Replace any removed trees with were going to go for an evergreen species that opens the canopy and allows for more visibility while maintaining the ficus trees and maintaining visibility. Here is a diagram of how we expect to work. I hope its readable. It maps out on hyde and grove street the Maintenance Area for taking care of the existing grove and the several areas that the library is committed to start right away building new planting areas on fulton street and right over the entrance to brooks hall. Then we want to explore together with public works and bars, there are triangles of land that we may be able to cultivate with sheet mulching. We also are showing areas where the trees will be replaced. The sixthfloor patio is a very good candidate for more greening as well. So in terms of demonstrating commitment by setting up the these okay. 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Okay. I further outline the steps in more detail, but basically what were asking tonight is that we modify this permit to support the space, the approach that the working group that see developed. We want to permit no trees be removed until the park is open. We want to have the interim stewardship [ bell rings ]. Thank you. Mr. Buck. Can i just ask one question of the Library Representative from the library just for the record. Youre in agreement with everything that was represented on behalf of the library . Yes, members. Thank you for having us. Im the director of facilities for the library system. Im ready to answer your questions. I just want to confirm that everything that was presented, that you affirm and that you are on board with as presented by the previous speaker. Yes, and thank you very much for your suggestion to work with the community. It has been very fruitful. Thank you. It has been very informative. You go. Good evening, commissioners. Chris buck, bureau of urban forestry, San Francisco public works. I want to thank the library for hosting the meetings that weve been having this year and both the appellants. So what does this all mean . We started out with the proposal. The library removed 19 ficus trees. We approved the removal of those trees. We now reduced that to eight trees. So we would remove eight trees, keep 11, and prune the remaining trees that remain. I have a few slides. We wanted to be able to be specific. The parties tonight are going to ask for a recommendation this evening with a little bit of latitude, but showing that all parties are in agreement. So this is the hyde street frontage. Tree 1 and 2 would remain and be removed. Trees 4, 5 would be removed without replacement because theyre too close to the bus shelter and the streetlight. The bus shelter and not going to be removed. The last diagram is on the far left, the ninth tree on hyde street frontage. It would be removal of four with we placement of one. Around the corner on grove, wed be looking at the removal of four trees with replacement with six. So tree one on the far right would remain and be pruned. Trees two, three, and four would be removed and replaced. Tree five would be pruned. Tree six is floating here between two basins that have been paved over. Weve checked the utilities. Both sites are replantable. So these two sites will be replanted. And our group is talking about replanting before removal is initiated. This tree in the middle or near the middle, second from the right, was not looking good many months ago. It looks much different today. I dont have the photo, but its smaller with better structure. Now that its actually leafing out, we can live with this tree. We went from nine removals to eight. We believe that this tree, now that its filled out, can be worked with. The tree on the far left would be removed and replaced. What does that mean . So overall, wed move the settlement would be not removal of 19 but removal of eight trees with replacement of seven. Five would be replaced as is. Two would be sites that are paved over and now would be replanted. The library is committed to planting 36inch box replacement trees. Public works can fund the removal of the ficus trees. There are a number of of other moving pieces, but at its core the commission is going to ask to make a decision on this permit itself. I think some of the other commitments, we would commit to not initiating removal until both the park and recs and the tender are completed. That may be six to eight months out. We have an internal agreement with that. I dont know if thats something you need to condition. Essentially this evening were coming forward to say the compromise is substantial. The preference of the appellants is no tree removal. We hear that loud and clearly. In this particular case we have funding secured for replacement. Were scaling back the removals. Even the removals that we do act on we would scale back until after those conditions are met as outlined by the appellants. So i think thats i just wanted to summarize where we are and figure out if theres a way we can get language towards a resolution. So im here to answer any questions. Thank you. Its not perfect as we said. I would like to see a zero tree removal as well, but thank goodness because i wasnt really happy with the first proposal, evidently, as i believe several other commissioners. Thank you for all the time and effort spent with the public and with the department and with the library. Very appreciated. Thank you. I just want to thank the library and both appellants for working and creating this group. I have a question. Again, i confirm what my fellow commissioners said. It does pretty remarkable that you were able to do this and detail and all, its great. One thing i found curious, there was one tree that was supposed to be removed and as you said it recovered. Are there any lessons about the trees or is this a oneoff . Yes and no. Its very difficult. We cant interview the trees to tell us. But the obvious thing that comes to mind is 24th street, theres a lot of ficus trees that went the way of the doodoo and didnt come back. So if this tree had deep bark inclusions, i would want to remove it. But in this case its a smaller ficus and has wider unions comparatively. If were phasing in all of these other removals, we have a facility manager and people on staff