Ojai City Council Special Meeting

public comment here, please, Larry Stangold. And this is about the closed session, correct? Yes. Thank you.

Good evening. I truly hope that you've all had a nice month. I've been gone, left you alone. But thank you. I truly hope that our attorneys can win all the lawsuits and can lessen as many of the payments if we don't, because that's their goal. All right, to win, not to lose, but to lessen our losses. Many of these lawsuits are self-inflicted. I would hope that our city council and city management review the processes and the people and how most of these all came about.

I realize the attorney's job is to protect the city and you, which means us, from litigation and from problems caused by outsiders and or insiders, but the self-inflicted ones are the most egregious. Regarding Ojai Avenue, it would seem to me that the process is either broken, confused, what have you, that this shouldn't happen. And regarding directors' exemptions, I would hope that From now on, all directors' exemptions are reviewed by city management, employees, maybe a city councilor somehow, and planning prior to being approved because there are downstream consequences for doing a good deed, making things easier.

Somebody wants to change the paint color, sure, go right ahead. Somebody wants to do this, sure, go right ahead. I understand the need for director's exemptions. However, because of this latest kerfuffle, I'm putting it mildly, we need to do something to prevent this happening in the future. And there are times when you can do this. And as our leaders, I would hope you do, because this can create all sorts of problems, as we are now seeing, because this expense could just get really bad.

And I hope you can come to a successful conclusion. But it's the self-inflicted litigation problems that concern me. I mean, is it the process? Is it words being said? Is it wrong decisions? Accidents happen. Mistakes can be avoided. So please endeavor to lessen the burden, because all this money going to legal fees, no disrespect to our city attorney. I'd rather see it in road services, OT, 10-town, whatever, but anything but legal. And again, that's how you make your living, but not this time.

So, thank you.

Thank you. Anybody online? No, Mayor. No raised hands for participation. All right. We will adjourn to the closed session. Thank you.

One moment, Mayor. Yep. Let's get back online. Okay. Ready.

All right, so coming out of closed session, for the first closed session item related to the zoning clearance or exposure to litigation regarding the zoning clearance for a project located at 242 East Ojai Avenue, provided an update to Council regarding this matter. No direction was given or action taken in the closed session, but the update that Council would like shared is that Thank you very much.

We received direction from City Council to work with legal counsel for the 22 intervening local government agencies involved in the Vasquez-Perdomo v. Nome litigation and to participate where possible in this litigation after consultation with That legal team, they are representing the cities that are involved in that case on a pro bono basis, so any city involvement would also be pro bono by them. And just as information, this case is currently pending in the Federal District Court and is related to immigration and customs enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol activity in Southern and South Central California.

And the city's involvement would likely be limited to participation on amicus curiae briefs and filing declarations related to the matters involved in the case. That's it.

Thank you. OK, we're going to move right on to the workshop now. And something that you might have noticed in the agenda is that on special sessions like this, we don't have a public comment period on general items. However, I'm going to read through what we're going to be doing here tonight. And there'll be a chance for the audience to participate in every single one of these sections. So there are ample opportunities to talk about the issue at hand, but we won't have a general public comment section. So let me talk about what we're doing here tonight and the intention.

The goals of this workshop, this came from the Council receiving an edited version of the ordinance, which was elaborate, and there was a lot to go over and talk about, and we decided a workshop like this would be better, to hear other voices, to look over it in some detail, have an ample opportunity for public comment. So that's the intention, that's what we're doing here tonight, is we're not making any decisions tonight.

We're going to take everyone's feedback, bring that into the document to come back to the Council with something that is succinct and clear, and that further, this is a chance for experts to talk to each other, and I find that to be a really valuable opportunity where a question can get brought up, we can hear from each person, different points of view, they can ask each other's questions, and we get to learn from that. So the goals for the event would be to receive feedback, as I said, to draft a coherent tree ordinance that the council would then review at a future date, hopefully that soon, to create a clear fact sheet for residents and professionals, to create a landing page on the city website that is with clear information. And as I said, we're just receiving input tonight and not making any decisions.

