City of Oakland Tree Services Program Mismanaged and in Disarray

For many communities, street trees are a significant asset that make our neighborhoods more livable, provide character and increase property values. Some of the benefits of street trees include:

• Creating safer walking environments by providing distinct edges to sidewalks
• Shading pedestrians and protecting them from the rain, sun and heat
• Giving interest and scale to pedestrian environments thereby encouraging walking
• Reducing the heat of asphalt and its contributions to global warming
• Lowering urban air temperatures and reducing energy costs to cool homes and businesses
• Capturing and filtering rainwater and urban runoff
• Calming traffic by framing streets
• Providing more attractive shopping environments
• Absorbing pollutants and emitting oxygen
• Reducing the appearance of blight by softening hard urban edges

Oakland's name--Oak Land--derives from the oak-studded hillsides that were once logged to build communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Oakland's most prestigious neighborhoods, such as Rockridge, Claremont, and Piedmont are marked by their mature, tree-studded streets. The distinction between more affluent and less affluent neighborhoods can often be made by the presence or absence of street trees. Realtors often note the importance of street trees for residents looking to locate in Oakland.

Planting, maintaining and protecting street trees should be a priority for the City of Oakland. Yet, the Tree Services Program in the Department of Public Works, which is under the management of Brooke Levin, Assistant Public Works Director, is mismanaged and in disarray. The following is a story recounted to We Fight Blight by a frustrated resident who faced the indiscriminate chainsaw of the tree services program, unresponsive city employees and defensive city managers.

One recent evening, I got a call from my neighbor asking if I had noticed the "No Parking" signs posted on several street trees on 65th Street in North Oakland. She wanted to warn me that the trees appeared to be slated for removal at 776 and 794 65th Street. I walked outside with a flashlight and sure enough there were several "No Parking" signs that had apparently appeared very late in the day. None of the nearby neighbors had any knowledge as to who posted the signs. The signs themselves gave no indication as to who would be cutting the trees down, nor was there any contact information for those who had questions. None of the neighbors, including myself, were provided any kind of advance notice either by flyer or by letter. Because one of the trees provides significant shade to my rear yard and provides a buffer from the busy street, I was very concerned. I strategically parked my car under the tree to prevent it from being cut down.

Suspecting it was PGE, which had recently come through and trimmed the trees to protect the power lines, I awoke the next morning and was on the phone at 7:00 am. After approximately 40 minutes of calls to PGE, I was able to reach the PGE area arborist, who assured me the trees were not targeted by PGE for removal. In fact, the PGE arborist confirmed PGE had already trimmed the trees in question and they had not found any cause to remove the trees as they posed no imminent danger to their power lines.

As the morning wore on, I looked online for the City of Oakland Tree Services Program and attempted to contact Robert Zahn, the Tree Supervisor II. When that failed because he was out of the office, I tried to contact Herbert Flores, Tree Supervisor I. Mr. Flores did not answer his phone, so I left him a message indicating it was urgent that he contact me. I made repeated calls to Mr. Flores to no avail. I also left a message with Gay Luster, Administrative Assistant I, that the matter was urgent as the trees were scheduled to be cut that day and I needed to speak to Mr. Flores.

As I systematically tried to contact anyone of authority in the Tree Services Program, I heard the rumble of a Public Works truck rolling down 65th Street which promptly stopped at 794 65th Street and began setting up to cut down the tree. Cell phone in hand, I ran down the street and informed the Public Works staffer that there had been inadequate noticing to remove the trees and that I was trying to contact his supervisor, Mr. Flores. I requested that he not cut any trees until the matter was discussed with a supervisor. I was promptly told, " I really don't care what your problem is, my job is to cut this tree down." I repeatedly requested that he stop and contact Mr. Flores. He refused and continued staging his truck and equipment to remove one of the trees on 65th Street.

At this point, I finally managed to connect with Mr. Flores, Tree Supervisor I, and informed him that their had been inadequate noticing per the city's tree ordinances and that the trees could not be cut down until the city complied with its own noticing requirements. I also informed Mr. Flores that the trees in question had nesting birds and that the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act prevented the City of Oakland from disturbing nesting birds. Although he is a supervisor, Mr. Flores was seemingly unaware of both the procedural requirements for public noticing in the city's own tree ordinances and of the requirements of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. He even asked me what sections of the tree ordinances contained the noticing requirements. I then asked Mr. Flores who owned the trees. He was unable to answer the question. I told him that ownership of the trees was critical because it governed the public noticing requirements. But he seemed oblivious and he refused to stop the tree removal despite my repeated requests saying that trees were scheduled to be removed and he would not do anything to stop their removal. By this time his crew had set up the cherry picker and had begun cutting one of the trees. I then tried to contact the Public Works Director to no avail.

