June 6, 2023
During the past few days there has been a push to declare two Market St trees as Emergency Removals. This is illegal and has to be stopped.
DPW Urban Forester Chris Buck has been the primary mover behind this, promising BART engineers that the trees will be posted and removed within a few days.
On Sunday 6/4/23 I visited both trees, neither are “likely to fall” as one paper posting stated — the other tree was not posted for removal at all.
The two trees:
Tree 1: 380 Market St, SFDPW TreeId 135332 – Posted for Emergency Removal
Tree 1: (below) 380 Market St, SFDPW TreeId 135332 – Posted for Emergency Removal
Leaning on it full force I wasn’t able to move this tree 1/4″.
Tree 2: (below) 901 Market St SFDPW TreeId 13789 – Not Posted for Emergency Removal
I reached through the protective screening but could not budge this tree.
Tree 2: (below) 901 Market St SFDPW TreeId 13789 – Not Posted for Emergency Removal
It seems DPW wanted to post the tree at 901 Market St for Emergency Removal, but the tree in their photo files looks like
Note the date on the file photo is “06/02/2023”, but the lack of BART construction equipment means the photo is from about 2 years earlier — the date embedded in the photo file is “11/23/2020 *. Why post a 2-year old photo as if it were from 6/2/23?
Below is the photo sent by BART in May 2023 showing the tree they want removed:
Photo: BART
Both trees survived the severe winds and storms of early 2023. At worst these are “hazard” trees, and are subject to a public removal hearing.
Stop these false emergency removals now! Write to Carla Short <Carla.Short@sfdpw.org>, Interim Director of SF Department of Public Works.
—————————————
*Misleading file photo:
On June 2, 2023 the DPW photo file image below was substituted for the actual 901 Market St file photo — note that there is no BART construction equipment in sight.
Examining this photo carefully, it was supposedly added to the photo database on “6/2/23” but the actual file date contained internally to the computer file shows the photo was taken “11/23/2020”, more than 2 years ago.
Photo of the 901 Market tree, but with false date of “06/02/23”. Note the lack of BART construction equipment. The date in the uncropped photo is “11/23/2020”.
This web page was updated on 6/7/23 — to see what today’s version of the photo looks like, click here https://bsm.sfdpw.org/reports/
to see the photo in the actual DPW photo database.