. >> overhead please. >> i'm sorry. >> overhead. >> sorry. it went away. so buf is missing other dangerous street trees. and i'm wondering if buf is not seeing the forest for the trees. i urge the board to uphold the hayes valley removal appeals and all ficus removal appeals till buf can provide accurate and consistent data, demonstrate agreement with the city's tree survey and give residents confidence that buf's actions are for the neighborhood's benefit. >> thank you. >> thank you. we will now move onto rebuttal. you have three minutes.

>> i'll try to keep it short. i mostly sit in the back of these hearings and feel really sad. i think we are all on the same side here. we are all living on the same planet. i look at this from a climate perspective as a community health perspective. and if i haven't been clear regarding the bureau of urban forestry, i have a lot of respect for carla and the shop that she runs. she has a tough job. she doesn't have enough resource to do it yet she has to stand up here and defend it. i think the people that should be defending it are the people that aren't putting enough money where it needs to go. speaking of money, i've heard a lot of talk about liability. i think any of us could figure out quickly how much money we spend on injuries that the city causes

to or cars to people that live here. if we were concerned about viability, if we were concerned about the health of our citizens, instead of spending millions and millions of dollars every time something goes wrong around this city, we could spend a few million more in putting together a healthy canopy that would ensure the health of people and our ecosystem. it may not seem like much. i'm going to be back here in a couple months talking about trees on 24th street. it shouldn't take people standing up over and over and over again banging for us to do the right thing. and we know what the right thing is. there's a lot that urban forestry cannot control. there are some things that they can control. and i would again respectfully request those things be considered so when they are mentioned here, phased removals,

treating trees that are evergreen maximum carbon sequestering that support our ecosystem and putting pressure on people that hold the pursestrings to do better because carla can't keep coming back to this. chris can't keep coming back here. i agree. this is a tremendous investment of their time. so take that to the higher-ups. take that to the people that have the ability to change this. make the changes that we need. thanks. >> thank you. >> may i ask a question? for this specific case given that we are talking about this specific case and not denying anything that you have said, we take it seriously and we take it deeply into our souls. what is your specific recommendation with regard to this project in consideration

of what is going on and that is there are some trees that could fall down on cars. i was there the day that the big ficus fell down on the car on octavia. that was exciting. you know, i'm not taking it lightly. but give us your opinion on specifically what would you do in this case? i read your brief. but i would like to hear given the situational analysis, what would you suggest that our findings should be? >> well, i think public works spokesperson rachael said it best when she said that a tree should only come down if it's a hazard, if it's an imminent threat. so we've got some great arborists on our city's team here. can they look at

what is an imminent threat? i spent a lot of time looking at trees with carla and chris all over this city. and i appreciate their time. i think the problem is we are still looking at trees as a how can we reduce our liability. the problem is we need to redefine what our liability is. our liability is our future of this planet. that's our liability. so what is an imminent threat? what is a hazard tree? those should come out. it's not a hazard. >> so your recommendation for this specific project is that trees in that area that are identified as imminent threats should be aggressively managed and all other trees should retain the status quo with appropriate pruning and certainly not being torn down? >> to all extent possible yes.

>> just wanted to capture your thought. >> right. which would then necessarily i think roll into looking at trees removing trees on a case by case. i understand why we have the key map in place. i get it. it's because they're trying to catch up. >> you answered your commission. >> you're right. any other questions? >> no. thanks very much. >> we are going to see you again in a couple weeks anyway. >> hopefully not. >> thank you. >> not going to bet against that. >> you have three minutes. >> okay. i wanted to respond specifically to your question, ms. lazarus about the use of external consultants. arbor pro's contract with the city was appendix b of my brief. i didn't put the whole contract because it was 28 pages. but in the first paragraph it describes what their mandate was. it was not simply to do a census and count the trees.

it was to make specific recommendations regarding management. and it is still perplexing to myself and the other members of hayes valley why the city would spend half a million dollars to professionals get their recommendations and then ignore them. that just doesn't make sense. i also want to talk a little bit about the idea of replacement. actually let me grab -- as someone mentioned earlier it takes about ten to 20 years for a replacement tree to grow to a size where it is performing significant carbon sequestering. somebody left their papers here. so in this picture you see the parking meter

next to the tree, for about the first two years that's about the diameter of a replacement tree. i planted a new tree in front of my house when an acacia tree failed. and after six years it's still not anywhere near as big as the trees we are talking about cutting down. so we need to be clear that we are not really talking about replacing the trees. we are talking about planting new trees. but that doesn't equal replacing what we are losing. also, i think it was carla mentioned they've planted 37 new trees. i haven't seen that many but i believe here. but i have seen several newly-planted trees that are dead. i've seen one tree that's had three different trees planted in it because they keep dying. so what i would prefer is to consistent with what josh is saying choose like

five of the worst trees remove those and then show us that the replacement and care for the new trees is actually working before cutting down more trees. and hayes valley, like 98 percent of our trees are ficus trees. so they might only be seven percent of the city but in our neighborhood, almost every teresa -- tree is a. where is the data? >> we will hear from bureau of urban forestry. mr. buck, you will have six minutes. >> you don't have to use all six. [laughter] >> good evening. chris buck, urban

