Councilmember Rob Saka (along with Councilmembers Rinck and Solomon) has submitted a statement to explore combining all nine agencies that manage trees into a single department. This is great.

SDCI, which controls half of our urban forest, fails to meet the most basic enforcement measures, and the department is riddled with ethics issues and nepotism. Their piecemeal enforcement has led to tons of illegal tree removals without consequence. 

We’ve been calling for an independent forestry position since before Tree Action Seattle started. Now it’s on the horizon. Help us pass this legislation through by joining us this Thursday.

In-Person (Preferred)

Comment starts at 5 p.m., line up with us as early as 3 p.m. to get a slot! You can come as late as 6 p.m. and will get a chance to speak. The full meeting agenda is here.

Remote

If you can't make it in-person, call into council earlier in the day at 1 p.m.. Registration opens at 12 p.m. Register to call in here.

Email

If you can attend, or you can't please send an email to council@seattle.gov asking for their support!

Talking Points

• ‍Better Management: Urban forest policy should be set by experts, not SDCI (that has a revolving door with building industry insiders). We can do better.‍
• Reduce Confusion & Redundancy: Multiple complaint lines to report tree problems lead to confusion, delays, and slower democracy. Streamlining this would be better for employees & Seattlites.‍
• Multiple Departments = Inefficiency: Several city departments (SDOT, SCL & Parks) all have tree crews driving across the city. An independent department could instead divide work geographically — a much better use of resources.  ‍
• Low Stakes: This proposal doesn’t combine departments, it’s simply for a report on if consolidating tree-related work would make sense and help Seattle reach its tree canopy and climate goals. Though placed under budget, this SLI has no cost.