Special Update - Message from Mayor and CM About Promenade Tree Removal

 This episode addresses the recent removal of trees along the Promenade and the community response that followed. The discussion explains the safety concerns that led to the decision, the timing under which the action occurred, and the information the City relied upon. It also outlines the updated tree replacement plan, including new eucalyptus and oak plantings, and the steps being taken to restore and improve the space. For additional information, visit www.lagunabeachcity.net/promenade-project

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi there. My name is Dave Kiff. I'm the city manager here in Laguna Beach. I'm here with Mayor Mark Orville. We want to give you a community briefing very briefly about the tree issue with the promenade. We want to firstly um please go to our website and we'll put the link uh here on the on this video uh to learn more about a couple of different things. One was the thought process with the tree removals, the other the two arborist reports, those are both on there, and then thirdly is the soils report. We'd encourage you to read those because I think that's helpful information. But uh Mayor Orgel and I wanted to talk about kind of what's next for the promenade because I think there's really some important uh things to come regarding the trees that are coming in. So um we're gonna show you a couple pictures of the actual trees that will be brought in. Um you'll see some eucalyptus, lots of eucalyptus. You'll see the uh southern live oak, and um those should be in probably within about a month. They'll be on site as they prepare to plant those. And Mark, why don't you talk a little bit about how that planting goes and that why this is going to be different this time as opposed to the trees that had to be removed?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Sure. Um and but before I get into that, Dave, let me just uh remind folks that this was this decision really wasn't an option. Uh I don't think, in my view, that we had a choice to remove the trees that were um infected with fungus and had root damage, and they were eventually they were going to come down fall and and potentially injure somebody. And this has been a very difficult uh process and the conversation, and it's been difficult on all the council members and also city manager Kiff and all of the staff, everybody that's really been involved with the uh whole project and that's touched uh any of the decision-making process related to the uh removal of the trees on the promenade. So, as far as the planning goes, Dave, uh I think that that's one component that's been missing uh with the conversation. I understand that it's very upsetting just to have trees removed, period. But with that said, um we we had the original plan, and the original plan was to remove six trees. This is uh the approved planning commission plan, and we were going to replace a number of those trees. So a year over a year ago, the city did acquire a number of eucalyptus trees uh from a grower, and they've been growing and actually had to be put in a couple of larger boxes as they grow. So we wanted to get some uh get them to mature the the eucalyptus. So we had 10 in that cycle, and we had one oak. The oak that we got a year or so ago was it's a very large oak, it's in a 10-foot box, if you can imagine. So 120-inch box. So that's huge. I believe it's 28 feet tall. So then when we found out that we had to remove the trees that are there now and only leave two of the remaining trees, actually, two, three, four, five remaining trees, actually, um, we decided to go and work with uh SWA and see if we could locate some other mature species specimens that we have, so we were able to find three more uh oaks that are in the 10-foot box. And um, so I think that it once we show the folks and the community, you know, the impact of those trees and the size of those trees, along with all of the eucalyptus, both in the 45-inch box, 48-inch box, 24-inch box, and then there'll be some uh a couple, I think three maybe in a 15-gallon. But they're they're all substantial trees.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

And SWA was explaining that actually, even if you had a larger species of you of this type of eucalyptus, you'd want to install the ones that we have, the 48-inch box, because they're gonna do better in the long run. And some of the things that are gonna be helpful for the trees in the long run, and these are gonna be planted entirely differently than the trees that were removed, because the way those old trees were planted was part of their problem as to why they were in such declining health. For instance, they'll be uh under tree grates, which allows a lot more air to be uh to the root collar so that you're not uh burying the root collar. Uh, there'll be actually automatic watering so it gets the right level of fresh water at the right time. Um there'll be things that you can see them if you pure the fence, they're called solar, sorry, silva cells, which is a way of compacting the soil but not resulting in a compact soil. So you actually have um like ABS pipes that uh they're about two to two and a half feet long, and they uh then you fill in between the pipes with porous soil that the tree roots can then go through versus today when it's just stuck underneath a roadway. Uh, what are some of the other things that that are different about the planting? There'll be some soil treatments.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Soil treatments and what you had mentioned about the watering is important because the soil and the conditions as it sits today, there's a high level of salinity and it has had an effect on the existing trees. So the fresh water will will help that a lot, as well as the uh new soil conditioning that we're going to do. One of the things that we had happened on the old trees was the uh soil level went above the root collar, which um causes the uh root rot. The root rot, yeah. So that won't be um happening now because the trees will be uh planted at the the appropriate um uh elevation.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

So uh please look at our website. We're gonna upload uh an updated site plan that will show you where these trees will go along with more images of the trees. We obviously didn't prepare that yet because we didn't know these nine trees would come down. So that'll be on the website. Um, as always, thank you for watching. If you have any questions, um always feel free to ask, and we'll put our contact information here at the end.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

And I think on Tuesday night, if all works out well, Dave, we might have some um other images that will show you uh a night we'll we'll show a nice example of what the promenade would look like in its finished condition with the trees we just discussed.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Right. Uh that's a great point, uh, Mark. The there I did put this on the council's agenda for uh Tuesday night to allow the public and the council members to ask any questions of us as staff as to why we made this decision and also to talk about what's next for the promenade. Again, as the mayor noted, it was really heart, heart-wrenching for all of us. Uh, none of us wanted to be in this position, but when you have the evidence that we had about the tree failures, we're really obligated uh uh to act, to protect not just the workers there, but the people walking by outside the fence, and then ultimately the people who are going to use the promenade. You just can't have that level of unsafety present in a municipal government and a municipal space. So thanks again for watching. Thank you very much.