And then again, let's talk about What the form of this conversation will be and that is we have six general items there should be in your packet there. We're going to talk about each of those items in turn. So within each section, there'll be a couple of questions. I'll just kick it off, but hopefully the people are talking about their own pieces. Oh, thanks. Oh, wow. Cool.

And then after we exhaust that part of the conversation on that section, I will go to the Council, and I would ask the Council to come up to the podium here with any questions for our panelists. And that will include Councilmember Lang, who's remote here. And then there's a chance for the audience to come, and we want to have more ample time than we usually have, so we'll put five minutes on the timer for the Council and the audience. We won't use cards this time. I'd like to try that out, if that's okay. So, when we're on a section and you have a question, I'm just going to ask you guys to give each other the right of way, come up, and speak on that question.

If you have a question about a future item, I mean a future in our order, talk then too, right? So you don't have to say everything you want to say at once. We can just focus on section by section. So I hope that's clear for everybody. Almost, almost. Now, I just want to say, I'm going to let you read the biographies in detail, just to say we have Ian Anderson from Southern California, Edison. Mark Crane is a certified arborist, longtime Santa Barbara, Ventura County area. We have Jan Scow right here, also longtime contributor here and worked on the street ordinance. And we have Scott von Tompkinson from Pax Environmental. Thank you for your time in helping us come up with this thing. I want to clap for these guys, they're like dedicating their time to us.

All right. Thank you. Thanks. Sorry to force enthusiasm here. So let me, let's start with this. Now, I've tried to read everything very, very carefully. We have Lucas, Mr. Seibert over there that we can ask factual questions of, which might come up. And so talking about some of the first goals. So in general, we have this idea about Basically processes and triggers. So based on the current code, what constitutes a mature tree?

And that's one of the conversations that we want to have is, what do we mean by a mature tree? What do we want to propose to be changed? So feel free, anybody wants to talk, go ahead and then be succinct if you can, and then we'll make space for each other.

The microphone works? Yes. Wonderful. Thanks. So I'm a little late to the game because I've only been here since 2018. I did see an ordinance prior to the current ordinance that had a section about mature trees and it defined them as 12 inches in diameter. That's not in the current ordinance? It looks, from reading this red line that I did not entirely create, that that's back in there. So a mature tree, if it was going by that old definition, would be 12-inch diameter.

I'm not sure if it's on private land or just public land.

Is that something that, is everybody comfortable with that as a designation, a 12-inch diameter means a mature tree? And it's at, if I understood correctly, it's at four and a half feet from the ground. Is that the general agreed upon? Let's hear it. Mark, yeah, use your microphone, please.

Okay. You got me now? Okay. Well, you know, I mean, you could argue that one. You could say 8 inches at DBH, you know, for 5.5 feet is a mature tree. I mean, it just, it depends on the Thank you for joining us. underneath a bunch of other trees, and it grows much slower. And it could have been there for 20, 30 years and finally got to be a 12-inch diameter tree. So as a tree that's been there for 20, 30 years, that's, you know, only that big. It's not a mature tree, you know. So it's, you know, kind of something to be discussed.

Right. And I would point out as well that the designation of mature tree is not the same as protected tree. It's not does not apply to oaks and sycamores as the current ordinance.

Right.

Yeah.

So just let's clarify that. So let's say you have some project and you're going to remove mature trees that are not protected. You need not reply. You need not respond in the same way by replanting other the same species.

None of that's in the

ordinance. These definition sections, the purpose of them is to define something that may be contradictory or unclear. It's just like the definition of a tree. What is a tree exactly versus a shrub? So, this is something that a lot of municipalities have taken on. As soon as you get down to Santa Monica Mountains, you know, a toyon is a tree. But up here, we wouldn't call a toyon a tree. We'd call it a shrub. So, that's what's so important about those definition sections, just making sure that everyone's literally speaking the same language.

I hear what you're

saying. So, if we were to say, we're going to call a mature tree some diameter versus an age or something like that, I see the simplicity of that. I see the difficulties you're bringing up. It may be too daunting to try to think of all the possibilities, but is there some easy way that we could expand that so that it captures more instances? So,

the other thing I would note is that in the red line, which I'm looking at, the definition of mature tree, basically it's determined by the City Council, so it has to be appointed as a mature tree. And it does have a 12-inch diameter listed here.

