by Alan Hirsch aka the Davis Lorax  Alan@davislorax.org

I hope people can help save Sutter trees by signing the change.org petition to support the appeal…and passing the petition  on to your friends with a note: http://chng.it/mft8fNRGmF

This is the story in 7 bullet points:

•  205 trees to be cut at Sutter Hospital unless the Davis City Council affirms a citizen appeal.
• Hospital "saves on solar” by cutting trees instead of putting solar on roof, the empty lot north of the hospital, or the treeless parking lots north of clinic.
• City OKed Phase I of the Plan in 2019 without notifying the community.
• City claims tree cutting will “improve the neighborhood character.”
• Ignores science showing healing nature of a tree-filled environment.
• City illegally issued permit when it bypassed Tree Commission.
• Sutter may already be killing the trees now by stopping watering.

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Petition:

Save Sutter Davis Trees – End the Tree Removal Loophole

1. Save Sutter Trees: There is an plan to  clear cut 205 mature trees in the main parking lot of Sutter Hospital in West Davis and erect steel columns for solar panels.  This approach ignores the positive healing effects of trees. If instead Sutter put the panels on roofs, in remote or back parking lots, or in the empty field immediately behind the hospital, very few mature trees would need be removed.
   We can stop the Sutter project only with an appeal to the Davis City Council and should ask them why city staff acted quietly OK'ed the cutting of this small forest of trees with token notice to public at large or even the Tree Commission. 
2. Close the Tree Removal Loophole for Developers & Landlords. Davis city  staff can and does legally OK removal of protected trees at commercial site with no oversight. Contrast that with city process if a homeowner wants to remove a  protected street tree in their front yard – they have a public notice posted in their front yard and then attend a hearing before the Tree Commission. WHY IS  IT OK for city staff to OK removal of a single tree, much less a forest of legal protected trees like at Sutter, without any review?  Unlike the homeowner, the developers voluntarily agree to plant and maintain and/or preserve trees as a legally enforceable initial condition of development. But then it seems this condition can be undone quietly by city staff with no review or notice after the fact. 
3. End Commercial & Apartment Complex Tree Abuse: Landlords can kill legally protected trees through neglect with no consequences. This is just a slow motion plan to remove them.  Change the law to fix this situation which the city has neglected for decades – with particular impact to low income dwellers of apartments.