City and County of San Francisco

DEpartment of the ENvironment

URBAN FORESTRY COUNCIL 

PLANNING & FUNDING COMMITTEE

 

REGULAR MEETING

APPROVED MINUTES

 

Thursday, June 17, 2010, 4:15 p.m.

 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:  Chris Buck (Chair), Maria D’Agostino, Naomi LeBeau, Terry Milne, Bonnie Ora Sherk

 

 

1.      Call to Order and Roll Call.  The Planning and Funding Committee convened at 4:17 p.m.  Present:  Chair Buck, Members D’Agostino and LeBeau; Excused:  Members Milne and Sherk. Council Coordinator Hui and Council Member Hillson were present for this meeting.

 

2.      Approval of Minutes of the May 20, 2010 Urban Forestry Council Planning and Funding Committee Regular Meeting. (Explanatory Document: May 20, 2010 Meeting Draft and Approved Minutes) Upon Motion by Council Member LeBeau and second by Chair Buck, the May 20, 2010 Meeting Minutes were approved as written (AYES:  Committee Members Buck, D’Agostino and LeBeau; Excused:  Committee Members Milne and Sherk) (Discussion and Action)

 

3.      Public Comment:  Members of the public may address the Committee on matters that are within the Committee’s jurisdiction and are not on today’s agenda.  There was no public comment at this time.

 

Item 7 was heard before Items 4-6.

 

4.      Review of the San Francisco Recreation & Park Department Draft Forestry Management Plan. Speaker: Karen Mauney Brodeck, Recreation and Park Department Planning. (Explanatory Document: Assessment of Urban Forestry Operations) (Presentation, Discussion and Possible Action)

 

Mr. Jim Clark, HortScience, Recreation and Park Department’s contractor who prepared an assessment of internal operations of the Recreation and Park Department’s forestry programming and recommendations on how to improve these operations presented on the Plan (see explanatory document above). He explained that Recreation and Park Department’s pruning cycles are currently 75-80% reactive and 20-25% planned maintenance operations. They want to move to a 50-50 program, since reducing the time between pruning cycles improves the health of a tree. Chair Buck and Member D’Agostino expressed support for the document.  Ms. Mauney Brodeck stated that she was pleased to work with the Council on this project and get their feedback.

 

Chair Buck will be providing a report to the full Council at their June 22 meeting.  Ms. Mauney Brodeck will be on hand to answer questions.

 

Public Comment:  Ms. Nancy Wuerfel stated that she wants to see a unified urban forest plan for the City and an end to "turf wars." She also talked about the need for a City-wide definition of "tree."  

 

5.      Review and Update the Annual Urban Forest Report Survey. Members will review and update the Annual Urban Forest Report Survey. (Explanatory Document:  Report Survey) (Discussion and Possible Action)

 

The Committee moved the Annual Urban Forest Report Survey to the Council for discussion and approval at their June 22 meeting as written. 

 

The meeting adjourned during this agenda item due to a loss of quorum.

 

Agenda Items 6, 8-10 were not heard due to a loss of quorum.

 

6.      Urban Forestry Council June 2 Strategic Planning Retreat Outcomes and Next Steps.  (Explanatory Document:  June 2, 2010 Draft Minutes and Member D’Agostino’s Retreat Notes) (Discussion and Possible Action)

 

Agenda Item 7 was heard before Agenda Items 4-6.

 

7.      Urban Forestry Council Budget Review and Planning. The Committee will discuss the currently allocated budget for 2010-2011 and make recommendations to the full Council. Speaker: Shawn Rosenmoss, Manager of Grants and Fundraising. (Discussion and Possible Action.)

 

Ms. Rosenmoss reported that funders generally fund actual “projects” and coordination efforts and operating support are difficult to fund.  In general Urban Forest funding that is available, is for tree planting.  The problem is that the Council isn't there to do projects like actually planting trees themselves. The Department is seeking funding for the Council Coordinator position through grants for specific projects related to the urban forest, though these projects will fund time working on these projects and may not fund time working on the Council.

 

Member D’Agostino stated that it is difficult to separate the Council Coordinator’s work with the Council and general projects since the work the Council does generally supports these projects, and these projects support Council objectives.  Chair Buck stated that since the Department actively sought the staffing role for the Council, the Department should work on securing the funding for this position and implied that perhaps it was a matter of priorities within the Department, since the Department could just allocate funding for the Council Coordinator position. Ms. Rosenmoss stated that one strategy is to tie urban forest issues to broader issues such as climate change, reducing runoff, etc and try to fund through those channels.  Member D’Agostino replied that the Council might not get the money.

 

Ms. Rosenmoss said that she had been working for the Department years ago when the Council was created and the Department had not actually advocated to be the coordinating entity but had been asked to oversee the Urban Forestry Coordinator role.  She explained that the department could not just allocate funds to the position since all of its funding is for very specific activities and projects. It was generally discussed that the Department had other income than the methods which currently funds Council activities. Ms. Rosenmoss replied that the Department is off the general fund, meaning it does not receive money from taxes. She reported that when the position was created it had been funded by the departments involved in forestry work, and that perhaps Council Members from those various departments could advocate within their departments to re-instate Urban Forestry funding.   Grant funding legally requires that the work the grant pays to have done is the work that's done with that money, such as energy efficiency, zero waste, or renewable energy, so the Department can not legally allocate funding from other income streams to Urban Forestry Council staffing.

 

Public Comment:  Ms. Nancy Wuerful stated that the Department has $7 million in impound account funds, which it could reallocate for Urban Forestry Council work and could also seek long-term funding through this stream.  Ms. Rosenmoss replied that that impound-funding is for zero waste or toxic abatement activities to keep toxics out of landfill.  Ms. Wuerfel responded that some of the impound-funding had currently been allocated for climate work.  Ms. Rosenmoss responded that made sense because waste is a contributor to global warming, methane from landfill is a green house gas, and our zero waste work is tied to mitigating methane. Ms. Wuerfel stated that trees do this work. Ms. Rosenmoss responded that trees do help mitigate climate change but are not directly related to Zero Waste and the Impound Account funds.

 

Discussion was tabled until after Agenda Item 4.

 

Agenda Items 8-10 were not heard due to a loss of quorum.

 

8.      Greening of Lots where Development is on Hold.  The Committee will discuss preparation of a Resolution making recommendations. (Continued from the May 20, 2010 Planning and Funding Committee Meeting and Urban Forestry Council May 28, 2010 Meeting) (Discussion and Possible Action)  This agenda item was not discussed at this time due to a loss of quorum.

 

9.      New Business/Future Agenda Items. (Discussion). This agenda item was not discussed at this time due to a loss of quorum.

 

10.  Public Comment:  Members of the public may address the Committee on matters that are within the Committee’s jurisdiction and are not on today’s agenda. This agenda item was not discussed at this time due to a loss of quorum.

 

11.  Adjournment.  The Policy Committee meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m. due to a lack of quorum.

 

Copies of explanatory documents are available to the public at the Department of Environment, 11 Grove Street, San Francisco, California between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., by clicking on the attachments with each meeting minutes posted online https://sites.google.com/a/sfenvironment.org/commission/urban-forestry-council/planning-funding-committee, or upon request to the Council Secretary at the address listed above, telephone number 415-355-3709, or via e-mail at [email protected].

Respectfully submitted by,

Council Coordinator Mei Ling Hui and Monica Fish, Council Secretary

(Notes by Council Coordinator Mei Ling Hui)

 

Approved:  July 15, 2010