Understood. I mean, if that comes into the one that comes before us, is that reasonable from your perspective? Okay. Reasonable enough. Okay. Mr. Seibert's taking notes, too, to make sure we get everything. Yeah, can I

just, I just wanted to clarify something. And not to, not to be contradictory to what Janet just said, in the existing ordinance, it does have a definition for mature tree, which is consistent with what the proposed concept ordinance that went forward a few months ago identifies. So it is that 12 inch in diameter is measured four and a half feet above the root crown.

So there's a definition of a mature tree in the existing ordinance. Mature trees are not protected, however, in the existing ordinance. So one would wonder, why is there a definition?

Excellent question.

No, maybe that was the thing for the clarification. That's the point you're trying to make is mature and protected is what we're actually more interested in than mature and unprotected. Okay. No, that's good. Okay. That's cool. And if I, let me move on then to say, what trees are listed as heritage protected? There's three at the moment, I believe, right? We have our two oaks and our sycamore.

We have the possibility of more, but we don't have them listed at present. Should any be listed from your guys's perspective?

City Council, it's up to you

guys. But I'm asking you because you guys are the experts. We want to ask you your opinion.

Yeah, there should be other native trees, you know, the black poplar, which there's very few of those left, mature black poplars are native trees here. You know, there's native willows. There's, you know, there's other natives that you could, you know, there are more trees that grow in wetter areas along the creeks. areas like that. But you know, there would be riparian trees, you know, so to have just those three, those are really the three that we most commonly come across anymore, because there's not a lot of those black poplars left.

But the designation you're talking about is appointed by the City Council. It's not species dependent. I hear what you're saying. So the City Council can appoint, decide, somebody can nominate any tree in Ojai. The City Council can decide if it's a, you know, now it's a magically heritage protected tree. It doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with species at all.

Well, I hear what you're saying. What I'm hoping is that a council, this one or any future one, would not willy-nilly do it, but do ones that make sense for this location.

There should be many, many more. A list of maybe a hundred trees.

Well, then I have

a request. Well, Scott, weigh in. Yeah, I mean, many municipalities and jurisdictions define heritage tree based on size. Ojai does not. It is not dependent on size, not dependent on species. For example, in Ventura County, you know, as soon as you hit 90 inch circumference, which comes out to something like 29.6 inch diameter at breast height, so standard height is four and a half feet to measure a tree.

Anything over 29 inches is a heritage tree. So by that definition we should have hundreds if not thousands within the valley that have a much higher level of protection than is currently afforded.

So here's my request, I guess. Because I'm also looking at our, we had our own tree survey from our public works department that I have in front of me that I'm looking at. I'm looking at which trees come up the most in our survey. But I guess I would ask you to submit a list of trees that you think should be included in that and send them to Lucas. And we can look at that then, and as a council. Now, something reasonable, you know, I mean, that we could then respond to, because that's what I'm asking, is what makes sense.

So the easiest way to do that, I mean, in my opinion, the most important tree here is valley oaks. They're the biggest, they're native, they're rapidly disappearing. So if we were to put something in the ordinance that said any valley oak that's greater than some certain diameter is automatically protected or becomes a heritage tree, that would be a simple way to do it. I don't think any of us are gonna go around And find 100 or 200 trees and say, this one should be, and give you a list.

I was meaning, I wasn't meaning just size, I was meaning species, though, what Mark was saying. I'm asking for species. And again, we might not, we, I would want to come back to you and say, hey, if there's 100 species here, is it reasonable to have that as a city, some compromise? But that's, I feel like that's a conversation that we should be having, if you agree.

Yeah, I do agree. And the one thing like Jam was saying about the Corkis lobata, white oak, valley oak, you know, common names, those are pretty much an endangered tree if you look around the valley, because they grow in the valley where they build and develop. And they love the deep soil. And they are also known as mush oaks by the old timers. Because they don't compartmentalize decay like the red oak or white oak.

And therefore, they need to be maintained more, you know, cabling, proper pruning. And, you know, just because they lose a branch doesn't mean the tree is falling apart and dying. It means that it has to be maintained. And they need more maintenance. Thank you.

Yeah. And speaking to your question on, you know, tree diversity, we don't have a particularly diverse tree suite that's native to this region. Compared to, you know, somewhere in the east where you have dozens and dozens of species of large trees, you know, we have a very limited suite of large trees here. And as Mark mentioned, you know, a lot of them are riparian species. Those riparian species are afforded other legal protections.

Just by way of being in a riparian corridor, there are other protections afforded. One species that currently is not addressed is the Southern California black walnut that has a California rare plant ranking of 4.2. It's considered a species of limited distribution. And this is one of the last real strongholds for that species. If you drive out towards Oak View, you see all those beautiful black walnuts.

And then if you drive up towards Santa Paula, one of the largest extant stands of black walnut left on the planet. So this is one species that I would love to see added to the list. We don't see a lot of it in the valley, but it is present. That's news to me,

so I'm glad we're here. I mean, I'm glad that I'm getting this information and that we are all getting it. No thanks for that. Ian, I'm just going to let you, I know you have something specific, but jump in whenever you want to and feel free if you have something to say.

Well, I suppose what I would say is as it relates to the classifications of trees within the city by ordinance, whether they be mature or protected, I think it's important to make a point as to the way that SCE approaches veg management in our cities, in Ojai as well as others. And that is our motivation stems from two places. The first and foremost is safety, and then second is affordability.

So, we are a regulated utility, which means we follow regulations set forth by the California Public Utilities Commission. And those regulations prioritize human safety and the amelioration, the mitigation of the potential that our lines can spark a wildfire or cause damage or harm. And so when our arborists are out in the community and when they're making decisions about how much of a tree to trim or whether to trim, they are making those decisions based on the likelihood that that tree will interfere with a line, which creates a safety issue.

And the frequency within which we make those decisions, the schedule within which we do veg management, that's an annual schedule, And I suppose what I'd say is, safety is the reason we do veg management, and affordability is the reason we try to bring efficiency to our veg management program. Because rate payers, like yourselves, are the ones who ultimately pay for our veg management. And so the more often we trim trees, the more our rate payers are paying, right, for that service. And so first consideration is safety. Is a tree going to interfere with a line? Is that going to create an unsafe condition?

Second would be affordability, which is to say how much should we be scaling that tree back or how much should we be trimming that tree? Such that we're not revisiting that same tree over and over and over again in a very short frequency of time, which is very expensive for our rate payers.

So this conversation that we're having right now about mature or protected, how would that affect what you just said? It wouldn't. Okay. Okay. I don't believe that it would. All right. No, thanks. No, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah,

please. Okay, one thing, I've worked with Edison over the years and, you know, they've got a tough job trying to maintain the trees and also keep people happy. And sometimes I've been called in and they back off and we'll do the reduction on the tree because, you know, they're there to get their maximum bang out of what they're doing. Yeah. You know, it makes sense, you know, that they need and they're looking at safety and that's, you know, but, you know, there are trees out there that get pruned by Edison, unfortunately, that gets unscalded really bad, because they take out critical canopy.

And had there been a little bit more insight in those situations, we're talking about mature Coast Live Oaks, Gorgas Lobata, and when they get burned, what happens is saprod fungus start to get in there, and potentially, and they start losing large limbs over the years, because it's like their skin, it can't heal, especially if they're older trees. So I think that they're in a tough spot, but I think we can always, all of us can do better in caring for the trees.

Just to say, so we're going to have a section just on this in just a second, because we do want to talk about it, and that's why Ian primarily is here. No thanks for that. So let me switch gears just a little. A couple more questions on process and triggers, and then I want to hear from the Council and the audience. So this is a general question. What's the state of our canopy and what needs to be addressed? Anything that you're seeing on our overall canopy that you see in decline? Is it thriving? Why do we need to look at that?

I see a lot of big old trees falling down and or dying. So my concern is that the The really amazing trees are going away and they're not necessarily being replaced. So I think our canopy cover, well I don't think, I know our canopy cover is dwindling.

