Fall is a messy time of year. We have two sycamores and a ton of oaks. They have been shedding like crazy, and I look up there, and there’s still all these leaves. If only I could spin them into gold.
I love valley oaks, and we have a lot of them, they give us a lot of shade and comfort. But sometimes they cause problems. Eversince we bought our house, we’ve been watching a pair of oaks along the front of the property growing further into the saggy old power lines running down the street. They were there when we bought the property, and as much as we’ve wanted to cut them, we just happened to know a guy who got his hands blown off when he messed around with power lines. So we leave that shit to people who get paid a lot of money to deal with them.
Something else we noticed when we bought the place – those two trees have been marked for removal a number of times. Many of you have seen this – different colors of spray paint, different symbols, right on top of each other about midway up the trunk, year after year. We’ve even been contacted by PG&E about those trees, several times – telling us the trees were scheduled for removal. We’ve waited, and we’ve waited, but nobody ever shows up to do the work. They are touching the power lines.
Something else we noticed since we bought the place, no matter how we’ve cleaned the place up, our insurance has gone up gone up gone up. Over the last few years they’ve really been jacking it, and they’re saying it’s because of fire hazard. And not just our place – the city of Chico has been called on the carpet. And I feel the city has moved pretty slowly – the park running right through my neighborhood is a giant mess of non-native volatile plants, shoulder high dead grass and dead and dying trees hung with ivy. All the goats did was spread the poison oak. Have you ever seen poison oak catch fire? Yes, Chico, in it’s entirety, is a giant fire hazard.
Then, about six months ago, we actually got a printed notice about a tree PG&E wanted to cut down. That’s something new! My husband made an appointment to talk to the guy from the consulting firm hired by PG&E, because they said it was along our driveway and we wanted to make sure it wouldn’t cause any problems for our tenant. The consultant came over and took a walk with my husband and they discovered that the suspect tree was actually in our neighbor’s back yard.
As of today it’s still there.
So we were pretty excited to have this young man from PG&E show up in our yard this morning to ask us if he could cut down one of our marked trees. We told him, we’d seen them marked again and again, we’d been waiting for years. He seemed genuinely concerned about how far they’d grown into the power lines, he said, “I hope we can get them done before they get much higher…” So my husband asked him when he thought we could expect to see anybody. He looked a little sheepish, and then he said, “you might see somebody about January…” And then he complained that about eight months ago, the city of Chico put some sort of moratorium on PG&E cutting or removing trees. What?
You ever heard that expression – teasing the monkey in the cage?
UPDATE: After I heard from other Chico residents who have had the same/similar experience with either PG&E personnel or their contractors, I looked at the city code. I don’t know what to think – who’s lying? I know it’s not the people who’ve contacted me here. Read this:
https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/chico/latest/chico_ca/0-0-0-12992
Yes, we have a “tree preservation ordinance”. But it doesn’t apply to our private homes. “This chapter applies to (a) all undeveloped private property within the city…” It’s for developers of undeveloped properties. In fact, we’ve had licensed tree companies remove large trees from our property in Chico without any sort of permit. We’ve cut down more than a dozen sick, dying and dead trees ourselves over the years. Why would the utility companies need a permit to remove dangerous trees?
Listed under Exemptions, are city, county, state, and school properties, parks and cemeteries, as well as “Tree work performed by public utilities in public utility easements or public rights of way… public utility easement means wherever there’s a PG&E power pole, including on your private property.
Why would PG&E need permits to remove trees that are growing into power lines? Anywhere?
I don’t know who else to ask – I called the city at (530) 896-7800, and reached a recording that told me to leave my number and somebody would call me back. On Thursday afternoon at 2:30. So, how long am I on the hook for a callback? That’s what I call a public worker’s way of fucking me off. They also have an email – parkinfo@chicoca.gov Is this just another dead end? I’ll let you know. If you guys are still having this problem please contact the city and between us maybe we can get somebody to pay attention before the town burns down.
A nice young woman was here the other day about tree trimming around the power lines, contractor though. Not PGE. I explained how we’ve done this dance many times and they’ve ghosted us. She did her inspection and said they were required to do the work within 21 days. We’ll see…betting SSDD
I’m glad I asked, thanks for responding. We’ve never been told about thec21 days – I’ll guess, there’s a gdeadline on the permit. Please let me know if it works out! Or not…
Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing???
This morning a PGE guy (driving a PGE vehicle) knocked and said they wanted to do trimming this morning. He had been doing visual inspections in the area, however knew nothing about the previous contact and their proposed work… crew comes into the backyard but then goes away bef. doing the task, determines that further inspection is needed .
Thanks Suzanne, it’s the same old story, my husband and i have had the same encounter time after time. The old trees have hyroglyphics up the trunks from years of “inspections”.
I inspect my trees, i look up there with my old lady eyes, here’s what I think – they’re going to catch on fire! I guess uts time to introduce the left hand to the right hand.
Is there a third hand, just as clueless? Just now another PGE guy shows up at our door saying they need access to our backyard to do tree trimming, he shows hub. A notice on his phone from 10 minutes ago directing him to come to our address to notify us and do an inspection. He was moved along. ________________________________
I’m sorry I missed this comment you left Suzanne, that’s nuts. I think I’m the one who’s just as clueless, cause I don’t get it! I hate to blame the workers, but maybe they should get together and come up with the same story.
Here’s the BS – utility companies are exempt from permits, and so are private property owners. There is no record of the city telling PG&E or any of their contractors that they can’t cut trees that are in their right-of-way, including on private property.
In your situation, as a property owner and customer, I want safety and reliability. I want dangerous trees gone. But I also expect a real legal notice, identifying the exact trees, with a work date on it, and some identification of exactly who is responsible for the work.
What if they come into your back yard and cut the wrong tree? They identified the WRONG tree to us in one notice, we had to tell them it was on our neighbor’s property, and then they had to notice that neighbor, work has still not happened.
What if you let them in and they drop it on a house, fencing or other tangible property (like your kids/pets?)?
I don’t remember when I’ve seen this issue on any agenda. The best way I can think to get it into the conversation is letters to the editor.
Another conversation this touches on is the cost of housing in Chico – tree removal fees only apply to developers, they’re just pissant fees based on nothing, but they add to the cost of housing.
On one of my trees it took an extra year because the city took that long to issue the permit needed for pge to work on public property in front of my house. mind you that was 4 years after the tree died. que the eye rolls…
Thanks so much for responding – this is what I’ve seen around my neighborhood, trees marked but no work.
The other day, when we were contacted, there was a crew across the street, cutting trees. But they couldn’t do our trees, on our private property, marked a number of times by various contractors, because the city is squeezing them on the permits? I wonder how much the permit costs. I don’t know how much any of this is costing, but I know it translates into higher PG&E bills for all of us, without any improvement to safety.