Before the Tree Commission: 2nd & G Street Downtown

Davis’s 60 year old tradition come to an end

By Alan Hirsch, the Davis Lorax

Value seem to have changed: Tree Commission will likely be ended by City Council Tuesday

Tree advocacy & policy work will be subsumed into the Natural Resources Commission that will be renamed the “Climate and Environment Justice” commission.  (Seems pollution and consumption of natural resources out of style). 

The husk of the Tree Commission work will be retained in an ironically renamed “Tree Removal Commission.” per the staff memo summarizing one year of behind the scenes work by Josh Chapman and Bapu Vaitla.

This signals an historical shift in vaiues for Davis:  The 60 year old Commission is one of oldest in city. It was founded 1963 as the “street tree committee”. Davis was a leader in municipal arboriculture at the time and was one of the first “Tree Cities” designated by the National Arbor Day Foundation. The city passed on of  first Parking Lot Shade ordinance in the county (1979).  This in not surprising as Davis , located next to the foremost arboricultural research universities in the world.   LINK to tree history of  Davis  

However this move might also be seen as consistent with city management failure to enforce and update the Code section 37 Tree Protection Ordinance. It might also bode poorly for role of Trees in the proposed rewrite of the city general plan= the city planner failed to put enforceable promises about tree in the recently approve Downtown Plan despite much input form public, Tree Davis, and the Commission.

This move was a surprise to the Commission members, so seem not to have been surveyed. Deputy City manager Kelly Stachowicz  share this likely decision with Tree Commission for the first time on Friday at 5pm council.

The council  agenda item on this and elimination of two other commission will be heard 7:20 pm  or later:  Member of public can attend or call in their thought  (2 minute)   Tuesday between Noon and 4 Tuesday 530-757-5693. https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/CouncilMeetings/Agendas/2024/2024-01-30/05-Commissions-Subcommittee-Recommendations.pdf

Thoughts of the Lorax based on my attending 14 years of tree commissions meetings; 

1. It seems to me; elimination of the Tree Commission subverts Urban Forest Master Plan (UFMP) call for more community participation.
2. Bodes poor for Trees in the General Plan: We all can remember Trees were not including in the DT Plan other than with platitudes and unenforceable promises.
3. Reflects current Culture of city hall staff relative to citizen participation: Peter Drucker said: “Culture eat strategy for breakfast.”

UNPACKING

1. I have long though there needs to be a rethinking of commissions structure and specifically the  role of Tree Commission. See this article I wrote almost exactly a year ago:  Rethinking Our Failing Davis City Processes  How can we build more durable consensuses?
2. UFMP: How is elimination of the Tree Commission (TC) consistent with the $250K Urban Forest Master Plan (UFMP) we just completed?
3. Decrease Community Engagement with Tree. Most of us have thought city recommitment to urban forest involved more community involvement, not just adding one person to small staff of 5 managing over 30,000 trees.  We can learn from history about the  effect of the subsuming of tree Commission into the Natural Resource Commission. About 8 years back the  Bike Commission was combined with the Traffic, Parking and Street Safety Commission Is now BTSSC.  Bike  commissioner members were all enthusiastic ats time, but for the first 12 month this combined commission had not a single bike item on its agenda– staff control the agenda recall. The amount of attention to bike/active mode has dramatically declined from before the new combined commission. 
4. This reorganization likely signals diminished role of trees for the new General Plan rewrite. City Council did not put tree in the DT Plan building code despite many letters from many stakeholders. And council has failed to follow up on promise to remedy this in a separate DT tree plan. With elimination of Tree Commission this bodes poorly for anything more than unenforceable platitudes in a new General Plan.
5. How will UFMP be assured of implementation with ending of consistent  accountability & visibility . There are ~120 goals in UFMP to do over the next 40 years yet there is  no 3- or 5-year plan milestones -  so where is the mechanism for accountability the UFMP will ever be implement? We are now moving toward an “urban Forest czar” model like in most cities; their  actions are largely invisible to public only the city manager see it.  This relegates trees to feel god performative plantings. We need policies to grow and protect tree, not just plant them.
6. Good Intents won’t counterbalance lack of check and balance: Urban Forester Charlie Murphy has good intentions, but his action will  be invisible and beholding to city manager as tree stakeholders will no longer have a seat at the table — i.e. the UFMP will likely go the way of similar plan in cities like Woodland. Developments also will proceed without proper consideration of tree. The Sutter Hospital tree debacle was caused by City management short cutting public process.  just like city decision to allow removal 50 tree at Cannery (50 people show up at council one night to complain night). Expedient decisions on trees are made behind  closed door by  top city management who override the city arborist and wave fines when trees are cut illegally.  The decision like to lack of trees in DT plan and failure to enforce tree ordinance will go unnoticed without a Tree Commission who are consistently involved and charged with “speaking for the trees”.
7. Signals Participation and Expertise of Community Not Appreciated: Our city has a wealth of expertise on Tree as we are sight next to one of foremost arboricultural research institute in the world,  yet this has never been used by the city. And when It is, it is ignored:  A grad students have contract do to research paper on tree protection ordinance (2012) but this was ignored.   There have been hundreds of volunteer hour put in by the TC members – in three different attempts (2015 2017,2021) — to revise the tree ordinance- All were all ignored by top- city management and set to council  even for feedback.
8. Davis City Hall Culture override UFMP and Council City Tree Promises   Maybe this proposal is just making it official: the onoy consistent role I have seen for  Tree Commission only role  consistently used by city staff over my 15 year was as the   “Tree Removal Commission.”  This, ironically,  is the only husk of the now 60-year-old commission (founded 1963)  that is being retained. LINK to history: