Yorba Linda's tree-trimming costs increase; Hank Wedaa served 30 years on City Council, not 29

Costs for maintaining more than 32,000 city-owned trees within Yorba Linda's 20-square-mile area will jump 25% under a contract extension approved by City Council members at a recent meeting.

The contract with the Anaheim-based West Coast Aborists will total $6 million for a three-year period through June 2022, up from $4.8 million, based on two more extensions allowed under the current contract. The company has been maintaining city trees since 2011.

West Coast will work on more than 25,000 trees in the city's Landscape Maintenance Assessment District, some 4,000 trees in city parks and about 3,500 along the streets.

The prior 2016 contract estimated annual maintenance expenses at $681,500, but actual costs over the three-year contract term jumped 35% to $920,476 “due to emergency tree removals and other required work due to the drought,” according to a city report.

An additional $406,503 for each year would be required under three one-year extensions, bringing the total cost to $6 million through June 2022. Consumer price index adjustments, higher insurance limits and indemnification language account for much of the added costs.

New costs include a 10% contingency “to mitigate against future unanticipated emergency tree maintenance work,” eliminating the need for future change orders or council actions to allocate more money.

Regular pruning prices range from $43 to $139 per tree, with special request pruning running from $173 to $259 per tree.

Also, owners of 630 single-family homes in a local landscape zone in the north central portion of the city are voting by mail on a proposed 64% increase from $363.50 to $595 in the annual fees each pays for landscape maintenance.

Ballots are to be returned before council's March 3 public hearing on the issue. The zone is one of 33 local landscaping zones in the city's Landscape Maintenance Assessment District.

* * *

Historical note on Hank Wedaa's City Council years: Wedaa's fourth term (1982-1986) was extended eight months, when elections were moved from April to November, so his service totaled more than 30 years, not the 29 listed in the city obituary and by speakers at his well-attended Jan. 16 memorial service.

And Wedaa's record five times as mayor would have been six or maybe seven, but he was on the short end of a 3-2 council split during the 1990s, and three of his colleagues ignored the longtime practice of rotating the office among all members to deny him the mayor's chair.

His record 30 council years and five times as mayor and mayor pro-tem won't be matched unless city voters repeal the three-term limit approved in 1996, by a 15,087 to 6,906 count.

Interestingly, a two-term limit passed 13,008 to 8,517 on the same ballot, but the three-term limit became law due to winning more “yes” votes. A 1992 advisory vote on a two-term limit passed 17,064 to 4,817, but the council didn't act on the matter until the 1996 election.