I then contacted the City Administrator's Office since no other person of authority was available in Public Works. I explained my dilemma and requested of the receptionist to speak with the Assistant City Administrator. The receptionist refused. I repeatedly asked the receptionist who the Assistant City Administrator was and she repeatedly refused to tell me. She informed me that I needed to speak with Tree Services Program even though I had already told her that I could not reach anyone of authority within Public Works. I had to demand multiple times that the receptionist provide me with the name of the Assistant City Administrator, who by the way is Margaret Lin, and even threaten the receptionist with a complaint to the City Administrator before she provided me the contact information of the Assistant City Administrator.

All the while, the Public Works staff began to cut down the tree even though I was standing directly within the work zone, which was improperly screened off. The Public Works staff person began to remove the tree while in a city vehicle, operating a chainsaw, and smoking with a cigarette dangling from his lips. By this time, there were several residents who had gathered. A nearby neighbor who works for the California Department of Fish and Game approached and informed the work crew that it appeared they were violating the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act due to nesting birds. I began to photo document the removal of the tree.

Eventually, with all of the commotion the Oakland police were called in and responded to the scene .The responding officer directed the tree removal crew to stop their work and requested that Mr. Flores, Tree Supervisor I, come to the job site. Some thirty to forty minutes later, Mr. Flores showed up. After intense discussions with the Oakland police, the Public Works staff ceased their tree removal activities, packed up their truck and moved on. The Oakland Police requested the Public Works Staff leave so that further discussions on the tree removal procedures could take place with the appropriate managerial staff at the City of Oakland.

When Mr. Flores came to the job site I asked him several questions including: (1) who owns the trees; (2) what is the appropriate public noticing; (3) does the city follow the requirements of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; (4) why is the city using outdated "No Parking" signs; and (5) who conducted the tree hazards analysis to justify the removal of the trees? Mr. Flores would not answer  the questions and refused to discuss the details of the tree removals. He informed me that I would need to submit a Public Records Act request to the City Attorney if I wanted any information.

Without any  prompting, Mr. Flores walked up my driveway and began to view the tree at 776 65th Street, which is visible from the street and sidewalk. I informed him that he was trespassing on my property and requested that he and his work crew not use my property to evaluate, trim or remove the tree. I told him that it was illegal and inappropriate, unless he had the permission of the property owner, for him or his work crew to access private property. Mr. Flores shrugged his shoulders and said "We don't know where the property lines are."

The tree at 794 65th Street was partially cut and remains unbalanced. The adjacent homeowner reports that he has contacted the City Public Works multiple times to find out about the status of the tree removal and informed me the city refuses to discuss the tree removals and refuses to return his calls. While Ms. Levin and Ms. Lin did eventually meet with me to further discuss the tree removals, they have yet to answer the most basic questions: "Who owns the trees?"

This residents' frustrating experience with the Public Works Tree Services Program highlights the mismanagement of city staff and programs, and the lack of transparency and responsiveness by city management to address resident's concerns. In this case, there were many procedural and substantive failures by the Public Works Division. The question is whether two highly paid managers, Brooke Levin, Assistant Public Works Director, and Margaret Lin, Deputy City Administrator, are willing to face up to the failures and address them in ways that actually restore faith in our local government. Their current track record, which largely involves ignoring the problems, is not very impressive.

We Fight Blight will continue to deconstruct this incident and the breakdowns in an attempt to highlight just one example of how mismanaged our local government really is.

Oakland City Employee Defends $165,500 Salaries for City Managers

An Oakland City employee posted in support of Brooke Levin, Assistant Public Works Director, complaining that the We Fight Blight article describing problems with the tree services program was unfair to Ms. Levin. The employee also strongly supported Ms. Levin's $165,500 salary, which keep in mind is only $10,000 less than the Governor of California. The email, which appears to be from a high level employee at the City, reflects just how out of touch Oakland City staff and managers are when it comes to bloated employee salaries, customer service, and accountability, particularly with the City facing an unprecedented financial crisis and laying off 80 police.

