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Rally 'Round the Park Recently in Esprit Park, seven significant trees marked for preservation were cut down. Five poplars and two redwoods.
The poplars were poisoned under mysterious circumstances.
The Friends of Esprit Park (FoEP) Consulting Arborist discovered the redwoods died because they were not being watered. At all. The cause of death wasn’t drought, as reported to us by RecPark. (Our consulting arborist’s full report is here.) FoEP and Dogpatch community members are rightfully alarmed at this situation, especially since the condition of the remaining trees is unknown. It’s great that RecPark began watering the trees after FoEP’s arborist report showed that the ground was “sandy, bone dry.” Going forward, all concerned need assurances from RecPark that Esprit Park trees are being properly preserved and maintained.
FoEP proposes that:
RecPark retains a Consulting Arborist as the Project Arborist to prescribe tree protection measures and provide weekly monitoring. RecPark provides arborist recommended irrigation on a weekly basis, particularly where root-cutting of any sort has occurred, or will be occurring. RecPark plants seven large trees to replace the seven trees lost, vs. the current plan to plant just six trees of undefined size. RecPark secures the construction site to prevent more destruction. UCSF provides the expert Grantmaker oversight of the RecPark project needed to support successful delivery of a healthy, renovated Esprit Park. UCSF is the primary funder of the $7.7 million Esprit project through $5.0 million in grant agreement contracts.
Trees are what makes a park a park. When Esprit Park reopens, none of us want to see an open field with just a few remaining mature trees and tiny new trees sprinkled around a few new features.
If you're concerned about what's currently happening in Esprit and what occurs in the future, please contact the following people and make your voices heard:
Ellie Rossiter, UCSF Interim Vice Chancellor, Community & Government Relations
Ellie.Rossiter@ucsf.edu
Melinda Stockmann Sullivan, Project Manager, SF Rec&Park melinda.sullivan@sfgov.org
Also CC: Supervisor Shamann Walton
waltonstaff@sfgov.org ~ FoEP Leadership Team: Irma, Patrick and Rob
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