Urban Forest Project gets green light
EL CENTRO — During a regular meeting Tuesday, City Council here unanimously approved an agreement with Tree San Diego representative Kalli Legakes to provide project management services for the upcoming Imperial Valley Urban Forest Project.
The project will consist of planting 1,400 trees in five cities throughout Imperial County, which is set to begin February 2018 and be completed by March 2020.
Trees will be distributed amongst city parks, public schools and city streets. Exact planning locations will be determined at a later day, stated a city of El Centro staff report.
The five cities receiving trees include El Centro, Imperial, Calexico, Brawley and Holtville.
El Centro will receive the most trees — approximately 400 — and serve as the project’s hub due to its general size compared to other cities in the county. El Centro also contains five of the highest-scoring disadvantaged communities, or DACs, in the county, making it an excellent candidate for tree locations.
The term disadvantaged communities is defined in the staff report as an area with a continual growing need for greenery. Eighty percent of the project’s trees will be planted directly in DACs, while 10 percent will be planted in areas directly impacting DACs. The remaining trees will be planted near, but not within, a DAC.
Calexico and Brawley will both receive the second highest number of trees — approximately 350 each — from the Urban Forest Project.
As a border city to Mexico, Calexico bears the most weight of air pollution problems in the county, explained the staff report.
Because of its lack of resources, staff and time to complete proper tree planting in a scope that would dramatically affect air quality, the project will grant the city of Calexico funding for trees and education for community members and resources to properly plant green house gas sequestering trees.
Brawley, which has 3 DACs, was described in the staff report be an extremely tight-knit community with vast city spirit and involvement from local neighborhoods and school districts. Because of this, the project is believed to especially flourish in Brawley.
Imperial and Holtville will receive the least amount of trees from the five cities, approximately 150 each.
The staff report stated that while Imperial does not have a lot of open space or public parks for planting, the city’s community spirit is similar to Brawley and will receive among the largest amount of support for the planting project.
The project’s goal in Holtville is to generate interest and enthusiasm through its planting event and to provide education to encourage additional tree plantings in the city in later years.
The Urban Forest Project also includes outreach and education programs within each city to show proper tree care.
The project was funded under the CAL Fire Urban Forest Expansion and Improvement grant program.
El Centro city officials previously worked with Tree San Diego on April 29 to plant 50 Sissoo trees throughout Bucklin Park.
“Being from here and visiting the city often, I saw the need for more trees, especially with the air pollution issues,” Tree San Diego’s Legakes, an El Centro native, said at the time. “This is the largest planting of a single species of tree that we’ve ever done. I’m really excited that we made it work.”
During that time, the city of El Centro had already begun to submit for the CAL Fire grant application.
With Tuesday’s approval, the city is one step closer to running the first successful CAL Fire grant program in the Imperial Valley.
“With Ms. Legakes’ substantial experience in CAL Fire grant writing and project management, the city will have a seamless transition into CAL Fire funding,” stated Tree San Diego’s independent contract proposal.