Tree City snafu

Earlier this month, the city of Oroville announced its recognition as a Tree City USA by the Arbor Day Foundation for the 34th consecutive year. Meanwhile in Chico, which would be celebrating its 30th year with the same designation, nobody had remembered to fill out the online application.

“An unfortunate side effect of the hits the city has taken in the last year is that we’ve lost a lot of institutional memory,” said Dan Efseaff, Chico’s parks and natural resources manager. “This is something that Denice [Britton, the city’s former urban-forest manager] would have had on her calendar and she’d have done like clockwork, but now we’re kind of picking up the pieces and figuring out what we’ve forgotten.”

The “hits” Efseaff referred to were last year’s mass layoffs of city employees, which in June included the axing of Chico’s four-employee tree crew. A month after the crew was cut, Britton resigned from her still-unfilled position, with the ensuing turmoil leaving the future of Chico’s urban forest uncertain.

In order to be named a Tree City, communities must meet four criteria outlined by the Arbor Day Foundation, which partners with the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters for the program: They must have a tree board or department; a tree ordinance; an annual budget allocation of $2 per resident; and an official Arbor Day celebration and proclamation.

Efseaff said he’s certain Chico still meets the requirements, and that the application is now moving forward, despite the fact that the city’s 2013-14 budget warned that cutting the tree crew could impact that status.

“This year is Chico’s 30th year as a Tree City USA,” the document reads. “The City has a rich heritage of planting and caring for its trees. So staff will continue to hunt for grants to plant trees. But we can expect that the reduced investment will mean a lapse in recognition as a Tree City.”

The application for Tree City recertification in 2014 was technically due to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s state urban forester by Dec. 31, 2013. Efseaff said the Arbor Day Foundation and that department are working with him to ensure the status won’t lapse.

“[T]he city has been in contact with us and is in the process of rectifying,” John Melvin, a state urban forester, confirmed via email.

Chico has a three-person Tree Committee—a subset of the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission—as well as a tree ordinance. Efseaff said plans to celebrate Arbor Day—observed the last Friday of April and this year falling on April 25—are in the works.

As for the budgetary component, the Arbor Day Foundation recognizes Chico’s population at 87,500. Efseaff said that, despite cuts, city spending on trees far surpasses the required $175,000.

“We spend a great deal more than that,” he explained. “The whole program, which includes some landscape maintenance but is mostly concerned with trees, is about three-quarters of a million dollars.”

Without a dedicated manager, Efseaff is the man most responsible for the health of Chico’s urban forest, which numbers more than 28,000 trees.

“Anytime you have fewer resources, it makes things more challenging, but we’re adjusting,” he said. “We have some staff doing the actual work and some staff managing contracts with tree contractors.”

Since cutting the tree crew, the city has contracted with two companies for most of the work: Placentia-based George Salinas Tree Care for removals, and local company Petersen Tree Care for emergency services. There are also three city employees—including certified arborist David Bettencourt—who do some general maintenance with assistance from workers in other departments.

“It’s not the same as having a tree crew that’s working day in and day out, but we do have some tree workers,” Efseaff said.

“We’ve managed to keep the largest emergencies from being a problem, but some people have expressed frustration [about lack of services],” he said. “For example, piles of branches are a lower priority when you don’t have the resources. Jobs like that, which might have taken us a day or two to get to in the past, could now take four weeks.”

Though a fledgling citizen tree program—in which residents could receive saplings and education on how to plant and care for them—was abandoned when Britton’s departure left no one to manage it, Efseaff said a project in which community organizations are responsible for certain city trees is being developed.

The city has also started to auction removal rights for trees with commercial value, such as black walnuts. Efseaff said two trees have been removed this way since last July, netting the city more than $20,000.

Chico remains committed to its canopy, he said, and to maintaining its Tree City USA status, describing the requirements as “pretty modest, common-sense criteria.”

“It’s an important program because it helps people recognize that a lot of work goes into maintaining the city’s urban forest,” he said.