According to City records, Brooke Levin has been working with, and for, the Public Works Department for the past 19 years. Ms. Levin started with the City of Oakland in 1991 as an aide to Mayor Elihu Harris, focusing on Public Works and Planning issues. From 1994 until 2004, she was the Public Work's Environmental Services Manager, overseeing the city's watershed, environmental compliance, recycling, solid waste, and sustainability program. In March of 2004, Ms. Levin was appointed as the Interim Assistant Public Works Director, with responsibility for the maintenance of streets and sidewalks, and the city's buildings and vehicle fleet Ms. Levin is now the Assistant Public Works Director and oversees the tree services program, among other responsibilities. She has also served as the Acting Public Works Director in the absence of the current Director. Ms. Levin has a base salary of $165,500 per year and has a retirement benefit of 2.7% at 55. This means Ms. Levin could retire at 55 and, assuming 20 years of service at the City of Oakland, would be entitled to a retirement of $89,370 per year for the remainder of her life.

The post from the city employee is in reference to the We Fight Blight Post, City of Oakland: Mismanaged, Incompetent and Unfit to Serve Residents?

Dear Editor: I think this article is very unfair to Ms. Levin. I am neither a friend of nor an employee of Ms. Levin. I do, however, know of her work ethic, her dedication and the high standards to which she holds herself and her staff.

Brooke Levin, Deputy Public Works Director

Your reader speaks of Ms. Levin's incompetence with the Tree Services Division. However, your reader was remiss in not noting that Ms. Levin assumed responsibility for the Tree Division just 2 months ago. I don't know about you, but it seems a little unreasonable to expect an executive level manager to know the in's and out's of a new division in that short period of time. Furthermore, a reasonable individual would not expect a senior manager like Ms. Levin to be personally apprised of the status of every tree in Oakland. That's what databases and first line staff should know. To direct such micro-level questions to an assistant director is synonymous with asking the CFO of a mid-sized company whether he knew what the Company paid on their last phone bill!

As I said before, I am neither a friend nor a foe of Ms. Levin. All I know from regular observation is: MS. BROOKE LEVIN IS ONE OF THE MOST DEDICATED, TALENTED, HARD WORKING, CITY EMPLOYEE WE'VE GOT and the City is lucky to have her. As for her pay, how would you compensate an employee who runs a 300-person organization (approx.) but still responds to emails and phone calls at 2 or 3am in the morning? Does your reader work that tirelessly at his job?

Look, the bottom line is this: as public servants, we are tasked to assist a constituent courteously regardless of his/her attitude, viewpoints, or agenda. Most people recognize we are people too and therefore, are by no means perfect. They appreciate us when we do the best we can. A very small minority (perhaps your reader?) will choose to attack with criticism and insults and will not be appeased no matter what we do. By writing this, I hope those who read this article will see that this most public attack on Ms. Levin is misguided. ~ Anonymous City Employee
 
We think this city employee is sadly misguided and woefully out of touch with reality. First of all, Ms. Levin has been working with, and for, the Public Works Department for 19 years and has managed the streets and sidewalks in the City for the last six years. She has had plenty of opportunity to become familiar with the requirements for street trees. Street trees affect sidewalks, right?. In Oakland, haven't you ever walked down the buckled and crumbling liability we call sidewalks. Many are in this condition due to inappropriate trees planted by the City of Oakland.

For Ms. Levin to have little to no understanding of the tree services program within Public Works after working with and in the Department for 19 years says a lot about the lack of coordination among managers within Public Works and the lack of initiative on Ms. Levin's part to understand how other programs in the Department function. Now that Ms. Levin is responsible for street trees, and there have been significant questions raised by the public over the mismanagement of the street trees program, one would think Ms. Levin would have at least read and understood the city's tree ordinances and reviewed the status of the program with relevant city staff before meeting with our reader. Isn't that a legitimate managerial responsibility?

Ms. Brooke and Ms. Lin, the Deputy City Administrator, who both met with our reader have yet to answer the most basic of his questions: who owns the trees the City was cutting down? This is fundamental as it governs the public process required by City law to remove the trees? As well, the City Arborist brought to the meeting by Ms. Levin could not answer the question. When directly asked by our reader who owned the public right of way that contained the sidewalk, the tree well and the tree, Ms. Levin could not answer the question and did not offer to find the answer for our reader. This is the response the public gets, after Ms. Levin has managed the streets and sidewalks in Oakland for over six years (we won't even get into her responsibility for a repaving cycle of 85 years and third world conditions of our roads and sidewalks).

