By Julie BUTCHER

The Glendale City Council on Tuesday authorized $30,000 towards the production of a 20-minute fireworks display on the top of the Marketplace parking structure at 120 Artsakh Ave. at 9 p.m. on July 4. Staff reported that Caruso Affiliates has committed $10,000 toward the event and that a vendor has been secured to produce the show.

“I think it’s a lot of money when we don’t have a lot of money,” Councilmember Dan Brotman observed. “I don’t want to be the resident party pooper but that’s like $2,000 a minute. It’s not how I’d spend the money.”

Mayor Paula Devine urged approval of the expenditure.

“If we have 30,000 residents who see these fireworks, that’s $1 a person,” she said. “I’m going to be up there loving them and enjoying them.”

Only Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian voted “no.”

“I preferred to support the community organization that’s been doing the work for the past 14 years plus I understood various other sources were going to help foot the bill for this,” he said. “I’m not for this.”

Earlier in the meeting councilmembers recognized the city’s EMT crews for their exceptional response to emergencies and honored the work performed by Glendale Public Works.

“This year has been productive, despite the constraints of working through the COVID, because of the great work of staff,” Public Works director Yazdan Emrani told the council. He listed some of the department’s accomplishments: in the past two years, through $60 million in capital improvements, the city has paved or repaved 2.65 miles of roadways; built 16,980 linear feet of curbs and gutters, built 87,779 square feet of sidewalk and built 83 ADA curb ramps to make sidewalks accessible; made improvements to traffic signals at four intersections; and planted 119 new street trees.

Glendale Fire Dept. chief Silvio Lanzas provided the council with an update on the city’s vaccination program and response to new guidance from the CDC.

“As all of you are aware, this last week the Centers for Disease Control issued guidance on mask wearing and recommended that masks no longer be worn by those individuals who have been vaccinated – indoors and out,” Lanzas said.

The State of California and the County of Los Angeles have not adopted that CDC guidance yet, he reported. All indications are that as long as trends continue down, in the direction they have been headed, the guidance would be adopted effective June 15. Lanzas added that an individual is considered vaccinated two weeks after the second dose of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or two weeks after receiving the one required dose of the J & J shot.

“What I urge our community to do between now and June 15 is to get vaccinated if you’re 12 years old or older,” he advised.

Chief Lanzas shared the website for vaccine appointments https://myturn.ca.gov/ and encouraged folks to walk up to the city’s Jewel City vaccine site at Glendale Community College. Appointments are available (but not required) bit.ly/jewelcityvax.

Today, Thursday, the chief added, the vaccine site would be open until 7:30 p.m. and if the later hours were beneficial it would be staying open late next Thursday night as well.

More than 90,000 vaccines have been administered at GCC and more than 50% of eligible Glendale residents have been fully vaccinated.

“It is safe. It is effective. And it is the reason that we’re beginning to normalize throughout our community,” he said.

Next the council reviewed and approved a report from the city manager consolidating certain auditing and analysis work. Councilmembers Ara Najarian and Vrej Agajanian raised concerns about increasing the number of staff.

“Not that we want to micromanage,” Najarian added.

Finally the council heard a detailed report on the city’s trees from the city’s urban forester Loren Klick.

Of the city’s 49,313 public trees, 90% of them are street trees, 10% are in parks and around city facilities. Eighteen percent are in need of replacing. The city has identified an additional 18,000 spots for new trees.

According to the arborists, Klick reported 32% of the city’s trees are in good condition, 62% are in fair shape, and only 6% are considered in poor shape. Twenty eight percent of the city’s trees are young, 42% are maturing and 30% are deemed mature.

Klick detailed the foundation for a sustainable public tree canopy: adequate trimming on a routine cycle; adequate planting and replanting; and regular watering for new trees. He summed up the city’s historical actions, contracting out tree trimming in the mid-2010s, and bulk grid pruning to save money. Public Works staff responds to thousands of service requests and continues to do tree work in-house, he added.

“It is rare that every city staff [member who] touches a tree is a certified arborist, but that is the case here in Glendale,” he said.

Comparing Glendale to its neighbors, both Pasadena and Burbank lost 10%-14% green cover (grass, shrubs, trees) between 2000 and 2009. Currently, Pasadena replants all removed trees and waters new trees. Burbank has set a goal of planting 500 trees in 2021. Los Angeles began using watering bags for its newly planted 800 trees in 2019.

Including both public and private trees, Burbank’s green canopy is currently at 17%. Pasadena is at 28%; La Cañada Flintridge is at 36%, and Glendale is at 20%. To “close the canopy gap,” Klick said it will cost $790,340 annually through 2032.

Glendale’s is a large but vulnerable and aging urban forest, Klick told the council. As funds have been short, an extended pruning cycle adds to costs and time and the need for emergency trimming. Added environmental stress means more tree removals. Planting trees is not funded in the Glendale budget and has suffered a net loss of approximately 1,100 trees in the past 10 years.

Public Works recommends a return to a six-year trim cycle and annual planting and watering of new trees to get the city back to pre-2010 tree levels.

“That’s quite a report!” Mayor Devine responded.

“Trees are critical infrastructure,” said Councilmember Brotman, “as much as roads and sewers – and it’s clear we’ve neglected it all. I don’t think there’s anything we could do that’d be more impactful for our children and our children’s children than to rebuild the urban forest. Besides the carbon sequestration, we know trees provide cooling and clean the air, and reduce noise. A lot of research suggests they reduce stress and improve general health.”

Brotman urged a goal for the canopy, asked to review a “fully loaded” budget analysis, suggested that just returning to 2010 tree levels is not sufficient, queried the availability of grant and other funding sources, and recommended consideration of a private tree ordinance that could include “in-lieu” payments to replace trees in a fair manner.

Councilmember Kassakhian supported plans to rebuild the city’s supply of trees and asked about this year’s jacaranda season. (The official tree of Glendale is the jacaranda, Kassakhian asserted.)

“Like a lot of arborists,” Klick replied, “we wait and see. Jacarandas sometimes struggle with lower temperatures and may seem less purple some seasons.”

Glendale is the Tree City and there was shock that Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge have more trees than the City. There were comments to increase the canopy to 25% and for Glendale Beautiful to come back to help.

Mayor Devine asked about the current free tree program. It is administered by GWP and still offers three free trees.

“Hear that out there?” Mayor Devine exclaimed. “Free trees!”