Fee for 11 Elms a Shade High, Neighbors Say

Residents along McFadden and Cornett avenues are irked at a city proposal to charge homeowners hundreds of dollars a year to maintain 11 elm trees.

“It sounds like a bad idea,” McFadden resident Merritt Riggs said about the proposal to be discussed at tonight’s City Council meeting. “We didn’t plant the trees. They were already here when we moved here. So I don’t think it’s up to us to take care of it.”

The city now spends $1,500 annually to maintain the elms, which are on public rights of way on the two blocks in the city’s midtown area.

Moorpark cut a number of elm trees along the two blocks several years ago, saying they were diseased and posed a safety hazard. But after homeowners objected to the removal, the city halted the program, leaving 11 elm trees in place.

City Councilman John Wozniak said it’s only fair to ask residents on McFadden and Cornett, who have been urging the city not to uproot the trees, to chip in to maintain them.

“I think it’s fine,” Wozniak said of the proposal. “We will ask the people there who are really lobbying for keeping as many trees as you can. . . . ‘This is a very big expense, so are you willing to help us out?’ ”

A study by an arborist showed that the trees--which an earlier study said suffered from poor health--could be kept alive and healthy for a number of years with additional maintenance, according to city staff. The cost to keep the trees standing, however, would be $7,550 per year, including the $1,500 now spent for the trimming.

The staff will ask council members whether they want to spend additional funds on such a maintenance program or to pass along the cost to nearby homeowners. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 799 Moorpark Ave.

The 11 property owners who have trees in front of their homes could be charged up to $550 a year to pay for tree maintenance. The council may also consider asking other homeowners on the two streets to pay as well, thereby lowering the fee. The city could continue to trim the trees under both options.

George Paredes, a McFadden Avenue resident, stood in front of his beige one-story home where the city had uprooted a mature elm tree several years ago. In its place, the city planted a smaller tree.

“They don’t maintain the trees,” he said. “We prune it.”

Paredes said that asking for additional tax money was the wrong way to go.

“We passed Proposition 13 so they wouldn’t have to come to us for every little thing they wanted to do. We pay taxes for this, taxes for that. They have to live within their own means,” he said.

John D. Williamson, who lives on Cornett Avenue, argues that Moorpark plants numerous trees throughout the city without collecting additional taxes from homeowners, and it shouldn’t ask him and his neighbors for more.

“I don’t want an assessment,” he said. “They put in trees all over everywhere else, but they didn’t charge [for] them.”

Once an elm tree is removed because it becomes too diseased or unsafe, under the new assessment plan, the city could plant a tree directly on the homeowner’s property. It would then be up to the homeowner to take care of the tree.

Other options that the city may consider to raise the extra money include increasing the citywide tree maintenance budget, reducing tree maintenance in other areas, or using gas tax funds or general fund money.

Moorpark has charged residents of particular areas of the city additional money for improvements that specifically benefit them. Last year, residents in the Campesina Park community approved a plan to tax themselves to help maintain a new park in their neighborhood.

Proposition 218, which California voters passed in 1996, requires voter approval before most special assessments can be authorized.

The City Council is being asked to informally gauge the homeowners’ willingness to assess themselves before placing such a measure for tree maintenance on a future ballot.

“This way, the city is not spending funds on a ballot effort that may not have a chance of succeeding,” the city staff report said.