Latest News: City Council restores funding for a tree crew!

Brief Background:
Oakland City Council cut the 2009-'11 budget for the Tree Services Division (a part of Public Works) because of the recession.
Tree Services laid off half of their employees, including 2 of their 3 work crews. They stopped pruning trees and stopped planting trees.
This situation inspired the founding of a new volunteer tree-planting program that later came to be called the Sierra Club Tree Team (or SCTT), which in turn gave rise to this program (Trees for Oakland, a project of the Oakland Parks & Recreation Foundation (OPRF)).

With the recession behind us, the Oakland Urban Forestry Forum and a coalition of community groups in Oakland have urged the City Council to do these 3 things:

1. restore funding for the Tree Services Division (part of Public Works) to at least the 2007 level of 30 employees;
   
2. fund an Urban Forestry Management Plan;
   
3. establish an Urban Forestry Commission or Task Force.
   

Read the full document here (click for 2-page PDF).

As of July 1, the City Council approved the next 2-year budget, for Fiscal Years 2017-'18 and 2018-'19.
It includes a restored 5-person crew (4 tree trimmers and 1 supervisor) for tree maintenance, under the Alameda County Measure BB sales tax for transportation projects.

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