Council,

This is an embarrassment.

Tree City USA

South Pasadena has been a Tree City USA community for over 25 years, demonstrating its commitment to protecting and enhancing the urban forest.

Tree City USA means nothing.

Shrubs

Shrub protection is gone. After Councilmember Omari Ferguson's first council meeting I spoke with him and told him about shrub protections. He so confidently responsed "We're going to get rid of that." Councilmember Omari Ferguson removed a hillside of protected shrubs without a permit.

There is a protected shrubland across the street from my house in his district that the Fire chief has applied for a grant to "manage". The fire chief does not know anything at all about plants or trees, native or otherwise. Omari Ferguson and our fire chief have failed miserably to lead during this transition. The tiny amount of guidance has been in direct conflict with one another.

Our own building code discusses the need for shrubs and vegetation on hillsides for erosion prevention. We keep talking about trees under power lines. You need shrubs grown in standard form under and around power lines. Flame heights are kept low with multi-trunk shrubs. Proudly removing protections for shrubs now is a clear indication of a blissfully ignorant urban forestry system.

Species

The species lists provided are a joke. There are blatant spelling errors on the documents furnished by staff. The single pine species called out, Canary Island Pine, is considered one of the most fire safe. It is even included in the recommended species list which is just a copy/paste from LA County's outdated and woefully incomplete list. Where are the native, non-resinous deciduous trees such as California Black Walnut and Blue Elderberry that would be ideal specimens for fire safety and view preservation in the hills?

Obviously these lists don't matter at all because this reading allows public works to change them completely at their will whenever and however they see fit. So the staff that has failed to produce City Arborist Rebecca Mejia to stand at the podium, failed to ask Public Works Operations Manager Catrina Peguero to stand at the podium, failed to present a species list of any quality, should be given full control over all species decisions moving forward. No Urban Forestry Management Plan is mentioned in this round.

Accountability

Public Works has to get the city arborist to write a report to remove a street tree but no longer has to notify the residents?

Public Works will hire their own City Arborist of unknown credentials instead of using one related to a city contractor? This absolutely can and will be a downgrade and a final lockstep towards full scale corruption of our tree authority. The only respectable oversight is multiple rotating independent consulting arborists. This move towards a single city arborist as the choke point of all tree removals is a broken implementation of our existing code:

34.12 (d) The reason for removal. Any trees proposed for removal due to poor health or condition shall have the condition of the tree documented in a written report prepared and signed by a certified arborist;

The application is supposed to come with an arborist report. Nowhere does it say the City is supposed to furnish said report. This is just one of many instances of staff breaking the current implementation to establish a precedent to rewrite the code broken.

Tree of Heaven

This single species needs to be required removal city-wide.

Palms

You're banning all palms city-wide forever. The native Hooded Oriole sews its nests onto palm fronds. It's one of my favorite songbirds because of its bright yellow color, playful nature, beautiful singing and unique attraction to and sharing of the same nectar sources as hummingbirds–namely my year round flowering protected non-native 18' Cape Honeysuckle shrub.

Palms are crucial lookouts for Owls and Hawks and their skirts are the only effective bat habitats. These animals keep our city free of vermin at no cost to us. These aren't just cozy ideas. This is delicate infrastructure. This isn't just pie in the sky environmentalism. This is hard reality being ignored for dubious reasons out of greed, ignorance and irrational fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Palms are on postcards of Los Angeles all around the world. If maintained they aren't a fire hazard at all. Putting them on a restricted list because you've seen footage of them burning isn't making us safer, it's giving the appearance of making us safer while actually making us worse off.

In twenty years the kids living in the City of Trees will have to learn the majesty of the Canary Island Palm on their phones.

Fire

Trees removed for fire safety MUST BE REPLACED BY SIMILARLY SIGNIFICANT SPECIES. No significant trees are being put in the ground. Every single replacement tree that goes in the ground is a sub-tree or patio tree that stays or is kept well below the roof line. This is a complete and utter joke. It isn't safer and it isn't canopy forming. It's just the pathetic side effect of a failed urban forestry system run by people who don't care, can't care and won't care.

Shrubs and hillsides need to be discussed with actual facts. Councilmember Omari Ferguson has derailed the conversation for his own personal interests and Councilmember Michael Caccioti has completely excused himself from any kind of actual understanding of or involvement in our urban forestry system while liaison to NREC this entire time. There is no leadership and there has been no leadership throughout this entire process. Nobody on staff has any clue what they're doing and it is resulting in mass removals and mass permanent butchering. The canopy decline is being touted as THE SYSTEM WORKING AS INTENDED.

This has left Mayor Braun and Mayor Pro Tem Rossi to literally figure everything out in the eleventh hour with our city attorney and the couple of people from public works that have failed those who care about tree protections all along. The entire process has failed miserably. THE ENTIRE PROCESS HAS FAILED MISERABLY.

Replacement

Am I understanding correctly that replacements aren't triggered until DBH is over 16 inches? And despite these tree replacement numbers all permits processed this year thus far will be returning deposits for all but a single tree regardless of actual replacement quantities? So if they're required to plant only one and only 50% need to be planted on site–do they have to plant anything at all?

If the numbers to replace are lowered the 50% onsite means something very different. There's been no actual study of any of these numbers. It's just spitballing whatever will be the least burden to tree removers. Again, an oak sapling, the best size to plant for long term health, is 15.0

There's no concept of Urban Forestry anywhere in sight. A significant frontage tree needs to be replaced with a significant frontage tree of higher quality or there'll be absolutely nothing but junk trees being put in the ground in perpetuity.

Comments/Appeals

Councilmember Omari Ferguson should have applied for a permit to remove the shrubs on his hillside and his neighbors deserved to be notified and allowed to provide comment.

Again, here is a tool to get the addresses in the 100' radius instantly: ragt.ag/south-pasadena/trees/radius-map

I've tried to make it abundantly clear the need for an appeal process and the need for accountability and transparency but I've been institutionally gaslit all along the way at a level that beggars belief.

Now I have to write it all down. I've been so patient and given everyone involved such a benefit of the doubt. Now the people of the City of Trees will have a full documentation of what is actually happening inside of our urban forestry system and I promise you it is going to be ugly.

Legacy

You will be named as the council that legitimized the full scale corruption of our urban forestry system and officially oversaw the tipping point toward the end of the City of Trees as we know it. The Very High fire hazard zone of Southwest Monterey Hills will be a treeless and otherwise stubcut concrete ghetto in ten years time.

Where are the KPIs?

Angelo Gladding
1856 Hanscom Drive
Vice President, South Pasadena Beautiful