who are there, were going to be monitoring the tree. But it is true. There are idiosyncrasies out there and were looking at that. Now, primarily our issue with ficus is not the decline. Its the structure. Sometimes when you see that decline, it just adds. Because again, before ten years ago, i never saw a dead or a declining ficus. That would be my question. Sorry to interrupt. That tree and fairly its been there for quite a while. What would cause Something Like that. If you look at the other trees, it looks like someone poisoned this one. Is that typical . Its hard to say. Ten years ago there were no issues with ficus and in the last ten years weve been seeing a lot of decline. Theres the city canker thats been identified in Southern California. This showed symptoms of that, but not exactly. Its a little i wish i could put my finger on it. Is it people from Southern California coming up . Weve been watching every month or two when we met, we were noting that it was leafing back out and it took so long that now were like, lets keep it. Thank you. I would echo the could you t kudos to yourself and everyone involved. The effort to clear the Library Steps so there would be less water. I think safety issues were also a concern. Im assuming you covered those in this plan, but if you could address those issues. One of the openended items were asking your latitude with is replacement species. We havent pinned down the exact species. Red maple had been suggested earlier on because its a species that can sit in ponds and it does fine. With the amount of water thats used to clean the library frontage, the public right of way daily, we are in the process of just doublechecking these replacement species if its in its native habitat, riparian. So were in the final process of th that. So theres a strong desire by the appellants and i remember it was pointed out that there are two libraries, the one that faces the civic center and the one that has evergreen species. Both appellants feel strongly about that species. Were trying to find one that would have a little more upright architecture to sit. One technicality will be that theyre planted slightly elevated, whereas these ficus, just to add to the troubles there, were planted a little bit too low in the basins. Weve been engaging our Landscape Architects to also review the replacement basins and a commitment to do that to make sure that were doing what we can to address some of that. So we are were nearly done with addressing all of that. Theres been a lot of dialog among our group. Thank you. I just want to echo everyone elses kudos on proving, yes, city and citizen constituencies can come together and reach a happy ending. My question is as a result of your presentation, when and with what. The when still has not been answered, even though you answered it but you didnt and the with what is not answered. I hate myself for suggesting this, but not that i dont trust the City Departments, but the ambiguity of the when really gives me discomfort. I understand the responsibility of your answer that youre going to wait for the other parks to get done, but that involves another City Department which sometimes doesnt make its timelines. I dont want to approve this permit until we have clarity on that timeline, because that puts the citizens back in limbo. So what i would and i told you, i hated myself for suggesting this. But i would like to continue this potentially because youre not going to do it anyway. And i would like to continue it to a point that you can present us with clarity on with what and when. I dont see any harm because youre stating here youre not going to get started anyway. So when do you think we should continue this so that you can come back to us with the answers to with what and when and do you find any fault in my thought process about why i want to do this, why am i suggesting this . So one suggestion would be if the completed park is estimated to be six months out, we could commit to a minimum of waiting six months before we initiate the removal or we could again meet some more and just work out a more specific timeline. I think im more comfortable with a timeline versus [ indiscernible ] so if we can sorry. If we continue this, because we wont know for six months. If we continued this to january and strictly for the purpose of coming up with two answers, with what and when, i dont see a harm or a foul. All youve got to do is come back here and say were reconvening. Heres what were going to replace. Heres when were going to get started. Then we can go, great plan, thank you very much for doing this, all in favor say aye. Does that make sense to you . It does. It also gives us an opportunity to continue to make progress on other items that are actionable before then. So i dont see public works is open to that suggestion. Thats the direction id like to go. We still need Public Comment. I understand. Im just showing my cards before we go into deliberation. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Is this any Public Comment on this item . Three minutes. This is the plan in brief that was given to you in your packet. None of that was just presented to the community before. So i have an issue with that and also an issue with this because it goes back to the same question. They werent answered in here and theyre still not answered in there. Also seeing the map that they showed, theres three parcels that they want to plan in. So the balcony, is that open to the public . The one spot on felson street, number 3 or 2, that square right there is where mayor lees tree is at that was plapted. So i dont feel comfortable with that. And then also youre moving to a space across the street which is the main librarys property and you want to plant on that. And then also there was also another space on the feltson side of the library, and that is where two trees were taken out and now theres no grass anymore on that side. So yeah, i want those trees back and thats a plus because i complained about them years ago and they made a complaint that they werent going to put them back. So i see some positives and negatives, but there was still things in motion because of how it was presented. The other thing is well, with the website, overhead, please, this is the link that was put on their that was sent out with the packet. You can see if you go to the link, its not functional. That was put on friday on your websi website. So that was an issue i had not being able to look at their documents from the working group. Then the next issue was this was the list of the six issues you outlined for the working dprowp to work on. I just saw this plan and i had issues with number one and one was the brief did not address exactly where the three trees would go to replace the removal of the bus stop and the lights. So again, those answers werent answered to my satisfaction. And so, i had answers to each one, but i only have 10 seconds. So ill leave you with that. We need to continue and we need more input on this plan. