City tree plan approved

A bold step for city trees | Ladybugs and more from the forest

Monday, November 14, 2022

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Good afternoon, reader. Here’s your briefing on the city’s newly approved Urban Forest Management Plan.

• City makes a bold and challenging move for the future of Willits’ trees.

• Ladybugs and more in three images from the forest. 

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City gov’t | Council passes urban forest plan

A guiding document for the present and future city tree population passed on a 5-0 vote last week. 

The grant-funded project inventoried city trees and now provides a way for the city to take a bold step into the future of managing urban trees.

“Trees not only have financial value as pointed out in this plan , but have emotional value to our residents and it is our responsibility to make sure that we are being good stewards of those trees,” Vice Mayor Greta Kanne said. 

The plan can be considered a document that elaborates on best practices for preserving and expanding street trees and those in residential neighborhoods, too. 

Kanne talked about the city park trees that were cut on the street where the farmer’s market used to meet. 

“What we saw was deferred maintenance quickly becoming a situation where we had a park that was essentially clear cut and we lost all of our trees,” said Kanne. 

The city has the plan approved, but one could say that the work to develop a better tree scene in Willits has only started.

Having an approved plan, for example, opens the door to additional CalFire grants, a representative of the firm that wrote the plan said.

The plan identified sources of tree money that the city may decide to pursue. 

Something as simple as a parcel tax or creation of a “landscape and lighting” district could help fund tree care.