We agree with the city employee that Ms. Levin is not expected to know the status of every single tree in the City, but that is not what our reader was asking. We do, however, expect her to be an expert in her area of management, and we expect her to be responsive to the public (which includes our reader). This means figuring out the answers to legitimate questions posed by residents and finding out the legal status of the two trees in context of the tree ordinances before meeting with our reader. So we invite either Ms. Levin or Ms. Lin to answer the question.

Regarding Ms. Levin's salary, the Executive Director for Caltrans, Cindy McKim, has responsibility for maintenance and operation of 50,000  lane miles throughout the state, a budget of more than $13.8 billion and responsibility for 22,000 employees, and is actually paid less than Ms. Levin due to state budget furloughs. Additionally, the Executive Director for Caltrans has a retirement benefit of 2% at 55. Assuming 20 years of service with the state, McKim would get a retirement benefit of only $66,000 compared to Ms. Levin's $89,370. So how is it that Ms. Levin's salary is appropriate for her level of responsibility when other public officials with far more responsibility are paid less? You can see state worker salaries at the Sac Bee.

Residents in the city are tired of paying for bloated city salaries, especially at the expense of public safety, and especially when there is poor customer service from city executives who do not understand the laws and programs they are responsible for implementing, when their management and oversight of staff and department functions is questionable, and who get upset when held accountable by knowledgeable members of the public. We are sure it is uncomfortable for some city employees to have the spotlight shined on city operations and when they are held publicly accountable for their performance. However, since the City of Oakland has been so poorly managed and the customer service lacking in many respects, contributing to crumbling infrastructure and the City's current financial crisis, perhaps what is needed to ensure the public gets what it pays for is to hold its managers and executives publicly accountable.

What will be telling is how, when and whether Ms. Levin and Ms. Lin actually addresses the concerns of our reader. To date, they have both failed to answer the most basic question: Who owns the trees? To date they have failed to ensure that when trees are cut down the City follows local, state and federal laws. To date, they have failed to substantively address the issues raised by our reader. Perhaps our anonymous city employee who so eagerly defended Ms. Levin and her $165,500 salary can tell us.  We are only talking about two trees here. This cannot be so difficult for Ms. Levin and Ms. Lin, who collectively make $285,000, or can it?

Perhaps with a new Mayor and City Administrator there will be some significant housecleaning and an emphasis on transparency, quality customer service, and knowledgeable and responsive management.

City of Oakland: Mismanaged, Incompetent and Unfit to Serve Residents?

As most of you are aware, the City of Oakland is in a major budget crisis. The City Council has made a number of cuts and recently voted to eliminate 80 police positions. Council members refused to make additional cuts to libraries, parks, senior centers, and children's programs asserting these were core local government services. Council members also refused to impose additional salary reductions through furloughs on non-emergency personnel even though city employees are among the highest paid in the nation. The City Council made these decisions despite the fact that Oakland is one of the most dangerous cities in the entire country in terms of violent crimes and the Oakland Police have a response time that is on average three times that of other large California cities--15 minutes for major crimes as opposed to just under 5 minutes for other cities.

The budget crisis will only get bigger in the coming years. Pension obligations and bloated staff salaries will continue to swamp the city coffers. City Council members and the Dellums' Administration have been weaving and spinning this financial crisis as a problem created strictly by the national economic meltdown. Yet, every city in the entire nation is facing the same drop in revenues, but only a handful are facing the serious financial problems of Oakland. Oakland's budget problems, however, are not solely the result of the economic meltdown, but have been amplified many times over by mismanagement and incompetence at all levels including Mayor Dellums, City Council, the City Administrator's Office which oversees the day to day management of city employees, and city department heads.

Unable to properly manage existing revenues to provide core city services such as public safety and ensure the city is run efficiently and compententy, the City Council will now be asking voters to approve 8 new revenue generating measures or taxes to restore police services and maintain salary levels of  other city employees. SEIU, the union that covers many city employees, is advocating for revenue measures to protect their high paying jobs and prevent City Council requests for any additional employee givebacks such as wage concessions or additional furloughs.

But one has to wonder what taxpayers really get for our money and whether the existing management of our local government really demands additional revenues. Is the city really a responsible steward of the taxpayers dollars? A reader of We Fight Blight had a recent experience with the Oakland Public Works Department that reinforces his perception that city employees are vastly overpaid for the level of services they provide.  We think his experience reinforces why Oakland residents should demand serious improvement in the services provided by our local government, major house cleaning of mismanaged departments, and wage reductions of non-emergency personnel before we ever consider approving any additional taxes. Especially since the retention of non-emergency personnel at bloated salaries is coming at the expense of police officers.

