One moment. Miss boller, you can go ahead. You have three minutes, please. Okay. Caller hello . Clerk hello, miss boller, welcome. Caller thank you. Im calling because theres been an incident on octavia street of tree cutting that was has greatly upset the residents because they expected that an agreement made with the board of appeals was being followed. And it wasnt. They were supposed to come to an agreement as to the replacement of trees and what which trees would be which kinds of trees would be replaced. And that agreement was not reached. Everybody was taken by great surprise that suddenly on saturday that a crew came and took down four trees. And then i think on monday an additional tree im not sure where those were on octavia street. The other one might have been on hayes street. And now apparently its been decided to stop doing it. But i think that its very unfortunate and illegitimate for those trees to be taken down. And theres no putting them back. You just cant move them back on to their stumps. Thats, i guess i dont know what else i should say about that. So thats my comment. Clerk thank you miss boller. I have just one question. What is the address on octavia street, to the caller, miss boller . Clerk miss boller . Shes gone. Clerk she may be gone. But we do have another member of the public who would like to speak. So miss downs . Caller hello. Clerk hello and welcome. You have three minutes. Caller hi, thank you. Id like to echo what miss boller was saying that we dont feel that the adequate, like, inclusion of the publics comment and the we were supposed there was supposed to be a transparent process on how the tree plan on what trees would be made as replacements before the trees were actually taken down. And that was ordered as part of the mandate at the last hearing but that didnt actually take place. Theres just been a couple of side conversations, and the association which does have a democratic election process and does not represent the neighborhood. And we feel somewhat betrayed by, you know, by the suddenness of and the lack of communication around which trees are coming down. But in addition to this, i have noticed and i have a video of the ficus tree at 432 hayes street that was being pruned by those same contractors that were removing the trees. But it wasnt on the list of trees to be pruned or removed, plus, it is still nesting season of birds and in that tree in the video you can see visible nests. And later its been shown that weve been told that this was a mistake by an unauthorized and a decision by the contractors. Id like to know how this could happen and what surveying and what can be done in future to prevent this from happening to anyone else who is having trees removed or pruned in the neighborhood from having contractors take these independent antienvironmentalist, like, initiatives to make all of these yeah, to make these decisions. Im just kind of upset about this. And i feel like there should be a process and we follow that process and thats how things get done. I agree. Clerk okay. Thank you. We do have wait, one moment. We have another public someone who wants to provide Public Comment. The phone number ending in 0701. Please go ahead. Caller hi, thank you. Can you hear me . Clerk yes, i can. Caller this is josh, i was one of the appellants in the hayes valley manner that miss boller and miss downey referred to. And i think that the particular concern is that as an appellant, one of the things that we fought hard for and that the board included in its decision was that a replacement plan needed to be in place before any removals occurred. That is actually in the boards decision. And as one of the appellants, i would think that i would be aware of any replacement plan that was in place and those removals started last saturday, and indiscernible most importantly. Clerk mr. Clip, we cant hear you. I think it was time. Clerk okay. I see hes still there. But we can try having him come back. But we have somebody else. Mr. Clip, can you hear us . He may call back then. Maybe he lost ill reserve his time when he calls back. Clerk okay. So we do have another person from the tenants rights group. Whoever called in from the tenants rights group, we can put you on video. One moment. Okay. Thank you. Caller all right. Hi. Clerk hello and welcome. Caller thank you. Can you hear me . Clerk yes. Caller all right. Im going to just say thank you for giving me the time. I also want to talk about the legaillegal cutting down of tren bayview with the new construction project, with gentrification there. I just dont understand how that could happen when processes and procedures were already confirmed in earlier meetings. Thats it. Thank you. Clerk okay, thank you. And i believe that mr. Clip is back. Mr. Clip . Oh, no. Caller yeah, im hem here, sorry. My phone picked a great time to drop the signal there. You have two minutes and 10 0 seconds reserved for you. Caller thanks. Yeah, all i was going to say is that was language that the board specifically included in its motion, in its decision. And as an appellant it seems that something that should have been aware of that there was a replacement plan in place. I was not made aware of that. And the removal proceeded anyway. So i just think that its important that the board put these things in the decisions that those things need to be abided by by the department. Thats all. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Any more general Public Comment . Just one more question. Mr. Clip, did you have the address of the case that we had heard associated with it . Caller i dont im sorry, can you hear me . Yes. Caller yeah, i dont know all of the addresses where the trees were removed off the top of my head. I do know that they were in a 2 1 2 block radius which is sort of limited in scope. Its not the full removal happening right now, but it was limited in scope because of the request, i believe by the association to ensure that there would be no impedenses to the businesses reopening once the covid restrictions are lifted. Okay, thank you. Clerk okay, we do have one more Public Commenter. One moment. The phone number ending in 8570. Please, go ahead. Caller hello, good evening. This is casey as berry with the demonstration gardens and the healthy street trees initiative. And im calling to address the board generally regarding a pattern that we are seeing as we study the health of our urban canopy. Were seeing that we are losing more trees than we are gaining consistently year over year. And we respectfully seek your support in halting all nonemergency tree removals while we investigate the conditions that are producing this. Were not saying that its wrongdoing. Were not making any assertions, but there are the biggest disturbing pattern is that we are losing healthy mature trees at a rate that we cant afford to. Thank you. Clerk okay, thank you. So let me see if theres any more Public Comment. One moment. I do believe that we did get a message in the chatbox, one of the commenters wants to provide Contact Information to another commenter. And since we are doing this remotely we want to facilitate the process. Mr. Karnazes, can you clarify what you want to share . I cant hear you. Oh, yes, hi, yes. I would just like to provide my email address for those that spoke up in Public Comment today and in defense of our urban forest and id love to communicate with anyone interested. Julie, you have my email address. Please feel free. I believe that theres a private chat that you can send your information to other panelists. Clerk so why dont we announce it. The reason for that is that i dont want this to be part of the public record. If it was a Public Meeting i could say heres a piece of paper and heres my email. Clerk thats fine. So whoever would like mr. Karnazes email send an email to me. And i will provide that information to you. We do have a question from Vice President honda. Vicepresident honda madam president , is it appropriate to ask chris buck what he knows about these particular trees . Clerk are you asking president lazarus or me . Vicepresident honda i have to get the boss approval. President lazarus i might defer to the deputy City Attorney to what is allowable when its brought up in Public Comment and not otherwise agendaized. Good evening, commissioners. The City Attorneys office. The matter is not ajendized on the k8d and if you want to discuss that matter indepth you should schedule it for another hearing. As a discussion item. Vicepresident honda perfect, thank you. Clerk okay, thank you. So just confirming whether theres any more Public Comment. I dont see any more Public Comment. Pardon . I dont see anyone that has raised their hands. If you are here for Public Comment and you have called in you have to dial star, 9. So the phone number ending in 4280, please go ahead. Caller i had some technical difficulties so i apologize, i didnt hear the comment that came before me. I just wanted to say that i live in hayes valley and i understand the frustration of being of trees being cut down without proper notification. D. P. W. Seems to think that the notices that they put up over a year ago were adequate and so much has changed since then. The neighborhood still doesnt know what trees are going to be cut. And they were supposed to have a plan in place before they began any tree removal, which has not been approved. And we were working on it when covid hit and everything was paused. And this past weekend we just woke up to the sound of buzz saws. Nine trees have been removed in just two blocks. You can picture how much foliage was lost. That is 40yearold trees. We still dont have a replacement plan in place. They told us on tuesday after five trees were cut that they wouldnt do anything more until late july, and then we woke up this morning to again the sound of buzz saws and five d. P. W. Trucks taking down four huge trees after they told us yesterday that they werent going to d to do anything more. So i think that it needs to be clarified that the code calls for notification 30 days prior to tree 30 days prior to removal, not at least 30 days prior to, but 30 days. So we have some notice of when our neighborhood is going to be ravaged. It was really traumatizing. And in this particular instance they also need to have the replacement plan in place before they do anymore removal. I think that is all i have to say. And i apologize if its not exactly the right point in the agenda because i couldnt hear the whole meeting. I was having trouble getting in. Clerk its exactly the right point. Thank you. Caller okay. Clerk okay. Thank you, any other Public Comment . Okay, i dont see any further Public Comment. So we will move on to item 2 which is commissioner comments and questions. I have a comment and i couldnt get to the raising my hand part. This Public Comment really bothers me. You know, i got upset a couple weeks ago when were talking about it again today, the same followup. I would like to request that in the future hearing that we address this issue which we will be addressing later on on another case about the disconnect the disorientation, the disorganization i dont know certain a lack of communication between the departments and d. P. W. That would allow trees to be demolished without proper process. And not just the notice, i many, we were very clear. What upsets me is that we work very hard as commissioners to go by the law, to take everybodys point of view into consideration and we try to make a fair ruling according to the law, according to the advice of the departments, according to the testimony that we hear from citizens. And then we make a ruling. And when we make a ruling, thats the ruling. Thats what it is. And so to be to hear what im hearing right now is its an abuse to me as a commissioner. I dont know about the rest of my fellow commissioners, but its certainly an abuse to me. It completely discredits mr. Buck. It completely disar discredits e city of San Francisco. And this came up again on the same case that were hearing again later tonight where out of nowhere the city contractor comes in and without permission, without warning, without anything, buzz saws and kills trees. And that was before we knew