forestry. i want to thank everyone for their time this evening. just to go back to the survey again. a couple of data points that there's amazing benefits to having the census. so one of them is locations of trees that have caused sidewalk damage. that's how we are organizing our approach to repairing sidewalks. so that information is there. that valuable information we are using that to orchestrate and coordinate our approach to reprayering sidewalks that's been -- repairing sidewalks. the survey identified potential planting sites. so i know there's this desire to sort of question what we are doing with that material with the information which was stated repeatedly we understand the situation they have with the ficus greater than the consultant. at a lot of these hearings sometimes there's a parade

of counterarguments where arborists. we don't have that this evening for what that is worth. but i wanted to talk about the survey. it's incredible information. unfortunately, we don't agree with the recommendations on ficus. so that's primarily it. we respectfully hear the feedback that the community came to us with. that's why we scaled back 11 trees. it's challenging. these trees look healthy. i get it. i have friends that live in the neighborhood. they are like, really? but again different sites we remove four trees out of eight at an elementary school. one of the four trees that i think is smaller and should be okay fails and injures someone. so we wish the trees were dead. and i think a lot of the other trees we are removing across the city, people don't think twice about it because they are dead. any layperson would go that's clearly removable.

that's easy. but ficus they stand out. so we are here respectfully to see where we go from here. thank you. >> bless your soul chris. for not taking the six minutes. thank you. >> i have a few questions for you. in regards to the comment made of okay, i understand the balance of wanting to protect the public health and not wanting to have it on your conscience if someone has been injured because of a tree you knew might not be in good shape and you didn't do anything and where does that leave you and the and the city and the member of the public who is been injured. but i wonder if it might be possible to sharpen your pruning sheers and go back and look at the trees and see if you could identify some that are a more imminent threat that might be less than the 28 you've identified that could be removed. and what you might consider to be a reasonable time to assess the experimental pruning you are also planning to see if that might be appropriate

for more of those trees. so not to necessarily delay perhaps to delay the project as proposed but to see if it can be done in stages to a level where you would feel comfortable that it's not going to harm anybody to the degree that you can think that. so what might you think you would find if you were to do something like that? >> i mean we anticipated that question. we really have received that question received it from the public. we received that question at our public works hearing. and we did that prior to our public works hearing. so we really feel like we've done that. and that's a challenge. the public is -- we understand where they are with this. we understand climate emergency. >> but you think the 28 that's kind of where you feel is. >> i do. >> the best offer? >> we really wanted it to come to with that. >> and then do you feel that there

might be additional assessment of perhaps adding additional trees? so is it possible, do you have budget, would you be able to identify locations to go beyond replanting the 28 but to replace with additional trees which again would be small to begin with but would eventually grow to have more canopy in the area? >> that's definitely part of the conversation. however we have to look at equity across the city. so there are other scenarios. so folks that would be willing to take trees and water them, you know, we want to say yes. but we also have to be equitable citywide. southeast area of the city doesn't have as many trees as we do in the centre of the city. we also understand there's a lot of environmental mitigations with traffic and off roads on octavia boulevard. so sometimes that happens organically. i would love to state we can go above and beyond. we have an urban forest plan that calls for in-fill plants. we are using the

census data we have from the survey to identify that. but i think we would have to be careful in terms of overcommitting to what we can do. but that's certainly a consideration for any of these sites where there's been a large for lack of a better word large removal. >> lastly, for the species selection, are there evergreen species that you would recommend that are compatible with our climate and kind of other goals in terms of planting trees that are compatible here? >> yes. and with hayes valley neighborhood association there's a desire among many to see evergreens. there's also strong desire in the community to look at other factors. there's a lot of different things the trees provide. carbon sequestering is not the only one. that's difficult. i want to be up front about that. but there is a robust discussion that's taken place. >> do you think that will result in a variety like some will be evergreen and some will

be other desires that people have? >> correct. and one reason for that sometimes is also the presence of high voltage lines. we have some ficus trees right now that are clearly in conflict. and we want to plant the right tree in the right place. there's a number of moving pieces in that. but we are fully engaged with the neighborhood association. and there are evergreen species in the matrix. >> thank you. >> i have one more follow-up. one of the speakers, might have been one of the appellants mentioned the minimum 24-inch box. is that something you can promise? or is that dependent on the individual planting? >> so we can definitely commit to the 24-inch box. that is the size of replacement trees that public works typically plants. friends of the urban forest have used 15-gallon sized trees because they use a lot of volunteer labor and it's easier

to plant for trees with volunteers with a smaller size. 15-gallon sized trees tend to be more prone to vandalism. that's why we have the screens to protect the young trees so yes, 24-inch box trees we can commit to. that's not a problem. we have funding for that. >> i think that was in your brief. >> correct. >> i think we are in a lose/lose situation. i don't see a win/win situation here. what i heard the solutions don't touch the trees except in a threat. and there was a complaint that your department was putting efficiently first as part of a plan and i would go for that efficiency and that's why i look at that neighborhood equality issue. let's not treat one neighborhood any better than the other. and i don't think

it's possible and i think it's a lose/lose situation. i don't have a solution for you. but i still -- but in the spirit of the imminent threat what i see is an imminent threat not only are the ficus trees that may be falling down, but the imminent threat that of not filling in holes in existing, where trees previously existed and doing grievous harm to our environment. and if i were you, i would be -- i would certainly be diligent about those imminent threats and taking care of that through pruning. but i would be placing my priority in filling empty tree basins with new trees first instead of moving forward and tearing down trees, wh