And they're falling because of age or neglect or what?

To

speak on what Jan was just saying, you know a lot of these old trees and canopy cover are disappearing and I actually saw Jan several weeks ago, maybe several months now, time goes so fast. There was a large corcus lobata being removed. I'm talking about a 400-year-old tree. And I went down there to see what was going on. I was up at the park with my grandkids.

And as a citizen, I wasn't there and I didn't have any tree gear on or anything like that. And they had a branch fail. And the young people that were renting the place, the owner, had gotten a report to condemn this 400-year-old tree. And I never did see that report. All I saw was one sentence. So I called the press, news press, and they came out.

This was on Park Road?

Yeah. And they shut it down, but they already ruined the tree. Okay. So what he said was the tree was unbalanced in like half a sentence, the most ridiculous statement. And those are the trees that need cabling. They're the mush oaks, but they're beautiful and they can be taken care of with proper insight. But it didn't happen, and then the tree was removed completely because of this thing that happened.

And like Jan was just saying, so yes, that's been happening. And we're losing a lot. There's huge canopies.

If I could actually jump in. Despite the fact that I'm not a tree expert, I did just spend some time with some tree experts in preparation for this very talk. And my understanding of tree balance is that you're really talking about two different considerations. You're talking about the aesthetic consideration of it being out of balance, right? One limb is missing, there's limbs on this side, there aren't limbs on this side. But then there's the physical health of the tree with regard to whether it is out of balance or not physically in terms of its health. And my understanding is that simply because a limb would be removed from a tree wouldn't necessarily mean that a tree itself would be out of balance in terms of its health.

So yeah, there's some truth to that. So the biggest concern most people express, which is not generally true, is that if you cut off a big limb on this side, the tree's imbalanced and it's going to fall over on the other side. And that's just not true. There are rare occasions where that's true, but in general it's not. And balance, I think when you're talking about health, you're maybe really talking about safety, because the health of the tree is not related to balance.

We have reached the limits of my knowledge as it relates to... No,

thanks, thanks. Anything you want to contribute? When you see a tree, you have to account for all the conditions. When you just prima facie look at a tree and you see it leaning to one side, You have to analyze, you know, the tree's capacity to mitigate that lean. Trees will create reaction wood. They will buttress themselves. So just because a tree may appear unbalanced at first, that's why it's important to have a certified arborist come and make sure that that determination is correct. Okay.

Right, and balance isn't the same thing as lean either. So, leaning trees are a little bit different.

One of the real common things you'll hear is, well, the tree looks so healthy and it fell over. You know, you hear that. And in our malaria, you know, we'll get into a tree, it's oak root fungus. And that's one of, it's the main one that will topple the oaks. But there are others. But That can happen, and there's two root systems. There's the ones that have the protoplasm, the smaller fleeter roots, the simplastic, and the apoplastic, the larger roots. And those are the ones that have all the carbon, and those are the woodier roots, and the anchoring roots. And that's what the fungus go after the most, because that's the bang for the buck. They're going after the carbon.

You can still see a tree that looks, oh, it looks so healthy, and then it fell over, but you need to do a root crown assessment and root inspection.

So, I'm assuming that a trained person would know how to mitigate that problem, even if it wasn't obvious to the layperson. They see it and say the tree looks healthy. The expert person knows that they're being attacked by some microbe. It's

not always at all obvious though. I've seen big healthy trees fall over that roots were completely decayed and it was a perfect beautiful tree a week ago. So it's not always, but yes, an expert would be more able to detect a potential problem. That's a rabbit hole we don't want to go down.

But one thing also to remember is I heard somebody say, I think it was this man over here, he was asking a question earlier about, you mentioned a cavity in the tree, right? And so trees have cavities, you know, sycamores have giant cavities and they're viable trees, you know. We have a guy named Klaus Mathek who wrote a book. He's a German biomechanist on the body language of trees.

