SACRAMENTO — Sacramento may be the city of trees, but a newly released memo shows the city has no more money to plant trees in its own parks.
Instead, the memo states Sacramento must now rely exclusively on volunteers.
Victoria Vasquez is the chair of the Sacramento Parks and Community Enrichment Commission. She is sounding the alarm after seeing this city park memo titled “Service Level Expectations For City Parks and Parkways,” reading “the planting of new trees or the replacement planting of removed trees is supported exclusively by public volunteerism.”
“I was stunned to read that,” Vasquez said. “I think that puts our city’s tree canopy in a free fall. When we see these storms knocking out trees, when we see things like a tree in its natural life cycle is going to pass away and we’re not intentionally planting to replace?”
Former Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo has also worked for the Sacramento Tree Foundation. She was surprised by the memo.