Long Beach will reevaluate its tree-trimming policy to protect urban wildlife and nesting birds after a unanimous vote by the Long Beach City Council Tuesday.
Councilmember Roberto Uranga, who authored the item, said that the decision to reevaluate the policy came after trees in the Wrigley Greenbelt were “perhaps mistakenly brought down.” A review indicated that there may have been nesting birds in the area, he said.
Long Beach is home to a number of palm trees that serve as nesting areas to great blue herons and other birds.
“As we know we’ve had a lot of issues with trees in the past few years,” Uranga said. “Many of them have to do with the fact that some contractors have been negligent or have been very careless in how we treat trees and how they’re cut.”
Native birds are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act and California law. Under these regulations, it’s illegal to harm native birds, their chicks or active nests.
The council requests the city manager to consider inspections by a trained wildlife biologist when trimming or removing City trees—particularly those that have evidence of an active bird nest.
The City currently allows the removal of a street tree if it is dead, dying, diseased, uprooted, damaged, in danger of falling, or where tree root-damaged sidewalks and curbing cannot otherwise be corrected, according to the agenda item.
The item also suggests a proactive approach to tree-trimming, where trees would be evaluated for wildlife before they’re scheduled for trimming or removal.
“We have a responsibility to take care of our tree canopy. It doesn’t take care of itself,” Vice Mayor Rex Richardson said. “It requires investment and it requires care.”
Interesting, and disingenuous, that this came from Councilmember Uranga. He says about the willful destruction of mature trees “perhaps mistakenly brought down”. There was no mistake. I personally warned the Department of Public Works, and Mr. Uranga’s office, that they were in violation of the Department of Parks Recreation and Marine tree trimming policy. Nevertheless Eric Lopez, Public Works Director, repeatedly, consistently, and erroneously claimed the policy I cited was only applicable to the coastal zone and called it the Tidelands Tree Trimming Policy. He never responded to repeated requests for proof that the policy included geographic limitations.
As late as May 7th update to the Wrigley Greenbelt project the Public Works website claims “The Tidelands Tree Trimming Policy which limits tree work from September 1 to January 15 does not apply to the Wrigley Greenbelt Project, as it only applies to trees within the coastal area.” By the way, the dates are transposed, they are January to September.
As for Mr. Uranga’s office, they continually blocked attempts to get the documents required to do our job of protecting the habitat.
This is so typical of the Urangas, yet they keep getting elected. Why?