And they can be hollow in the center up to like 70 to 80 percent depending on species and lean and variables and like a pipe on end, you know. What constitutes the removal of a tree or a limb? What's the dangerous threshold that we feel like we

would need to act? Because I'm assuming we try to intervene first. Well, no, yes, of course, fear. But what's the reasonable response or the reasonable way to mitigate, let's say, fear with something that is not astronomically expensive, but reasonably spent?

So, you know, fear is a driving factor. When the neighbor's tree falls over suddenly, you're afraid your tree's going to fall over, too. But safety is the driving issue and if a tree, so a tree expert can determine to a large extent if a tree is really safe or not, relatively safe. No such thing as a safe tree. They all fall down eventually. And the only way to make trees safe completely is to remove them, which we don't really want to do. But yes, there are removing a tree because it's dangerous. Usually there's other measures that can be taken to not remove the tree and make it safer, which I know Mark will back me upon that.

Well, I mean, you're really getting to the heart of it, it seems to me, by saying that. You could say, there's no 100% safe tree. There's always some risk. Everybody gets that. But then you would want to say, what is the right kind of intervention for a tree that some might say are dangerous? Then you say, what's the effort? Does that make sense? And at what point do you say, it's actually not worth the effort? Because there seems to sometimes be disagreeing opinions among experts about what's worth saving. Always. Okay.

Yeah, there always are. And there was a man, Alex Shigo, in our industry. And I met him like 35 years ago. I had the pleasure of meeting him. In Arizona, Alex Shigo. Yeah. And anyway, he traveled the world. dissecting trees, you know, doing forensics on trees. And he brought a lot to our industry as far as knowledge goes. And I remember at a seminar in Arizona, Alex was there.

And we were young. So we're all pretty hungover. We're trying to pay attention. We're dozing off a bit. But anyway, at the lunchtime, he had met a climber and the climber had introduced himself. And he said, What do you do? He's on just a climber. And Alex addressed the whole audience, and he said, I want you to know that the climbers are the most important people in there, because they're touching the trees, okay? They're the ones up in the canopy. And so, you know, I'm a hands-on arborist. I have been for years. I climbed for many years, and I have four arborists in my company. I've had others come and go and go off on their own. That's what I like to do is teach.

And, you know, it's important that you're always learning. But if you don't continue to get knowledge and information about it, especially a big 400-year-old tree, a protected heritage tree, if you just bring in Joe Schmoe and Joe Blow, then I think that's just not appropriate. There needs to be a deep dive here because there are a lot of intelligent people in the industry out there.

And everybody has a little bit. You can't go to everybody, so we have to be realistic here, okay?

Well, let me press you a little. I mean, I want to get into that because that tree on Park, right, that you were talking about, some brought up the question, well, if you're going to have a heritage tree and it's going to be removed, might you have a protocol where you have more than one arborist report? Well, that's an idea we can explore. But then it seems to me you're suggesting another thing, which is, You could possibly get any arborist to come and sign anything you would like, possibly. So then you have to decide, though, how do you decide quality?

So you have to look at somebody's credentials and their experience, and then you can't really judge their ethics. But I've known arborists who would do whatever somebody wanted them to do. I need this tree removed. Can you get it removed? And they would write a thing that says this is hazardous when it was not hazardous. It gets removed, and then the second half of that is that the city needs to have a qualified person who can make a judgment call in those cases and say, wait a minute, this doesn't look right. Why are we going to remove this?

So you're proposing there's a city person that looks at the arborist evaluations?

Well, somebody that is qualified, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Jan is spot on because, you know, like in Santa Barbara, we had a guy named Dan Condon years ago. And he was from Michigan. And Dan was there for many years and brought the industry up in Santa Barbara. But he was told he needed to be in the office more. And he said, see you later. I'm done. Because he wanted to be out there in the field. And so having someone like a Dan Condon Somebody on staff, I know it's cost prohibitive maybe here, but you can bring somebody in to go out and look. Jan's done a great job. Somebody just is unbiased, they don't have a tree company, and they don't have skin in the game as far as what happens to the tree. They're coming in, they're unbiased, and they're going to look at it. And that's important to have that after you have a couple arborist reports.

