Please, attend one of these 6 PARD Urban Forestry open houses from Saturday July 27th to Tuesday July 30th, to provide your feedback on “what should be done for trees and vegetation in public spaces” as feedback for the Austin Urban Forest Management Plan that is being written by PARD Forestry with approval from the Urban Forest board. You only need to spend 10-15 minutes to provide your feedback. You can arrive and leave any time between the allotted times, at any of these opportunities. If you cannot attend, please email your comments by next Tuesday to [email protected]. Saturday July 27th, 2013 · 9:00 am – 1:00 pm Sunset Valley Farmers Market, Toney Burger Center, 3200 Jones Rd. · 9:00 am – 1:00 pm Downtown Farmer’s Market, Republic Square Park, 400 West Guadalupe Street. Sunday July 28th, 2013 · 10:00 am – 12:00 pm Mueller Farmers Market, Browning Hangar, 4550 Mueller Blvd. Monday July 29th, 2013 · 7:00 am – 10:00 am Northwest Austin Recreation Center, 2913 Northland Dr., Austin, TX 78757. · 5:00‐7:00 pm Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail, Under the Mopac Bridge. Tuesday July 30th, 2013 · 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm Ruiz Library, 1600 Grove Blvd Austin, TX 78741. There will be a more in depth community workshop in August 13th for 1-2 representatives from groups selected by Forestry. Please, contact [email protected] if you would like to attend. In this workshop, participants will be given stickers to rate the Policy Element they support the most so that Forestry can determine which one to do “if the City could do only one.” LACK OF ADEQUATE COMMUNITY NOTIFICATION, EXCEPT TO SELECTED GROUPS THAT FORESTRY FAVORS: This is just about the only opportunity for the community to provide your feedback since this “community plan” has already being written WITHOUT public input. I am attaching the draft of the “Policy Elements,” that are the goals and heart of the plan. There has been NO COMMUNITY INPUT for the plan (other than to review the Vision and Vision Components in the only Open House in April 2012). The schedule for the 6 Open Houses that start tomorrow has not been announced to the public or to the Heritage Tree Foundation, even though we asked for the schedule twice in the last 3 weeks. We found the schedule at this web site austinurbanforestry.org , but Forestry told, many days ago, other groups they favor to tell their members and friends about that website. I guess this may result in Forestry getting much more “community” feedback from the groups they prefer. THE DRAFT OF THE COMMUNITY PLAN HAS ALREADY BEING WRITTEN, WITHOUT COMMUNITY INPUT: What will Forestry do with the community’s comments? I think that they will be included in the plan, under “Urban Forest Plan.-Recommendations” (see attached plan outline). The community input will NOT affect the Policy Elements (the goals) because these have already been written by Forestry. I hope that at least, the community’s input will be incorporated in the plan. THE PROPOSED PLAN IS TOO VAGUE, SO IT IS NOT AN URBAN FOREST PLAN: Austin’s Urban Forest Plan should be a plan where a) Existing tree canopy conditions are evaluated, b) Concerns from the community are recorded, c) Goals for the urban forest are established by the community, c) An action plan is developed to achieve these goals. An action plan should include who, what, when and how. There should be short and long term goals. Austin’s Urban Forest Plan should include: · Existing canopy in various areas based on reliable and recent data. If this data is not available, the plan should include obtaining this data. · Concerns and desires for the urban forest from the community. Issues like watering trees during drought, maintaining trees so that they don’t die, protecting heritage trees and other valuable trees, planting trees where needed including cemeteries, etc. · Other concerns with Forestry practices to improve tree survival, such as Forestry establishing and following recognized standards of care, applying uniform standards to all areas and departments, training crews, hiring experienced staff and foresters, etc. · Plans (who, what, when and how) to attain future canopy goals for different areas (residential, commercial, preserves, etc.) · Plans (who, what, when and how) to address the concerns brought up by the community. · Appropriate metrics that evaluate current performance. It is absolutely necessary to be honest with current performance in order to improve. · Etc. Instead of the typical components listed above, the Urban Forest plan written by Forestry is a “higher level, broad scope, long term plan to guide other City departments to write their own Urban Forest plans.” For instance, Austin Energy, Watershed and the Water Utilities would have to write their own plans to manage their trees, per general guidance provided by this plan’s vision. A VAGUE, GENERAL AND INEFFECTIVE PLAN WITHOUT AN ACTION PLAN, TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN 1 TO 20 YEARS: There is no mention of who will execute specific goals, or more importantly WHAT, WHEN, AND HOW. There are no clear goals that can be implemented There will be no real improvements. Forestry failed a City Audit less than a year ago because of several serious operational problems, and not having Standards of Care and an Urban Forestry plan. I don’t think the proposed plan will help resolve the operational issues that made them fail the audit, or that this plan will help preserve trees and increase canopy. For instance, goal “UF-2 Resource Needs.