The Tree Services Program, which is under the Department of Public Works and headed by Brooke Levin, is terribly mismanaged. After having the unfortunate experience of dealing with Ms. Levin and any number of her staff, it became abundantly clear to our frustrated reader that the Tree Services Program is in need of some serious house cleaning and some hands on management by competent supervisors. The number of breakdowns in addressing the removal of several trees in North Oakland was frightening.

Worse yet, when confronted with the long list of break downs, Ms. Levin got annoyed and defensive with our reader and could not answer some basic questions related to the city's tree ordinances or the slated removal of several trees. This occurred even though she is acting Public Works Director. For example, Ms. Levine was asked to identify the ownership of the trees in question that the city was preparing to remove and which the city had started to remove despite the protests of our reader. Neighbors actually called the Oakland Police who stopped the Public Works staff from continuing to cut the trees. The City Administrator's Office is not without blame. The matter was referred to Margarito Lin, Deputy City Administrator, who failed to address the significant break downs in the Public Works Department.

To this day, neither Ms. Levin, her staff, or the City Administrator's Office have been able or williing to answer the basic question of who owns the trees. It is perhaps the most fundamental question to be addressed when removing trees because certain procedural and substantive requirements under the city's own tree ordinances are triggered depending on whether the tree is owned by the city or owned by a private party. Without establishing ownership of the trees the city cannot effectively comply with its ordinances. In this case, the Tree Services Program seems to be making up the rules as they go along because they don't know what else to do and justifying their abject failure to follow their own tree ordinances because of lack of staff. Lack of staff is never a legitimate rationale to ignore the law.

According to public records obtained by our reader, the Assistant Director of Public Works Ms. Levin is paid $165,757 per year or $13,813 per month not including health benefits or pension contributions made by the City. Yet, Ms. Levin could not even tell our reader whether trees within the public right of way, within the sidewalk wells, were owned by the city or by a private party. Ms. Levin did not understand the nuances of the tree ordinance which she oversees and implements, and she apparently did not understand the requirements for disclosure under the Public Records Act. According to our reader, Ms. Levin insisted the city's smoking policy was not disclosable under the Public Records Act because it involved personnel issues. Clearly she failed to understand the difference between requesting documents relating to overall policy and procedures and requesting specific personnel records. This is totally unacceptable for an executive level manager with her level of experience within local government and especially someone who is getting paid as much as she does.

The Deputy City Administrator, Margarito Lin, was equally ineffective. Despite being pulled into this issue our reader noted she has simply dropped off the radar screen and has been unwilling and unable to resolve the fundamental mismanagement of the Tree Program. Ms. Lin, who is an attorney, is a recruit of Mayor Dellums and works for the City Adminstrator, Dan Lindheim. Unfortunately, her inability to right the mismanaged ship of the Tree Services Program is a distinct indication that the City Adminstrator's Office is too overwhelmed to address basic concerns from the public about mismanaged departments, let alone manage the financial requirements of a a mid-sized corporation called the City of Oakland.

The reason our reader was interested in the smoking policy is captured in the third photo from the top. If you look closely there is one of Ms. Levin's employees smoking while working in a city vehicle, using a chainsaw, elevated adjacent to power lines. Obviously this is a violation of city policy and safety requirements for operating near power lines and places both the public and other city employees at serious risk of injury, the cost of which would be footed by taxpayers due to the city's negligence in managing its employees.

In the next several blogs we will be highlighting the breakdowns experienced by our reader including:

• The city's failure to meet the substantive and procedural requirements of its own tree ordinance,
• The city's failure to adequately train its staff on using basic safety measures when removing trees,
• The city's failure to adequately provide environmental clearance under CEQA for removing 1,000 plus trees each year (a number provided by Ms. Levin),
• The city's failure to meet the requirements of the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act and to provide trained biologists to ensure compliance with the Act,
• The city's failure to maintain adequate records,
• The city's failure to properly train and supervise its staff, and
• The city's failure to be responsive to legitimate concerns of the public.

And the city staff wonder why the public has lost faith in city government?

We Fight Blight is interested in this issue because street trees are so vital to improving the quality of life in our hardened, blighted urban environment. Mismanagement of city resources does not serve the interests of the city particularly when it comes at the expense of police officers or the uneccessary removal of city trees.