You know, someone's got to put eyes on, boots on the ground. You got to get out there and look at it and see what's going on. Because there could be something being sold, a bill of goods here, even with two arborists. I've seen it.

I'm just trying to figure out, and maybe this will come through some conversation or drafting an ordinance, but how do we put that into a procedure that makes sense that we can do every time? In some way, that's expedient, right?

Yeah, go ahead. So what a lot of municipalities will do is they will require a certain certificate when you're assessing risk. Tree risk assessment is a very controversial and nuanced aspect of arboriculture. There is a rubric, which is pretty standardized, and it basically goes into probabilities of a target being hit. A target being your child, your car, your house. anything that, you know, humans value.

That's when a tree is risky when when when someone's determined that the probability is beyond a threshold that the owner thinks is safe, or reasonable. So there is the tree risk assessment qualification provided by ISA, the International Society of Arboriculture, and that vets people in their ability to assess tree risk.

Okay. Before I go past it, I did look at the tree canopy and I looked at the current inventory and it looks like I did look at a number going back to the subject. In 2006, we had an inventory of 3,158 trees. So I didn't know if, actually, and I'm looking at Wendy now. Now, I'm not trying to say, we're doing great, no problem, but somehow there's more trees in our inventory than there used

to be.

So there's

a reason for that. There's a lot of possible reasons. One reason is a different company did the inventory, and they did a more thorough inventory, and that's very likely. Another reason is the first inventory included trees eight inches or bigger. The second one included all trees. There's a whole bunch of other reasons. That doesn't mean anything.

Well, I'm seeing Lindy shake her head. I guess what I mean is without analyzing the data, both sides, we're all just speculating. But I guess it's interesting for me to see those numbers. That's all. But not to say. The general feeling that some have, especially in some neighborhoods, is they would love to see it increase. That's a general feeling.

There's certainly areas throughout the valley that could stand more trees. When we're talking about canopy cover, I think thinking about the time period is important. So what's our baseline? Are we thinking, is there more trees now than 1900, 1800, 1500, 1200? It depends what we're looking at as to where's our baseline. After the Spanish came through and dramatically changed our landscape through grazing practices and introductions of invasive species, the reliance on coal, charcoal, which was derived from our oaks. For example, Isla Vista was at one point a huge oak grove. And the whaling industry came along, and the whaling industry required that charcoal in order to render the whale blubber into lamp fuel for European consumers.

There was a famous explorer, I can't remember his name, but he One of his quotes is that he could ride from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara and not see the light of day for all the oak leaves. So there's an argument that there could have been a lot more trees prior to Spanish influence. There's certainly more trees in the valley now than in the 1800s.

Okay. No, I see your point though. In other words, even if we want to take this as the current baseline now, that's fine with me to say, okay, let's have this be the launching point.

And remember, too, that number of trees does not equate to canopy cover. We could have planted 5,000 trees that are this big, and they don't do anything for canopy

cover. No, thanks. I appreciate that. Last question on this section. This is kind of a... It's basically the current fee schedule and the replacement requirements. Those are in this document to be edited. Is there anything that we need to change or want to change about that? And, Lucas, I'm looking to you as well. Anything we need to change there, or do we feel like that part is working okay?

Anybody.

So I think that we need to do a lot more strict requirements on mitigation. I think we need to require planting trees or giving money to the city's tree fund any time a tree is removed, regardless of why. If it's removed because it's hazardous, it still needs to be replaced. And there's going to be a lot of blowback from homeowners and stuff who don't want to pay for that, but there's ways around that.

That's a complicated thing for you guys to figure out.

Yeah, I was just thinking about that on the way over here, kind of brainstorming, you know. And I was thinking, like, it'd be kind of cool to have a non-profit where you prune trees for people that don't have the financial wherewithal, you know, to take care of them.

Well, maybe there's a, well, you're bringing up an idea, which is, it's something that the city could potentially help with, right? Help fund a non-profit. Okay, got it.

I don't see our current mitigation having any

effect.

Zero effect. We need to actually enforce the ordinance. You can have the best ordinance on the planet, but if it's not enforced properly, it does nothing except make people discouraged from doing any tree care at all because the cost to buy in is too high.