that they were going to do it wrong. In this one we had already ruled on what was to happen and this obvious abuse occurred again. So i would like a Senior Department head, please, in a future meeting of d. P. W. Responsible for coordinating these activities to come in to apologize or to justify why this action took place and why the members of the citizenry have to in Public Comment notify that this perceived abuse took place. Thank you. Clerk thank you. We have a comment from commissioner tanner. Commissioner tanner i just want to echo the comment of submissioner swig. I couldnt agree more really what happens when these things happens is that the trust gets eroded between the public and the city. And it makes it harder for d. P. W. To do their job list and harder for this commission to make a decision after listening to the evidence and that evidence is ignored. And it undercuts the public process. We heard several cases in last few weeks where the members of the public are kind of saying where is the process, you know, lets have the public process go through. And then even say if they win or lose or whatever happens with our decision, at least the process has happened in a fair manner. Theres been several cases because things have happened out of order that public process is not respected. Its not the opportunity made to defend the tree, to have the discussion, to challenge the permit. So i really want to encourage whomever it is in d. P. W. To make a point to be here to help to say how the department is taking accountability for these oversights and errors and how is our plan to rebuild trust. We had one case, what, where the guy was putting up the street light before the tree removal was approved and essentially assuming that the appeal of the tree removal, you know, would be not before the department. Thats, again, the actions that erode the trust of the public that what happens in these processes matter and that its important and that the city is even listening to the public with the bad decisions that are being made. So i concur with commissioner swig. Clerk thank you. We will now hear from president lazarus. President lazarus yes, i understand the desire for this. And i think that we should probably withhold a certain amount of judgment until we have heard from everybody. But in that vein, i think that trying to do this sooner rather than later would be helpful. Miss rosenberg, im not sure what our agendas look like for the next few meetings, but i encourage us to try to schedule it as soon as possible. Clerk okay, i will check our calendar. We likely wont have Space Available until august. Our next two meetings are fairly busy, but possibly possibly july 29th. Ill check. Okay. Vice president honda, i believe that you had your hand raised before. Would you like to say anything . Vicepresident honda i concur with my fellow commissioners and especially with madam president , with having this heard sooner than later. We would revoke their permit. And at this point i believe that the board still has that ability to do so. Theyll be putting those trees back into the ground. So someone should come and present what happened and why as soon as possible. Clerk okay. Thank you. So is there any Public Comment on this item, on the commissioners comments and questions. Please raise your hand if you would like to provide Public Comment. We do have miss down, please, go ahead and speak. Caller i just want to say how rewarding and wonderful it is to hear what were listening to and that our voices matter. And, yeah, its meaningful to me and im happy to proi my Contact Details to talk what happened and in addition to not being notified about the tree coming down and the fact they came down without against the boards mandated order and also about the birds nests that were disturbed as part of that process, unwarranted tree heavy tree pruning that happened by the contractor. Clerk okay, thank you. We will now hear from miss boller . Miss boller . Please, go ahead, miss boller. Hello, miss boller. Caller can you hear me now . Clerk yes, please proceed. Caller well, im concerned about what may be happening in the interim, and what the contractor someone seems to be kind of a loose wheel and what assurance do we have with other trees that are not going to turn up cut down to everybodys surprise . I think that is all i have to say. But it seems to me that something is out of control. And i dont know what control has materialized with the decision to hear it, maybe july 29th. Clerk okay, thank you. Commissioner swig. Commissioner swig yes, thats a great point. And i would like to ask the City Attorney and maybe since we have mr. Buck in the room, how do we do a cease and desist on the contractor who has no permission to cut trees but is cutting trees, obviously, where theyre not supposed to. How do we send that message to d. P. W. , do it legally, mr. City attorney . Can we what can we do to communicate to your department, mr. Buck . Brad rusk from the City Attorney office. I dont than we have enough information yet to determine what action could be taken against the contractor and that would be within the hands of the department that has the contract with the contractor and i would assume is the department of public works. Commissioner swig so how do we get a message to the department of public works . To cease and desist on actions that we have already heard, and where where they do not have a permit to cut trees down without going according to what our findings were and what our ruling was several sessions ago. Would it be possible to send a correspondence to the department from miss rosenberg and just following up on our previous ruling . Would that be possible . I think this matter would be more appropriate for agenda being agendized at a future meeting because were having a discussion about something not on the agenda. Right, im concerned about that as well. Commissioner swig i agree with that and that, obviously, the conundrum is, you know, two days from now a contractor could come in and make it a moot point by tearing down a bunch of trees. Thats the sad part.