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Christine Andersen <br /> Page 2 <br /> May 23, 1996 <br /> Planning Division referral review. This could mean the loss of some significant trees that <br /> otherwise could be saved and could cause a community uproar. <br /> 2. Beginning the service profile, along with other workload, will cause further delay in <br /> beginning the street tree inventory project that has been on our work plan for more than a <br /> year now. We will likely process a SLCM to accomplish the tree inventory since we <br /> have not been able to get it going with existing staff resource. <br /> 3. Scott has had little time to develop the Urban Forestry procedures manual that was <br /> projected to occur in our 94/95 work plan. This will continue to be on hold. <br /> 4. Scott has had little time to work with the tree crew to develop a relationship and provide <br /> technical assistance. I have been concerned about this, as it is important for the success <br /> of the program to develop that close relationship. <br /> 5. The local street plan is scheduled for adoption in June. The procedure will be for <br /> developers to pay the City for street trees and the City will plant. It will take a significant <br /> amount of Urban Forestry staff time to develop administrative rules and procedures to <br /> implement the program. <br /> 6. The new PIC technician assigned to perform development review under Scott's <br /> supervision will be coming on board, hopefully in July. This person will be able to <br /> provide some assistance at the PIC, however, the budgeted Urban Forestry allotment is <br /> for only 25% of this persons time. For the first few months, until training is completed, it <br /> will be more of a drain on Scott's time than a help to minimize his workload. <br /> 7. In order to deal with the existing heavy workload, the Urban Forestry staff has developed <br /> a plan to confine phone calls to specific office hours. They are doing this in order to have <br /> more uninterrupted time to perform tasks, such as, Planning Division referrals. The plan <br /> is to have Scott take phone calls daily from 8:00 am to 9:00 am and from 3:00 pm to 4:00 <br /> pm. Members of the public calling during other hours would be told that he will return <br /> their call. Mike will take calls Monday through Thursday from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm. We <br /> are planning to implement this as a strategy to help deal with the heavy workload. Part of <br /> that workload is the many calls they receive on a daily basis from internal staff, as well as <br /> members of the public. I have been opposed to this concept, however, at this point I <br /> don't feel like we have any other choice. It certainly is not customer friendly. <br /> 8. The last issue to discuss is the Mayor's request for a departmental advisory committee for <br /> developing management plans for some of our natural forested areas. We certainly would <br /> not want to undertake this project until we had completed our service profile. In fact, I <br /> would recommend postponing it until we go through the service level change process to <br />