- Ensure adequate resources are dedicated to the management of Austin’s urban forest and its ecosystem function to support the City’s urban forest vision”. The goal does not say what resources are needed, when they are needed, how they will be obtained and who will provide the resources. The plan also does not say that an action plan to quantify these needs will be done by a specified date by a specified department. Another example, goal “PR-2 Protection of Public Trees During Development.- Evaluate and enhance urban forest protection during and after development to promote the long term health and survival of urban forest elements retained during development.” Who will do this? What will be done? When will it be done? How will it be done? OUTDATED AND INCOMPLETE DATA WILL LEAD TO INACCURATE CONCLUSIONS: This plan uses 2006 satellite data that is outdated and inaccurate, and an incomplete 2008 sampler inventory that produces a large statistical error. The tree inventory that is used to determine tree health and condition is also of a sample size that is too small to extrapolate. THINGS ARE NOT AS GOOD AS THE PERFORMANCE INDICATORS CHOSEN BY FORESTRY: Forestry gives itself and the urban forest “GOOD” ratings (see attached file titled “Performance Indicators”) in most categories, except a few, such as funding. This is very concerning because issues that do not get acknowledged can not be improved. For instance, one of the Performance Indicators claims that Neighborhood Action is “good because “there is citywide active participation of neighborhood groups and most neighborhood plans include urban forestry goals.” However, many neighborhood plans DO NOT include forestry goals except for a mention to “plant and preserve trees,” and there is NO citywide active participation of neighborhood groups, except for a few neighborhoods. In fact, often, active neighborhood participation occurs when there is a need for neighbors to prevent public trees from being removed by Forestry plans (Example: 28 Barton Springs heritage trees planned removal in 2009), or when public trees are dying due to lack of adequate care from Forestry (Example: public cemetery trees). THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR THE TREES: Please, attend one of these Open Houses. You will be asked to write in a leaf shape stick note your concerns and desires for public trees and vegetation, and place it on a cardboard tree (Forestry calls this the “Leaf the Tree Activity”). Please write down all of those concerns that you shared with the Heritage Tree Foundation: · that existing public trees should be cared for, watered, mulched by Forestry, not just by volunteers, · that trees should be planted in a manner that they can grow to be heritage trees, not those trees that die in a few years and don’t get replaced, · that trees should be preserved and their entire critical root zone should be protected, · that dead trees should be removed promptly · that when dead trees are removed, they should be removed low to the ground and not leave unsightly “snags” that do not provide a significant environmental benefit · that snags should be tall and have some branches for birds to perch and cavities for wildlife, and should be located in true riparian areas, not in parks where they endanger people · that parks trees and vegetation should be maintained · that cars should not park under the critical root zone of public trees in parks (barriers should be installed) · that proper tree species should be planted · that adequate soil volume and tree spacing should be provided for trees so that they can grow to heritage size · that Forestry staff, including foresters, should be trained and experienced and do their jobs properly · that trees should be assessed properly and not removed for being a safety hazard when they are not · that public trees should be treated as green infrastructure and not removed so easily (particularly public street trees that get removed by developers in order to have driveways for construction) · that wildlife and creeks are important, and vegetation, trees and creeks are important to wildlife, so all should be protected · that trails and bikeways should be designed without encroaching on older trees or causing tree removal · etc. Please, ask for a real Urban Forest Plan that will protect our Urban Forest and public trees, an implementable plan that makes action items from the concerns brought up by the community, a plan that has action and not vague words, a plan that will be executed in the short and long term.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 00:47:51 +0000
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