Yes, Modesto’s trees are a problem. City reveals its plans on how to address them
Modesto will spend nearly $2.6 million over the next two years to tackle one of its pressing problems and source of numerous complaints from residents: city trees.
The City Council on Tuesday approved spending the money to remove dead and diseased trees and stumps, as well as the parasite mistletoe from trees, and plant new ones. The plan is to remove nearly 1,000 trees in the first year. The city’s goal is to take out 2,000 stumps, remove mistletoe from 2,000 trees and plant 2,000 trees over the two years.
For context, Public Works Director Bill Sandhu said in an interview that Modesto has been planting 50 to 60 trees annually in the last few years while removing 600 to 800 trees each year. “Two thousand trees is a good start,” he said. “It’s not a lot, but it’s a good start.”
Modesto is looking for trees to plant that are attractive and provide lots of shade while being drought and disease resistant. The city also wants trees whose roots don’t buckle sidewalks, which is a common problem with city trees along neighborhood streets.
This project is in addition to the work done by the city’s community forestry division.
Modesto has about 105,000 trees, with 81,000 of them along city streets. The trees in recent years have suffered during droughts and from a lack of adequate care because the city has not been able to fully fund its community forestry division. For instance, a city report states Modesto should prune its trees every five to seven years but is pruning them every nine to 11 years.
Falling trees and tree limbs damaging parked cars, homes, fences and other private property are among the top liability claims filed against the city. From 2012 through 2019, the city paid $448,408 to settle 228 claims filed against it related to trees, according to the city report.
The council approved spending $1.8 million of the nearly $2.6 million for this project’s first year, and city staff will come back to the council in the second year to ask for the balance of the funding.
The $1.8 million is from the city’s general fund, which the city seldom uses to pay for special projects. But the city can use the general fund in this instance because of the nearly $46 million in one-time funding it is receiving from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief measure President Joe Biden signed in March.
Federal aid freed up tree money
Modesto has received half of the nearly $46 million and will receive the rest next year. City officials stress they cannot use American Rescue Plan funding on city trees, but the funding frees up general fund money for the trees.
The city will use Modesto-based Grover Landscape Services and hire what it calls limited-term employees to carry out the work.
The city will hire three maintenance workers and two tree trimmers for two years at an annual cost of nearly $641,000, which covers the salaries and benefits as well as supplies and purchasing the 2,000 trees. The employees will remove tree stumps, trim mistletoe from trees and plant trees.
The city will pay Grover as much as $1.286 million over one year to remove 957 trees, with the focus on removing 600 of them by December and before the start of winter storms. The 600 pose the most threat to public safety. Modesto has about 1,100 trees that need to be removed, with the number growing monthly. Forestry division employees will remove the ones not assigned to Grover.
Modesto has an option to extend Grover’s contract for a second year. The city has a long history with Grover. It has contracted with the company since about 2006 to do the landscape maintenance at city parks and other city property.
The city did not follow its normal purchasing practices in hiring Grover for this project. Instead, the city asked Grover and three other companies on June 11 to provide informal quotes, with the quotes due June 14. Grover provided the lowest quote.
Competitor questions bid process
Sandhu, the public works director, said Modesto sought informal quotes because of the need to quickly hire a contractor to remove trees that are a hazard. He said Modesto can hire someone through the informal quote process in four to six weeks, while traditional purchasing practices take four to six months.
But an official with West Coast Arborists — which provided the second lowest informal quote — told council members he’d never heard of a city asking companies to provide quotes in just a few days on a project worth more than $1 million.
The official said Modesto should rebid the project or give it to his company. He said West Coast should be given the project based on the results of pricing it recently submitted to the city on another project.
The official said West Coast provided pricing for tree removal for a Parks, Recreation & Neighborhoods Department project that is $145,000 less per year than Grover’s pricing. The official did not explain to council members why West Coast did not offer that lower pricing on this project.
Deputy City Manager Caluha Barnes said in an interview that Modesto cannot take the results from one bid and apply them to another. She said it’s not fair to the other bidders. She also said it is disingenuous to suggest Modesto provided companies little time to provide quotes on the tree removal project.
She said Modesto had been talking to tree companies, including West Coast, since April about this project and solicited pricing from them before issuing the request for quotes in mid-June. The West Coast official declined to respond to Barnes’ comments.
Anaheim-based West Coast Arborists has several offices in California, including in Stockton and Fresno, and works in the Modesto area.
Funding boost for trees
The nearly $2.6 million is a sizable expenditure for the city’s trees. The community forestry division’s budget was $4.5 million in the budget year that ended June 30. But City Manager Joe Lopez advised council members that while this is an important project, it will make a small dent in a huge problem.
“This is a tremendous problem in our community,” Lopez told council members about the state of the city’s trees.
He said this project will help forestry catch up with its backlog, but city officials may ask the City Council for additional funding next year for city trees. Lopez said Modesto’s long-term solution is with a grant.
Modesto recently applied for a $1.16 million grant with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection that would pay for a state-of-the art inventory system of the city’s trees, a master plan for the city’s urban forest, as well as 1,000 new trees. Modesto would be required to provide a $388,000 match if it receives the grant.
City officials said Modesto should know around November whether Cal Fire will fund the grant.
This story was originally published July 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