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other Public Comment on this item . Okay. Commissioners, this matter is misdemeano submitted. If anyone else is here for Public Comment, if you could move forward, i would appreciate it. Oh, boy, where do i begin . My name is michael nolte. I think its great that something was done, that there was a working group created. But on the other hand lets make this clear. It was not the community involved, it was just the litigants. So it was a working group of the litigants or the people having dispute, but it was not the community. There are not Community Members per se, it was Service Providers there, also going after the pots of money that they could possibly receive from the library or other city entities to plant possibly more trees. Why didnt you listen to what was originally said in january when it was discussed. It was me sending an email, which the executive director gets us confused. I sent an email to the Commission Staff saying that the link on the website was not right and you sent us the correct link so that some people, i saw the email, could at least see the documents that were part of this possible idea. None of this discussed today at this hearing was there. So how can people really be prepared to discuss it now at this hearing when we were not made ware of it . Plus, during this meeting today, theyre out in the hallway discussing it so they were finetuning. Its been mentioned, theres a lot of moving parts. But there needs to be their proposal needs to be put into the sunshine so people can actually see it and understand it and maybe comment on it, not just theres only a few members of the community here. Again, its another couple of hour meeting. I know the commissioners would rather be at home probably, but so does the public, they want to be at home too. Again, access, were not getting access to these ideas and issues. That was what was mentioned in the email i sent who is has basically said that we need to address the anyway, we need to address how decisions are being made. This is another example of how things are happening behind closed doors. We dont appreciate that. As part of the community, we want to be part of the process. Thank you. There was a lot of people that signed a position. Mr. Nolte, for clarity, the documents that were at that linguistic link were the documents submitted on thursday. No, theres two different links. As per your inquiry and when they submitted the documents no, thats not what i thank you. Next speaker. My name is seraco. I have a question. You mentioned removing a tree by a bus stop. I was wondering well, is there i dont i guess there is some clearance issues with bus stops and i wanted to understand why. Also, in this day and age of severe Climate Change when we need every tree, i was wondering if b. U. F. Was trying to clarify any issues. I understand the bus stop came after the tree was there. Any other Public Comment . Commissioners, this matter is submitted. Commissioners. [ indiscernible ] id support the continuance ow proposed. The dates in january are the 8, 15, 29. It doesnt matter to me. 8 is fine. On the lightest calendar, we could put it on. I would suggest that i heard the members of the public. I always listen to the members of the public. Its a priority. I would suggest that the members of the public who have those concerns, you see two members of the city family who are here today. Youve known them from before. They are available for you tonight and theyre also available through the city websites. So i would raise directly, through direct communication with them, any concerns that you have specifically so they can be incorporated in the new plan. I dont think you have a problem with that. And i would also recommend again that although we applaud the movement that youve done so far, that in advance of the meeting that we have a really clearly defined plan which anticipates all the questions that were raised by the public, as well as those which were raised by myself. So with that a motion ill support the continuance, but not necessarily for the reasons that you articulated. I would trust the department ultimately to determine what the best tree is for that spot, given the particular situation. Were we a little bit closer, i would be inclined to support the grant the appeal today. Also, i believe it was the community that wanted to tie the timing to the completion of the parks. So that was to i mean, clearly that does give them more time. So the fact that we dont know when that is going to be to me is not particularly relevant. But i will support a continuance. So the motion is to continue this item to january 8. Is that what you want . January 8 for the purpose of youre no good on january 8 . [ indiscernible ] january 15. Then we go to january 15. Thats fine. Thank you very much. So to enable the department to clarify final details with regard to species and timing for the project, as well as providing a clear and concise plan to the public for the overall project. Okay. We have a motion from the president to continue this matter to january 15, 2020, to enavailable the department of urban forestry to clarify the final details of the plan regarding species and timing, so that the plan is clear and concise and understandable by the public. Did you want me to add anything about the tree well . No. [vote]. So that motion carries 50. Well see you january 15. Thank you. We are now on to item number 8 this is appeal no. 19075. Joshua klipp vs. Sa